There are a small handful of mainstream established artists there ranging from golden oldies such as The Kinks and Gary Numan to current bands such as The Shins and The Ting Tings.
That all said, I have come to like several of the previously unknown artists and their songs a lot.
My most recent song and artist discovery is a musician from California by way of Oklahoma and Lousiana who goes by the name "AM". From his bio at TheSixtyOne.com, it states:
"Is this the new classic rock? Echo Park indie artist AM brings a heady brew of twinkling Anglified folk-rock-pop to his new album “Future Sons & Daughters” being released on Filter US Recordings (Fontana/ Universal Distribution) exclusively on iTunes on August 11th, 2009. AM does all this with an acute, finessing ear for the ancient art of real, true songcraft. With, arguably, some of the best bridges and choruses in the bizness, drawing from the Beatles and Badfinger or Curtis Mayfield and Jorge Ben, AM demonstrates over and again the simple fact of songwriting life: that imagination and taste is what it's all about. If you watch the tele maybe you've heard AM's tunes on HBO's "Big Love" MTV "The Hills", ABC's "Brothers and Sisters"."
Most notoriously, AM probably prides himself on the fact that his professional name is hard to find on major search engines such as Google and even on TheSixtyOne.com site itself.
That I believe.
AM has dozens of songs posted at TheSixtyOne.com website. He must have been there for quite some time. However in the last 18 months since I been on the service, his name or music has never shown up until last night. I'm probably not listening to the music at the site often enough or whenever I listened to The Rack, his music never came up. Until yesterday when I clicked on the "new music" tab to see just what was recently added.
It was then that I found my first AM track and possibly my favorite song of his so far, "Self Preservation." It is a wonderful pop rock track with good vocals, lyrics and guitar work. It's off AM's new album Future Sons & Daughters which is slated for an August 11 release on iTunes only. If the album is reasonably priced, I'll probably get it. The six tracks I heard from the album are all outstanding.
I hope that the album will also be available on Amazon.com. I'd like to get it on a standard CD if possible. AM's earlier albums are available on Amazon.
AM is the latest SixtyOne.com find that I like and will place into high rotation on my iTunes as soon as I get the music. He joins other artists from TheSixtyOne.com that I think are extremely good and should be getting mainstream exposure and airplay on more venues. Those artists include Meiko, Shannon Hurley, The NuRu and Darrin Kohavi. All have music that I enjoy and tracks that have been previously featured at this blog and on my website.
For all to enjoy now, here are some of my favorite tracks from AM:
