Over the last couple weeks, I think I've just grown to "need a break" from the metal world. I mean, for the last 2 decades it's been pretty much a non-stop revolving door of pure madness and speed. I'm looking for recommendations that aren't metal. Any band, album (from any year) or even genre for that matter. Surprise me with whatever you ladies and gents might have. I'm pretty much an open book but when it does come to hip-hop, I might be a bit picky with flows and beat selection. I know, woe is me.

Either way, thanks in advance and I hope to hear from someone of you soon.

I'll go with my two favourite bands, Swans and Lisabö. Really intense and emotional noise rock. Swans are very influenced by Glenn Branca and krautrock while Lisabö are more influenced by Fugazi and post hardcore.

https://swans.bandcamp.com/album/the-seer

https://bidehuts.bandcamp.com/album/ezlekuak

Let me know what you think, even if you hate them.

Some of these are probably super obvious, but still. Included some songs I like and album recs (although in many cases, I'd recommend the whole discography).

Tori Amos
Albums: Little Earthquakes, Under the Pink, From the Choirgirl Hotel, Scarlet's Walk, The Beekeeper
Songs: Sugar, Flying Dutchman, Tear in Your Hand, Siren, Taxi Ride, Climb

Silverchair
Albums: Neon Ballroom, Diorama
Songs: The Door, Luv Your Life, Paint Pastel Princess, Waiting All Day

Zakk Wylde
Album: Book of Shadows
Songs: Sold My Soul, Road Back Home

Angels & Airwaves
Albums: We Don't Need to Whisper, i-Empire
Songs: The Adventure, Call to Arms, Clever Love, The Revelator, Rebel Girl

Miranda Lambert
Albums: Revolution, The Weight of These Wings
Songs: Mama I'm Alright, White Liar, Keeper of the Flame, I've Got Wheels

Kacey Musgraves
Albums: Same Trailer Different Park, Golden Hour
Songs: Merry Go Round, Follow Your Arrow, Oh What a World, Rainbow

Less Than Jake
Albums: Losing Streak, Anthem, In with the Out Crowd, See the Light
Songs: Sugar in Your Gas Tank, Look What Happened, Robots One Humans Zero, Mostly Memories, Good Enough

Too lazy to put much more effort in for now, but Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals and The Offspring - Ignition are two albums by big artists that you should check out if you've never heard them. Also, work through Alice Cooper's catalogue - loads of great music there. I also can't stress how good the first two Bat Out of Hell albums by Meat Loaf are (on the off chance you've never listened to them).

If you want some easy listening, try the first two Oasis albums. I don't know how anyone couldn't like 'Rock N' Roll Star', 'Slide Away' and 'Champagne Supernova'. Some of their singles were annoyingly overplayed back in the day, but their best songs tended to be album tracks and b sides.

I'd also recommend 'Warning' by Green Day. My go-to when I need a break from metal or progressive music and want something ultra simple. Like Noel Gallagher, Billie Joe Armstrong has that rare ability to take the same few chords you've heard a million times before and write a beautiful vocal melody that immediately hooks you in without being bland. 'Deadbeat Holiday' and 'Waiting' are my favourite tracks.

It is possible to get burnt out on metal. It's by far my favorite kind of music, but sometimes I need to take a break from it.

Give Black Mountain a shot: specifically the albums "In the Future" and "IV". They're my favorite modern rock band by a good margin.

Here are my favourite non-archived albums of all time:

Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
The ultimate in song writing/lyrical vision. This entire thing plays out like one endless summer night. Right from the opening harmonica of Thunder Road (my favourite song of all time), you're in for a wonderful journey. Holds 5 of the best songs in his entire vast catalog (Thunder Road, Tenth Avenue Freeze-out, Backstreets, Born To Run, and the epic closer, Jungleland)

The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound
Speaking of endless summer nights, this is Brian Fallon's magnum opus. Chalk full of references to his favourite artists, bands, authors and films, this is a alternative rock/punk classic.

Sam Cooke - Twistin' The Night Away
The best soul/twist album ever made by the man with the greatest voice to ever exist.

Radiohead - OK Computer
I love the entire discography (Kid A is also a solid suggestion), but this has forever been my favourite Radiohead album. A song like Exit Music is so goddamn haunting.

It gets a little muddy after those four, but some other suggestions would be:

The Antlers - Familiars (very chill, indie stuff with a lot of jazz influence. Beautifully tasteful horn sections, incredible vocal performance)

Justin Rutledge - Valleyheart (Canadian indie folk. Speaking of incredible vocal performances....)

