Artist of the Decade - Minus the Bear

For those of you who know me me, this probably isn't that much of a surprise. Well, actually, it probably is somewhat of a surprise seeing as only a year or two ago I would have given this title to none other than Slipknot. In light of this, I think it needs to be said that my taste in music has made a pretty large shift in the last couple of years. Prior, my library consisted of mostly mainstream artists, the sort that you'd here on the radio on a regular basis. Then came my introduction to iTunes and suggestions based upon what albums I was looking at and buying. That really began to open things up for me, introducing me to genres the likes of metalcore and melodic death metal. Then I joined Last.fm and that encouraged even further expansion of my tastes, introducing me the some incredibly amazing indie and experimental artists. And Last.fm is where I first ran into Minus the Bear. I was looking at the Similar Artists page for some other indie/experimental artist (I believe it may have been Circa Survive) and I saw them. Interested, I looked them up on Myspace and sampled a few of their tracks. I instantly fell in love with their music. If I can recall correctly, the song that really made an impression on me was the incredibly amazing Ice Monster from the incredibly fantastic album Planet of Ice. I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think I've ever fallen in love with a band so quickly (in fact, a good number of my favorites I initially disliked).

From my initial encounter, I decided to look them up at the library and order whatever albums (if any) were available. Thankfully, Planet of Ice was. Then soon after I got a hold of an iTunes gift card and on a whim decided to invest in their second album Menos el Oso (To make note, Minus the Bear in spanish). It has got to be some of the best ten dollars that I have ever spent on music, or anything else in fact. A couple weeks later I got another iTunes gift card and downloaded a copy of Highly Refined Pirates. I listened to these three albums endlessly, I simply could not get enough of them. To state it flat out, I racked up about a thousand plays of Minus the Bear in the space of a couple months. And in a couple more months that figure doubled. And now it stands at three thousand plus with anywhere from fifty to sixty plays on each album.

To be continued...