A to Z - L is for Love of music

Sometimes I leave lots of days between posts. Sometimes that's cos I want to give certain people a chance to read the post. Sometimes it's because I like the top post so much.

I wouldn't say I enjoyed writing the last post. Enjoy is the wrong word for something that gets close to bringing out the waterworks. But - when a post feels very, very right ? Yeah. I like to leave those as top posts.

But ... I like my music posts too and we're overdue the rest of the L post. (I'm almost into N albums). Where were we ? Ah ha ! Last album was the Lily Was Here soundtrack.

Did I include Norah Jones' Little Broken Hearts in the L part 1 post ? This one is her latest. Norah's moving to a more poppy style, which is not a bad thing. She's still cranking out some cracking tunes. Happy Pills is no exception.

One of my earliest album buys and one of the best was Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos. This one has a wide array of varied and incredible songs. My favourite from this album is Happy Phantom although the wonderful Silent All These Years comes close. My voice is nowhere near the quality of this amazing angel of vocals but you can bet I'm belting out the words along with Madame Tori.

Mansun come in with their Little Kix album. Not bad. Bit samey.

If Tori Amos was one of my first albums, All About Eve were the first. And they've been a prized part of the collection ever since. They come into L with the Live & Electric album. AAE have had their back catalogue well and truly raided over the years as the label seemed to want to get every last penny out of spanking this horse. Live & Electric is good but there's not much here that isn't on the albums. That said, I'll always stop and listen to tracks like Martha's Harbour.

My sister has sent me a few highlight tracks from the Radio 1 Live Lounge albums. These have tracks being performed live by assorted artists. These have led to me buying everything that certain artists have come out with. But which artists and which songs ?

Ting Tings - Standing in the way of control
The Hoosiers - Lovestoned (ok, these guys have gone off but this cover is sublime)
Paramore - Love's Not A Competition
Goldfrapp - It's Not Over Yet (this song is so good !)
Bat For Lashes - Sweet Dreams

You got it - listing all those was pure excuse for listening to them again !

Next ! I heard about Rodrigo Y Gabriela through their tracks on the Puss In Boots soundtrack (will mention those at P!). Their self titled album is well worth a listen for chilled out rhythm guitar based sounds.

What did Mark Knopfler do after Dire Straits ? Movie soundtracks ! Well, this one actually came early. It's the magic Local Hero soundtrack and this is the closing theme. It's a movie about a city boy come to check out a remote Scottish town for oil. And he falls in love with the place and its people. Must watch it again.

EXCITED ! Next up, possibly the best album in my collection. Oh wait, that might be Super Extra Gravity.

It's the Cardigans ... with Long Gone Before Daylight. This album is magic. It's full of wonderful anthemic songs that you can sing along to quite happily. (Well - maybe if some of them weren't about domestic abuse!). I think I've linked everything here at some point, maybe not Feathers And Down ...

Soundtracks - you know they were coming. I have two Lord of the Rings soundtracks, Fellowship and Return of the King. They're both excellent soundtracks that fit and set the mood of the films perfectly.

Clannad are in here again with Lore. I dunno, it's a good close eyes + relax album but I'm not sure about highlights from it.

On the other hand, I found Lene Marlin through the Sitting Down Here single and have continued to pick up her albums. She has a delightful Norwegian tinged voice that couples with excellent songs like How Would It Be from the Lost In A Moment album.

Aimee Mann is another with an excellent voice, her Lost In Space album has highlights like Invisible Ink.

Another live album, this time from Neil Diamond with Love At The Greek. Honestly ? Leave this one on the shelf and pick up Hot August Night instead. It has a better collection of songs and is performed better.

Last but definitely not least is Love Over Gold by Dire Straits. This is only 5 tracks but they're all pretty decent, showing off the skills of each member of the band pretty well when they go into instrumental mode.

That's it for L ! I'm off to listen to Cardigans songs :-)