The other day ABagOfYoghurt shared a video from The Pogues on one of these threads, and I was absolutely hooked. And I recalled a thought I'd had before with other artists: there are some artists who just have really distinctive sounds not quite like any other artist I know. Like in my mind, they're a whole different genre. Even if they've sometimes inspired a whole new genre, nobody else sounds like them, and I listen to their albums on repeat for long periods of time.
The Pogues (progenitors of folk punk and Celtic punk) therefore join this list. A list which I thought was relatively short until I tried to actually list it. Any rate, "USA" is pretty awesome.
Already on the list were another British band which combined folk music with more modern genres: Steeleye Span (progenitors of electric folk). Here's "Gone to America."
Also on the list is Leonard Cohen, whom I started a thread about. Since my three favorite Cohen songs are already on that thread, here's another one I like: "Democracy (is Coming to the USA)." (I was going to use both my parents' favorite Cohen song "Bird on a Wire," until I realized I had a theme going with my other song picks.)
As is Harry Chapin (whom I already posted about here). In keeping my theme going, here's "What Made America Famous."
Credence Clearwater Revival is unambiguously CCR; I don't know how else you'd describe them. They're also so American through-and-through that I don't need to find a song with an appropriate title to fit with the theme. "Born on the Bayou" vies with "Down on the Corner" and "Looking Out My Backdoor" for my favorite CCR song.
Richard Thompson is arguably just another folk rocker, but to my mind at least he sounds distinct, though I couldn't quite say how. "Yankee Go Home" is actually one of my favorite Thompson songs.
There's plenty of others whom I think might qualify. There's Jethro Tull, but when I realized I had a theme going with the song titles and couldn't find an appropriate one of theirs, I decided not to include them in this post. There's Paul Simon, The Moody Blues, and Neil Diamond, all of whom I listened to a lot in college, but I haven't listened to any of them nearly as much recently. The Grateful Dead also sound really distinctive, but while I often tuned into the Grateful Dead Hour on my radio station back in MA, I have never felt a need to listen to their albums. And of course Bob Dylan is often imitated but never equaled, however the only album of his I really enjoy is Blood on the Tracks, his other albums feel too samey-samey to me.
So yeah, which artists do you listen to whom you think sound distinctive enough to qualify as their own genre?