Top 15 Rock Albums to Bring in the New Year + 5 others for the After Party and Hangover

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Here is a terrific collection of rock music for you to use or add to your music playlist for your New Year's Eve party. While I know not everyone or every group of people will like every single selection there should be something here for everyone. The intention behind this list is to keep your party's vibe strong and your guests engaged in staying at the venue. The beauty of this playlist is that it covers such a wide range of rock classifications such as psychedelic rock, metal, classic rock, alternative rock, and industrial with many of the artists borrowing elements from other music genres. Even the after party and hangover playlist are all-encompassing enough to remain interesting and fresh as the night starts to wind down.

One of the benefits of living in such a tech oriented culture today is that much of this music can be accessed for FREE through YouTube and Amazon Prime. This is significant because if your computer sound system is set up to deliver better-than-average sound quality, then you might be able to design and automate a playlist right on your computer. Pandora, Spotify, and other music streaming services are also great resources to access some of the music on this playlist. Some albums listed here can also be heard in their entirety on YouTube, so you don't even have to think about downloading the album or buying the CD. While having a DJ at your party can be a wonderful way to get your friends and neighbors to commit to coming to your party, there's nothing better than selecting your own music for the particular artistic taste of your crowd.

So the first thing I'd like to do is provide you with the list and then afterward lay it out for you plotted against time, so you can see how this playlist works. basically, there's 3 stages to the New Year's eve party: a) before midnight, b) just after midnight, and c) after party. If we add the hangover or morning after then there would be 4 stages.

Since we've got a lot of music to cover, let's get started..

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1. Rush

This is Rush's 30th anniversary live performance 2-CD and DVD collection. I highly recommend this not only for the music, but also as a visual accompaniment for the party environment. Live concert DVD's are a great way to energize a crowd whether or not you actually listen to the performance. Just watching musicians in action transfers their emotion and joy of creating to everyone in a crowd.

Sample video:


To buy this 2-CD and DVD pack, click on...R30

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2. King Crimson

This is one of King Crimson's most ambitious albums blending elements of electronica, ambient, hard rock, minimalism, psychadelia, and jazz. An album like this could only be composed by master musicians.

To listen to samples, click on...Construcktion of Light

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3. The Flaming Lips

This is a very interesting soundtrack. I haven't seen the movie, but the music itself is noteworthy. Almost every piece of this album is a vocally driven song except 2 tracks which are instrumentals.

To listen to samples, click on...The Soft Bulletin

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4. Blonde Redhead

This was the first album I heard from this power trio and from the very first few bars, I was sold. Bringing together elements of punk, experimental rock, electronica, and grunge, this band has always had a very mature sound that is unique to them alone. While you may recognize strong influences from bands like Sonic Youth and King Crimson, they translate these influences and interpret them into totally new directions.

Sample video:



To listen to more samples, click on...La Mia Vita Violenta

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5. The Smashing Pumpkins

This is The Smashing Pumpkins first 2-CD album before Oceania. It was probably their most successful album besides Siamese Dream and demonstrates Billy Corgan's prolific songwriting talent. Several hit songs came off this album and were very popular for quite a while, but almost every track on both CD's are solid compositions and would make perfect party music.

To listen to samples, click on...Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

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6. Led Zepplin

While all of Zepplin's album's are good, Presence is absolutely the best Zepplin album I think. This is the album that for me sets them apart from many of the other bands that were around at the time. Here you find many groundbreaking ideas that would point rock music into the direction of the heavy metal, alternative rock, grunge, and indie rock of the 80's, 90's and beyond.

Like I mentioned earlier, because we live in a tech world many of the music suggestions I'm giving you here are available in so many more formats now that you can access them from many sources. Here's one example of the entire Presence album available on YouTube for FREE!!! If your computer speakers give good sound quality and your Internet connection is stable, you can play this album from your computer and other music from this playlist from your stereo system or DVD player.

Cue times are also available for your convenience.

To listen to more samples or purchase this album, click on...Presence

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7. Mastodon

Mastodon is one of the more ambitious bands coming up in the heavy metal scene. They tour extensively, write prolifically, and project a memorable and easily recognizable artistic image that it's a wonder that they aren't even more popular. The release of Crack the Skye was met with mixed reviews, but I found it to be a very unique album incorporating more elements that Mastodon's usual heavy metal sound. True fans probably expected more of the same, while the artists wanted to explore new musical directions as a way of avoiding getting pigeonholed into just one band sound.

