I used to recommend albums all the time or suggest different albums by an artist someone was trying to get into but I stopped doing that when I realized how annoyed I got when people would suggest Zappa albums for me to listen to to get into him.
Two. The Strawbs album 'Hero And Heroine' and the first Doctors Of Madness LP 'Late Night Movies, All Night Brainstorms'. Both favourites and both clearly 'not now'. Definitely of a different age.
The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society is probably my most recommended over the years. A lot of “regular” people out there don’t know the band beyond the hits.
By far, Brian Eno - Another Green World, but that one is very well known. Not so well known is Cartoon - Sortie.
I have been recommending For All Our Days That Tear The Heart by Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler to everyone I know this year. It is possibly my favourite album of this millennium.
Can - "Future Days" an amazing record that is now more known, but back in the day I was relentless turning people on to it. Now a days I tend to recommend more to myself than I do others.
Because pushing music hardly ever succeeded I gave it up for the last 25 years or so, until I discovered 2020’s What’s your Pleasure by Jessie Ware in 2021 and wish someone had told me! This album is not only loaded with awesome sophisticated disco/dance - incredibly arranged, produced and performed - it also hit a real sweet spot during Covid lockdown situations. It literally gave me energy and a positive outlook for whatever would come. I have been pushing this album hard to anyone around me and beyond. Still nobody listened to me
a lot of bands and artists people generally know about, but if I mention Stereolab there are empty stares, so I recommend:
I pushed quite a few albums over the years. It is hard to say. I usually consider what other people were interested in and think about what might resonate with them. My guess is that I have probably introduced the most people to the music of Tortoise, where others really took to it. So I would say either their first album or TNT. And this is not because they were ever my favourite. It just seems to click with a lot of different people.
When I worked in record stores: Kind of Blue Hoodoo Man blues Blues and the Abstract Truth There might be a theme here...
I don’t recommend anything to anyone anymore, unless it’s to other music geeks. I tend to dig pretty deep into obscure stuff and if a new reissue comes out I’ll mention it to the guys behind the counter at my local record store since we have similar taste and of course to the rest of you on here if I don’t see anything posted about something that I think people should know about. Recommending to non music geeks almost always comes across as pretentious and if not that, it falls on deaf ears. If someone wants to get into music, they can and will find their own path. Unless someone brings up music to me, chances are I’m not going to suggest anything.
Since quite a bit of prog from Italy is as good as the best of England, and since Italian prog is almost unknown to most prog fans these days, it would have to be one of the many classics of the 70's. But there is plenty of contemporary Italian prog that is as good as any, also. It would probably be one of the following: PFM composes some of the most beautiful melodies in all of prog, but still has the right amount of intensity when needed. PFM - Per Un Amico PFM - Storia di un Minuto Banco has a keyboardist, Vittorio Nocenzi, who as good as any of the better known keyboardists, including Wakeman or Emerson. Banco del Mutuo Soccorso - Io Sono Nato Libero Arti e Mestieri is even a bit lesser known than the above bands, but this album is a monster. It may be the best ever recording that straddles the line between prog and fusion. Incredible melodies, with fusion level chops. Arti e Mestieri - Tilt Museo Rosenbach - Zarathustra Italy was known for quite a few 'one and done' bands, that created one brilliant album, then for whatever reason, broke up. This is dark, and intense.
