Help me discover some new music...

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.

Rock2kid, I would say that music scene today is far more divergent and is teeming with talent and innovation, then in the sixties and seventies.
There are tens of thousands of bands, and never has it been easier to listen and explore new music. You tube, Spotify , MoG, Rapsody, Sirrus etc.
Regarding your post , where are the next Rolling Stones, Elvis etc., my wife and I were discussing the new world of the music industry. There are few bands today playing stadiums like The Stones, Who and Zepplin did, but that does not mean that there are not many bands who can equal or surpass their talent in playing,recording, and touring. The musical climate dictates that many of these fantastic bands are not going to reach the stratospheric heights of these MEGA bands. So, the awesome bands of today, such as Wico, you will get to see in a small intimate theater that seats less than 2000 people. In my opinion there are alot of bands in the mix today that have the talent,creativity,and musical chops to equal the Mega bands of the sixties and seventies.

"Rock2kid, I would say that music scene today is far more divergent and is teeming with talent and innovation, then in the sixties and seventies."

I would tend to agree, or at least it is much easier to discover new talents and innovations, where they exist.

A lot of modern innovation is built around fusion of more traditional genres, like Steely Dan helped do with rock and jazz back in their day. That is a good thing and opens up a lot of new opportunities for talent to innovate and move in new directions!

Most of the traditional genres, including classic rock, have been beaten to death. THinking in terms of traditional "genres" can be a trap that limits ones exposure to new enjoyable music. Listen first, then categorize what you hear, not the reverse. That is something I used to do as a youth and am learning to do now again better than ever. Plus it all sounds better than ever on a good modern rig! There has never been a better time to be a music loving audiophile!

Avoid traps like "oh I don't like rap or electronic dance music" and never give any a try. You are armed and dangerous! Try it all first, then decide what is good or not.

These days, I listen to pretty much anything again, especially queued up randomly on my music server which I refer to as "mapman radio". Squezzebox even adds a nice fade-out/fade-in effect between tracks that keeps the music flowing. No need for record spinning DJs anymore. THe computer truly does a great job! I never know which of the thousands of tracks in dozens of genres will come up next. THat helps to avoid letting prior judgements or expectations affect what I listen to. There are very few tracks that I skip through. Of course, once you hear a movement from some symphony or some on off cut that you never heard before and like that strikes your fancy, you might want to play the whole album, though album listening now occupies a smaller % of my time than ever. A lot of good music tracks stand best alone.