Usually I advise artists to start new band projects instead of trying to transform an existing project into some new sound, image, or idea. Fans usually react negatively to this form of change, so it's typically best to start fresh under a new banner (or brand) in order to test new musical directions.

To listen to sample, click on...Crack the Skye

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8. Nitzer Ebb

This is a really cool German industrial band produced by Flood. Flood is the same producer whose worked with some of the biggest bands in the world with the likes of Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, U2, The Smashing Pumpkins, Erasure, and many more. This album is definitely in the industrial genre, but it sounds like more a blend between electronica and rock.

To listen to samples, click on...Big Hit

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9. Sieges Even

I found this band and album from an automatic Amazon recommendation based on one of my previous purchases. I was so glad to find them and not another album from a band or artist I'm already familiar with, since I'm always looking for breakthrough albums and undervalued or unknown artists with fantastic compositions. In the case of Sieges Even, I haven't been able to find any decent samples of live performances by them on YouTube, so they might be more of a studio rock band, which is how they get their amazing sound.

Sample video:



To listen to more samples, click on...The Art of Navigating By the Stars

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10. Porcupine Tree

I can't believe I had never heard of these guys before a few years ago and yet they've been around for over 20 years. WTF! What's up with American radio stations and the executives that make the decision to play or not play particular bands or artists on the air. Porcupine Tree is a band on the same order as a King Crimson or Rush with music of a similar quality. While it primarily in the rock genre there are definitely elements of electronica, ambient, heavy metal, and jazz.

To listen to sample, click on...Deadwing

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11. Pink Floyd

This is one of my favorite albums by Pink Floyd. I really like how they distilled many of their themes from previous albums and focused that same energy into very strong pieces of music. What's really cool here is how the songs build very slowly and develop into overwhelming sonic environments with extremely potent emotional content embedded within each note and lyric.

To listen to samples, click on...The Division Bell

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12. The Police

I returned to the music of The Police after discovering some of the solo albums by Andy Summers, a wonderful and creative guitarist (and photographer). Working backward from Andy's material and re-entering the work he did in The Police you really hear what he added to the sound of The Police. His own work ranges from short ambient guitar instrumentals to new age music, and straight up jazz where he works with legendary jazz musicians.

As far as music from The Police I couldn't decide between these two albums or confidently recommend their Greatest Hits only because there's always so much good material that inevitably gets left out of the "greatest hits" albums that you never really get to see the genius of an artist if you only listen to their greatest hits. Selections from both of these albums are the solution to the problem I had of deciding between them. make your own choices based on the crowd you expect to attract to your get-together.

To listen to samples, click on...Synchronicity or Zenyatta Mondatta

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13. Neil Young

As we near the end of the list, you'll notice the artists and music I'm starting to recommend is becoming less party-oriented and more environmental (or ambient). In the case of Neil Young, his music can be listened to out loud or down low and either way you get a great listening experience. Once again, I was unable to decide between these two albums because they are both very good, but in different ways.

The difference between them is almost like that of comparing a symphony and a string quartet. In Sleeps with Angels, you'll get songs that are more filled out with complete rock arrangements including flute, grand piano, as well as bass and guitars. And with Le Noise, what you'll find is a single guitar, some electronics, and Neil Young's voice and lyrics. And that's it. In Le Noise, you'll hear Neil as you've always heard him except here you'll get him without all the filler and extras - raw and direct, almost like he's jamming right in the same room with you.

In fact, he will be because here's "Le Noise" the film in full for FREE courtesy of YouTube. Play it at your party with or without sound and see what kind of reaction you get from your guests.




To listen to more samples, click on...Sleeps With Angels or Le Noise

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14. Morphine

This is one of the more undervalued bands there's been in the last 15 years and it's so unfortunate that more material won't be released in the future. Morphine is truly one of the few bands that was able to tap into a really unique sound that was specific to them alone. I love all the variation and influences you hear in each piece on this album everything from female back-up singers, to the oud (a middle-eastern guitar), and saxophones.

To listen to samples, click on...The Night

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15. Sigor Ros

This is the last recommendation I'll make on the rock playlist and then we'll end off with the after party and hangover music, which is a much shorter list. On this album, Sigor Ros ventures into the very origins of human creativity by composing an album based on vocals developed from an invented language. All of the vocals on this album are non-sense or not language based. No doubt, the utterances on the album do communicate emotions, it's just that they are tied to any particular linguistic meaning or system. Rather the meaning is transmitted directly as emotion content and translated by the listener's mind as emotion instead of connotation. In other words, it's pain, suffering, bliss, excitement, or some other emotion which is communicated instead of what we think of these things or what we think the artist meant by the lyrics they wrote.

