Music Craziness

Hmmm, since I last wrote here I have experienced an incredible amount of music. Where to even begin?

I continue to use Pandora, though not as exclusively as when I first discovered it. One trend I've noticed is that you have to be careful what you "Thumbs Up." The reason is that the more things you approve that you may like, but are farther from the starting song, the more general and even bland the station gets. Thus a lot of my old station are far less distinct than I would like. For example, what started as a Beatles station became British Invasion. But then it has kept expanding and now it's become just a general 60's and 70's station. Thus I created "A Day in the Life" station, starting from a song I really like. And then I've only really been approving songs of a similar experimental vein. But it is so hard when a classic early Beatles song comes on to NOT give it a thumbs up. So I just leave a lot of songs unrated now.

My physical has grown quite a bit. I can't remember if I mentioned it before, but I got the essential "1" album by the Beatles. I know I already mentioned The Fire Theft. I also got a couple of records at a yard sale- S&G's Greatest Hits album (it's a classic) and the Eagles Greatest Hits. I'm not a big Eagles fan (they're ok), but this is the best selling album in the US of all time (19 times platinum) so I figured it would fit well into my growing collection. My trip to NY to see Her was very fortuitous. She gave me Paul's excellent album Chaos and Creation for my birthday. Then Bekah gave me something great- the White Album. While their went to a great little used music shop in North Port Village- "Permanent Records". I had to leave a bunch of great bargains behind, but I walked out with Stereolab's newest, "Fab Four Suture", (quite good), a promo copy of Theivery Corp's newest original lp, Lovedrug's first full length (a rare find- and quite good!), and an America vinyl (I can't remember the title). All for about $20 :) The America album officially belongs to Christine and me since it was her idea. It has a lot of good songs though (eg Sister Golden Hair) and we got to listen to it together. In the time since then, I've gotten a few more items. I ordered another Beatles essential, Revolver, on Amazon marketplace. Next will be either Sgt Pepper's, or Magical Mystery Tour. Then maybe Rubber Soul and Abbey Road. Slowly but surely I'm building my collection. Oh, I also discovered that Harrison's first solo effort, the triple lp All Things Must Pass is a must have- I heard a bunch of songs on Pandora. He was just bursting with great stuff after all of the Lennon-McCartney suppression. Oh, I also need to get the classic Odessey and Oracle by the Zombies.

I also discovered a great new online service through Dave at work. It is a cd trading site called "lala". Check it out. Basically you list cd's you want to trade and if someone wants it, you send it to them with special mailers that lala send you- a lot like Netflix. For each cd you send, you get one off of you "want" list. You only pay $1.50 per cd. The more you send, the more you receive. My only problem right now is that I don't have many cd's I want to get rid of. I may try to pick up random used ones that I find specifically for trading. We'll see. I did get one cd completely for free just for signing up. And it's a great one I've wanted for a long time- "How It Feels to Be Something On" by Sunny Day Real Estate. It was there first album after rejoining. And to me, it is one of the best 90's emo albums.

And then there are all of the library cd's! there have been so many. At this very moment while I'm at work (scanning) I'm listening to "Bachelor No. 2" by Aimee Mann, which is surprisingly recent (90's). She sings my favorite song on the I Am Sam soundtrack (all Beatles covers), Two of Us. This is a pretty good album. I said surprisingly recent because most of what I've been getting is from earlier decades. I don't have time to go into it all now because I need to go to my other job, but lets just say its been a broad and vast musical experience the past couple of months. I've discovered things as diverse as Fleetwood Mac and the Clash, , Led Zeppelin and Marvin Gaye! So yeah. I have to go to the library today actually- who knows what else I will discover?