Music You Should Be Listening To

Hi everyone! In honor of returning home from jazz camp a few days ago, I've decided to post about all the music I've been listening to and obsessing over lately. So, if you've been looking for a new artist to check out or you want to totally shake up your taste by trying out a different genre, then you've come to the right place!

So first thing that you should all know about me is that I play the upright and electric bass. The girl pictured above is Esperanza Spalding, one of my favorite bass players of all time and an amazing singer as well. She does a lot of jazz stuff but she crosses into some other genres as well. I've even seen her live in concert once and I defintely recommend giving her a listern even if you've never listened to jazz before. Some of my favorite songs by her are "I Know You Know," "Precious," and "City of Roses."

One of my favorite popular artists in music today is Sam Smith. You've probably heard his big hits "Stay With Me" or "I'm Not the Only One" on the radio. I really enjoyed Sam Smith's sound and I thought it was really different from a lot of other stuff out right now so I looked him up and listened to his album and I absolutely fell in love with literally every song. So if you've only listened to Sam Smith popular songs than I defintely recommend giving the rest of his album "In the Lonely Hour" a listen because it's amazing (especially the deluxe version because it has the acoustic version of "Latch" on it!).

Well since I just stumbled into pop music, of course I have to talk about the king of pop himself. Just about everyone who knows me knows that I had a pretty serious obsession with Michael Jackson for a while. It's been a good two years since I've fallen in love with all of his music but I still go back to it often and hear it on the radio all the time. Michael Jackson's music basically defined a generation (of course one I wasn't a part of, but still). Everyone has heard "Thriller" at one point or another, but if you haven't listened to any other MJ, you should defintely make it a priority. "Bad" is probably my favorite Michael Jackson album (and music video), but honestly they're all really good, especially his earlier music.

The last artist I wanted to share is one that many people haven't heard. I discovered Ben Howard through spotify and I was really surprised how much I enjoyed his music. I don't usually listen to singer-songwriter music, but Ben Howard's album "Every Kingdom" is perfect for summer nights, fall days, hanging out, frolicking through fields, or just thinking. There's just something so uplifting and calming about his sound, so give Ben Howard a listen.

My other inspiration for posting about music today was that I just got an 8tracks and even though I'm still trying to figure it out, it seems pretty cool. "This" has an 8tracks and it's linked on the home page and she has great taste in music so head over and check that out. Also, if you don't like buying all your music and you're not fond of downloading it off a website or anything like that, I use spotify all the time and you can listen to all the artists I talked about above on Spotify. Feel free to comment or email me your thoughts on any of these artists and also let me know when or if you ever want me to do another post like this! Thanks for reading! -that