Bomb the Music Industry!
BTMI! is a Jeff Rosenstock project. Long before he was an indie rock darling, he made chaotic ska-punk in The Arrogant Sons of Bitches (1995-2006) and Bomb the Music Industry! (2004-2014). His music is great and all, but what really makes Bomb the Music Industry! my favorite band of all time is the ethos behind it.
BTMI! performances started out as just Jeff Rosenstock playing along with pre-recorded backing tracks from an iPod. He would allow fans who knew the parts to join him on stage, and helped fans spray paint t-shirts and burn CDs in lieu of selling official merchandise. Very DIY, very punk rock.
In addition, Jeff Rosenstock founded a donation-based online record label (in 2006!) called Quote Unquote. All of the music released on Quote Unquote is freely available on their website. It rankles me to see music cost money so I'm down with his distribution methods.
Meshuggah
Meshuggah is a Swedish extreme metal band. They formed in 1987 but I mostly fuck with the stuff they released post-2000. That's when they dropped their genre-defining "djent" (groove metal for nerds) album Nothing. Meshuggah's shtick is kind of hard to explain if you don't understand music terminology... But to put it simply, I like the interplay between their guitar riffs and drum beats. Yogev Gabay has a lot of very interesting videos analyzing their riffs.
TOOL
Weird band. Rather inscrutable. I like the hypnotic and rhythmic qualities to their music. I also find the way they compose and arrange long rock songs more satisfying than many bands. They have more of a "flow," where sections smoothly transition into each other rather than contrasting sharply. I do like that sort of contrast in shorter songs, though.
I appreciate that their music videos do not just feature the band playing their instruments. Videos like that are kind of a pet peeve of mine, I find them very lazy.
Minor Threat & Fugazi
Minor Threat is the band that got me into punk rock, which is a long-term special interest of mine, so I have them to thank for that. First time I listened to Minor Threat I was knee-deep in my thrash metal phase and I thought it didn't have any riffs or good vocals. What a buffoon I was. I completely missed the immense energy and razor sharp guitar tone. Y'all ever hear a vinyl rip of the early works?
Fugazi is another band that tried to make their music as accessible as possible - although that looked way different pre-Internet. In their case, they just made sure their shows were all ages and tried to keep tickets down to $5. Minor Threat and Fugazi are grouped together because they share member Ian MacKaye.