Antimatter - Savior (Duncan Patterson, ex-anathema, makes a trip-hop record with Mick Moss. This debut album is really something. Everything kind of went downhill after the follow up, Lights Out, which is also worth checking out)

Bob Seger - Night Moves (the best Bob Seger album, imo. [although, his best song is not on it, Against The Wind]

Sigur Ros - Takk (Just put this on, and let it blow your mind)

Speaking of Iceland:
Bjork. Any of the first 3.

And a couple alternative folk/country albums I really love:
Andrew Combs - All These Dreams
Andrew Combs - Worried Man
Jason Isbell - Southeastern

The entire catalogues of Muse and New Model Army will always hold special places in my heart. Give 'em both a try.

I really like Lord Huron mystic western folk rock i guess?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rdiy9I ... =LordHuron

Dire Strairs and their guitarist/vocalist Mark Knopfler's stuff. Both are cozy, mostly warm and rather unique.

check out blondie's magnum opus "parallel lines". not kidding. one of the greatest albums in the world with not a second of filler material.

Ladyhawke

The first album (S/T) is what you'd expect from Indie-Alt-ish early 2000s pop rock - it's a bit dated, but still very good. 'My Delirium' was my introduction, and it still stands up.

The second album (Anxiety) is excellent - properly alternative music, bit of interesting song construction, lyrics are at their best

Last album (Wild Things) is one of the best straight pop records I've heard - the songs are catchier than Covid, melodies are top notch, production is excellent. Not written by a major label committee either, so a certain amount of honesty is still present in the songs.

A new album is due out, delayed by Covid doom though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladyhawke_(musician)

Might sound crazy, but when I met my wife I started going to country shows. I was really surprised how well that music translates live. Some of the music is repetitive, but others like Zac Brown have a lot of talent too. But it lends itself surprisingly well to huge live productions. Or maybe I was just really ignorant

If you did have any kind of inclination, I'd suggest checking out one of the bigger shows that go around in Summer (obviously when the pandemic ends). Kenny Chesney usually does a large tour in stadiums around the country, and he will bring a few of the other top artists with him.

The reason I'm focusing on live shows is that I still don't like to listen to country on the radio. But the live shows are pretty good. It would definitely be a massive switcheroo for any metal fan, of course.

Here's some albums that seem worth putting out there. Going with variety and trying to cover the majority of genres I listen to, most of which I could expand on.

Arbee Stidham - Tired of Wandering (blues)
Marlena Shaw - The Spice of Life (soul)

jazz:
Julie London - About the Blues (sexiest voice ever, album might get a bit repetitive with every song being on the same topic but I think she's at her best here)
Bohren & der Club of Gore - Black Earth

hip-hop:
Yugen Blakrok - Anima Mysterium
Onyx - All We Got Iz Us (my go-to for hip-hop that's hard and angry enough to rival metal)

punk:
Anti-Nowhere League - The Road to Rampton (a mature album from a sometimes childish band, Unwanted and Self Harm are two of their best songs)
The MurderChord - The Blunt Cut (punk with just keyboard and drums)

rock/post-punk etc.
Gang of Four - Entertainment!
Wax Chattels - Wax Chattels
Left or Right - Nuggety (mixes reggae/dub with stoner rock, pretty wild)
The Wreckery - Here at Pains Insistence (bluesy goth rock)

electronic:
Avotor - Looming
Amon Tobin - Foley Room

dark ambient:
In Slaughter Natives - Sacrosancts Bleed
Falsewander - Begotten

weird shit:
SPK - Leichenschrei (early industrial, the track The Agony of The Plasma using screams and broken glass as instruments was a total mindfuck when I first heard it)
Trevor Wishart - Red Bird: A Political Prisoner's Dream (somewhat disturbing musique concrète)
Merzbow - Space Metalizer (noise but not so harsh, one of his most accessible albums, haha)
The Residents - Fingerprince (the tracks Six Things to a Cycle Part 4 and Tourniquet of Roses are particularly classic)
[...if you made it through those I could also add my own industrial/noise album The First Sign of Madness which I haven't mentioned on this forum yet, given it's where listeners should probably arrive after being burnt out on music completely and in need of hearing something 'wrong'. The songs (including a Megadeth cover) are sort of collages of kitchen utensil samples with vocals. Not weird for the sake of being weird (silly, sure), but more just the sort of sounds I fell naturally into making.]

