Artists you feel you can rely on, buy any new album unheard.


 Now I've stopped upgrading, the music forum is my first port of call when I bring up the Audiogon site. There are so many discussions with different wording, but the same aim, to pass onto other readers our particular enthusiasms.

 So if you're flicking through your Ipad looking for inspiration on the server, or idly checking physical albums, what artist or musician makes you stop? Most of us have favourites, where all their discs are a good listen, no duds, what are yours?

 There is no limit on genre, except maybe popular not classical. I love classical too, but it will get too complex. So Jazz, Blue Grass, Singer Songwriter, Covers artists, folk, rock etc. I'll start with my suggestions, in no particular order. Partly because the order would be different next week anyway. If anyone asks for a good starting album, I will make a suggestion, perhaps other responders can do the same.

Alison Kraus,
Shawn Colvin, 
Nina Simone,
Gregory Porter,
Frank Sinatra, of course,
Kate Rusby
Jonatha Brooke
Stacey Kent,
Antonio Forcione 
Paul Carrack
Paul Rogers
Eliza Gilkyson
Joni Mitchell
Sara K

 I look forward to exploring your suggestions.

david12
Chris Isaac
Tool
A Perfect Circle
Snarky Puppy
Van Morrison
Spoon
Robin Tower
Govt Mule
Tedeschi Trucks
Neil Young
AC DC
Jeff Beck
Anderson Osbourne
Nick Lowe

Ryan Adams was canceled by himself:
Reports of Adams' alleged sexual misconduct and psychological abuse were first documented and published in February 2019. Several prominent musicians went on record about Adams' misconduct, including Adams' ex-wife Mandy Moore, Phoebe Bridgers, Liz Phair, and Karen Elson.
This kind of posts are my favorites-
many names I am totally ignorant of & I do look forward to listening to & seeing what I like.
Thanks to all of you who are willing to educate me- for free!
All it costs is my time!
It don’t get any better than this!
& I’m an old fart curmudgeon, not easily impressed.
@akadurf, I have an original 1st Ed. copy of Tricycle. Great for demoing equipment. Need to pull it out again and give it a listen.🙂🎶
And one more because I do listen to music other than solo piano:

Evan Christopher
Vikander Olafsson
Jennifer Hewitt
Mitsuko Uchida
Murray Perahia
Andras Schiff
Arcady Volodos

Fred Hersch
Ahmad Jamal (even in his 90’s!}

Each a pianist...
"They eventually found the percussionist in the morgue, but he wasn't quite dead, so they warmed him up again and he played in the concert."

david12,
Is that supposed to be funny?"

Roxy 54,  Not funny at all, just a true story. It speaks to what Russia endured in "The Great Patriotic War", particularly Leningrad. Nobody knows how many died, mainly of cold and starvation, but probably more than a milliion out of a 3 million population in 1940. The worst winters for many years and a daily ration of not more than 200gms of bread. Just bread, nothing else. My mother in law said people left home in the morning and never came home from work, just fell dead in the street, particularly in winter of course.
"amazing how $12 is light as a feather when an album is great, but so painful when the album sucks :-) "

"There is no artist, if they live long enough..."

For most of my life, I've been pretty loyal to the artists that have given me joy.  And they've pretty much all given me sucker albums eventually.  With the new streaming paradigm (using Tidal currently), I can listen first.  I still buy (usually vinyl) if I love an album, just to get my tiny vote out there.

There are a few that I still pre-order.
Tool
Radiohead
Beck
St. Vincent
Elbow
Fiona Apple
Alice in Chains
Weird Al

Led Zeppelin never disappointed me.

