7 posts tagged “music”

One of my all-time favorites from the 80s!  Thanks for the flashback, Rich. :-)

What's your musical horoscope?  (Put your player on shuffle and write down the first 10 songs that come up.) 

Creative Zen 4GB

A Little of Your Time - Maroon 5

No One - Alicia Keys

Beautiful - Christina Aguilera

This Ain't a Scene, It's An Arms Race - Fall Out Boy

Strobelite Honey - Black Sheep

Say Goodbye - Dave Matthews Band

Over You - Daughtry

Crooked Ass N**** - 2Pac

The Choice is Yours - Black Sheep

Youth of the Nation - P.O.D.

Gonna be a rough day, it seems!

Led Zeppelin will finally offer their music online starting next month.   Of the music you buy, about how much of it do you download and how much do you buy on physical formats (CDs, vinyl, etc.)?

Any artist not making their music available online in some method -- unless they're involved in some label dispute over royalties -- is crazy, I think, and missing out on reaching new audiences. I rarely buy CDs, et al, these days, preferring to selectively download singles that I like and ocassionally getting the full album from favorite artists or newly discovered ones who click for me (ie: Gym Class Heroes and Jurassic 5). I'm a lot more likely to seek out an interesting new-to-me band via a one-shot download than I am to head over to...um, where does one buy music in person these days anyway?

I currently have almost 700 songs on my new MP3 player, with about that many more on the hard drive jukebox Salomé and I share.  I have a ton of CDs, mostly from the 90s, that one of these days I'll finish ripping so I can get my digital Milli Vanilli fix whenever I want to, but it's such a time-consuming process. The majority of songs from this century, I bought online.

On that note, it's playlist time featuring the 10 most recent songs I've listened to via "Random Play All":

• All That I Am, Rob Thomas
• How to Save a Life, The Fray
• Words of Wisdom, Tupac
• Lean Back, Terror Squad
• Mad Season, Matchbox Twenty
• Let's Go Crazy, Prince
• Human Nature, Michael Jackson
• El Cuarto de Tula, Buena Vista Social Club
• So Much to Say, Dave Matthews Band
• Ever the Same, Rob Thomas

It's Rob Thomas Day, apparently! Not a bad thing.

India Gets a New Care Bear

We trekked up to Lawrence Farms Orchards again on Saturday to have an apple-picking/pumpkin-picking/picnic party for India's 5th birthday and the unseasonably warm October weather was absolutely perfect for it! (More pictures @ Flickr.) India, who doesn't like birthday parties at all, handled things pretty well, though she had no interest in her cake and didn't warm up to the idea of opening her presents until we peeked behind the wrapping paper of one of them and she realized a Care Bear was inside! Prior to that, she had dissed a gift bag full of clothes as "boring" and was insisting that I give her the Pliplup (Pokemon) figure she knew was in another bag because she'd spied it at home a few days earlier.

The rest of the day, she carried around the smaller of the two Care Bears she received (Grumpy Bear, ironically) and the talking Chimchar (Pokemon) I wanted to claim as my own! It's kind of funny that years after Pokemon has pretty much faded into the pop culture background, my old cards buried in the back of the closet, both Isaac and India have discovered them in various forms, from the toys to the cards to the video game itself.

And no, that's not my direct influence at all, though I fully encourage it now that the interest is there! :-)

Creative Zen 4GB

My new favorite toy, the Creative Zen 4GB, arrived last week and I've been having fun playing around with it, loading it up with 3.25GB of the most random selection of music from the 60s to today, and finally dabbling with some podcasts via Zencast. So far, the CNN Complete Update, MLB.com's Gameday Audio Rewind, and NPR's Latino USA have been keepers, but I'm still looking for the "killer app" that really sells me on the concept as a viable standalone feature. As much as I loved Pump up the Volume, most podcasts seem to be the digital equivalent of bad pirate radio, so any recommendations of particularly compelling content would be welcomed!

Skipped 13 last night and finally caught an episode of K-Ville and it was pretty good.  Not great, mind you -- the plotting is very by-the-numbers and the writing isn't quite as crisp as I'd like it to be -- but as I expected, Anthony Anderson and Cole Hauser work well together, and one of the sub-plots, the petition for reinstatement by cops who went AWOL during and after Katrina, is a pretty compelling one. I won't necessarily skip 13 too often to catch it but I'll finally hook up the DVR box to make sure I don't miss any future episodes. Now I just need to get on track with Private Practice and work Grey's Anatomy back into my schedule and all will be right on the TV front.

Yankees Are Done

And so the baseball season ends in NYC, not with a bang, but with a gag.  In stereo, at that!  First the Mets pull an historic choke over the final two weeks of the season, losing a playoff berth that was all but guaranteed at the beginning of the season; then, the Yankees test the "better to have loved and lost" theory by storming into the playoffs only to pull an embarassing no-show for three out of four games, getting eliminated in the first round for the third year in a row. Not even the Teflon Don himself, Derek Jeter, was immune to the Choke, hitting a paltry 3-for-17 (.126) and a single RBI.

And what of Joe Torre, the beleaguered manager who, depending on the time of year and who you ask, gets too much or not enough credit for the Yankees' successful run during his 12-year tenure? He's been a great manager for them, this season more than ever, but he's simply not the right guy anymore because Steinbrenner demands better than Bobby Cox. If Torre had the slightest shred of the dignity he's so often credited with, he'd resign today before Steinbrenner can lower the axe. And please, no one suggest the Mets hire him as a bench coach for Willie Randolph.  That would be an insult to both of them.

Spindle, Orange Logo

I have another Spindle update going up later this week, featuring a varied batch of contributors dominated by people I don't know personally who found the site via marketing efforts on Facebook, Duotrope, NewPages and the flyers I printed up and gave out at 13 over the past few weeks. In putting it together, I had to deal with my first outright rejections, which was painful but necessary.

I tried to find the right tone for the rejection note, seeking a balance between expressing sincere appreciation for the submissions and being clear that the material wasn't up to par, without going into any detailed critique which I simply don't have the time for.  I showed it to Salomé after I'd sent it to a couple of people and she was appalled!  We went back and forth over it and I finally saw her point, realizing that maybe I shouldn't have developed it in the context of answering one specific submitter who had clearly not read the guidlelines at all.

On the bright side, I've lined up two poetry editors and am talking to someone this week about writing a regular column; plus, I'm working on the first interview of interesting NYers that I hope to be a regular feature. and I have our first solid fiction submission, though it's a bit long and may have to be serialized.  Good stuff!

I like music of all kinds but I'm a special kind of sucker for love songs, especially the sappy, "love conquers all" stuff. They totally contradict my generally practical cynical outlook on life and have on more than one occasion enabled me to have a more balanced take on a situation, with that particular song becoming permanently attached to that moment as a result.

Love songs in movies and TV shows are tricky because when not done right, or forced, they can completely ruin not just the moment but the whole story. When it works, though, it can be perfect, like The Fray's "How to Save a Life" and Grey's Anatomy. By the time I understood the lyrics and realized only the chorus had any connection to the show, and barely at that, it didn't matter. It will always be associated with Denny's death and every time I hear it, I recall that episode as clearly as if I just watched it the night before.

The Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris" is another one that's permanently attached to a moment, in this case a real life one as it was our official theme song at the '98 National Poetry Slam, the group of us singing it at the top of our lungs whenever it came on the radio. Years later, it still brings back all of the memories of that week in Austin, the ups and downs, the thrill of victory, how tight we were for those few days of intense bonding before returning to NY and life pulling us in various directions.

The latest song doing it for me, unconnected to any movie or TV show -- though the video is rather affecting -- is Bon Jovi's latest, "(You Want to) Make a Memory", which is arguably the best song they've ever done. (NOTE: I love Bon Jovi, so that's not a statement made lightly.) The first couple of times I heard it, I didn't realize it was them, and then I saw the video and was hooked and ever since it's grown on me more and more. It's a simple, heartfelt song that feels intensely personal while being completely accessible and the lyrics are as precise as any bit of poetry:

I dug up this old photograph
Look at all that hair we had
It's bittersweet to hear you laugh
Your phone is ringin I don't wanna ask

If you go now, I'll understand
If you stay - Hey, I got a plan

You want to make a memory
You want to steal a piece of time
You can sing the melody to me
And I could write a couple lines

You want to make a memory

Jon Bon Jovi's singing is impressively self-confident, not feeling the need to oversing or drop in any of his signature tics to ensure you know it's him. It's the kind of self-confidence that comes from years of experience and the comfort of knowing you're established enough to do something a little different and not lose your audience.  Its unexpected inspirational value for writing and performance is worth noting, but as love songs go, it's vaulted into my Top 10, easily, perhaps Top 5 if I ever thought to actually make such a list.

Because there aren't enough distractions online, I've signed up for yet another one: last.fm.

It's a social networking site that links people through their musical tastes, not via hyperlinked entries in an "interests" box, but by tracking everything you listen to on your computer and creating a personal radio station that others can listen to, potentially discovering new songs and artists. It also allows artists to upload their own music and make it available for preview and/or download, offering the potential for reaching new audiences in a way that's more organic than MySpace.

So yeah, I signed up, set my Windows Media Player to "shuffle all" and let it go crazy.  I'm going to have to rip some of my older CDs to make sure my full range of musical tastes are represented as I don't currently have Milli Vanilli or Me Phi Me on the computer and I think more people should revisit their music!

I also signed myself up as an artist and uploaded a few MP3s of me doing poetry from back in the day.  I made them full previews and downloadable for free, but they don't seem to have been fully processed yet.  Check back often and "scrobble" me to the top of the charts!  You can leave me a shout-out there, too.  :-)

ETA: I just realized I could upload the MP3s here to Vox, too, so I did! Check out my "Audio" section to take a listen.

Ten random selections from the hard drive, via Windows Media Center:

1985 -- Bowling for Soup
-- I started 11th grade in the Fall of 1985. Yikes!

Do I Make You Proud -- Taylor Hicks
-- His debut album may have "bombed" but he's still my second-favorite Idol, behind Kelly Clarkson, and I'd catch him in concert any day.

Please to Excuse the Blues -- Patricia Smith
-- On page, on stage, Patricia's work holds up long after the first time it blows you away.

Mercy on the Battlefield -- Oscar Bermeo
-- Now happily married on the left coast, this was OB's coming out.

All That I Am -- Rob Thomas
-- Not my favorite by him, but he's one of a small group of artists I can listen to a whole album of.

Mother -- Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
-- Remains my all-time favorite by Cristin.

Amazing -- Aerosmith
-- From Salomé's downloads; I fast-forwarded past this one!

Hate Me -- Blue October
-- I love this song, partly because it's a perfect alternate timeline theme song for me.

Buttons -- Pussycat Dolls
-- What? Don't hate.

II Hype -- Entouch
-- Underrated New Jack Swingers, this entire album holds up better than the majority of work by better known artists from their time.

Oddly heavy on the poetry today. Hmmm...