What Are You Listening To?

[Jodo]

So what do you guys listen to as of late? Any new favorite bands or anything?

I have found myself stuck firmly between Led Zeppelin and anything related to Jack White. I've always enjoyed LZ, and I essentially grew up with it, but I have aquired the taste for JW on my own. I just got The Dead Weather's Horehound CD last week, and I've been playing it. However, I go through several CD's I have of the White Stripes, Raconteurs,etc. I can't get enough!

I might also add that I've been on a Beatles kick as of late too! I can't get "She's So Heavy" out of my head...

[Guido]

My son and I just watched Quantum of Solace for the first time the other night, and I was surprised/happy to hear JW on the title track! I like him a lot myself, but the Raconteurs was the last thing I picked up. (Incidentally, my son was conceived to LZ :cool:) I'm working on a logo design for a band right now and my soundtrack for it has been almost exclusively Beck.

[Big Red]

I've been listening to nothing but Christmas music for the last two months. I don't plan on listening to much else between now and 1/6.

The last new album I bought was Some Nights by Fun. Not nearly as good as Aim & Ignite and they threw in just enough profanity to make it something I can't listen to in the car with the kids. I'd been on something of a music kick until then but that sent me back to talk radio, mostly EWTN. I'll see what I'm in the mood for once the annual Christmas music marathon ends.

[Jodo]

I've never listened to Beck I don't think, I'll have to check them out!

In an odd turn of events, since I played "Russel Brand" in a play here a few weeks ago, I started watching his movies, and I actually really liked the fake band from Get Him to the Greek: Infant Sorrow. Every so often I have to get on YouTube and listen to a few tracks. Hahaha!

Red, I listened to a few Elvis Christmas songs non-stop last week, but I really enjoy Mannheim Steamroller during the holidays.

[Big Red]

I've never understood the appeal of Mannheim Steamroller. Naturally, that means they get a ton of airplay around here. Same with Josh Groban. I'm not a fan of her music at all. Oddly enough, while I was certain that John Lennon's disgustingly awful song was the most-played song on the local station, they actually published their entire playlist, ranked from top to bottom, and the individual song they played the most was Ms. Groban's I'll Be Home For Christmas. A caveat to that is that Lenin was number two, while Celine Dion's cover of his song was 6 or 7, and three other covers were in the top 40. In other words, while the station manager was still technically right when she said Yoko wasn't the most-played artist, the song itself was played more than anything (and, yes, there were other covers in the nearly 300 songs they claimed to have in their playlist, although in the numerous hours I listened to them during the month and a half they were playing Christmas music, I was only able to find one or two songs in the bottom 200+ that I actually heard them play).

While I still have another week or so to listen to Christmas music, I did take a small break from it yesterday. When I was a kid, Chuck Mangione's Feels So Good was on the radio pretty incessantly. That's not a problem as I love the song. I have a distinct memory from back in '80 or '81 of going with a friend, his mother and a couple of his siblings to one of the local colleges so his mom could try to clear up some enrollment problem for her oldest son. We were told we had to be absolutely silent and as we sat in the hallway unable to talk, play or do anything else, they had a jazz station playing over the intercom. The long version of Feels So Good came on, which was a pleasant surprise to little 8-9 year old me because they almost always played the short cut. Nine minutes and forty-three seconds later, the sleepy-sounding, velvety smooth-voiced DJ came on and said, "That felt so good, let's do it again," and he played it a second time. Also, our favorite local record shop at the time always had several promotional cardboard copies of the Feels So Good album cover, with Mr. Mangione joyously hugging his flugelhorn, hanging from the ceiling. I can't tell you how many times I asked my dad to buy me the album, but never with any success. Several months ago, I played Feels So Good for my daughters, told them the above stories, then remarked to my wife that I couldn't believe I'd never gotten around to buying the full album. I looked out on Amazon and the MP3 album was something like $9.99. A few of his other albums were in the $5.00 section and, sensing some sort of injustice, I refused to pay double for the one I actually wanted. I checked the following month but it hadn't gone on sale. I didn't think about it again until yesterday morning when I was doing some writing and needed a little background music to keep my creative juices flowing and to also keep me awake since I'd just ended my overnight shift. I put on Feels So Good, then decided to check Amazon just for the heck of it. Providence stepped in and it was on sale for $5.00! I hit the 1-click button and a few minutes later, after 35+ years, I finally had the full album! I quickly deleted my old Grokstered, 128 kbps download of the single and let the full album play. It was actually worth the three and a half decade wait.