A few artists I was loyal to the end, but let me down a some point.
REM - Loved everything from Life's Rich Pageant to Up.  Couldn't get into Reveal, Really liked Around the Sun, Couldn't get into Accelerate, Really liked Collapse into Now.
Rush - Loved everything from 2112 to Signals, Really liked Grace Under Pressure to Power Windows.  Loved Hold Your Fire.  Liked Presto pretty well.  Liked half of most of the rest, except Test for Echo which I hated.
Pink Floyd - Liked Meddle, appreciate the before.  Dark Side to The Wall loved with all my heart.  Final Cut was a sucker album.  Really liked the two Gilmour albums, especially live.
Van Halen - OU812 wasn't good, but Carnal Knowledge was.  Balance suucked.  III never grabbed me.  Different Kind of Truth was a surprise gift.
Yes - This one almost isn't fair.  I was loyal to the end, but the last album I loved was Talk.  Highlights after that were The Ladder, Magnification.  The rest left me fairly cold.  I don't even remember the name of the last one with the new singer.

Some artists left me in the dust after intense love affairs.
Bjork

baylinor    true   amazing how $12 is light as a feather when an album is great, but so painful when the album sucks :-)
I agree with ebm, NOBODY is the correct answer. There is no artist, if they live long enough, who will put out music that will always please you no matter how much you love them. Not even Bowie. They all end up either going commercial at times or experimenting with some abstract thing that will be completely unlike the bulk of their work. That's the nature of the beast. Like if you like blonds, some of them will still be ugly :)
Samatha Fish
Jack White
Buddy Guy
Radiohead
The Killers
Pat Metheny
Jeff Beck
Robin Trower


just to name a few.


Apart from Morrissey, Springsteen and Dylan (after a quick listen - they have their clunkers too!) I can’t think of anyone at present.

The days when you could look forward to the next Smiths album or the one from U2 or the Pogues have long gone.

Ah, but that was vinyl!



@hodu,

Ryan Adams cancelled? Since when?

Well then I guess we should also cancel Martin Luther King Jr, JFK, John Lennon and anyone else we don’t take a current liking to.

Eventually we’d probably only be left with. Cliff Richard, err on second thoughts, maybe not.

This moral outrage nonsense probably began a long before Jerry Lee Lewis

Lifeless deadbeat journalists and their moronic cancel culture vendettas, playing moral guardians??

Sheesh! What a world!


A great topic, and a lot of great nominees already mentioned. Some relatively obscure, and very hip: The Wondermints (I saw them live in L.A. a few times before they hooked up with Brian Wilson), NRBQ (one of the very best bands in R & R history. Terry Adams---a great, great live performer!---is the sole remaining original member), Jason Falkner (a member of Jellyfish at the time of their first album), Dave Alvin (I loved The Blasters, seeing them many times when Dave was in the band).

I won’t duplicate those above (Dylan, Ry Cooder, Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, Van Morrison, Randy Newman, etc.), and will list those currently making new music that I find essential and indispensable. You’ll notice they are mostly artists, not bands:

Iris Dement
Mary Gauthier
Patty Loveless
Emmylou Harris
Buddy Miller (with and without his wife Julie, a fabulous songwriter and singer)
Rodney Crowell
Jim Lauderdale
Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives (imo currently the best band in the world)
Ricky Skaggs
The Del McCoury Band
Jerry Douglas (dobro master, Alison Krausses mate)
Albert Lee
John Hiatt
Nick Lowe
Loudon Wainwright III
Los Lobos
Steve Earle (with and without The Dukes)
Rosie Flores

There are plenty of others, but that’s enough outta me ;-) .






Some great suggestions guys, including artists I've never heard of. That's the whole point of the thread of course.
Tower of Power
Santa Fe and the Fat City Horns
Phat Phunktion
Prime Time Funk
Mingo Fishtrap
Crosby-Nash
Michael Franks
Strokeland Superband
Marc Cohn
Joshua Redman
Patricia Barber
Eddie From Ohio
Steely Dan or Donald Fagen
Luke Combs
Gino Vannelli 
Take Six
Jackie Allen

"They eventually found the percussionist in the morgue, but he wasn't quite dead, so they warmed him up again and he played in the concert."

david12,
Is that supposed to be funny?
Joni mitchell
Roberta flack
Nina Simone (like baltimore she hated and recorded one day)
John prine
Dylan (I struggled with some 80s stuff) 
Marvin gaye
Gil Scott heron

