About All being well, and following on from last year's semi-successful Forgotten Film February, in a few short weeks the 'onslaught' that is Mystery Music March will be upon me/us/this blog. I've written before about my inability to review music and I thought I'd give myself another challenge. Each day I'll be writing about some music you might not have heard about or certainly hasn't been on most people's radar.
Clearly this is an even trickier prospect than writing about film simply because it's a far more subjective artform, polarising people left of centre. In addition, there's the temptation to take rhe opportunity to demonstrate a person's expansive musical knowledge and just how far off the mainstream its possible to stray. All of which said, if you are a regular reader for the most part I'm a pretty middle of the road kind of listener who can't get along with guitar bands at all. I've just spent half the evening watching ABBA videos (the special video effects on Eagle are wild!) so don't expect too much proto-Peel business from here.
That being the case, as usual I'm seeing contributors/guestbloggers/both. This is your opportunity to introduce some favourite music to the rest of the world. Anything will do so long as its about music and you can write about it in any way you wish. Even haiku. A single, an album, even a concert. Be as willfully obscure as you like or it could simply be a known artist doing something you'd never expect them to. Sheryl Crow once sang opera with Pavarotti -- who would have thought that could ever happen? No genre barriers either. If it's grindcore, it's in.
I'm bringing the band back together. Who's with me?
Can't stand Delius, although Seadrift's pretty decent.
ReplyDeleteHere's a mix of my 'top iTunes tracks' that give an idea of my own eclectic tastes. It would probably sound a bit different now, a year or so on.
(Prizes for spotting the snippet to a famous Ealing Comedy in there, or for identifying as many of the tracks as you can for that matter.)
You can make your own at iTunes signature maker
I would say that my top two pieces of music are Elgar's Dream of Gerontius (The Simon Rattle recording is my favourite and now on mid-price) and Vaughan Williams's first symphony, The Sea Symphony. Play both as loud as you dare.
Be warned - it took me a while to 'get' these, but now I have, I love them. Better than sex...
The piece I listen to the most, though, (according to iTunes) is Shostakovitch's tenth symphony (with the 11th not far behind) largely because it used to last me the train journey from Brighton to Victoria. But it's also damn fine music - the first movement is like watching a storm at sea, just over the horizon.
Other pieces to recommend would be Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia (always used to get me a snog but tried it recently and the magic failed) and The Lark Ascending.
And if you fancy something longer but less involving than the works mentioned at the top, then either Vaughan Williams's fifth or second symphonies, or Shostakovitch's fifth, or the Elgar Cello Concerto.
In the rock and pop world, I seem to be rather fond of McCartney's album-before-last, 'Chaos and Creation In The Back Yard', in particular 'Too Much Rain' and 'This Never Happened Before'. 'Friends to Go' is a spooky channeling of George Harrison, whose 'Dark Horse' and 'All Things Must Pass' are no strangers to my wi-fi Mac-to-living room set-up.
My iPod Shuffle constantly surprises me with rock music I forgot I had, and I've set it up to only play stuff I haven't heard since ripping it from CD - and there's about 100 hours of music left so that's a few gym visits and several kilos to go. With the complete works of Queen left till last (what was I thinking?)