I have a very large, very diverse music collection containing over 30,000 songs by several thousand artists. Because I’m so musically obsessed, I thought I’d share with you some great bands that should be more famous.
I’m going to break this into chunks for easier digestion. This post contains bands that start with the letter A (according to my iTunes anyway).
Abiodun Oyewole
I have him in A because of his solo album. I can’t find a video from that album, but here’s one he’s featured on.
Poet, singer and co-founder of The Last Poets, arguably the grandfathers of modern hip hop. This man is a legend.
Origin: Harlem, New York
Genre: spoken word, hip hop
Years active: 1968–present
That’s a mouthful. Acid Mothers are a sort of droney/doomy type of band that produce some long, magical soundscapes.
Origin: Japan
Genre: drone, doom, post metal, experimental rock, psychedelic rock
Years active: 1995–present
Alabama 3
If you’ve ever heard of this band, you probably only know them as the band that did The Sopranos theme, but they are so much more than that. I discovered these guys with their first full-length album and I’ve loved them ever since.
Origin: Brixton/London, England
Genre: In their own words: country acid house music.
Years active: 1996–present
Alabama Thunderpussy
Sadly, ATP broke up a while ago, but not before putting out five great albums. They are pretty much straight up rockin’ metal in the tradition of AC/DC.
Origin: Richmond, Virginia
Genre: metal, stoner metal, southern metal
Years Active: 1996-2008
Andres Ségovia
Arguably the finest classical guitarist who ever lived. Unfortunately, he died a long time ago, but he left some amazing performances. If you like guitar, especially if you are a guitarist, you need to listen to Andres Ségovia.
Origin: Linares, Jaén, Spain
Genre: classical guitar
Years Active: 1906-1987
Antler
Not to be confused with another band (that came later) called The Antlers, Antler is a singer/songwriter type of band on one of my favorite record labels out of Detroit called Smallstone Records. Even though they’re from Boston, they sound very southern rock.
Origin: Boston, Massachussets
Genre: southern rock, rock
Years Active: 2002-Present
Anyone
They have described their music using the term “maximum acid,” combining a heavy metal sound with psychedelic rock influences.
Origin: Southern California
Genre: rock, hard rock, stoner rock, psychedelic rock
Years Active: 1995-Present
Artimus Pyledriver
A nod to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s drummer Artimus Pyle, Artimus Pyledriver was hard-drivin’ southern metal about women, drinkin’ and cars. Especially cars. They only put out a couple of albums, but they’re hella fun.
Origin: Tucker/Atlanta, Georgia
Genre: Southern rock, southern metal, metal, stoner rock, southern sludge
Years Active: 2001-2007
At the Gates
At the Gates is a major progenitor of the melodic death metal (or Gothenburg death metal) sound. They have been around forever and ever, yet outside of metal circles, no one’s ever heard of them.
Origin: Gothenburg, Sweden
Genre: death metal, melodic death metal
Years Active: 1990–1996, 2007–2008, 2010–present
The Atomic Bitchwax
You might know some of the members of this band from the much more popular (and, in my opinion, not nearly as good) band called Monster Magnet. Their music is a combination of 60s psychedelic rock, and 70s riff rock filtered though the progressive rock influences of today. They were pretty much stoner rock before stoner rock was stoner rock.
Origin: Neptune, New Jersey
Genre: heavy metal, hard rock, stoner rock, psychedelic rock
Years Active: 1992–present
Fish Of Gold 