I came here to recommend On The Night - a top 5 live album for me. Doesn't get much better than Dire Straits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y49LnHVfuNk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_atRLSxfg_0

I saw on youtube their rendition of Sultan's of swing at Alchemy live with the added 6 minute melodic guitar solo/section at the end I was blown away. I don't think anything has moved me quite like that last few minutes in ages. After that I checked out their western influenced songs, and somber war dirges, and I have been listening to them heavily the last few weeks.

i have three main bands in heavy rotation right now that dont really count as metal. Manes, who are actually on the site but their later work is pretty devoid of metal, might hit that sweet spot of metal related stuff that isnt quit metal. secondly the 90s alt rock band Hum, they put out a new one last year and its phenomenal, really... i want to say suffocating but that aint the right word. whatever terminology would be used to describe music that feel like its giving you a warm hug, atmospheric and enveloping i guess, while being SUPER chill and quite lovely. lastly, ive been jamming Florence and the Machine a ton as well.

Now THAT"S something I didnt expect to see here!!!! Really good album, shame they didnt do more. I made a point of always going to see them when I lived in Auckland.

Her stuff is really sweet. Sometimes sickeningly so, but I like to listen to her from time to time when I'm not listening to metal as well.

Their 2nd album is decent too but I don't spin it nearly as often. I was either too young and/or in the wrong city to see them live, but I do keep hearing that they're still occasionally tinkering with new material so I may have a reasonable chance before they cease to exist altogether.

Here are five artists that I think tend to go under the radar too often.

Wayne Shorter

He is a jazz saxophonist that has worked with some of the most iconic ensembles, like some of Miles Davis' configurations, Weather Report, and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, but he's not nearly frequently enough singled out for his own contributions both as a sideman and as a solo artist. His solo career especially in the 60s is replete with a rich catalog of albums.



Kings of Convenience

This Norwegian folk duo is kind of like an updated Simon and Garfunkel, with captivating interlocking guitar passages and beautiful vocal harmonies.



Iris

They are an electronic/synthpop group with creative and infectious songwriting, engaging vocals, and lush instrumentation.



Burning Spear

One of my favorite reggae groups, they offer a lot of variety in tropical textures and instrumentation with a horn section and percussion as part of the band. This vibrant live album captures them particularly well.



Mostly Autumn

They are a progressive rock band with Pink Floydian overtones, particularly in Bryan Josh's guitar work, but for me much more enjoyable vocals, particularly in the first half of their career with Heather Findlay.





Cool to see someone recommending those two. They couldn't be much further apart in the genre, but are both great. I particularly pretty much never see people discussing Julie, she's a long-forgotten treasure.

YESSS. Absolutely 10/10 *high five* One of my favorite albums ever. Like, stranded on an island and you have to chose to listen to only 5 abums ever again till you die, Parallel Lines is on the list.

Also, OP- Ramones first s/t. I dunno how anyone could have a heartbeat and not feel that album.

yeah it's way up there with de mysteriis dom. sathanas lol. chances are I might even pick this over DMDS if I could pick only one. depends on who is with me on the island.

seriously though, check this one out, OP. very rewarding listen.

newp: if you are a parallel lines maniac, the BBC made a worthwhile documentary on the making of PL:

Here's some choir music for you, if you are at all curious. I find these two to be really fucking cool.

Ola Gjeilo - The Ground:


Ola Gjeilo - Dark Night of the Soul:


Ola Gjeilo - Across the Vast, Eternal Sky

I'm honestly overwhelmed with how much material is here. I'll do my best to cover it all over the next couple weeks or so. I work 40+ hour weeks and work nights so my sleep schedule with family time is always so weird but thank you all for the recs. I'll update overtime, probably with just a extremely long post. If that's okay with all you ladies and gents.

I've been loving the hell out of Killing Joke lately. The vibes are dark, but it's not metal by any means. All of their albums have their own personality; you can start with the old stuff and work your way forward, start with the last album and work your way backwards, or just hit them at random. It's worthy of a rabbit hole, though.

Killing Joke has had a quite long and winding career, and I'm not nearly as familiar with it as I'd like, but their early post-punk albums are especially good.

When I'm not listening to metal, I'm typically listening to pop-punk or ska. Such as...

Save Ferris
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJrLqwx-fFw

The Interrupters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TDT4_A61Hk

Descendents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLkRxVYdUko

Bad Religion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV8T-y7q85g

Teenage Bottlerocket
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50qJGs3iE5s

The Lillingtons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BovrCTxbqZ4

Dance Hall Crashers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6n-faMq5K0

Goldfinger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFjEDGrUZXs

Less Than Jake
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_63ZZRLylE

Reel Big Fish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL3Rj9IT4Mc

Huge Killing Joke fan here, I'd say their later stuff is even better: Pandemonium, Democracy, Killing Joke (2003) and Hosannas From the Basements of Hell is an amazing run of 4 consecutive great albums. You should check them if you're not familiar with them.

