Help me discover some new music...

What a wonderful thread this has turned into! You guys are great. So many good ideas here, thank you.

Chayro, thanks for the small-scale classical suggestion. The long/ponderous thing with big, symphonic works is an issue for me, so going more toward chamber music makes some sense.

Again, I'm grateful to everybody for mentioning all kinds of stuff I've never heard of, and for the suggestions of streaming services and web sites to spice up the search. Thanks for your interest, time and passion for music!

Two factors, I guess, pushed me over the edge in wanting to explore new music.

1) I'm now happy enough with my rig to not feel the constant need to tweak, so I've actually been exploring my music collection more completely again.
2) I have long adored Steely Dan and Donald Fagen, but I found his most recent album to be a disappointment, and it got me thinking: "My musical tastes are still too much stuck in high school (and yikes, I'll be 55 in a few weeks!)... time to shake things up!" :-)

I understand what you're saying Rok. There's only so many combinations of riffs, chords, scales etc. if we're only talking about rock, there's been some stand outs I could think of. Did you ever hear of a band called Morphine from the 90's? They were groundbreaking. How about Jack White?

There's still people composing classical music. I live in a city with one of the top music schools in the U.S. Its the Eastman School of Music. Renee Fleming is one of our claims to fame. We just started a school of pop music ( the first in the world) in hopes to inject some actual musical talent back into pop music. We have to invest in our future. The best you and I can do is to not watch the talent shows on television. Buy the music of the talented few. Support good musicians by attending their shows. This world is changing fast and it looks like we can no longer sit back and wait for the next great artist. We have to demand it and support it. I can already see what budget cuts in the arts is doing to this world. Part of my hobbie in hifi is an investment in the future of our artists, no matter what country they're from. It was in fact music that got me to this forum. Not my hifi.

I see Miss Fleming quite often in the British music magazines. A great talent and beauty. The articles in the English magazines tend to illustrate your statements about encoraging and supporting our arists. The Brits / Europeans seem to do a great job of that. I agree with all your points. And since the average cable on this site costs more than my entire system, you know music is the reason I am here also. :)

I am not familiar with Morphine or Jack White, but I will make it my business to get to know their work. I didn't know about the pop music school. Glad to hear it.
Thanks for the post. very informative.
Cheers

It mathematically makes sense to argue for a law of diminishing returns in terms of innovation and originality in art, (there is plenty of not real tasty supporting evidence around). But occasionally surprises have popped up and have appeared to breathe new life into a dead horse... it's hard to say that will never happen again.
Anyway, the O.P. list indicates that there is A LOT of potentially rewarding stuff for him to check out. How someone gets to a point where they dig music that pushed or is still pushing boundaries can vary quite a bit. It's not hard to see someone maybe picking up the 1st Friends of Dean Martinez disc...then getting Michael Hedges Aerial Boundaries or John Abercrombie Timeless and moving to Zappa Grand Wazoo or T.J. Kirk... and after that stuff like Mingus, post 60's Miles, Can, Monk, Terje Rypdal, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Ornette Coleman, John Zorn, King Crimson and Stravinsky.

Duanegoosen:
I forgot to mention Zappa. I have a few of his LP's -- Sheikh Yerbouti and Apostrophe come to mind -- but my collection's not very deep. I sometimes have trouble getting past the 8th grade potty humor on those lp's, but the musicianship and creativity are undeniably brilliant.