+1 Brain of Randomness

I like to think that I have very eclectic taste in music.  I have songs I truly love from all over the place, musically, from heavy metal to rap to country to pop to dance to hip hop to almost anything.  I'm not a huge fan of free form jazz or dissonant punk or very repetitive electronic music, I guess.  But I'm sure I could find some stuff there that I enjoy if I explored more.

Let's start with a partial list of bands that I love (not necessarily in order of favoritism):

Pink Floyd - Overall my favorite band.  Not so much Syd Barrett era, but pretty much all the later stuff; the Wall, Animals, Dark Side of the Moon, and my favorite; Wish You Were Here.  That might be my favorite album of all time, actually.  I didn't like them as much after Waters left, but I still listen to Pulse occassionally.

Delerium - might not be too much of a shock after Pink Floyd.  They have similar clever lyric styles, I think.  I really enjoy that the lead singer changes constantly, and it's often someone else I really like.  My favorite songs are Poem for Byzantium, Daylight, and After All.  Just a sec.  I have to listen to them now.

The Killers - There's just something about Hot Fuss.  The whole album is just great.  I love the hits; Somebody Told Me, and Mr. Brightside, but the rest of it is really good too.  I liked Sam's Town too, but have not followed them nearly as much since then.  Still, Hot Fuss was good enough and I listen to it enough still that I consider them a favorite band.

Evanescence - Really, like the Killers, it's their breakout album, Fallen, that I like, but I like the WHOLE album.  When it came out, I just put it in the CD player and left it there for a couple months.

Weird Al - I'm sure you're shocked, but I'm a HUGE Weird Al fan.  I love pretty much all of his albums, and most of his songs (I have to admit I don't like Another One Rides the Bus much, though.)  I also like UHF.  He tours often, and I try to see him if I can.  He puts on a great show with lots of costume changes.

Jonathan Coulton - as long as we're in "Comedy" territory, I have to mention Jonathan Coulton.  Just brilliant. From Code Monkey to Re: Your Brains to Still Alive and so many others.

Blue Oyster Cult - In junior high I fell in with a couple of heavy metal fans.  We played RPGs and listened to heavy metal; Whitesnake, Van Halen, Molly Hatchet (first concert I ever went to,) and many others, but Blue Oyster Cult was a special favorite of ours.  Some of their lyrics inspired much of the game worlds we created at the time.  I still like all of those bands to some degree, but BOC has a special place in my heart.  About once a year they come by the Seattle area and I almost always make it out to see them at The Emerald Queen, or some such venue.  They do a good show.

Jethro Tull - When I moved back to Seattle in high school, I fell in with some friends that I am still very close to today.  As part of our cultural exchange I brought them Blue Oyster Cult and they brought me Jethro Tull.  There are just so many good songs, over so many albums.

Quick mentions:

There are so many bands that I like, that I'm going to just put a quick note about some of the others that fall a bit below the ones above.

Pink - She just keeps consistently putting out songs that I like.  She's on the edge of being in the above group.

Poe - She is a brilliant songwriter.  Haunted is an amazing album.  How can you not like lyrics like "I'm going to gather up the splinters and build a casket for my tears?"  Unfortunately she hasn't put an album out in 10 years due to legal battles with her contract.  Sigh.

Oingo Boingo - Great stuff.  Danny Elfman may be a musical god of the cinema these days, but he was awesome back then, as well.

Sarah McLachlan - She really doesn't miss a beat.  I've loved songs on all of her albums.

Paramore - Guilty Pleasure.  I love Misery Business and That's What You Get.

There are soooo many more, though.  Perhaps a list is in order at some time.  But not now.