Thelonious Monk - Monk's Music. Thelonious Monk was a pianist of the classical Bebop era who who tended to a very rough, edgy side of the genre. On this album, he plays with some of the greatest Jazz musicicans of all time, the most famous of them John Coltrane. This is definitely not chillout lounge music.

Nick Drake - Pink Moon. This is a wonderful folk album from 1972. Recorded very intimately, it only features the singer, his guitar, and some sparsely added piano.

Bilderbuch - Maschin Bilderbuch play a very interesting mixture of Kanye West and alternative rock.

Highlonesome made some of the most fantastically dark modern bluegrass around and while they do have their bright uplifting moments, their best and most earnest work comes through in the bleak tracks like We're All Just Gonna Fall and Hellbent and Bottle-bound.

The last few years I've started to dig into some more modern jazz and found some fantastic stuff. Some of it is probably obvious if you're into this sort of thing, but I have these artists on heavy rotation. I really like trip hop and always liked the more emotional, "driven" stuff more than the chill/background-ish stuff and it's the same principle here.

The Comet is Coming - crazy, crazy stuff, cosmic jazz-electro-funk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8UWZRSg_Lg

Kamasi Washington - the smoothest guy. You'll feel instantly cool listening to this track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdyabrdFMC8

Yazz Ahmed - this is just a beautiful album. Middle eastern moods, fuzzy and slightly off kilter jazz. https://youtu.be/txg1MW2S4Ts?t=17

Just to add - worth checking out the album 'When We Are Death' by Hexvessel - wonderful odd folky-rocky-proggy weird. If you've followed Svart records at all you can probably hear a bit of it in your head. Some of their more recent stuff isn't as good, so definitely check out that album one evening if you want something with a bit of atmosphere.

Start listening to ELO if you haven't already. The compositions and musicality is out of this world, with great 6 part harmonies and amazing productions. Face The Music, A New World Record, Out of The Blue are albums which are essential to rock music.

I'm just giving Julie London another big listen today. Her 1950s albums are generally great, but I can't get into most of her 1960s stuff. It just seems wrong for her to be backed by orchestras and big bands. Her seductive voice is perfect backed by a minimal jazz combo. Latin in a Satin Mood is decent for something different though. I tend to dig albums that were recorded so quickly like that one, when the vocalist sounds quite nonchalant at times.

I would agree with Radioheads - Ok Computer. I consider it to be one of the greatest of all time. Its a very non metal, album to listen to. Alternative and a bit on the experimental side. If you have never given the entire album a full listen, I recommend that you do.

It's hard for me to imagine people somehow not having heard Ok Computer, but I guess they aren't quite as much on the radar for younger generations, and everyone misses out on at least some subsection of critically lauded bands. Personally I'm not that crazy about Radiohead overall, but they do have their moments, and Kid A is actually the album I prefer from them.



Exactly my thoughts. It also starts veering away from traditional jazz and into at that time contemporary pop. It might have sounded better at the time to some people, but to me facets of it just don't date as well. I'm always on the lookout for a modern equivalent to her, but my knowledge of jazz in the last few decades is pretty weak, compared to what I know about the 40s-70s, at least. My modern favorite is Sara Gazarek, though she doesn't particularly sound like her, and her voice is far better than her music, which is good, but not amazing. Although, Julie's was nothing compared to the instrumental legends of the time either, I suppose, for whatever reason it's hard to have both in jazz.

I don't listen to much outside of metal but I like a lot of hard/dark/deep techno (loved going to raves in the 90's, what a time!) like the German stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ_aqxO ... rNLoathing

And some of Amelie Lens' sets are good too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WCur8L ... Awakenings

Some house music is good as well, like this Carl Cox set he did in Miami:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UZeq0H ... dMuzikFan4

But yeah, if you like the repetitive nature of a lot of black metal, then this should be right up your alley.

(Apologies in advance for the timestamps on some of those links)

The instrumental jazz legends aren't my thing at all so I can't make a comparison. Though there's one or two I've managed to enjoy where the album was a mix of instrumental and vocal tracks, Fats Waller for example. Hell, very few of the jazz vocalists are my thing either. Talent isn't the defining factor for me, I just like voices that have a certain character. My next favourite after Julie is probably Pearl Bailey, need to hear way more of her. As for modern ones, I stumbled onto the title track of Andrea Menard - The Velvet Devil and liked it, but the rest of the album didn't hook me.

One album I would recommend is Bohren & Der Club of Gore’s Sunset Mission, which is a doom jazz album. If you ever listen to it, I hope you really enjoy it (because I sure as hell did).