Quote from: Corazon79 on September 21, 2015, 12:21:19 PM

Depeche Mode is an English band. The other singer you're thinking of is Morrissey.

I was really into their album Black Celebration when it first arrived in the 1980s. I wasn't so much into their big hits before that. The music I really find boring is all that repetitive techno that seems to be popular in Europe and sounds the same to me. Other than that, opera, and various folk styles of music, I don't know of much coming out of Europe other than the occasional British band or artist and I shouldn't forget Led Zeppelin (I still have Led Zeppelin - How Many More Times in my regular workout playlist.) and Australia's AC DC which were both big for me as teenager. When I have time, I look into those suggestions you made. Brits apparently inject their nonchalance into their music, which typically is less appealing to me. But Morrisey is just weird (blunt, humor, outlandish, etc) enough to keep it interesting for me. Now when I listen to Elvis he was hard-edged mixed with soulful Deep South and just far enough away from pop R&B and closer to Mississippi delta blues to translate some of the full body aroma. Apparently though he wasn't creative enough to write his own music and looks like creatively he burned out fast and lost his direction as a result. He was all high energy, fan entertainment. When the song writers stopped making new hits for his style, he didn't have anything new to be excited about. Sad for me to see such a vocal and stylistic talent being so high on drugs in his last public performance that he couldn't recite the words of his famous song.

I like the Old America with its nuanced, non-commercialized flavors and blunt, unrefined, hard-edges. I want to listen to some of that new stuff coming out and see if there is still any deep chicory flavor or other influences. Maybe America is not (musically) dead.

The grunge rock out of Seattle in the early 90s produced some good music in my opinion. For example, Alice in Chains and one of my favorites from that period Stone Tone Pilots - Unglued (but the chorus is too bland). Also Nirvana - Very Ape instrumental.