Known by nothing other than the symbol ( ) this album is truly a rarity in the music world and deserves more attention.

Video sample:



To listen to more samples, click on...( )


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The After Party / Hangover playlist:

I'm not going to comment on these albums at all, but I'll let you explore them if you feel so inclined. On this list you'll simply find a few music samples and the artists and album names. I want to leave you with a suggested playlist before we end off, so that you can begin assembling your music repertoire for your New Years party.  

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1. Andreas Vollenweider



To listen to samples, click on...Book of Roses

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2. Ketil Bjornstad

Video sample:




To listen to more samples, click on...Water Stories or The Sea

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3. Cirque du Soleil



To listen to samples, click on...Nouvelle Experience

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4. Michael Nyman

Here's a long overview of many pieces from this soundtrack cut together as a suite.

To listen to more samples, click on...The Piano

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5. Black Bombay - compilation



To listen to samples, click on...Black Bombay


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Suggested Playlist Order:

From 6pm – 11:45pm – any order

Rush - (preferably Live from DVD)

King Crimson

The Flaming Lips

Blonde Redhead

The Smashing Pumpkins

Led Zepplin

Mastodon

Nitzer Ebb

From 12:30 am – 2am – any order

Sieges Even

Porcupine Tree

Pink Floyd

The Police

From 2am – 4am – this order

Morphine

Neil Young (preferably from YouTube live concert)

Sigor Ros

After Party / Hangover – any order, measure the mood of your group and choose accordingly.

I hope you found this article helpful and will use some of the suggestions I've recommended here to enhance the experience you are able to create for your guests at your New Year's Eve party. And if I don't see you at the party because my invitation got lost, let me say, Happy New Year!

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Related Article:

Hangover Recovery 101: How to Survive the Day After New Year's Eve

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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/




To support Stereo Thesis with a financial donation, click here.

Tom Cruise in Minority Report – Sonic Weapons

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JOIN OUR MAILING LIST and GET “SONIC WEAPONS: The Official Stereo Thesis Music Sampler FOR FREE.” To get your FREE full-length album…click here. 
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This is a wonderful example of a sonic weapon in action. Many of you who may have seen the movie Minority Report may remember one of the fight scenes where Tom Cruise uses a “shotgun-like” sonic impulse weapon that throws back an object hit by its sonic burst. In the movie, the weapon appears to be non-lethal, but provides sufficient protection to shock or ward off an enemy long enough for you to get away from the dangerous area. Now if only they could manufacture these weapons as a handgun and lower their price per unit and get them into Walmart and Costco.

I think they’d be a big seller and I’d certainly buy one.

What do you think?

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Related Article:

The Sonic Weapon of Vladimir Gavreau

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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/

The Sound Artist’s Secret Weapon: The Mystery of Effects…Unveiled

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JOIN OUR MAILING LIST and GET “SONIC WEAPONS: The Official Stereo Thesis Music Sampler FOR FREE.” To get your FREE full-length album…click here. 
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Believe it or not it took me a long time to search for an adequate demonstration of how effects can be used to atmospheric or intensified sonic qualities for the guitar, voice, and other instruments. In this video, the singer, songwriter, and guitarist Ali Handal shows how easy it is to begin with a handful of effects and just by stepping on a single guitar pedal you can dramatically increase the force a guitar can put out emotionally and in terms of texture. As you watch this video pay attention to the way she describes the sound of each effect by itself and when blended with other effects. Watch how she talks about different effect families and which ones she classifies as “dirt,” “swirly,” and “pretty.”

Finally, pay extreme attention to the playful and experimental attitude she expresses as she tries out different combinations of effects just for the sake of finding out what they sound like. This playful or experimental attitude is so important during the invention or compositional phase of songwriting because it keeps us, as artist, open to new sounds and encourages us to learn how to use these sounds for new songs.

In my experience, whenever I come up with a new effect that seems impossible to control, I find that what I’m having a hard time doing is playing something I’ve already recorded or played with some other effect or without an effect, and trying to get the new sound to fit into an old or very different creative context. So what I’ve found is that sometimes when you combine effects and come up with a unique effect with unusual qualities, you have to treat the new sound as if it were an instrument and try to play the sound by letting it re-mold your typical playing style. In other words, you’ll sometimes have to relax and allow the sound to force you to play another way than you’re used to so that you can control the sound and eventually get something out of the effect.