[Guido]

You've got a great history with that song, Big Red! I had a discussion about music with my 20 y.o. son the other day. He was rockin' some Simon & Garfunkel on his laptop while minecrafting(?). We talked about the classics for a bit, and it was cool to hear his "fresh" take on stuff that I grew up with. The discussion turned to my general boredom with my music library. I really enjoy most everything I own, but it's harder at 42 than it is at 20 to find the time to explore new music and hearing a song for the (literal)100th time can be tough even if you love it, so he's offered to give me suggestions. We'll see what I'm introduced to in the coming weeks...

[Jodo]

I agree, pretty good story Red!

I know our local stations play about the same 12 songs over and over again generally, and it drives me nuts. I know one of the DJ's pretty well, and he said that his station is told what to play daily, and he can only chose the order of the songs. He can't take requests or anything. I guess I never did think about the fact that not only is the station limited to their song bank, but also what they are told to play...

[Big Red]

My son's only into scream metal and death metal, so he's not an option when it comes to asking about new music. Granted, it's a step up from Emo especially because he's slightly more cheery and pouts a bit less, but it's still not anything I'd allow in my car. I agree, though, that sometimes it gets tedious listening to even some of my favorite bands for the hundredth or more time. I'll change things up a bit, especially by jumping to another genre that's drastically different from whatever I've been listening to. The playlists that got the most use in the months leading up to Christmas were 90's Country, Sade, Jazz, Lounge and College, the last of which is a big mix of everything I listened to in college--mostly a whole bunch of classic rock, Jane's Addiction, Garth Brooks, Brooks & Dunn and Hootie & the Blowfish (although you're free to ignore that last one).

Since I seldom listen to the non-talk stations in the car I usually don't run into the problem with their playlists unless my wife insists on music and we're in the car for more than an hour. She tends to only listen to music, and from a limited number of stations so pretty much any song that comes on will send her into a rage about how overplayed it is. I try to bring our Kindle along for those situations. When it's just my son & I in the car and he starts insisting on his CD's or stations, I "compromise" and turn it to EWTN then insist on discussing whatever their current topic is. It drives him nuts but I'm sure he'll eventually catch on.

[Guido]

haha, you're an evil, evil man and a good parent! ;) (Seems that goes hand in hand most times from their POV!)

I've yet to get my first recommendation... I'm excited though, because musically he goes from the listening to the latest electronic music to composing piano music when he gets bored.

[Jodo]

Oh man, scream metal kills me. >< I have several friends that enjoy the genre, and I just can't get into it. On the other hand, I can't listen to talk-radio either! :p

[Big Red]

I go through phases with talk radio. I haven't been able to tolerate the news talk radio stations for years, though. I've never been able to tolerate scream metal, even back in college. And if he tells me one more time about what a great message it has, he's going to get the message of my foot hitting him from behind.

[Jodo]

I know several professors who talk about their really long commutes they make to get to school, and I know a few of them listen to NPR on the way. I'm like...Doesn't that make the drive seem even longer? :p

[Big Red]

I know several professors who talk about their really long commutes they make to get to school, and I know a few of them listen to NPR on the way. I'm like...Doesn't that make the drive seem even longer? :p

:D
I've tried NPR at various times. It usually doesn't last long. My wife will occasionally bargain with our son and tell him he can listen to his radio station if he goes with her to the store or on some other errand. It always makes the trip longer for her and puts her in a bad mood. I used to get annoyed when I'd get in the car and it would still be on his station, but now I usually just chuckle because I know what she went through.

[Jodo]

I can't stand if someone is in my car riding with me, and they reach over to change the station (or the AC either!). I can understand if we're talking about the station, or perhaps they say "I really hate this song" or something...I can take a hint, and I'll just go through the 6 quick select stations to find something else, but when anyone just dials the radio to something it irritates me.

[Big Red]

The rule when I'm driving is that nobody touch the dial other than me. I'll give my wife a bit of leeway on it, but the kids can't touch it. They can request something different and I'll sometimes comply with the girls, but I already know what my son will turn it to so that's out of the question. I did let him play a song this morning and we got through a whole minute before I'd had enough.

[Jodo]

LOL, that is great!

Another song I've been hitting up is Paloma Faith's Picking Up The Pieces. I sort of dig her style.

[Big Red]

I tried listening to the new David Bowie song. The 90 second sample on iTunes was enough for me. I might check it out again when his album comes out, but so far I wasn't impressed.

Shortly before Christmas I went through the handful of old cassettes I still have left from my college days (about half were old mixtapes--you know, back when mixtapes were actual tapes) and then looked up some of the songs on Youtube (we have a couple of cassette players around here but are either missing cables for them or don't have the right batteries so I couldn't actually play the tapes). It really helped reinforce my opinion that, with the possible exception of the last 12 years, the 90s was one of the worst decades for popular music ever. There's some stuff I really like (mostly country) and a bit still holds up, but Color Me Badd? The Spin Doctors? I'll make jokes about Hootie & the Blowfish from time to time, but they were far and away the high point of the stuff I looked up. I was pretty embarrassed to think that I'd actually paid for some of those songs/albums, but relieved that the worst of the bunch were copied from friends' tapes and cassingles.

[Guido]

Cassettes! Make sure to finger-tighten them before you try to play them- remember pulling the endless string of jammed cassette tape from a player? Trying to untangle it and rewind the thing so you didn't have to throw it out? Good times, good times! :cool:

I actually still have a functioning 8-track player that I hook up from time to time. SO horrible sounding, but a really great piece in the evolution of music delivery. As far as the current sounds, I've been listening to Metric for the past few days. They're a Canadian group that was the basis for one of the bands in Scott Pilgrim. The singer has a great style, kinda impish and sexy, and they're pretty cool...

[Big Red]

In one of my cars I had a pencil in my change compartment just for tightening tapes. Did you ever notice that the degree to which a tape got eaten was directly proportional to how much you liked the tape? In other words, my buddy's girlfriend's Sophie B. Hawkins tape never got eaten, but The Band, Zeppelin IV, Jane's Addiction and the Rolling Stones' Hot Rocks were mangled to the point that the tape was spewing out of the player like you used to see in movies. The worst I ever saw was one of the times that same guy broke up with the same girl and she took one of his tapes (possibly Zeppelin IV) and yanked it out entirely. I somehow got stuck with the job of winding it back in.

We never had an 8-track player, but I somehow ended up with the remnants of my father-in-law's 8-track collection after he died. I think they've been pitched.

[Qui-Gon Jim]

Um... I love 90's music. Jane's Addiction? Gin Blossoms? Soul Asylum? NiN? Pearl Jam? Nirvana? Cranberries? Hell, there are a ton of R&B singers from that period that were wonderful.

[jedicrippler]

Signed And Sealed In Blood - Dropkick Murphys

[Guido]

Um... I love 90's music. Jane's Addiction? Gin Blossoms? Soul Asylum? NiN? Pearl Jam? Nirvana? Cranberries? Hell, there are a ton of R&B singers from that period that were wonderful.

I agree man- there were plenty of horrible bands, but some really amazing stuff at the same time.


Signed And Sealed In Blood - Dropkick Murphys

Nice. They were just here in concert a few months ago, I was hoping to get there but couldn't make it.


In one of my cars I had a pencil in my change compartment just for tightening tapes. Did you ever notice that the degree to which a tape got eaten was directly proportional to how much you liked the tape? In other words, my buddy's girlfriend's Sophie B. Hawkins tape never got eaten, but The Band, Zeppelin IV, Jane's Addiction and the Rolling Stones' Hot Rocks were mangled to the point that the tape was spewing out of the player like you used to see in movies. The worst I ever saw was one of the times that same guy broke up with the same girl and she took one of his tapes (possibly Zeppelin IV) and yanked it out entirely. I somehow got stuck with the job of winding it back in.

We never had an 8-track player, but I somehow ended up with the remnants of my father-in-law's 8-track collection after he died. I think they've been pitched.

lol, of course the good tapes always got eaten! I think there's some "law" about that...;) And I had forgotten about the pencil trick, but we used it all the time.

[Big Red]

Um... I love 90's music. Jane's Addiction? Gin Blossoms? Soul Asylum? NiN? Pearl Jam? Nirvana? Cranberries? Hell, there are a ton of R&B singers from that period that were wonderful.

Although there is some music I still love from the 90's (Jane's Addiction...um...probably some others), I remember spending a lot of time in the 90's wishing that the 00's would get here quickly and hopefully bring some better music. I'll concede that the decade started out much better than it ended, but so much of it was horrible and even the innovative stuff fizzled and burnt out either too quickly or dragged on into a lingering, painful death. Granted, the 00's were even worse, but since I was older and didn't listen to as much new music it was a lot easier to deal with.

[Big Red]

lol, of course the good tapes always got eaten! I think there's some "law" about that...;) And I had forgotten about the pencil trick, but we used it all the time.

I still have my big 120-cassette suitcase that I carried around in my car. This supplemented my 18-cassette case that I kept my most-played mixtapes in. I showed it to one of my daughters a couple years ago and she said, "those are some weird-looking CD's."

One thing I miss about those days is scouring music shops trying to find obscure and out-of-print music. Nowadays you just hit Amazon or Google, download what you want, load it on your MP3 player and you're set. Back then, we'd hit the mall shops for the latest albums; Meijer and Wal-Mart for cheap cassingles; a couple local music stores for more obscure, current bands; the eclectic music shop downtown that was the big vinyl hold-out but really didn't do much for us until we all made the switch to CD and could go there to find rare, insanely-overpriced imports; the big second-hand music shop that was our go-to place for oddball and out-of-print stuff; and the two little shops out in the boonies that specialized in bootlegs. Sundays were great because we could spend the whole day driving from one shop to another and listening to our new-found treasures in between. I'd usually let them burn in for a week or so then stay up till all hours a couple Sundays later making my newest mixtape.

As much as we liked CD's when they came out, none of us in my core group of friends made the switch at first because nobody had a CD player in their car. We all hated it when our one friend converted almost his entire collection of tapes to CD's over the course of a single weekend after getting his first big tax return. Since we spent so much time together, we looked on our individual music collections as something of a communal library and there were very few duplicates between the five of us. We all had all three Jane's Addiction tapes, Zeppelin IV and one or two others, plus a few that 2-3 of us each had, but otherwise we'd just share our tapes out and make mixtapes of the other guys' stuff we wanted to keep. The guy who switched to CD's first had a few albums we all really loved so until one of us could re-purchase them on tape, or someone bit the bullet and bought a portable CD player, those were lost to us for a while.

I think I was the second one to make the switch to CD's. I still didn't have a player in the car, but seeing as I was something of a mixtape wizard, that wasn't much of a problem. While most people we knew just threw a jumble of songs on a tape or, even worse, recorded whole albums onto a cassette, my one friend and I made actual productions out of them. I'd sit down with a notebook and plan them out. Once I had my general selection picked, I'd listen to each song all the way through, then listen to the beginning and ending of each one over and over again as I worked out which ones flowed best into one another. It got a lot easier once I had CD's. With tapes, I had to fast forward and rewind repeatedly just to hear the starts and finishes of the songs, then again to make sure I started the tape at just the right place. I used to buy jumbo-packs of the Maxell XL II 90's. They were the perfect mixtape tape as they gave you a full 90 minutes and were sturdy enough to stand up to repeated listens. My friend preferred some lesser brand's 150 minute tapes, but the extra hour of music didn't make up for the poor sound quality and fragility of the tapes. I'd suspect that most of his tapes no longer play, while all of mine can still be enjoyed in their hissy, analog glory.

[Jodo]

When burning CD's, I also plan the setlists out. As you said, there has to be a certain flow to the songs within the CD. I want them to start out slow, build up midway through, and end softly.

I've been listening to a few tracks from Fits and The Tantrums. I may have to pick up their CD soon...

[Big Red]

One of the big difference between tape and CD, though, is that you two sides to worry about. So not only did you have to think about each side as a cohesive unit, you also had to take into consideration how the sides would flow into one another, especially if you had a dual play deck. CD also made things easier because if you didn't get the flow just right you could hit random play and not worry about it. MP3's have made that all but irrelevant for most because you can just throw a few hundred, or even a few thousand songs into a playlist, hit shuffle and take what the software deals you.

When I talk to people about making my Christmas CD each year, very few of them really get just how much work goes into it. The artwork alone tends to average 20-30 actual working hours (this year was much more, probably closer to 80). That's usually the easy part. I usually start on the following year's CD while working on the current one. Going into each one, I usually have a theme and/or title picked out, as well as a preliminary list of songs that I've added to over the previous year. I then have to finalize the overall theme or feel that I'm going for, then browse through my collection searching for songs that will fit. This usually includes listening to everything I downloaded the year before but never got around to playing all the way through just to see if I can find some hidden gems (a few of my favorite Christmas albums have been discovered this way). Once I flesh out the preliminary list of songs, I can easily have over 200 to pick from. I then start whittling the list down, deleting the ones that don't fit or aren't quite good enough. Once I get it down to 30-40 songs, I start playing the whole list, listening to each song all the way through over and over until I have a good feel for each remaining song. I then start working on the final cut as I trim the list to the best 40-60 minutes of music I can get. While I'll start considering how various songs work with one another at this point, it won't be until I'm down to about 70 minutes of music before I start putting anything in order. That's when I'm finally able to make the crucial cuts, getting rid of those last few songs that just don't flow as well as the others. Some of them will go into the folder for the following year, while others will go on the back burner until I stumble across them again. All in all, between the music and the artwork (not the burning or finally assembly), you're talking about a minimum of 100 hours of work each year.

