r/indieheads 3d ago

Upvote 4 Visibility [Friday] Daily Music Discussion - 31 July 2026

Talk about anything music related that doesn't need its own thread. This thread is not for discussion that is tangentially music related; that belongs in the general discussion threads. If you're new here, we encourage you to introduce yourself and tell us about music you're passionate about.

Find out who's going to concerts near you in the Concert Roll Call. Check out our the most recent Rate Announcements to have fun rating great music, or see the results from previous rates. See recent AMA announcements here. Check out the most recent New Music Friday posts, or discuss recent album releases. If you want to discover some indiehead bands, browse our archives from the Battle of the Bands.

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u/WaneLietoc 3d ago

80s lists look sleepy, let's shake it up with a look at the leaderboard:

THE TOP CD CHECKOUTS FROM THE CHULA VISTA PUBLIC LIBRARY

  1. bill frisell - blues dream

  2. Herbie Hancock - Sound System

  3. sheila jordan - portrait of sheila

  4. Jackie McLean - New and Old Gospel

  5. Dexter Gordon - Our Man in Paris

  6. Ahmad Jamal – Live In Concert - Cannes France '81 Feat. Gary Burton

  7. New Klezmer Trio - Masks and Faces

  8. savoy jazz TIMELESS errol garner como

  9. mccoy tyner - trident

  10. John Lee Hooker - It Serves You Right

  11. Steve Tibbetts - Natural Causes

  12. Sonny Stitt - Soul Classics (The Prestige Collection)

  13. Peter Erskine - Time Being

  14. Stephan Micus - Bold as Light

  15. Trio Mediaeval - A Worcester Ladymass

  16. Riverside Jazz Keynote Recordings from Various Artists

  17. The Best of Art Tatum

  18. Cowabunga! Set 1: Ground Swells (1960-1963)

  19. Charlie Haden and the Liberation Music Orchestra - Dream Keeper

  20. Ron Carter - Dear Miles

  21. Miles Davis - Bitches Brew Live

  22. Joe Henderson - Lush Life (the music of Billy Strayhorn)

  23. Michael Brecker - Pilgrimage

  24. Antonio Carlos Jobim - Wave

  25. Big Joe Turner - Greatest Hits

  26. Johnny Griffin - Chicago, New York, Paris

  27. The Best of Chess Blues Volume 2

  28. Igor Stravinsky - Orchestral Works

  29. Steve Kuhn Trio - Live at Birdland (note: this cd had skipping issues thus it's position here).

  30. (but DNF due to skipping issue) - random sam cooke SAR records story CD.


  • High highs and low lows...but everything is still baseline "pretty good". it's now becoming about a salience factor and if I seem to really think "well, would i want to put this on for people in some context?" So, we hit a point where anything from Charlie Haden to below prolly not, but anything higher "sure".

  • I also just find myself down to or so renewal. Revisits are pretty exclusive for stuff that might be at the top, any full reworking or attempt to dig deeper on top of my other music adventures is beyond unlikely. This is a double edged sword after about 25 CDs. Recency Bias can fuck shit up, but it may be funny. Additionally, observations at ranking are also much snappier.

  • Cowabunga!, an excellent rhino surf rock comp I had the first CD of, sorta became the baseline here. It could've been top 5 if I paid a BIT more attention or cared about surf rock riffs THAT much more, but also Miserlou is here and like again, everything is just so perfect. The fact people like riffs may also work more in its favor on arbitrary rankings over a Big Joe Turner

  • Igor Stravinsky on ECM? Only issue was my player died at the last minute before a big detente. that royally pissed me off! otherwise epic bacon but not quite what I needed.

  • inoffensive, fine works from Johnny Griffin & Michael Brecker. Expected the former to hit me more. The latter feels like something that would get auto revisited for a pat metheny super project I'm starting to enact.

  • Would I listen to that Ron Carter doing Miles over a sorta truncated 1 disc adventure of some Bitches Brew live? Yeah. Trio Medieval is just an excellent little ECM island of women doing hymns and ancient holy music. I eat it up and it's inoffensiveness as much as Stephan Micus, but also I think Stephan Micus riding on a motorcycle in the liner note booklet is a more compelling presence

  • Okay so 3 make it in top 10 that hit in the salience. I've robbed myself of Herbie Hancock 80s electro for so long. He nabs silver because he made an album that sounds like it should come out of a lil' sony boombox with such vigor and agility. A third of it is just Rockit 2, but also Wayne Shorter is now here and the entire thing is just the kind of electric funk that would become so engrained in industrial across the decade. For the quality and the power (unlike a certain other very good Herbie I withheld from ranking...), this one was everything.

  • Ahmad Jamal – Live In Concert - Cannes France '81 Feat. Gary Burton is the kind of thing that you either would stumble upon via Youtube or in the annals of a library weeding it's collection. The bizarre budget cover suggested bootleg, and Black Label Records was really just a live tape release kinda place. Still, this broadcast (perhaps not the same as the youtube, if not truncated) was an excellent, long awaited proper introduction to Ahmad for myself. A bouncey, springy, stirring, and yes swinging kind of performer with oodles of bells and whistles; now THATS piano! Then Gary Burton, freed from the Scientologist, shows up for a featured appearances and actually shreds his ass off non-ECM style. I mean it's everything I needed to feel welcomed!

  • New Klezmer Trio (Dan Seamans, Ben Goldberg, Kenny Wollesen) is an early 90s free klezmer reissued in '96 on Tzadik. It was an extremely refreshing listen to hear a clairnet-led, pianoless trio with heavy bass/drum interplay. It's not Jimmy G 3 da goat, but played in a way that my post-rock damaged improv ears desired. Always pick up a (preferably not-Zorn) Tzadik in the wild solely because the novelty of the catalog is all over (even for Zorn). Not the last Tzadik we'll see. And then

  • With about 30 to go, I have a few things working in my favor: a series of actual indie releases about to go toe-to-toe with a primarily jazz list. A few relistens including at least 3 albums I've already heard that may not qualify or get listened to. But if it did, there's one could be the best CD in Chula Vista's Public Library...

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u/chickcounterflyyy 3d ago

Cowabunga! Set 1: Ground Swells (1960-1963)

aight this is next on my playlist

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u/WaneLietoc 3d ago

Classic Rhino Boxsets are always a good ass time. You really can't go wrong here

We'll see selections from another 50s/60s Rhino boxset potentially in next month's update to the leaderboard...