So let’s see how Ali Handal goes about using some of her favorite pedals and develops interesting blends of sonic qualities.

So what did you think? If you got something from the video, leave a comment and share what you learned?

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Related Music:

Ghost Funk

Disco Orchestra

Palace of a Goddess

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Related Articles:

Music and Trance States of Mind

The Essence of Music: Frequency, Timbre, and the Organization of Sound

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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/




To support Stereo Thesis with a financial donation, click here.

Acoustic Levitation: The Amazing Science of Lifting Objects with Sound Vibrations

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JOIN OUR MAILING LIST and GET “SONIC WEAPONS: The Official Stereo Thesis Music Sampler FOR FREE.” To get your FREE full-length album…click here.
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Here’s an amazing video demonstration of how to make small objects float with sonic vibrations. I thought you might find these images very interesting and thought provoking. Some questions which came to my mind while I was watching this video included, “Would it be possible to levitate much larger objects such as a car on the road or a boat in water?” And “how much power would be required for such a feat?” I know hover crafts can go in and out of water and operate on land, but they float by the power of strong fans lifting the vehicle for travel. Levitation is quite another technology.

Sound can be defined as disturbances of particles in the air caused by objects vibrating at specific frequencies. So another question one can ask about the potentials of levitating large objects is: “what frequencies cause levitation with more efficiency.” But perhaps, it’s not really a matter of frequency at all. Maybe it’s more about volume or the focus of sound waves at an object or a combination of these two elements that create the right conditions for levitation.

Sound like all other natural phenomena has a variety of qualities and dynamics which can be harnessed for scientific purposes. Volume is just one of many dynamic qualities sound possesses. Volume in the case of sound means loudness or softness or the greater or lesser degree of output or vibrational magnitude. The dynamics of a greater or lesser degree of vibrational magnitude are easy to understand if you would compare the sensation of someone playing an acoustic guitar in your living room versus the way an electric guitar sounds at a rock concert. That’s a difference in volume; electricity increasing the magnitude of output for a sound source.

In contrast, the focus of sound is a more sophisticated concept concerning how sound is channeled or directed. One way to think about sonic focus is to compare 2 types of microphones. One type of microphone records sound within a very narrow field of focus, whereas another type records sound in a very wide field – sometimes 180 and even 360 degrees – around the microphone. The narrow field microphones can record at greater distances away from the input versus the wide field microphones, which tend to only be able to record sound with high fidelity up close. So if we think of reversing this process, instead of taking in sound for recording purposes, we’re going to imagine sending sounds out to a narrow or wide field of focus.

In life, most of the sounds we hear come from an overlapping of sources without much focus to the listener. What this means is that there is no such thing as a “cone of silence” in which we, and we alone, can hear any particular sound we want. Usually we hear sounds we don’t want to and others hear sounds we make without us wanting them to, thus there is no focus. Even earphones can leak sound when the volume is turned up high. But in the laboratory and with special techniques and tools it’s possible to take a pitch or frequency of sound and focus it like a beam of light into a narrow point, so that it hits an object with enough vibrational force to cause the object to fall over, shatter, heat up, or levitate.

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Related Music:

Skydive

Rockin' Bach

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Related Articles:

The Sonic Weapon of Vladimir Gavreau

Musical Warfare: How to Use Music as a Form of Torture and Assault

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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/

Mission Accomplished: The Stereo Thesis album “Audio Atomique” is Complete

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JOIN OUR MAILING LIST and GET “SONIC WEAPONS: The Official Stereo Thesis Music Sampler FOR FREE.” To get your FREE full-length album…click here. 
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After about 9 months of production, “Audio Atomique” is now complete. This album covers a broad range of musical approaches including drum sequences, guitar compositions, synthesizer pieces, and light sound design. All 42 tracks can be purchased individually or as a whole album, it’s up to you how you want to make “Audio Atomique” a part of your music collection. The basic concept of this collection of pieces was to introduce our current and future fans to an array of exotic effects and sonic delights developed with short compositions. I hope you all enjoy this album as much as we enjoyed making it and will recommend it to your contacts. Thanks for your continued support and will talk to you soon.

To see all 42 tracks, listen to the entire album, or make your purchase, click here. 

Marc

http://stereothesis.com/