Holiday musics

It's been ages since I did a music post !

Holiday time usually means listening to as much music as possible. Summer, not so much because the cricket is on and I'm listening to the commentary. Out of season though and it's all open season to listen to as much as possible.

(I need one of those in dwagon)


It's letting me catch up with stuff I've not listened to in over a year too. I have rules for lots of things (looking for rules to avoid making unnecessary decisions is something built into my personality). For the music, I'll switch between two playlists for picking out what albums come up next. I have an automatic playlist for "Longest Since Played", which has the 80 songs that are ... you guessed it. At the moment, those are going back to September last year ... Yep. Lots of music in the library to churn through and I love it all.

The other playlist is "Least Played", which lists those songs I haven't listened to much. That selects from the Z end of the alphabet first and it's picking up the J composers and artists that have only been listened to twice since I started using the Macbook for music. (That'd be almost 2 years). Only 3 days of music to listen to before that playlist gets to stuff only played 3 times. I do like variation in the music I listen to, although that does mean some of my favourite albums don't actually get much of a listen.

What's been playing ?

At the moment it's Gabrielle Aplin's new album, which is pretty good. I'll keep getting her stuff, she's got a pretty decent voice. I think it kinda submerges below the rest of the group in this album though, it's not quite as strong a voice album as English Rain.

Laura Marling's A Creature I Don't Know was a good pick up for £3. Don't Ask Me Why is one of a collection of lovely songs on this album. I'll definitely go looking for more from this singer.

I'm tempted by Carly Rae Jepsen too, after hearing part of I Really Like You in an episode of Castle today. There's a bold brashness there that makes you sit up, pay attention and start singing along. Love it. Album coming soon ...

What else has been filtering through ?

Due to how I did those first listens on the Macbook, the Longest Played is going through the L albums at the moment and one of the best is by Kate Bush. It's Lionheart, which is full of lovely fluffy soaring vocal songs like Wow.

Next up after Gabrielle Aplin is an All About Eve album, their Live and Electric at Union Chapel. I never saw them but you can tell from the albums that they were good live, led by those Julianne Regan vocals. She's always been one of the best with a distinctive voice doing full justice to songs like Martha's Harbour.

There's the Lily Was Here soundtrack. I used to use this cd as a set up album. Great music with the interplay between Candy Dulfer's saxophone and David A Stewart's guitar, with my using the tang of that guitar to set up my speakers just so. The setting where the guitar tang just started to ring out was perfect.

Into the J's and you have the John Williams soundtracks. I have the soundtracks for Episode 1 and the original films. The music ages far better than the films. I'm looking forward to the new Star Wars film, although I'm refusing to get on the hype bandwagon. That way leads to disappointment. Better to go in with no expectations and just enjoy the show. That's how I went into Phantom Menace and while the fanboys reviled that film, I enjoyed it. Soundtrack for Raiders of the Lost Ark is coming up too, there's a film that's still a classic now.

A singer I've been pleasantly surprised by is Kacey Musgraves and I've listened to her Pageant Material and Same Trailer, Different Park albums again this week. Check out High Time.

Going back to a golden oldie and there's George Harrison with his Let It Roll collection. Not many songs make me stop everything and listen but My Sweet Lord is definitely one of those. Another golden oldie is Bob Marley with his Legend album, Could You Be Loved ? I hope so.

Kasabian have been going through the playlist as well. Not what I usually listen to but they have a lot of character, which keeps me buying their stuff. Velociraptor has huge humour in it.

Not that kind of humour ...

I do like a bit of Avril Lavigne too, may she keep making music with lots of attitude like on Let Go with songs like Mobile.

The female vocalist trend continues with Gabriella Cilmi's Lessons to be Learned. Another good but not spectacular album. They push the song Sweet About Me way too much (bit like Moves Like Jagger), which distracts away from other great songs like Don't Want To Go To Bed Now.

Clannad have a heap of L albums, starting with Landmarks with the unforgettable Fado. Love that song. The also did the soundtrack for the Robin Of Sherwood series with Michael Praed (Legend) as well as the Lore album. There's a couple of good ones coming in M too with Magical Ring and Macalla. Another highly impressive voice leading this group with songs like Together We.

Katie Melua sneaks in with Pictures and there's even a little Kings Of Leon with Only By The Night. Not too sure about Kings of Leon but that's personal taste.

According to iTunes, I've managed to listen to 732 different songs so far since starting the holiday, although a good few of those (like the Gabrielle Aplin and Laura Marling) have been repeat listens. I'm missing the Cardigans. May queue up one of those albums out of order.

That's the other way I pick out what I listen to - if I go somewhere long distance in the car I usually let it pick out random tracks from a Best Of Library playlist but I'll sometimes pick out a few albums to listen to as well. I'm not going to London for Comic Con (maybe next time !) but if I were, I can see me picking out albums like Cardigans Super Extra Gravity or A Camp's self titled album. And then there's any number of old favourites like Kate Bush, newer music by The Veronicas, soothing road albums like Goldfrapp's Seventh Tree (going on a Road To Somewhere), amazing vocals of a Tori Amos album or happy poppy albums like Mindy Gledhill's Anchor.

Must check out Mindy Gledhill's forthcoming album.

Later !

PS Thoughts for a couple of people - a special little lady who I hope is going to get her mobility back tomorrow :-) and the mom of another special lady who's going into hospital as well tomorrow. Hope they both come out with great results.