Tuesday, February 13, 2007

The soundtrack to my life right now

I just don't get people who aren't moved by music. My father finds music 'distracting' (though isn't that kind of the point at times?) and so, outside of my room, I grew up in largely silent household; whereas now on a typical day I wake to the alarm on my DAB radio, listen to the radio on the morning commute, turn on the iPod over lunch, catch the drivetime shows home, turn on the CD while I cook and finally fall asleep to something beautiful.

Music follows me round the house, down the motorway, through my life.

I devour music, absorb it, bathe in, live in it.

The tunes that soundtrack my life will vary from one month to the next, favourites will resurface again and again, shorter term obsessions will come and go.

So more for me than any one out there (have you not worked that out already about this blog?), for the record, this is the music that accompanies my life at this moment in time (in no particular order):

Hmmm...looking at that list I clearly have a thing for guitar bands (like I didn't already know that), but there also seems to be a developing theme of falsetto male voices. Come to think of it I did shove on an old Communards album the other week as well...

Luckily for my insatiable ears new music keeps coming and coming. Is there a point when it becomes indecent to still be following the new? At what age is it expected that you stop listening to anything new and settle down with the bands of 'your generation'?

I have a friend who has a theory on fashion, that in some way your taste in clothes get frozen to the time when you first really grew up. Ok she's blunter than that, she links it to what you were wearing when you lost your cherry (well ok, just before the moment you lost your cherry in most cases).

I think she may have something in the concept that our tastes do tend to freeze a little around the golden years of our late teens, but perhaps she takes it too far.

After all, according to her theory, old-age virgins should be the most en Vogue of their generation.

Anyway, I digress, the point is my musical tastes seem to keep expanding (maybe I have yet to lose my musical cherry? damn it enough of that digression already). So in the spirit of all things blog like and sharing, I've added links above to youtube and myspace etc where you can hear snippets of the albums I've listed, maybe other bloggers would like to similarly share their current musical listening?

What's the current soundtrack to your life?

Ah go on now; we won't judge.

Much.

12 comments:

sally said...

OMG, I haven't heard of any of these..well, badly drawn boy and the smiths but that's all..and you wouldn't judge what I listen to??? yeah, right....something around 1971 ish..I wonder what happened to me in my life then.......

Caroline said...

hey i win sally - i've heard of antony ad the johnsons too, whcih makes three! yay I'm well cool.

i feel judged already, so i might as well come clean...i sang along to Captain Sensible's Happy Talk when Chr£is Eva*ns played it today on his show!

Shaun said...

well I've listened to the following albums today.

norah jones's new one in the car
getcapewearcapefly (good recommendation by the way)
sufjan stevens illinois
richard hawley's coles corner
snow patrol eyes open and final straw
delta goodrem (my colleagues choice in the lab stereo)
and a bit of simple minds.

we have 80GB of music in a juke box in the lab and I swear that if it was up to Jan, we would only listen to Dido. I keep trying to broaden her musical tastes and it is beginning to work. Although she does keep asking for ABBA which fortunately for me and my other colleagues is mysteriously absent from the jukebox, much like coldplay (he's got a really whiney singing voice if you ask me)

Stuart said...

Oh Shaun you are so yesterday she was at get cape wear cape fly's (i think that's the best way to put it)21st birthday party lovey!

1 i z said...

James - I just knew someone would mention last fm. Doesn't really work for me, I rarely listen via my pc.

Sally - 1971 was a very fine year. Particularly for births ;-) As for judging, well Steve F has Chris Richard on his iPod and I still talk to him...occasionally ;-)

Caroline - I have a soft spot for the occasional show tune and can clearly recall Captain Sensible's appearance on TOTP. As for judging - I know we share many CDs in common!

Shaun - I shudder to think what my colleagues would play if we had a jukebox. But you've reminded me, I fancy a bit of Sufjan. Haven't heard much by Richard Hawley, but enough to be interested - do you think it'll be my cup of tea?

Stuart - you're so right. I've eaten his birthday cake, we're virtually related now ;-)

sally said...

Excuse me, I was only 18 in 1971, and I didn't give birth to anyone until 1976, thank you. It's not giving birth we were talking about...dur...

Dave said...

hmmm 1971 - well I can remember dancing with Carol Evison to Cliff Richard at the school disco, and probably the same year I bought Ride A White Swan by T Rex. Staying up in London to work on some bids at the moment so late nights in the office with the music blaring out when everyone else has gone home. Ironically Communards/Sommerville (best of) been played this week along with Rolling Stones Live Licks, Barclay James Harvest - Octoberon (my old physics teacher sang on this in about 1976 making him extremely cool in my eyes, Bob Dylan - Modern Times, Cat Stevens (Best of), Radiohead - OK Computer, David Bowie - Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust (demo version), Hey Gravity - Risen (unreleased), Led Zeppelin - How the West Was Won, Magic Numbers - Magic Numbers, Midnight Oil - Scream in Blue, Rachael Yamagata - Happenstance. Guess I must be really old as majority of the above seem to have been from the 70s. And of the above just two have played Greenbelt. Two Oliver would love to play Greenbelt, and there is one on the list who I hope will play this year.

Myn said...

You should have seen the look of panic on my colleague's face this morning when she realised no one else in the office had heard of The Smiths (except me. I'm closer to the rest in age, but more informed about music that isn't performed by boy bands.)

Caroline said...

was anyone else sad enough to watch some of the early rounds of junior mastermind? There are 10 year old kides in the world who have never heard of freddie Mercury and Queen or even cliff richard...and they chose boy bands as their specialist subject. what is the world coming to?

Shaun said...

Sally,

how old is 1iz?

1iz,

If your inbox can cope, I can email you the album. 53Mb.

sally said...

Shaun..how old is Liz? What has that to do with it? Why are you asking me that?....And then it dawned on me..oh, do you mean.....oh, I see. Sorry.

sally said...

Shaun..how old is Liz? What has that to do with it? Why are you asking me that?....And then it dawned on me..oh, do you mean.....oh, I see. Sorry.