Your *current* top 5 bands/artists

[RoeDent]

Recenty, I've stopped and had a think about the bands I'm currently enjoying, and I feel it's finally time to update my favourites list. DT and Steven Wilson are still up there on my all-time list, but I don't listen to them anywhere near as often as I used to.

I would put my current top 5 as:

1. Rikard Sjöblom's Gungfly
2. Southern Empire
3. Kyros
4. The Flower Kings
5. Haken

At the moment, I'd say #2 and 3 are interchangeable. I put Southern Empire at 2 because they created my favourite album of all time in Civilisation, but I've been listening to a lot of Kyros lately with Celexa Dreams being released.

[Evermind]

Good thread! In no particular order:

1. Pain of Salvation - with the release of Panther I began to relisten to their previous material and man, they've released amazing stuff
2. Haken - love them, probably by favourite band for the past five years
3. Beyond the Bridge - no releases for 8 years but I still spin their only album frequently, it's that good
4. Riverside / Lunatic Soul - grouping these two because pretty much anything Mariusz is involved in is gold
5. Leprous - Pitfalls was awesome and I listen to them a lot

Honorable mentions are Soen, Insomnium, Arch/Matheos and Wilderun.

[Elite]

Not in order:

Ulver
Leprous
Radiohead
John Coltrane
Pain of Salvation

[MirrorMask]

Yeah, good idea, because tastes shift in time and of course discovering new band or artists give you new current priorities. For example I'll always say, no matter the circumstances, that Iron Maiden is my favorite band, but when I discovered Savatage they were all I was listening and definitively in that moment I was way more interested in hearing Savatage than Iron Maiden.

So, with this premise in mind, I'd say...

1) Bruce Springsteen. Hands down, the discovery of my summer and my top priority right now when it comes to his vast catalogue. Why it took me so long to pay attention to him?
2) Dropkick Murphys. Another band whose full catalogue I discovered thanks to working from home (and therefore having each day 8 hours to listen to music) and that I listen basically weekly, save just the first 2-3 albums.
3) Nightwish. This placement is basically carried almost alone by their latest album, I'm listening the living shit out of it since its April release and I still haven't got tired of it yet.
4) Blood Ceremony. Not such a recent discovery, but their captivating mix of doom, occult rock and flutes will come sooo handy now that we're going into darker and colder days.
5) Ensiferum. Once again a single album, the latest one (Thalassic) sparkled back my interest in this folk metal band from Finland and it's another daily listen for me.

So basically some artists "win" just on the heels of their latest album, but definitively my most favorite artists right now are the ones I placed at the top, Bruce Springsteen and Dropkick Murphys. Iron Maiden is still my favorite band though, an honorary title they will never lose 

[Evermind]

I forgot about Nightwish, they would also go into honorable mentions I guess. I should check out Thalassic too.

[Lonk]

I guess the top 5 artists/ band for me would be(not in order):

DT
Coheed and Cambria
Mastodon
Plini
Gojira

Honorable mention: Buckethead, this dude never disappoints even after 300+ albums.

[Max Kuehnau]

That's a hard question, but anyway (in no particular order mind you)

Mangini era DT
Sade
Frank Zappa
Steve Vai
Toto

(honourable mention: Genesis)

all six of these artists are among my alltime favourites as well

[Zantera]

My top5 would probably be:

Oceansize
Cardiacs
Phish
Swans
Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Not necessarily in order (the top3 is fairly close) but overall I'm pretty confident with these as my top5. If we expand into top10 it would get harder for me.

[PixelDream]

1. Deftones
2. Pain of Salvation
3. Radiohead
4. Gojira
5. Opeth

That's my current faves. 1 and 2 are my current faves because they both released great albums, and I've been relistening a lot of their stuff as a consequence.

Normally Steven Wilson would be number 1, but because of his recent singles my enthousiasm has declined considerably.

Edit: Of course I'll need to add my all time list:

1. Porcupine Tree / Steven Wilson
2. Dream Theater
3. Opeth
4. Metallica
5. Symphony X

[Revenge319]

1. Dream Theater
2. Haken
3. Between the Buried and Me
4. Porcupine Tree
5. Transatlantic

[HOF]

Currently listening to the most and all time favorites are petty different lists for me. I’d say my all time Top 5 are:

1. Marillion
2. Genesis
3. Rush
4. Big Big Train
5. The Blue Nile

But I’d say that list is pretty definite still, and I go through phases where I’ll get lost in each’s catalogs for a week or so still. Spock’s Beard, Kip Winger, Peter Gabriel, Talk Talk, Journey, and a few others would be in consideration for that 5th spot maybe.

Most listened to in the last few years?

