Personally, my favorite is a toss up between classical and New Age. And I don't mean the weird sounding plucking of violin strings and banging of metal pots and pans.
It's weird. I haven't (so far) seen anyone say a thing about Classical music. C'mon people! Where's your sense of... uh... classicalism?
Which New Age artists are you interested in? My main love is electronic music, which had been filed under the New Age moniker for a long time. My favorite electronic artists are Klaus Schulze, Steve Roach, Tangerine Dream, Robert Scott Thompson, and many others. I used to be very active in the old rec.music.newage newsgroup, and even submitted reviews for the short-lived
Wind and Wire magazine.
I also like some techno, though I've had a hit-and-miss affair with it. Some albums I enjoy and others I don't care for.
I have a
really weird relationship with classical. I fell in love with it first through John Williams' score to
Star Wars, then bought a 10 LP (giving away my age here... before CDs) collection of Beethoven published by Readers Digest. I'll listen to classical, then stop and not listen for several years. Then I will pick it up for a while, then drop it. Early this year, I had a HUGE craving for it, so I checked into the Nashville Symphony. I have not attended many live concerts in any genre, so this was a treat. I was blown away (it was a performance of Mahler's 5th), attended their summer concerts, and have season's tickets for 2010-2011.
I enjoy the various periods of classical, and even enjoy the more experimental composers such as Penderecki, Glass (most, not all), Steve Reich, etc. So I don't mind the weird sounding plucking of violins or banging of pots and pans.
I bought and watched a great lecture series published by The Teaching Company called "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music" by Robert Greenberg, along with Greenberg's other lectures. He's a very entertaining and informative lecturer, and it was interesting to learn the history surrounding the composers and their works. However, I consider myself to have a beginner's level background, as I don't always identify various themes or have a critical listening skills that musicians have.
I also enjoy 70s and 80s pop/rock.