Popular Music - August 2018

Tori Amos

• From the Choirgirl Hotel
• To Venus and Back - venus orbiting
• Night of Hunters
• Unrepentant Geraldines
• Native Invader

Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel
Kate Bush - Never For Ever
Janet Jackson - Janet.
Jars of Clay - Furthermore
Nichole Nordeman - Woven & Spun
Pearl Jam - Binaural
Pearl Jam - Lightning Bolt

It remains true that, if in doubt about pop music, I retreat to Tori Amos. But there are a couple of other things on the list that were not quite so predictable.

Picking up Janet. for the first time in a long time was a slightly left-field choice. Absence hasn't really made the heart grow fonder, though. It's still an album that rates as enjoyable without being stellar. There are good things on there, certainly, and nothing terrible, but I have no strong reaction to it. It did remind me that I want to explore her whole catalogue at some point, just to see what I've been missing outside of this album and Rhythm Nation.

Pearl Jam's Binaural is, if anything, dropping lower and lower in my opinion. Yes, there are a few good songs, and "Light Years" is gorgeous, but there are also some clunkers, killed by music or lyrics or production. I can never get over how "Sleight of Hand", one of the songs supposedly recorded using special techniques, sounds so lifeless.  Lightning Bolt, on the other hand, which I admittedly still don't know that well, leaves a much more favourable impression as an album.

As I work, very sporadically, through the Jars of Clay catalogue, I listened to both halves of Furthermore, one live (which I hadn't listened to in years) and one acoustic. Most of the known songs are not revelatory, with these versions tending to be similar to the original studio recordings. The real assets are the songs not previously on albums. Frankly, Furthermore is worth hearing for "The Valley Song" alone.

Classical Music - July 2018

Bach, J.S.

• Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen (Dearest Jesus, my desire)
• Alles nur nach Gottes Willen (Everything only according to God's will)
• Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke (I am content with my fortune)

Barber - Summer Music
Beethoven - The Consecration of the House (complete)
Beethoven - String Quartets 12 and 16
Brahms - Variations on a Theme by Haydn (orchestral version)
Bridge - A Prayer
Dvorak

• Legends (orchestral version)
• String Quartet No.11
• String quartet movement in F
• Moderato in A for piano 

Faure - Cello Sonata No.1
Faure - Piano Quintet No.2 
Haydn - Symphony No.63
Mozart - Symphony No.35 "Haffner"
Mozart - String Quartet No.16 
Nørgård - Symphony No.3
Schumann - Symphony No.2
Shostakovich - Symphony No.8
Sibelius - Six songs, op.88 (the "flower cycle")
Stravinsky - Orpheus

There hasn't been a lot of evidence that I've been progressing through Stravinsky's works chronologically, because I don't own very many recordings and my self-imposed rules for this blog don't include things that I stream.

I'm sure that I'll be increasing the size of my Stravinsky collection, but in the meantime Orpheus is one of the works that had already made me realise there was far more to Stravinsky than the few early ballets that are famous. It's a very appealing score, often gentle and melodious.

There were a few symphonies in the mix this month, and a general focus on orchestral music which isn't entirely typical for me. But much of this was simply due to where my planned explorations of composers were up to. And there was no lack of quality in the music I was hearing.

Popular Music - July 2018

Tori Amos - Under the Pink
Beyonce - Beyonce
Agnes Obel - Aventine

Let's face it, this list is pathetic. The albums are good, but just 3 completed listens in 31 days? Pathetic.

I know the first half of the month was affected by the World Cup. The second half of the month, as far as I can remember, was affected by me working too damn hard.

It was not a great time. For one thing, Croatia was robbed...