I went through a huge classic prog phase after I got into BBT. So Camel, King Crimson, and Steve Hackett have been three huge artists for me in the last 3+ years. Yes to a lesser extent, and Premiata Forneria Marconi was another one that grabbed me for a while. Moon Safari was a major revelation in the prog department, and I’ve also dug into The Flower Kong’s a lot in the last few years. But more recently I’ve been big into stuff that’s not quite prog but more chamber/baroque pop/power pop/Indie prog. Sweet Billy Pilgrim, The Clientele, and a band called The Pearlfishers have been big.

[romdrums]

I’ve been on a big Simon Phillips kick lately, so I’ve been listening to a lot of Toto, Protocol, the Hiromi Trio Project, and the new Derek Sherinian solo album.  Outside of that, I’ve been listening to a lot of IQ, and 65daysofstatic.

[The Letter M]

Just based on recently listening habits, and in no particular order:
Big Big Train
The Tangent
Pattern-Seeking Animals
Flying Colors
Ayreon

Of course, these are all groups that have had releases in 2020, so I've been spinning them a lot more in recent weeks/months because of that, but they've all shot up in my personal rankings, though at this point, they're all definitely in my Top 20 Of All Time, with PSA having shot way up because I've been really digging their first two albums lately.

Several years ago, I'm sure I still would have put Rush and Dream Theater in my top five (and they're in my All Time Top 10 for sure) but I haven't really listened to them much in recent years. Spock's Beard and The Flower Kings would also have been in that list, along with Transatlantic, but I've not listening to much TFK this year, though I did just spin through the whole SB studio discography while commuting in my car over the last month or so. They'd be my recent Number 6.

I'm sure I will come back to this thread in a month or so and The Flower Kings will be in rotation for me again given that Islands is coming out near the end of October, so I'll probably start putting them into my listening cycle again.

-Marc.

[jammindude]

In terms of current listening habits, I would say

Haken
IQ
Odd Logic
Tom Waits
Very early and old Sub-Pop era Seattle grunge. (Green River, Mudhoney, pre-major label Soundgarden...etc)

[twosuitsluke]

Well my top 5 from my Last.fm account (since Nov '16) are:

1. Coheed and Cambria
2. The Dear Hunter
3. Devin Townsend
4. NOFX
5. Nobuo Uematsu

My current top 5 (as in the last year) is a bit more difficult, probably something like:

1. Opeth
2. Ghost
3. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
4. Bad Religion
5. Leftover Crack

[Elite]

Cardiacs

If I had thought a bit longer instead of mindlessly typing the first few that came to mind, Cardiacs would be on it for sure. I was thinking what artists I have listened to much lately and then went from there, since I though that was the goal of the thread. Cardiacs

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

I'd say currently (as in the last few months), my top 5 would look like this:

1. Deftones
2. Type O Negative
3. Judas Priest
4. Marillion
5. Enslaved

I'll revisit this thread in a few months and see how my top 5 has (or hasn't) changed. It most likely will.

Just for a sanity check my all time top 5 would be:

1. Rush
2. Marillion
3. Porcupine Tree
4. Tool
5. Between the Buried and Me

[Anguyen92]

Geez.  Current top 5....  It's harder for me to make that list now than 5 years ago, since the bands I liked then have fallen off some in terms of enjoyment and that I've been dabbling a lot more into listening to JPop/JRock.

1. Alter Bridge
2. Breaking Benjamin
3. Poets of the Fall
4. Sevendust
5. Aimer (Japanese vocalist)

All time....

1. Alter Bridge
2. Rush
3. Sixx:A.M.
4. Foo Fighters
5. Breaking Benjamin

[TheCountOfNYC]

1: Dream Theater
2: Haken
3: Metallica
4: Avenged Sevenfold
5: Billie Eilish

[HOF]

Cardiacs

If I had thought a bit longer instead of mindlessly typing the first few that came to mind, Cardiacs would be on it for sure. I was thinking what artists I have listened to much lately and then went from there, since I though that was the goal of the thread. Cardiacs

I should check them out. Haven’t ever heard them but seems like a lot of people were sad by the singer’s (I think?) passing. How would you describe them?

[DTA]

The current list:

1. Alice Cooper (the discography is so diverse, expansive, and interesting)

2. Motorhead (I like the raw simplicity and there's lots and lots of albums to discover even though there's not much diversity)

3. Genesis (listening to a ton of their catalog lately and some albums I initially disliked are revealing themselves to be much better than I originally thought)

4. Megadeth (I've been revisiting their entire catalog and finding a lot of great stuff on their albums from Risk-onwards that I ignored before)

5. Iron Maiden (the song-ranking thread has me going back to a lot of tracks throughout their entire run, plus I'm teaching myself bass and Steve Harris is an excellent guy to play along with)

[Kram]

Current -

Pain of Salvation
Haken
Opeth
Flying Colors
Dream Theater


All time -

Rush
Dream Theater
Neal Morse/Spocks Beard
SW/Porcupine Tree
Opeth

[ProfessorPeart]

I am coming at this from the perspective of current bands/artists that I listen to a lot and auto-buy. Obviously, not an all-time list as Rush would be on that but they are not active, obviously.

