August 2011 - Popular Music

Tori Amos

• Under the Pink
• Boys for Pele
• To Venus and Back (studio disc)
• Strange Little Girls
• Scarlet's Walk
• The Beekeeper
• Abnormally Attracted To Sin
• Midwinter Graces
• Scarlet's Hidden Treasures

Fiona Apple - When the Pawn...
Jimmy Barnes - Flesh and Wood
Kate Bush - Never for Ever
Kate Bush - The Red Shoes
Tim Corley - Anywhere But Here
The Dissociatives - The Dissociatives
David Gray - A New Day At Midnight
Patty Griffin - Impossible Dream
Missy Higgins - The Sound of White
Billy Joel - An Innocent Man
Billy Joel - River of Dreams
Nik Kershaw - Radio Musicola
Wendy Matthews - Lily
Wendy Matthews - Beautiful View
Joni Mitchell - For the Roses
Joni Mitchell - Shine
Moloko - Statues
Van Morrison - The Best of Van Morrison
Beth Orton - Daybreaker
Over the Rhine - Ohio
Pearl Jam - Backspacer
Pink - Greatest Hits... So Far!
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
Tears for Fears - The Seeds of Love
Thrice - The Alchemy Index
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Wow. Did I really listen to all that?!

Okay yes, there is an enormous Tori Amos binge going on there. I basically had a phase of getting ready for her new album (Out Now!) by doing an overview of her previous body of work.  I'm insticintively a 'body of work' kind of person.  I didn't quite finish as you can see. I ran out of steam at some point, I can't recall whether it was because of a feeling of Tori overdose or because the stresses I was under just made me feel I couldn't really concentrate properly on what I was hearing.

Apart from that, and despite the stresses, I seem to have listened to a HECK of a lot over the month.  I know that several albums were covered in two car trips, but there's plenty of other exploration all over my library.  Which is good to see, that's what it's there for.  It'll be scary to find out just how many CDs I have once I finish the catalogue, it's up to a couple of hundred entries for pop and I'm nowhere near finished yet.

David Gray was one of those cases of unearthing something virtually unlistened to. I remember being terribly disappointed with A New Day At Midnight when I bought it.  Turns out it's fairly enjoyable light music for a car trip - it still doesn't seem to have anything that comes close to rivalling the highs of White Ladder, but it's certainly not a total waste of shelf space.

Beth Orton's Daybreaker is an album that truly fascinates and puzzles me.  Despite a fair amount of listening, it still doesn't feel very integrated to me.  It starts off with 4 of the most truly wonderful sonic landscapes I know. They just somehow have the right combination of detail and sweep to resonate with me personally.  And then... Beth pulls the rug out from under me.  Suddenly the album veers off into a more electronic title track, followed by folk, then country, before gradually heading back in an arc to where it started, getting there for the 10th and final track. There's nothing in the excursions that I dislike (the title track is probably my least favourite but it's still reasonable), but it just lacks something in either the production decisions or the song order to glue it all together into a single artistic vision.

And that's what I really look for in an album.  It's the combination of the individual songs, and even the touches within songs, with the big picture to make a satisfying whole.  Every song sounding the same is no good, and neither is every song sounding completely different. Despite what modern listening practice would have you believe, an album is not just a playlist slapped together by the singer which a listener can then change at their whim into their own playlist - or at least, that's not what an album should be in my view.  It's a multi-movement work, in just the same way that classical composers frequently created multi-movement works.  An album is the highest level structure in an system of sonic organisation that goes down to songs, then verse and choruses and bridges, write down to details in a single bar.

Well, the great ones are, anyway.

July 2011 - Classical Music

Bach, J.S. - Brandenburg Concertos 1 to 3
Beethoven

• Septet
• Symphony No.4
• Cello Sonata No.3
• Piano Sonata No.28

Brahms

• Piano Quartet No.3
• Clarinet Trio
• Clarinet Quintet

Chopin - 4 Mazurkas, Op.24
Faure

• Cantique de Jean Racine
• Ballade for piano
• Mazurka
• Nocturnes 5 and 6
• Valse-caprices 2 and 4
• Barcarolle No.2
• Piano Quartet No.2
• Impromptu No.6 (piano transcription of harp piece)
• Piano Quintet No.1
• 9 Preludes
• Cello Sonata No.1

Gorecki - Symphony No.3
Handel - Keyboard Suites, HWV 436 to 441
Haydn - Piano trios, Hob XV: 24 to 26 (set of 3 dedicated to Rebecca Schroeter)
Messiaen - Quartet for the End of Time
Ravel

• Gaspard de la nuit
• Valses nobles et sentimentales
• Prelude for piano
• Piano Trio
• La Valse

Schubert

• Piano Sonata in E, D.459 ('5 Piano pieces')
• String Quartets 12 and 15
• Moments Musicaux

Schumann - Piano Trios 1 and 2
Shostakovich - String Quartet No.5
Strauss, R. - Death and Transfiguration

Beethoven, Brahms, Faure, Ravel, Schubert.  There is such an amazing history of music out there (and this is just the Western, European tradition), it seems a shame that people often only get to know the work that emerges in their own lifetime.  Although there's enough of that to keep a person fully occupied, and so much of it is good.

