What music are you listening to?

Your Ex-Lover Is Dead - Stars

My earworm du jour, and a song that might hit my favourite songs of 2024 list, is "Something Whispered Follow Me" by Nightwish. It's a smooth, light piece by their standards, with a catchy, melodic chorus. The song could probably find a place on rock radio here with some judicious editing (at 6:40, it's a bit long for radio play except maybe AOR). The centerpiece is a killer vocal performance from the band's marvelous lead singer Floor Jansen but drummer Kai Hahto and guitarist Emppu Vuorinen get their due in this one, too. Not typical Nightwish, but terrific Nighwish.

Two terrific German metal bands team up and rock out. Sounds like fun and, behold, it is. Not only have they released this joint single, but they are touring together for a few German dates next year.

At the dawn of 2024, I don't think anyone except maybe the band themselves had "new Linkin Park LP" on their bingo card. But here it is and it is wonderful. No one is going to ever forget the late Chester Bennington, but new lead singer Emily Armstrong steps up with some magnificent vocal work on the album. This visualizer came out today with the album.

Quote by Mendalla

At the dawn of 2024, I don't think anyone except maybe the band themselves had "new Linkin Park LP" on their bingo card. But here it is and it is wonderful. No one is going to ever forget the late Chester Bennington, but new lead singer Emily Armstrong steps up with some magnificent vocal work on the album. This visualizer came out today with the album.

I absolutely love the new singer Emily's vocals and am glad that she's part of the band now. The new music has been wonderful and touches my heart the way the older music still does. I like to think that Chester Bennington would be proud of all of them for continuing the legacy

Been listening to Bryson Tiller's album 'TRAPSOUL' and trying to navigate this site lol.

Quote by AndyMonroe

Been listening to Bryson Tiller's album 'TRAPSOUL' and trying to navigate this site lol.

Welcome, Andy. You can ask questions in the Site Announcements/Member Feedback forum or pop into the "Inspirations" thread, which is our friendly cafe for casual chat. Just be warned, a bear has been sighted in there. He's mostly friendly, though.

And, yeah, it was love (for her voice) at first listen when I heard Emily on Emptiness Machine. I've been listening to Dead Sara, her own band, recently, too. Different from Linkin Park but also quite enjoyable.

The ost of The Crow (Brandon Lee). The film is okay but I love the music by Graeme Revell.

A recent favourite of mine is Vancouver band Spiritbox. With two Juno awards and two Grammy noms under their belt, they are becoming the face of an eclectic school of metal that pulls in elements from many genres, even from outside metal, to a metalcore base. This is the second single from their upcoming second album, Tsunami Sea.

Here's an interesting musical pair-up. Patty Gurdy (a stage name, obviously) is a German artist who sings and plays hurdy-gurdy. Tavern, released yesterday, is her second full-length studio album (there's also an EP in between). She has a number of guest artists but this is the one that caught my eye when she released an album trailer a while back.

Finn Marko Hietala is best known for his 20 years as bassist/vocalist in Nightwish, but has been in the music scene since his teens (he's getting close to 60). Marko has been solo since leaving Nightwish in 2021 and does a lot of collaborations, as he does here with Patty. One of my favourite songs on the album, even if it is a bit different in tone from the others (most are more folk-y than this).

And Noora Louhimo, another Finn, is best known as the powerful voice of heavy metal band Battle Beast. However, here she sings the blues, and does it quite well.

The return of Linkin Park with new vocalist Emily Armstrong produced a strong album in From Zero and some terrific performances. Here's the live debut of the single "Two-faced", which I much prefer to the video for the song.

Some seasonal tuneage from a concert in Finland. The trio are Johanna Kurkela (vocals), Timo Kurkela (guitar, vocals), and Troy Donockley (pipes and vocals). You have to click through to view. For some reason, the channel blocks embedding.

So, I am going to plug a new, largely unknown Finnish band here. How did I find them? The original lead singer and lyricist is the sister of a friend on another site I hang out on (and I think the friend knows another band founder, too). Said sister has now left the band for other pursuits but her successor is doing a bang up job on vocals and writing. This new song and video are their best yet, I think. The band is EGRES and their debut EP Introspection and the singles they have released since are all on major streamers.

Brazilian alto Violet Orlandi usually hews more to alt-rock and metal in her work, both covers and originals. So hearing her tackle the Billie Holliday classic "Gloomy Sunday" was a pleasant surprise. She does bring some of that alt- sensibility to it, but it also suggests that jazz is another route she could pursue if the mood took her.

Just discovered this young lady on the weekend. Gracie Abrams (daughter of film producer-director J.J. Abrams but I won't hold that against her) is 25 and quite an accomplished pop singer-songwriter. This is her appearance on SNL.

It has been years since American singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles first covered Elton John's hit "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" to great acclaim. IIRC, John himself is a fan. Here she revisits it for a concert at Kennedy Center that is being broadcast on PBS for New Year's Eve.

The program is apparently a career retrospective so I'm hoping she dusts off the orchestral version of her song "Brave" that she did in the same venue a few years back. That song is powerful to start with but with the National Symphony as her backup band? Wow.