Beck
Radiohead
Avett brothers
Micah p hinson
Bonnie prince billy
Belle and sebastian
Handsome family
Gillian welch
Bill Callahan 
Lucinda williams
Welcome wagon
Sufjan stevens
Colter wall
War on drugs
Bjork (even when so wacky it takes a coue of years to get it) 
Silver Jews
London grammar
James blake



Paul McCartney
Brian Wilson
Cheap Trick 
ELO/Jeff Lynne 
James Taylor 
Randy Newman
NRBQ
Todd Rundgren
Sting 
They Might Be Giants 
Stephen Stills 
Why would anyone want to do it ?
I can't think of any artist who is unable to produce junk.
Isn’t that what streaming is for? To discover new music? Then you are not surprised, or should I say unpleasantly surprised upon purchasing the media. 
Another vote for Bob Dylan, including the Bootleg Series
Eden Atwood
Stacey Kent
Gillian Welch
Orchestra Baobab
And for present day prog/metal fans all the recordings by Black Mountain are worth acquiring!
Though it's currently politically incorrect to include him because he's been "canceled," I'd add Ryan Adams to the list. From his days fronting Whiskeytown, I've purchased each of his newest releases, on vinyl, sound unheard, and have never been disappointed. His latest surprise release, "Wednesdays," was released on streaming services in December -- though you wouldn't know that from reading the mainstream press.
-- Howard

Train
Rob Thomas
Gillian Welch
Bob Dylan
One Republic
Eric Church
Alison Krauss
Amos Lee
Andrea Bocelli
Ane Brun
Bob James
Cold War Kids
David Sanborn
Don Henley
Eric Clapton
Wilco
Junius Meyvant
Lily Kershaw
Little Big Town
Little Dragon
Moon Taxi
Rascal Flatts
Robbie Robertson
Sarah Mclachlan
Thievery Corporation
Vince Gill

* But ask me again tomorrow -- It will likely change
Radiohead
Queens of the Stone Age
Nine Inch Nails
VAST
Dead Can Dance
Lonely Robot
Florence and the Machine
Dead artists certainly count, anybody at all. Certainly a lot of names I could of put on my list too, but many new ones as well for me to explore.

 As an aside about dead artists, in the later stages of the Leningrad siege, in late 1943 I think, Shostakovich wanted to premier his great Leningrad symphony in the city. There was a struggle to get the survivors of the symphony orchestra together for the concert, which went out on the cities loudspeaker. They eventually found the percussionist in the morgue, but he wasn't quite dead, so they warmed him up again and he played in the concert. A German officer who heard it, said he realised then that they were going to lose the war.

 My wife is from the city and my mother in law one of the few siege survivors still alive The state recently commemorated the 80th anniversary of the start of the siege in 41. All irrelevant to the thread I know, but thought the story was interesting.
I dunno if dead artists count as new. The problem with great artists is that almost always they live long enough to make some garbage. Few exceptions. You gotta be really dedicated to love an artist at their worst!
Raven
accept
napalm death
onslaughtTank
trust
kreator
sodom
assassin
necrophobic

 among 100 other metal bands!

 Never disappointed!
always great!

 
Fay Lovsky (English only)
Lee Lewis
Jim Boggia.
Jason Falkner
Smith & Hayes.
And The Professors.
The Paul & John
Millard Powers.
Paul Steel.
The Major Labels.
Two Sheds Jackson.
Vinyl Kings
NRBQ  
Jeff Foskett

STILL ALIVE

Brian Protheroe
Wondermints
MSMW.
Howard Levy
Phil Brown
Lewis Taylor
Ray Chen
Texas Gentlemen
Wang Chung 
The Beach Boys.  
Billy Barber
The CyrkleFay Lovsky (English only)
Jerry Lee Lewis. Jim Boggia. 
Jason FalknerSmith & Hayes. 
And The ProfessorsThe Paul & JohnMillard PowersPaul SteelThe Major LabelsTwo Sheds JacksonVinyl KingsNRBQJeff Foskett