6. 'F A ' by Godspeed You! Black Emperor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV5BwIXpAlk Alright, so far we've been covering some fairly standard stuff. Progressive rock, punk, folk on a harp, pre-grunge, psychedelic organ solos... you know, the basics. But now we're going to move on to some awesomely unconventional music. Specifically, the stylings of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. While their title makes them sound quite a bit like a mid-90's rap group, they have an oddball sound - kind of like orchestral rock, the sort you'd hear during a dramatic scene in a zombie movie (in fact, Danny Boyle stated he listened to Godspeed extensively while filming 28 Days Later to get the right mood, and one of their songs are used in the film itself). The instrumentation is among the most unusual you'll ever see. It features all the standard rock instruments, along with banjo, french horn, cello, and a whole host of others (the liner notes don't even bother listing all the instruments played, it just names the performers). All told, twenty different people performed on the album. The structure of the album is unconventional as well. There are two different ways to look at it. The first way is as a fairly standard ordering of ten different songs. The other way to view it is as two themes: the first half of the album is an epic named "Nervous, Sad, Poor" while the second half is "Bleak, Uncertain, Beautiful". Which is actually a pretty good description of the album as a whole.
Album Cover: