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katallisonIn which you, dear readers, get to advise me extensively and lift me from the crevasse of cultural ignoramushood. The Poll So Big, It Comes In Parts! And On Cutaway!
So, this part of the poll is: Imagine that you have been charged with enlightening someone who has lived in a cave since the mid-70s about the music of the past 30 years.
[Background: The living-in-a-cave part is not much of an exaggeration. I more or less stopped listening to popular music about the time vinyl went out, due to a combination of changing tastes and amazing lack of income. Most of my music collection of the late 70s through the late 90s grew out of a very primitive form of piracy, consisting of:
(1) Go to the library and check out LPs (almost exclusively classical or older jazz);
(2) Dupe them onto cassette tapes;
(3 Return LPs to library, listen to cassette tapes on crappy tape player.
When CDs came to the fore, I looked at them, thought, "Huh. Boy, *those* are pricey," contemplated my amazing lack of income, and passed them by. I also didn't have a car, so the input mode of driving around listening to random shit on the radio wasn't happening. And so, with one thing and another, I basically had no connection with any music that hit the airwaves between, say, 1975 and the present day.]
But now that I have the amazing resources of Our Glorious Intrawebs (in the form of a Rhapsody subscription--Rhapsody rocks!--as well as iTunes et al.), and even some actual income, I am taking on the project of actually trying to listen to current music (for a broad definition of "current") and figure out what I like. So your question is:
What five albums/artists (random number, feel free to contract or expand it) are essential for me to check out, representing music without which Jeezus Keerist, Kat, your life has been a barren wasteland spent in a cave!? (Note: this is just a reply-in-comments kind of poll, devoid of ticky-boxes, because the limitations of LJ's Poll Creator for text boxes frustrates me.)
Part II: So, When/Where/How Do You Listen to Music, Anyway?
[Background: OK, this will sound funny and pathetic to most of you, but one of the things that hinders my plunge back into the realm of music appreciation is that I've simply gotten out of the habit of having music on. Driving around in the car is about it, but I don't drive much, and the rest of my life is basically background-music-free. So really, I'm just curious about how everyone else manages to work this into their lives.]
[Poll #462147]
ETA: Thanks so much for all the great ideas so far!
And although, as noted in the comments, part of my intent was to not restrict your suggestions within the framework of my pre-existing preferences, still I realize a few directional markers might be helpful. So, just a short list of some of the (very few) CDs I have actually purchased and dug:
David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust
Dylan, Blood on the Tracks, Blonde on Blonde
Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville
Cowboy Junkies, Trinity Sessions
Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense
REM, Automatic for the People
Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street
The Donnas, Spend the Night
Bonnie Raitt, Luck of the Draw
...to the extent that this provides any help whatsoever. *g*
So, this part of the poll is: Imagine that you have been charged with enlightening someone who has lived in a cave since the mid-70s about the music of the past 30 years.
[Background: The living-in-a-cave part is not much of an exaggeration. I more or less stopped listening to popular music about the time vinyl went out, due to a combination of changing tastes and amazing lack of income. Most of my music collection of the late 70s through the late 90s grew out of a very primitive form of piracy, consisting of:
(1) Go to the library and check out LPs (almost exclusively classical or older jazz);
(2) Dupe them onto cassette tapes;
(3 Return LPs to library, listen to cassette tapes on crappy tape player.
When CDs came to the fore, I looked at them, thought, "Huh. Boy, *those* are pricey," contemplated my amazing lack of income, and passed them by. I also didn't have a car, so the input mode of driving around listening to random shit on the radio wasn't happening. And so, with one thing and another, I basically had no connection with any music that hit the airwaves between, say, 1975 and the present day.]
But now that I have the amazing resources of Our Glorious Intrawebs (in the form of a Rhapsody subscription--Rhapsody rocks!--as well as iTunes et al.), and even some actual income, I am taking on the project of actually trying to listen to current music (for a broad definition of "current") and figure out what I like. So your question is:
What five albums/artists (random number, feel free to contract or expand it) are essential for me to check out, representing music without which Jeezus Keerist, Kat, your life has been a barren wasteland spent in a cave!? (Note: this is just a reply-in-comments kind of poll, devoid of ticky-boxes, because the limitations of LJ's Poll Creator for text boxes frustrates me.)
Part II: So, When/Where/How Do You Listen to Music, Anyway?
[Background: OK, this will sound funny and pathetic to most of you, but one of the things that hinders my plunge back into the realm of music appreciation is that I've simply gotten out of the habit of having music on. Driving around in the car is about it, but I don't drive much, and the rest of my life is basically background-music-free. So really, I'm just curious about how everyone else manages to work this into their lives.]
[Poll #462147]
ETA: Thanks so much for all the great ideas so far!
And although, as noted in the comments, part of my intent was to not restrict your suggestions within the framework of my pre-existing preferences, still I realize a few directional markers might be helpful. So, just a short list of some of the (very few) CDs I have actually purchased and dug:
David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust
Dylan, Blood on the Tracks, Blonde on Blonde
Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville
Cowboy Junkies, Trinity Sessions
Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense
REM, Automatic for the People
Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street
The Donnas, Spend the Night
Bonnie Raitt, Luck of the Draw
...to the extent that this provides any help whatsoever. *g*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-26 06:41 pm (UTC)Paul Weller is an utter, utter god of pop. He's made of music. Follow this record with early Jam albums then leap into his recent covers album, Studio 150, a lesson on flawless musicianship. Weller's output covers the seventies (The Jam - In The City 1977) to the now and he's been right where music is every moment of those almost thirty years.
Belle and Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress 2003
The albums recced above are very fine, though I would place Tigermilk before them. This, their latest, is magical. It sparkles and laughs and is tastily melancholy. It is the bright sun shining on a pretty girl's swinging perfect hair, it is the clipped click click of her heels as she walks down the street. It's sweet and funny and sad and the music slips through your fingers like days. Belle and Sebastian are the love children of Gram Parsons and Dusty Springfield.
The Lemonheads - The Best of the Lemonheads The Atlantic Years 1998
And really, this rec is not just because there's a brilliant Sentinel vid to "The Outdoor Type" or because I love "Big Gay Heart". It's a lovely album and is a nineties antidote to all the grunge and the wrist-slitters you are being recced. (Which is not to say that isn't good music, it just that music partook of a particularly melancholy slice of the nineties generation.)
New Order - Power, Corruption and Lies 1983
Changed the direction of music at the beginning of eighties.
Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill 1986
This is clever, vocally and lyrically sweet, rock and punk and rap.
N'Sync - Celebrity 2001
No, really. You want to know where music has been in the last thirty years? This album is like the confluence of the Mekong and the Tonle Sap and the Bassac rivers - three mighty influences, three major directions, occassionally it flows backwards! But you don't sell millions of albums without having something that makes people want to listen to your music. And that's pop, baby.
Kasey Chambers - Barricades and Brick Walls
This is where country music is coming from.
I know you said five, but frankly, that's impossible.
Annie Lennox - Medusa (though Bare is also brilliant)
Living Colour - Vivid
De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising
Kate Bush - Sensual World
George Michael - Faith
Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet
AC/DC - Back in Black
The Pixies - Doolittle
Suzanne Vega - Suzanne Vega
Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Oh My God! You just have to listen to everything!!!
I've privileged pop, rap/hip-hop and country music because it seemed you were getting a lot of grunge and rock recs from everyone else.
If you do try Einsterzende Neubaten, I can recommend their doco soundtrack, Berlin Babylon. I'll get back to you when I'm reunited with my cable connection.
And now to bed. I'll wake up tomorrow with a completely different list, I just know it.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-26 07:09 pm (UTC):D
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-27 12:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-27 02:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-02 06:25 pm (UTC)(Which is to say that it looks a lot like mine. *G*)