Faure seems to be the one, though, that can fascinate me the most. Not because I understand all his music immediately.  In fact, it's probably because his music is so elusive that it exerts such a pull. As you can see, when I start exploring his work I find it hard to stop! And yet I hadn't listened to anything for several months before that.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if I spend the rest of my life having little Faure episodes.

Ravel is right up there for me as well, which is interesting because he was Faure's pupil - though everything I've read suggests that Faure was not the kind of teacher who forced his students to write in his own voice instead of their own.

I'm just glad I live at a point where it's possible to jump in space and time and hear their work. I don't have to be in early 20th century Paris to be one of the lucky ones.  And yes, for some composers I can't hear their own interpretations in live performances, but I'm still in such a fortunate position, to be able to dip in and out of musical history like this.

This month I also listened to Gorecki's 3rd symphony, in the recording that was, against all expectations, a bona fide hit in 1992 (15 years after the music actually premiered).  For a classical recording - not a 'light' classical or 'crossover', but a standard classical-style work - to sell over a million copies is just not something that usually happens.  And who knows why it did. Some combination of the music and the zeitgeist just clicked.  But it's powerful and beautiful music, and the world is better for having it.

July 2011 - Popular Music

Okay, so August was kind of a rough month...

Not so rough that I didn't listen to music or keep notes of what it was, but I didn't really have much opportunity to sit down and reflect on the music. So if you'd care to cast your mind all the way back to July...

Tori Amos

• Under the Pink
• The Beekeeper
• American Doll Posse
• Abnormally Attracted To Sin
• Spark part 2 single (Spark/Do It Again/Cooling)
• A Piano: Disc A - Little Earthquakes Extended

Elvis Costello - Extreme Honey
Sheryl Crow - The Globe Sessions
Garbage - Garbage
Gomez - Bring It On
Gomez - Split the Difference
Sarah Harmer - All Of Our Names
Natalie Imbruglia - Left of the Middle
Jars of Clay - If I Left the Zoo
Level 42 - Running in the Family
Wendy Matthews - Ghosts
Joni Mitchell

• Clouds
• Blue
• Dog Eat Dog
• Turbulent Indigo

Moloko - Things to Make and Do
Over the Rhine - Ohio
Pearl Jam - Binaural
Pearl Jam - Backspacer
Plumb - Chaotic Resolve
Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
Radiohead - King of Limbs
Seal - Human Being
Seal - Seal IV
Something for Kate - The Official Fiction
Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring

Gosh. Is it really over a month since I listened to some of these?

I suppose the most notable thing is that I was making purchases. Natalie Imbruglia was a second-hand purchase the month before (same time as Billy Joel), which is really just a fairly light piece of pop listening but it's still enjoyable.  Gomez' first album Bring It On was a new purchase as I get so much out of the 3 I already owned. It's funny what different ordering does to your perception: I know that their debut was when they got lots of attention and the Mercury Prize, but so far I mostly hear an enjoyable band that hasn't got the sophistication of later releases or the amazing command of their resources. It's like they've bought a very fancy new car but are driving it a bit cautiously while they make sure it's all in working order.

Another new purchase was Pearl Jam's Backspacer, continuing the little PJ excursion I seem to be on. I will probably end up with all their albums now, but it's more interesting jumping around in order. I was certainly impressed with their latest. This is Pearl Jam being relatively relaxed and comfortable and, dare I say it, ever so slightly pop.

There was a nice little Joni Mitchell binge, much of it on one weekend. That's the first time since I started this that someone other than Tori has managed more than 2 entries in a month. Not enough to end Tori's dominance though (and, um, I think it gets worse in August...). I even pulled out a single this time. I listen to singles quite rarely, but I decided they deserve a database entry as much as the longer players.

This month also proved again the benefits of going back to listen to things with fresh ears. I can't remember the last time I listened to Chaotic Resolve. It always ranked as one of the more disappointing purchases I'd made.  The best tracks were the ones I already knew, and the best of all was actually a bonus - a remix of a song from a previous album.  Listening to it again, probably for the first time in a couple of years at least, I got more out of it. It's still not a classic, and I doubt I'll ever regard it as one - the music is too square, the lyrics too awkwardly obvious - but I did get enjoyment out of it and that's really the main thing. Not every album can be my favourite album ever or an intense listening experience.

And again, there was more proof of the idea that a large library of music means you can find the right thing at the right moment.  I've never had great love for Seal IV. It's sat there on the shelf, and every now and then I've looked it and asked why it couldn't be more like it's older brother Human Being.  July was the month that I discovered that, when you've spent a couple of days hearing just how shockingly horrible one human being can be by calmly massacring a teenage summer camp, an album that is as light and silvery as its cover and full of touches of hope might just be the best solution you can come up with.