As I have said many times, one of the inevitabilities of life is that virtually everyone you put your faith in will eventually let you down. That might just be my cynicism showing through, but I have practical evidence of this. Assembling a list of my favorites bands/artists proves to be both easier and more difficult than I would expect, as there are few bands who consistently deliver music that resonates with me over the course of time. Even for those I love dearly, there are almost always albums (if not entire eras) I would rather push out of my mind and pretend never happened.
There are also those bands who only have a certain period of their career I love, which is not always enough for me to call myself a big enough fan to include them on this sort of list.
With that being said, I can narrow the list down to these ten who stand apart from all the rest, because they are the ones who have been there time and time again for me. In a rough, but not strict order:
Tonic
After more than twenty years as the reflexive answer to the question of my favorite band, Tonic remains the one group to only disappoint me by not getting around to disappointing me. They made me want to be a musician, I learned a lot about how songs are written listening to them, but more than anything Tonic is the soundtrack to the person I used to be. All four of their albums can live on repeat in my head, and perhaps it's that they stopped making records that keeps the edges of the impression they left so sharp.
Dilana
What is left to say? I have written so many words over the years to explain what Dilana means to me, and how I can feel my blood warming when I hear her voice. It's a connection I can't explain properly, other than to say that when she sings in my favorite song of all time, "I'm so bloody fucked up", it's as if my own voice is the breath she pushes to exorcise her pain. As great as so many of her songs are, no composition can compare to the power her voice has to hypnotize me. Hers is the voice of love, pain, and God, brewed in a honey-soaked ink I am honored to write her name on my heart with.
Meat Loaf
This is where it all started. I don't know who I would be if I hadn't seen "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" on VH-1. The combination of Meat's voice and Steinman's writing has defined so much of who I am and how I think. I never get tired of the melodrama when it's done right, regardless of who the songs come from. The "Bat Out Of Hell" albums taught me to be a smart-ass, so much so that I can laugh at the fact Meat sang a love/sex song with his own daughter. If that's not loving an artist, I don't know what is.
The Wallflowers
I can't count how many pages are covered in my scrawled poetry, and that all traces back to The Wallflowers. Jakob Dylan's poetry in music was a novelty I hadn't heard before, and it unlocked something in my personality I didn't think existed. "Breach" changed me, and there is still a part of me that hears "One Headlight" as what must have been going through my head when I stared off into the darkness on a sleepless teenage night. The Wallflowers are, in my twisted perspective, a sophisticated Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers for my generation.
Jimmy Eat World
There are certain bands who simply sound emotional, no matter what they're doing. Jimmy Eat World is one of those bands for me, where it doesn't matter if they're playing a mournful ballad or a punk-tinged rocker, there is a sense of pain and melancholy that comes through. I am one of those type of people, and I have found in recent years this music speaking to me in ways it never did. "Futures" is now without doubt my favorite album of all time, "Bleed American" is forty-five minutes of what youth sounded like, and I can't think of many songs better than "Dizzy". Jimmy Eat World feels like my transition to whatever comes next.
Elvis Costello
I own more Elvis Costello albums than by anyone else. He is a volume scorer, for sure, but has shown me what it means to be an artist. From the pub rock of "My Aim Is True" (I still say 'rhythmically admired' might be the best masturbation euphemism in a song), to the new wave of "This Year's Model", to his Americana on "King Of America", I learned from Elvis that everything beyond the song is window-dressing. He takes on different personas, and different sounds, but the great song is the great song. All you need is a lyric and a melody, and he's had so, so many of them.
Halestorm
Outside of Dilana, no one's voice has had as much impact on me as Lzzy Hale. I call her the voice of my generation for a reason, and I find myself playing Halestorm songs just to hear her when I need to feel the human connection that comes through her instrument. Whether she is cooing the opening lines of "The Silence", or screaming from the bottom of her soul like that one note in "Innocence", Lzzy is honesty on record. I find myself appreciating that more and more as I get older, as I want to hear music I can relate to and have resonate. Lzzy can move your chest simply with power, but she writes songs that let her wrap around your heart and squeeze them in time to the beat.
Ronnie James Dio
I'm cheating a bit with this one. From "Rising" in 1975 through "Holy Diver" in 1983, no one has ever had a better run of rock/metal than Ronnie James Dio. Across three different bands, with three very different sounds, Dio's voice became the sound of heavy metal. He is the bellowing of drama itself, telling stories through volume and grit. "Heaven & Hell" might be the best metal album ever made, "Stargazer" might be the most epic rock song ever, but there's no doubt Dio is the greatest metal singer of all time. I would like to think the multiverse is real, just so I can imagine how much more greatness Rainbow or Black Sabbath could have given us if Dio hadn't moved on to his next triumph.
Edguy/Avantasia
I'm considering these as one entry, since Tobias Sammet wrote 99% of the music across both projects. I have two sides to my personality, where I used to love pop music, but I also love huge guitars. Tobi manages to blend those two things better than almost anyone else. It was "The Headless Game" that set me off down the metal path, and Tobi has routinely shown me that my musical tastes aren't crazy, and they do sort of make sense. I love everything from "The Pharaoh" to "Lavatory Love Machine" to "The Story Ain't Over" and "The Scarecrow". Tobi is what I've always wanted more metal to be.
Graveyard
I don't listen to much classic rock, because while other people talk about it as being a timeless sound and style, I find it rather out-of-time. Graveyard, though, sounds utterly timeless to me. There is a resonance to their sound that echoes through time, and Joakim's rumbling voice is the tone of age creeping up on me. I may not understand the blues, but I understand Graveyard. I might not understand classic rock, but I understand rock that is classic. I'm drawing distinctions without meaning to anyone besides myself, but listen to the thump of the guitar tone on "Don't Take Us For Fools". That sounds to me like a rock and roll heartbeat, which gives us the strength to be as moved as we are by "Slow Motion Countdown". Simplicity is genius, and that is Graveyard.
Who just missed the cut?
Blues Traveler
"Four" was the first CD I ever owned. While today I do feel sheepish that I proved John Popper's point on "Hook", I made up for that by being one of the people who stuck around after their brief flirtation with fame fizzled out. It's actually that under-appreciated era I find myself liking the most these days, when they went in search of another pop hit that would never come. "Bridge" is the record most people sleep on, but even later, "Suzie Cracks The Whip" perhaps shows that "Hook" was too cynical even for them to learn the lesson. Perhaps I did.
Dave Matthews Band
My favorite guitarist is probably Dave, and I find myself getting drawn more into his 'sad bastard' phases more and more with time. The chords in "#41" are haunting, I have often found my brain as twisted as his fingers trying to understand how he can play "Tripping Billies" while singing it, and I have borrowed the chords from "Grey Street" for my own use on more than one occasion. There is a core of DMB music I would be lost without, especially the unreleased "Lillywhite Sessions", but it comes amid Dave's weirdness putting me off from time to time. With a bit of editing, like a whole lot less "Alligator Pie", they would surely be on my list.
Soen
When I think of where evolution should have taken metal, it is best embodied by Soen. Their stretch of albums from "Lykaia" to "Memorial" is flawless, and in some ways has kept me afloat as a music fan in recent years. They are records I can always put on and feel coursing through me. If their first two records were better, maybe they wouldn't have been cut. They might be the most painful exclusion.
And with that, perhaps you will come to understand the contradictions that define me. As was said by Walt Whitman, "I contain multitudes."
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