Music: What are you listening to today?
In the spirit of the books and movies threads, here's one to talk about what you're listening to lately and what you have discovered. Tell us if you like it, what it reminds you of, anything you like, short or not, simple or not.
Like the books thread, I'd ask that we keep it mostly to stuff we are listening to or going to listen to soon, or have just finished listening to (that is, like a log more than a resume).
Below is my first entry.
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Bonnie Raitt, by Bonnie Raitt.
My understanding is that this was her first record, which she made when she was 21. Nine out of the eleven songs are covers; the two she wrote are "Thank You" and "Finest Loving Man," and both are good.
I really liked this album. Bonnie's voice is much sweeter here than I've heard her before, and very warm, traveling between notes more fluently, and not yet as raspy sounding as it became. (Which I also like in its own way.) Despite the sweetness of her voice she manages to put some heart into the bluesy material, and sings with what sounds like a real love for the lyrics. It's great to hear someone who doesn't just walk through lyrics. She sounds like she really thought and felt her way through the songs. Many of the most gifted and popular singers out there don't, winding up leaving a lot of a song's power still on the table, so to speak.*
From an Amazon.com review:
Bonnie wrote two of the songs here (Thank you, Finest loving man) but relied mainly on covers, beginning with a cover of Bluebird (written by Stephen Stills, famous as a member first of Buffalo Springfield then of Crosby Stills and Nash). One of Bonnie's major influences, Sippie Wallace, is represented by two songs (Mighty tight woman, Women be wise) while Bonnie also covers Any day woman (Paul Siebel), Walking blues (Robert Johnson) and Since I fell for you (Bud Johnson) among others.
I really enjoyed Walking Blues a lot and wanted to hear it immediately again, but decided to let the rest of the album play out instead of interrupting its flow. The album is good enough that I think I'm going to listen to it again.
By the way, it's in the Rhapsody's catalogue, if you have that service. It's also at Amazon, and the MP3 256kbps download is on sale there for $2.99. You can listen to samples there too.
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*This reminds me of a biography of John Denver that I saw on PBS the other day. I'm not a big Denver fan, but the biography was so good that this is the second time I felt compelled to watch it. Anyway, in it his manager said that at a particular concert Denver sounded exceptionally good, and it seemed like the audience noticed it. His manager recalls saying something like, "Your voice was incredible today. How did you do it?" Denver replied that he was trying to do what he learned from Placido Domingo when they worked together. He said he was amazed by how deep Domingo's art was; he didn't just sing a line, but put the right emotion into it word by word. If he was going to sing about a piece of steel, his voice would sound like steel. Every line was emotionally full, clear, and precise.
I got a bit of a feeling of that in this Raitt album. Raitt very much inhabited those songs when she sang. Unlike some spoiled divas, the newly emergent Raitt got across the feeling that she was glad to be there.
Just starting to dig into the genius of Milton Nascimento. I stumbled upon him performing with Pat Metheny and Paul Simon (first one, then the other).
It's a cliche but back then you'd be lucky to even hear that this music exists, let alone hear it. Now you can juist scratch the surface of the great music available to you in a lifetime.
Disagree. Broadcast radio was much less homogeneous through the 1970s and the chance of hearing him was greater. Actually, now my only source for new and interesting music is this forum. Algorithms not so much.
Argument today with my colleague while she was giving me a ride home. She insisted the line from this song was "Pretty women out walking with runners down my street." She refused to believe it is "gorillas" because runners indicates men who run around. I had to Google it before she believed me, despite my acute explanation.
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Every once in a while I stumble across something that stops me in my tracks. I'd embed the video, but it gives me an error message.
It's always been gorillas, all way down.
Every once in a while I stumble across something that stops me in my tracks. I'd embed the video, but it gives me an error message.
Sharing this one mainly for the killer entrance.
Great live performance.
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Eating cats and dogs? Eating cars!
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Beautiful performance. I like to think about what the lyrics to this song would be if it were written by an American.
Every once in a while I stumble across something that stops me in my tracks. I'd embed the video, but it gives me an error message.
It kinda worked out for the best. I read this and the last thing I was expecting when I scrolled down and saw the embedded video was some old duop type group. Having seen that, I was not expecting the wild stuff I heard. It was quite a roller coaster ride.
Great live performance.
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I'm not familiar with him. "Great" is an understatement.
Great cover of "Between Planets" from the Jesus and Mary Chain's album Automatic. The Pixies covered "Head On" from that same album. I never listened to the originals until fairly recently. I'm convinced that it's a concept album about heroin addiction. Anyway, awesome song and a neat little video.
Listen to this one and then Vic Chestnut's "Flirted With You All My Life" and you might be ready to cry. And my friend thinks I only listen to "dirgey" music. She may be right.
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Listen to this one and then Vic Chestnut's "Flirted With You All My Life" and you might be ready to cry. And my friend thinks I only listen to "dirgey" music. She may be right.
"Flirted With You All My Life" was crushing. Even more so after reading about his life. Speaking of "dirgey" songs...
People always think this is weird but I listen to my music alphabetically. I start with the A's and go straight through to to ZZ Top. I have about 1000 albums on my ipod so it takes a while to get through the alphabet.
Anyway I turned over last week and I am into the B's now. That means Beach Boys! And after that will come the Beatles hot damn I love the B's.
People always think this is weird but I listen to my music alphabetically. I start with the A's and go straight through to to ZZ Top. I have about 1000 albums on my ipod so it takes a while to get through the alphabet.
Anyway I turned over last week and I am into the B's now. That means Beach Boys! And after that will come the Beatles hot damn I love the B's.
As much as I love the Beach Boys, the best song about Barbra is...
There are a lot of great Girl Name songs
Michelle
Lucille
Jolene
Peggy Sue
Roxanne
Maggie May
Angie
Just off the top of my head if I really thought about it and haven't been drinking I would come up with more.
Speaking of Dion