[Big Red]

I'm thinking about queuing up all my Billy Joel albums and listening to those later this week. I haven't listened to much Billy Joel in years, and haven't gone through his whole library since the late 90s or so. Does anyone have any opinions on what his best album is? Greatest hits compilations don't count, of course, including Songs From the Attic. An Innocent Man gets my de facto vote since it was the first album I ever owned on cassette, and even though it was a birthday gift, it was really the first album I ever consciously chose to own. I had been given a few on LP before that, but An Innocent Man was the first album I actually wanted and would have to be considered my first step toward developing what would become my adult musical taste, even though I was only 11 at the time (it came out right before my 11th birthday). I think this is the last album he released that can even count as one of his great albums, although I'll need to listen to all of them to refresh my memory and see if this holds up. While I may end up conceding that another album is better, this will still likely be my favorite.

We listened to Greatest Hits Volume 1 & 2 like crazy in college. I had it on tape and it ended up being one of the first CD's I ever bought when my tape wore out. If anyone had the tape, it was a single, long-play cassette with nearly 120 minutes of music. Columbia spared every expense on the cassette, using a much cheaper, flimsier tape than standard 120-minute tapes at the time. Mine got twisted and wrinkled quite a bit, while my best friend's copy snapped in several places before he finally threw it away. It was a great compilation even though it excluded the song Honesty, which had always been one of my favorites.

Not counting the Greatest Hits, the Billy Joel album we probably listened to the most in college was actually Cold Spring Harbor. That may sound like an odd choice, but I lost my copy of An Innocent Man sometime in college so all I had for the longest time was GHV1&2, while most of my best friend's Billy Joel collection was on vinyl. I found Cold Spring Harbor in the bargain bin at Meijer one day for 1.99. It sounded so different from the rest of his stuff that we played it quite a bit. My best friend had Storm Front, but I can't recall a single time when anyone other than him wanted to listen to it.

[Big Red]

Just a couple observations on the little progress I've made on my Billy Joel-a-thon. I'm still not fully recovered from overplaying Piano Man back in college and I still hate We Didn't Start The Fire. Plus, I still contend that the Golden Age of Billy Joel ended in 1983.

ETA - Sleeping With the Television On is the best Elvis Costello song Billy Joel ever wrote.

[Jodo]

Man, I can't stand Billy Joel! :p

I've been hitting up the White Stripes the past few days, but I can't stop listening to the U2 cover of Love is Blindness. Man I dig that track...

[Big Red]

Man, I can't stand Billy Joel! :p

After two nights of BJ and the Affordables, I decided to give up on my Billy Joel experiment, at least until I muster the gumption to create a Billy Joel playlist in iTunes. As it was, iTunes insisted on playing his post-1983 stuff about 75-80% of the time. Some songs three times. Okay, one song three times. We Didn't Start the Fire. I hate that track...

[Guido]

Sorry BR, I have to agree with Jodo about Billy Joel! :p

Speaking of 90's bands- I've been listening to a few albums by Towa Tei. He was the keyboardist for Dee-Lite (!) back in the day... his solo stuff is trippy 60's lounge electronica and kinda fun.

[Big Red]

I'll have to check out Towa Tei. I enjoyed Deee-Lite and like lounge-type stuff.

[Big Red]

I got a Samsung Galaxy S3 the other day. I loaded it up with nearly 9000 songs and have been making all sorts of playlists. I'm finally back to listening to music in my car. I haven't had a chance to give it a real workout yet, but I'm hoping to take a long drive at some point this week just so I can try out a few of the playlists I came up with.

[Big Red]

I wish iTunes was smart enough not to play the live version of the song you just listened to when you have it on shuffle.

[Jodo]

I wish I had been smart enough not to upgrade iTunes to this new version. :/