Monday, November 24, 2008

iTunes Marathon

Been having a bit of an iTunes Marathon lately ... The online game Eve is good for that because it doesn't take much focus for the game, which leaves plenty for listening to music.

I blame my sister of course, she's been trying to get me interested in new music by different artists. So it's taken me a week so far and I've only got 38 tracks to go of the new bunch collected when I was up at my mum's and dad's place for birthday weekend. Out of 226 :-)

What's sparked off this entry though is an oldie ... When I'm Sixty Four just came over the party shuffle (from the Sgt Pepper album) and it's still as fun a song now as it ever was. So what's new in the collection and what do I think of it ?

Gorillaz - Demon Days. Not sure about this one. It's a tad ... different. Could take a bit of getting used to and Different can be Very Good. Too much of the same gets boring after a while.

Snow Patrol - Final Straw. Interesting. Some good tracks here and this should be a good one to listen to as an album instead of as individual tracks. That's how I check out the new stuff, I'll listen to each track, rate it and then I'll add it to the shuffle a while later so I can listen to them as an album.

Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. Not heard much like the lead singer's voice here. Huge amount of character gets injected into every song. I've not listened to much of this album yet but I get the feeling I may be hunting down a few more Arctic Monkeys albums soon ...

Portishead - Dummy. Another highly unusual group performing music that's diametrically opposite to Standard Pop Group 101 (I avoid x-factor and chart radio like the plague). Looking forward to this one as an album, although I think it needs laptop hooked to decent speakers to do it justice.

Peter Gabriel - Security. His 1st and 3rd albums were largely amazing, as was So. But he's also done some stinkers in his time and I wasn't impressed with this one either. Better than his 2nd and 4th attempts, which is sadly about the nicest thing I can say about it.

Enigma - MCMXC AD. I'd got their Cross of Changes album already but haven't had that much luck tracking this one down at an acceptable price. Which is a shame because there's some very sexy music here. (This is the Gregorian Chant music from a decade or two ago)

Coldplay - this is another group I'll be looking to hunt down more of :-) I'd describe it as "Lazy", which also translates into slow and relaxing. Think these albums will be getting more than their fair share of the party shuffle.

Gloria Estefan - ok, this blog entry was partly inspired by the post about Cheryl the dancer on Dianne's blog (see link in blogroll - Forks Off The Moment). If I called Enigma sexy singing above, this is lapdancing. Fun party music, guaranteed to get the stiffest person bopping away. Will have to look up how Gloria Estefan is getting on nowadays, she suffered a road accident that fractured vertebrae her back, which needed to be fused. Within a year she was back on the road on tour (more here). A Gloria Estefan track is almost guaranteed to get me singing along and that's the only recommendation that really counts :-)

Joan Baez - Noel. Ok, this one's not from my sister, it's one of my mum's favourites. It appeals to the purist in me because there's some of the most pure vocals around on show here. My laptop can just about handle it but this is another one where I think I'll have to hook up the better speakers to do it justice.

Talking Heads - True Stories. This one's been lurking at mum's and dad's for years now and it's one of the few of my cd's I hadn't been taking around the country with me. Which is a shame because it's another fun listen. More fun than Stop Making Sense, although it's a little too long ago now since I've watched the movies for Stop Making Sense and True Stories.

The Beatles - Sgt Pepper. Classic Album, full of traditional Beatles character. I have the 1 album too but the sad thing about greatest hits albums is that a) they miss great songs that I like more than what hit the greatest hits and b) they lose the character that a true album has.
(little addon - I hear there's an issue with getting Beatles songs over iTunes ... The Beatles tracks I have in my library are imports from cds :-)

Robbie Williams - Greatest Hits. Some amazing songs here. Robbie Williams has always had an outstanding voice, in whatever mode he's chosen to sing. Whether that be pop, ballad or sixties swing. Will have to queue up Angels, Road to Mandalay and Rock DJ for the party shuffle.

Currently on the shuffle is You Give Love A Bad Name from Bon Jovi before we (spookily for the weather and one of the jobs I need to do soon) get to Here I Stand And Face The Rain by a-Ha.

PS Will also hunting Shania Twain and Sheryl Crow sometime. Just to see if their other music is as good as That Don't Impress Me Much and All I Wanna Do.

3 comments:

  1. "stiffest person bopping away" made me giggle uncontrollably - what does that say about me?

    hehehehehe

    I love many of your choices - Snow Patrol is wonderful as is Cold Play

    and of course you've got some great classics in there.

    Sir Paul said he needed to change the lyrics to 'when I'm 64' - he never expected to get this old ;)

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  2. Add Suzzane Vega and Era to your list of 'to listen to'. Era is similar to Enigma but much better in my opinion. Ms Vega is stunning with her lyrical acrobatics and guitar use.

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  3. [chuckle] That's just 226 out of almost 2000 tracks I have in my iTunes library :-) Had a good few slices of time spent feeding the laptop with cds to give it some more things to play.

    Not heard of Era, will have to take a look there. Suzanne Vega's another favourite, although it seems that our record shops don't seem to want to sell me her newer albums ... Amazon here we come :-)

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