Sigur Ros Kveikur

If anyone doesn't know/too lazy to google they played Rains of Castamere + had cameo at Joffrey's wedding/the end credits

I understand what you're saying, I was just questioning the validity of your unfair comparison between your favorite artists and what was played on the radio. It's a bit like saying gaming died with CoD, or better yet, with Moorhuhn. ;)

Bought:

Supertramp: Brother Where You Bound. I think I bought that in 1998 or so when visiting Lyon or Grenoble (don't remember which). The CD jewel case was broken to little pieces by the mishandling of luggage by the airport personnel when I flew back here, but surprisingly the CD itself was still fine inside the fully broken jewel case.

Got as a present:

Some kind of The Best of The Who collection, and the soundtrack CD for the movie Team America: World Police. That was probably around 2005 or so, got them from my ex-girlfriend.

Underrated band, I bought that album from the band themselves.

I just found a nice pile of records in a charity shop.

The doors - debut + LA Woman

Black Sabbath debut

Ten Years After Live

Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

Bad Company

I honestly think, that you should widen your musical horizon, there are tons of great musicians out there and although many of my favourite cds are not available at amazon, even there is much gold to be found.

Oh, I don't disagree. The problem seems to be that the kind of music that I'm looking for simply isn't being created, or at least it's too hard to find for someone with my very limited knowledge. I think I've looked around for about 15 years and eventually gave up, because none of the "new" music I was discovering touched me in the way my "old" music does.

Do you have any recommendations? What I'm looking for is energetic hard rock with powerful/passionate vocals, lots of instruments (e-guitars are a favorite, also piano), and long tracks (at least 20 minutes, 90 minutes would be perfectly fine) with a lot of variation. My experience tells me that I don't like most of pop (too shallow), dance (too repetitive), hip hop/rap (too violent, wrong type of passion), progressive/alternative rock (not enough energy), modern metal (too amelodic and violent), and classical music (too slow, I do have a weak spot for Beethoven though). Any suggestions? :)

There is some really energetic prog metal type stuff out there, like Ayreon. The most recent Ayreon album, The Theory of Everything goes through a fair number of different moods but it can get pretty excited at times. It's also four 20-minute long songs. There's also a lot of instruments and tons of variation.

Amplifier's The Octopus also might be worth checking out. I just recently found out about it and it's really nice, though the songs cap out around 10 minutes (all but the intro track are at least 5 minutes though).

Have you heard Green Carnation's Light of Day, Day of Darkness? It clock in at 60:06 and is heavy with metal type of sounds without too much of the amelodic or violent qualities that genres like Thrash often have. Not as much variation here, but a good sound through the whole album/song.

Hopefully one or two of those may be of interest to you.

Wow, thanks for the recommendations. :)

I've just listened to the entire album on youtube, and it's very very close to what I was looking for. It's indeed very varied, and as a bonus it also tells an interesting, engaging story that sent shivers down my back in some moments. I like that he uses almost a dozen voices.

I did listen to some progressive rock before (Yes for example), but it often seemed to favor high-pitched, whining voices that don't give me much. Ayreon's use of so many different voices removes that "flaw". Also, I always had the feeling that the more "progressive", or perhaps the more "avantgardist" rock became, the more it loses its connections to the wild, raw power that can be felt in (for example) Ritchie Blackmore's solos on "Made in Japan". And I want that power. "The theory of Everything" could be a bit wilder for my taste, but it also definitely exceeds other examples of prog rock that I heard, which were a bit too soft for me.

In any case, Ayreon is definitely a project I need to know more about. I'm currently watching a 150 minute "making of" about "The theory of Everything", and I think I'm positively smitten. ;) Statements like "I don't really like choruses so much, repeating things over and over", or "I think there are still people who like to just put their headphones on and be taken on a journey", exemplify an approach to music that I deemed lost (it's definitely lost in "popular" music, I think). The only thing that was weird was when he said "I wouldn't recommend to listen to all four epics in one go, because, you know, it might be too much, you might die or something" - when in fact my reaction to the music was "This was pretty good, but it could have used a bit more power, speed, and intensity at times". ;)

I listened in a bit, but it seemed to have long passages with this gloomy, emotionless kind of singing that's typical for some kinds of metal, and that kind of drowns out the passion imho. But I never listened to the entire piece.

Will do. :)

You bet! :)

It seems, btw, that I have to retract my statement about music having died in the 80s. But I _love_ how, on this forum, an off-handed remark like this triggers an elaborate recommendation of very specific works a mere 30 minutes after I listed an avalanche of criteria. Thanks! :)

Seems like you are searching for the logical successors of your favourite music back then and you should take a look at progressive metal (right up my alley).

Pain of Salvation (every album is different but great in its own way!)
the last few albums from Ayreon
Symphony X
Indukti
etc...

If it can be a bit harder and instrumental I also recommend Blotted Science.

Arjen Lucassen's other stuff, including his other Ayreon albums, may also be of interest to you. Might I recommend The Human Equation as the next album you listen to? It is commonly considered Ayreon's best and has a really good story and even more varied musical styles than The Theory of Everything does. If you want more power, speed, and intensity, the album 01011001 is probably even more up your alley, and it has a great story, but the story actually is the culmination of the plot which started in earlier Ayreon albums, meaning that it will make sense if you've heard the others first. It also has 18 singers compared to Theory's 9(?).

The Theory of Everything has, in my opinion, the weakest story of the Ayreon albums. That's saying something! :) All the other Ayreon albums (except Actual Fantasy) tie together into one overarching storyline which culminates in the album 01011001 (18 singers!). 01011001 is also probably the "heaviest" Ayreon album in terms of power, speed, and intensity. Arjen's "Star One" project may also get that; although it's not one album-long story, each song on the Star One albums is based on a sci-fi movie. It's got four singers.

As for power, speed, and intensity, you'll find a lot of that on 01011001.

Welcome to the Ayreonauts. :)

The last physical album I bought was Man Man's On Oni Pond. The last digital one was Guacamelee! OST.

The last album I bought/ordered is a digital one: The Quantum Enigma by Epica

Last album I bought was a CD of the album Turisas2013, by Turisas. Still in the mail though.

Last album I bought was Delain, The Human Contradiction special edition. So far I feel it's not as good as previous ones, but I'll listen some more and hopefully it will grow on me.

That's the only album which made me buy a Groupees gaming bundle I didn't otherwise want. The only other album I enjoyed on a Groupees bundle was Rival Tides.

My last album purchase was Defrage - Jackal. Estonian metal and rock, bought off a guy in the railway station in Bern, Switzerland. Interesting music!