In no particular order:

Katatonia
The Dead Deads
Rikard Sjöblom (Beardfish and Gungfly)
Biffy Clyro
Soen

These are off the top of my head with very little thought. Just gut reactions.

[HOF]

One band I forgot to mention that I’ve listened to a ton over the last couple years is Enchant. Not sure where they rank for me, but they would probably be in consideration the top 10-15 favorite artists.

[emtee]

Last couple years:

IQ
Tesseract
Katatonia
Soen
Genesis
Haken

Previous Ten Years:

DT
Porcupine Tree
Opeth

Hair Metal Era:

Dio
Dokken
QR
Priest
Maiden
Triumph

Lifetime:

Genesis
Yes
Zeppelin
DT
Pink Floyd  (All time favorite)
Rush

[NoseofNicko]

John Coltrane

Just bought Giant Steps on CD. It’s great. I’ve explored most music genres but never really explored jazz, time to start.

[IDontNotDoThings]

Current (alphabetical):
Emerson Lake & Palmer
Luis Alberto Spinetta (all associated projects, but mostly Invisible)
Sigur Rós
Steven Wilson
The Dear Hunter

All-time:
1. Dream Theater
2. Yes
3. Iron Maiden
4. Steven Wilson/Porcupine Tree
5. Godspeed You! Black Emperor

[Fritzinger]

John Coltrane

Just bought Giant Steps on CD. It’s great. I’ve explored most music genres but never really explored jazz, time to start.

Not the easiest artist to start exploring jazz  I studied jazz guitar for years and I never quite got into Coltrane, except for very few albums. If I may give you an advise, I'd start with classics Kind Of Blue (Miles Davis) and Time Out (Dave Brubeck Quartett). They're not that "busy", easier to listen to (in my opinion), more melodic.
Specifically for prog fans, I'd add The Way Up by the Pat Metheny Group. I think this gigantic album should be more known and appreciated among fans of progressive rock. Sorry for the off topic 

[krands85]

Geez.  Current top 5....  It's harder for me to make that list now than 5 years ago, since the bands I liked then have fallen off some in terms of enjoyment

Pretty similar for me - I've had a period where a lot of the bands I'd really been in to in the previous few years have put out some disappointing albums. Anathema, Tesseract, Deftones, Leprous, Opeth and Symphony X would all fall in to that category. There are a few bands I'm enjoying that I've discovered more recently - eg. Soen, Teramaze and Riverside, but I've not really been listening to them enough to count them among my favourite bands.

I don't listen to anywhere near as much music now as I used to in general either, to be honest. What I have been listening to a fair bit is classical music, which I'm really enjoying, so I'm going to put some classical composers on my list.

1. Dream Theater
2. Haken
3. Dmitri Shostakovich
4. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
5. Dmitry Kabalevsky

[EPICVIEW]

Seether
Thin Lizzy
The Beatles
Linkin Park
Papa Roach

[NoseofNicko]

John Coltrane

Just bought Giant Steps on CD. It’s great. I’ve explored most music genres but never really explored jazz, time to start.

Not the easiest artist to start exploring jazz  I studied jazz guitar for years and I never quite got into Coltrane, except for very few albums. If I may give you an advise, I'd start with classics Kind Of Blue (Miles Davis) and Time Out (Dave Brubeck Quartett). They're not that "busy", easier to listen to (in my opinion), more melodic.
Specifically for prog fans, I'd add The Way Up by the Pat Metheny Group. I think this gigantic album should be more known and appreciated among fans of progressive rock. Sorry for the off topic 

Well I really like Giant Steps. Thanks for the recs, will check them out for sure.

[MirrorMask]

The current list:

1. Alice Cooper (the discography is so diverse, expansive, and interesting)

That was me when I started to listen to him. Capitalized my interest for basically at least a year!

[Stadler]

I don't know how I could answer this.   

Overall, maybe:
1. Genesis
2. Kiss
3. Dream Theater
4. Marillion
5. Iron Maiden

But then there's Deep Purple!  And Rainbow!   And Ozzy, and Zeppelin, and Floyd, and Sabbath, and Yes... how could I forget Yes, they have my favorite album of ALL TIME...

Yeah, no.   

[Nachtmerrie]

Based on their most recent albums (roughly the last 10 years)

Haken
Plini
The Ocean Collective
Cult of Luna
Leprous

Honorable Mentions: Swallow the Sun, Ne Obliviscaris, Soen, TesseracT, Evergrey

[Max Kuehnau]

I don't know how I could answer this.   

Overall, maybe:
1. Genesis
2. Kiss
3. Dream Theater
4. Marillion
5. Iron Maiden

But then there's Deep Purple!  And Rainbow!   And Ozzy, and Zeppelin, and Floyd, and Sabbath, and Yes... how could I forget Yes, they have my favorite album of ALL TIME...

Yeah, no.   

it was similarly difficult for me too, trust me