Friday, May 30, 2008

music?

My friend Sancho posted something about iTunes the other day that got me thinking about music. I'm always on the search for new music to listen to. My music knowledge is a hodge-podge of stuff I hear on my local public radio station, reviews from the various npr shows I listen to and sometimes, someone I admire (a friend, a stranger who I think of as a friend, a musician, artist, etc.) will mention something about a band they really like or an album that they can't stop listening to. And so I'll check it out and often add a new favorite to my growing list. My music knowledge has a lot of holes in it. So while I am a fan of the song Like a Rolling Stone (even before the Pepsi ads, thank you) I have never listened to the album it originates from (Highway 61 Revisited, thank you wikipedia). But that's okay. It just means that there's a bunch of new-to-me music to discover and fall in love with.

I want some new-to-me music to check out and curious to know what my friends are listening to these days? Maybe a little top ten of the stuff that's been feeding through your ears into your head? Shout out. Be creative. Here's mine:

jean's top 10 recent listens
  1. KCRW's Morning Become Eclectic (every morning)
  2. npr type programs throughout the day (The World, Marketplace, All Things Considered, This American Life)
  3. John Mayer (um, all his albums)
  4. Tom Waits' Mule Variations and Beautiful Maladies albums
  5. Yesterday I hit shuffle and iTunes thought the Eurythmics' Greatest Hits and Marvin Gaye's Greatest Hits were one album so I listened to songs alternating from each
  6. Radiohead's last 4 albums (I wish I could go to their concert)
  7. Elvis Costello and the Attractions Best Of
  8. Old Crow Medicine Show (self titled)
  9. Robert Johnson The Complete Recordings (which I had to cut off after about an hour, because even though I love the blues, man was I getting bummed out)
  10. Announcers and cheers from the Celtics playoff games

4 comments:

Jim Tschen Emmons said...

JEAN! Good picks! Let's see, current ten these days for me:

--anything by Rameau
--"Envy" (album), Eve's Plum (she's Vitamin C now and has a very different sound)
--"Possible Music," a collection of music from Hal Hartley films (awesome)
--Van Morrison ("On Hyndford Street")
--Wire (songs like "In Vivo" and "Kidney Bingos")
--Curtis Mayfield ("Move on Up" is a real day starter)
--Magnetic Fields
--soundtrack to "Amelie" (I know, I know, accordion, but "la Valse d'Amelie (orchestral version)" is stunning)
--Dead Can Dance, "A Passage in Time," particularly "Ulysses" and "American Dreaming;" "Rakim" off of "Toward the Within"
--classic Echo and the Bunnymen ("Lost and Found," "The Cutter," etc.)

I'm also getting a bit too familiar with Disney Hits vol 1.--my son likes it and it is a life-saver on some car rides.

jean said...

Sanch-teo!
Thanks for this list! A nice mix of stuff I've heard of but don't know much about, and some new things to try out. Awesome!

PS. An all time fave (from our childhood) between me and my brother James is Disney's Jungle Book soundtrack. A very fine jazz collection if you ask me. It must be said that James and I do a killer duet of I Wanna Be Like You.

PPS. Have you heard DeVotchka's Charlotte Mittnacht (The Fabulous Destiny of...) from their How it Ends album. Very nice recollection of the Amelie soundtrack.

Jim Tschen Emmons said...

No, I'd not heard Charlotte Mittnacht, but I just checked it out on-line--good stuff!!! Thanks!

Oh, and about that marital rating list: hilarious, and yet, unbelievably scary.

jean said...

That marital rating list: I find it surprising which items were given higher points (Showing up late to appointments) over others (Asking husband for opinion on important decisions and purchases - I mean how important can they be if they only rank one point??). Or that some of then even made the list at all (hello - Puts her cold feet on her husband at night to warm them??). Like I said: Fascinating.

Also:
I heard a bit of Rameau yesterday, a bit from a performance that was on YouTube (I love the internet). Very nice. I'm going down the list trying it all out. Thanks!