Tuesday 18 January 2011

Musical Suggestions

I'm going to be doing a bit of driving over the next few days so I will need something to listen to. I have my trusty favourites, of course - Lady Gaga's splendid oeuvre; Mendelssohn's final string quartet; Amy Macdonald's 'This is the Life' (thank you, Worm, I never tire of it), playing on an alternating loop with the first part of Handel's Messiah. But I feel I should break out of my audio rut and try something new - after all, that is how I discovered Amy Macdonald. Any suggestions - especially for things you can play at top volume as you belt along the highway - would be welcomed with open ears.

18 comments:

  1. How about some music by fellow-Austalian Peggy Glanville-Hicks? Her Etruscan Concerto, say, or her Sinfonia da Pacifica.

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  2. It depends what you're driving, perhaps. There's Steppenwolf's Born to be Wild at one end of the spectrum and, for instance, the Steptoe and Son Theme Tune at the other.

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  3. Frank - I seem to remember Glanville-Hicks died last year - but not driving, I hope, and especially not driving while listening to her own music.
    Gadjo - that made me laugh

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  4. Not sure that this is belting out music exactly, but any of Eva Cassidy's CDs are great for the road I think. I love her interpretations.

    For top volume stuff, it's hard to go past Tchaikovsky like, you know, the 1812 ...

    Safe driving, btw ...

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  5. This song always makes me sing along in the car.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTd3jvnx_f4

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  6. And this one does too

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sZibV9QNMM

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  7. An old album I still love is Van Morrison's Astral Weeks. Every song a winner.

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  8. Damien Rice's "O" is pretty good too.

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  9. Hmmm... Lady Gaga and Mendelssohn... not exactly narrowing the field for us, are you?

    Take your pick: http://thedabbler.co.uk/category/lazy-sunday/

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  10. Nick Drake's nice for contemplating the road and life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1YsFgDaEeo

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  11. Thanks all for suggestions. I shall be busy for a while, trying them all out. I haven't heard of many of them, (and those I have heard of eg Astral Weeks I'm glad to be reminded of) so it should be v interesting, (I am beginning to wonder though about Gaw and his renewed pitching for a Wham revival). Amazingly, immediately after reading the Peggy Glanville-Hicks suggestion I walked past a sign pointing to the house where she lived most of her life. Is that the thing called synchronicity?

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  12. My ghastly, guilty secret - Queen's Greatest Hits.

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  13. Sophie, shame on you - the only way from here is down (ooh look, there's Supertramp).

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  14. I can think of a number of suggestions, but the one I'm going to go with is the one I'm listening to at the moment -- Davila 666 and their self-titled first (I believe) album -- Puerto Rican garage rock, with screams and tambourines and kicky hooks, all ragged and snarly, sexy-toothed.

    Or! Which reminds me! The grandaddies of Latin American garage punk, Peru's Los Saicos. They never released anything but singes, and their entire repertoire fits on a single compilation. Someone put it out such a compilation last year and called it Demolicion. I'd look up the label but my internet is grinding to a halt and if I open another page I think it might freeze completely.

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  15. I cannot wait to impress my children by telling them I am listening to Puerto Rican garage rock. They think they know it all, but I will show them.

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  16. Would they be impressed if you told them you were listening to 1970s big-band Beninoise funk? Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo has been making a bit of a comeback, and they're terrific.

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