Your biggest musical discoveries this year?

[Zydar]

I discover new music all the time. Some bands/artists get much attention and play, and some I just dive into and almost get obsessed with for a long period of time.
Now, with "new" I don't mean music from this year, because in my case it's music from the 60s, 70s and 80s that I haven't really paid attention to until now.

The big two for me this year has been Peter Gabriel and Alice Cooper (two years ago it was Rush, last year it was Haken, etc).

What has been your biggest musical discovery this year? Any contemporary bands, or some classic stuff that you haven't really looked into before?

Edit: I'll add Led Zeppelin to this as well.

[Zantera]

Cool idea for a thread! I have quite a few.

The Smashing Pumpkins, Mew, Nine Inch Nails, Amplifier, Faith No More, Dir En Grey, Converge, Brand New, maudlin of the Well, Mr. Bungle, Dog Fashion Disco, Polkadot Cadaver, Kayo Dot, Talk Talk, Deftones, Pink Floyd & Swans.

I would consider those to be the most important. The Smashing Pumpkins is already one of my favorite bands (in my top3 at least), and most of these are in my top50 artists/bands ever. Really awesome year for me.

[Dark Castle]

Grimes, Gorod, Car Bomb, Family, Dir En Grey and Coheed & Cambria

[adace]

I discovered a ton of great bands this year:

Marillion, Spock's Beard, Ihsahn, Dead Can Dance, Loreena McKennitt, Bad Religion, Soen, Stealing Axion, Minus the Bear, The Reign of Kindo, Astra, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Ne Obliviscaris, Volbeat, Adagio, Circus Maximus, Nadja, Rhapsody of Fire, Sabaton, Van Halen, Scorpions, ZZ Top

[wolfking]

Harem Scarem
Blessed By A Broken Heart
Frost
Fifth Angel
Porcupine Tree (I put this here because their music finally opened up to me.)

[philmcson]

Also an awful lot from me:

Accept, Gojira, Disturbed, Rush, Darkane, Porcupine Tree, Periphery (thanks to the DT concert  ), Hangar, Cold Snap, Die apokalyptischen Reiter, Death Angel, Annihilator, Exodus, Arkona,.... 

[me7]

Haken (even though they were around since 2010 I only discovered them in early 2012), Beyond the Bridge, Headspace.

[Elite]

I discovered a lot this year but the biggest were the following:

Spock's Beard
Beardfish
Seventh Wonder (saw them live in 2011, but didn't really check them out until early 2012)
Mr. Bungle (heard them way before, but came to appreciate them finally in 2012)
Secret Chiefs 3

[Scorpion]

Ouch, it's a lot.

Trivium, Haken, Beyond the Bridge, Myrath, Marillion, Devin Townsend,...

Heck, every band that I discovered through this forum. 'Tis a lovely place.

[kirksnosehair]

Biggest one that came immediately to mind is Beyond The Bridge

[Elite]

Yeah, I forgot Beyond the Bridge in mine.

[lonestar]

Beyond the Bridge
Mechanical Poet

[?]

My top 3 discoveries this year:

Porcupine Tree
Tool
Chroma Key

[Adami]

I got my first Porcupine Tree CD, but I already knew who they were.


Beyond that, I don't think I discovered anything.

[Nekov]

Dredg hands down

[kirksnosehair]

Mind Key was a pretty good find too, thanks to my bud, lonestar

[Adami]

Oh nope, I was wrong. I discovered my future wife and her band The Agonist.

[SomeoneLikeHim]

I have discovered LOTS of music this year. Basically the majority of my current library  then again I didn't start "really listening" to music until last year.

Some good ones:
Beyond the Bridge
Haken
Symphony X
The Flower Kings
Porcupine Tree
Circus Maximus
Opeth

[Zook]

Amanda Somerville
Vienna Teng
Nemesea
Mercenary

[Cedar redaC]

Thrice, Iron Maiden, Rush, Circus Maximus, a-Ha, Yes, Marillion, Ayreon, Deep Purple, and pre-A Dramatic Turn of Events Dream Theater.

[The Letter M]

Big Big Train (see my thread here about them)

Even thought it's only been about a month since I discovered them, I've fallen in love with their music and highly anticipate their two releases next year!

Pretty much everything else I bought this year was new material by old bands I already loved. I mean, can I really count Flying Colors since their debut ALSO came out this year? I mean, I knew I would end up loving their music anyway Same goes for Storm Corrosion, but I didn't really connect with that album (so far, maybe soon).

Looking back at my iTunes, I did add Anathema's We're Here Because We're Here on January 5th. I went to the Christiana Mall (in Delaware) and found the special edition of the album (with the 7" vinyl included) and it was something like 50% off (the FYE was having a store-closing sale, so I bought quite a few things), and then that was that. I ended up buying most of their back catalog, and then when pre-orders for Weather Systems went up, I got the super-deluxe package with vinyl and t-shirt, for less than $20 IIRC. It was one of those fluke April Fools Day sales if anyone remembers those!

So, in short - Anathema and Big Big Train

-Marc.

[lonestar]

Mind Key was a pretty good find too, thanks to my bud, lonestar

Yep.

Gotta add Secret Sphere too.

[wasteland]

Great thread! I'll try to come up with a list later tonight!

As for now, the aforementioned BTB and BBT come to mind 

[Jaq]

Headspace, Big Big Train, and The Contortionist leap to mind first. I'll probably remember a few later today and go "oh yeah."

[YtseBitsySpider]

Circus Maximus debut album Nine.

Fantastic disc.
look forward to their second album 12 years from now when they get back from that ski vacation





















(that's right. Immmmmmm BAAAAaaaaaack!)

[Dark Castle]

I forgot to say Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Wish I'd checked these boys sooner, but at least I know of their awesomeness now.

[Heretic]

American Football
Kashiwa Daisuke
Oceansize
Wintersun
The Mayan Factor
The Cinematic Orchestra
Right Away, Great Captain!
Amia Venera Landscape
Yndi Halda
[The] Slowest Runner [in All the World]
Twelve Foot Ninja
Rosetta

[rogerdil]

North Atlantic Oscillation (neo-Floyd), Charming Hostess (hava_nagila-core) and various Brasileiros such as Tuca, Marcos Valle, Eumir Deodato, Arthur Verocai and Banda Black Rio.

[HarlequinForest]

Anathema
Anglagard

[Sketchy]

The Enid
Ozric Tentacles
Ezra Yates

[Rob]

Bob Dylan
The Tallest Man on Earth
Bhi Bhiman
Langhorne Slim
Ray LaMontagne
Pokey LaFarge
Fiona Apple
The Dear Hunter
Echolyn
Phideaux
Big Big Train
Ryan Adams
Fleet Foxes
Mumford and Sons
Damien Jurado
Townes van Zandt
Scott Joplin
X-Panda
Steven Wilson
Flying Colors
Frank Ocean

[jingle.boy]

Big list... most of which will show up on my Top 50 v2 in a month or so.

Axel Rudi Pell
Dream Evil
Eden's Curse
Evergrey
Firewind
House of Lords
Last Tribe
Neal Morse
Nocturnal Rites
Pendragon
Pride of Lions
Silent Force
Sunstorm
Sieges Even
Vanishing Point
Within Temptation
Work of Art

[DebraKadabra]

Opeth

[krands85]

The amount of music I've listened to has gone down quite a lot this year and I've barely listened to anything new at all.

The only one I can think of really is Frost*.

[Mladen]

Porcupine tree (although I started with them late last year)
Steven Wilson
Muse
Coldplay
Mastodon
Opeth
of Montreal (later stuff)

And I'm still getting into dredg, we'll see how it works out...