Tag: Music
-
The Decemberists: improving with age
I’ve heard that rock and roll has been declared dead. The memo hasn’t gotten out to the band The Dememberists. In January, the band released its latest album, What a Terrible World, What a Wonderful World that is probably its best album in its fifteen-year history. This is good news because most bands do their best…
-
Two very belated rock sequels
Now that I have a streaming music service, I am discovering plenty of new music. I am also discovering a few surprises. Within a couple of weeks, I discovered two very belated rock and roll sequels from artists I had tuned into during my formative years in the 1970s. Return to the Centre of the…
-
The meat of Meat Loaf
You miss a lot during your busy years. There are so many things I just gave up when real life consumed me. This included most television, most leisure reading, lots of movies and music. Now that I’m retired I’m trying to catch up on a lot of stuff that I missed. I’ll never catch up,…
-
The Wildlife Concert: the best of John Denver
It is strange how you can leave some music or some artist on the shelf for many years, then pick it up again and find yourself so moved. With Google Play’s music service I have been reacquainting myself with these artists I’ve enjoyed but whose repertoire I’ve only mostly only sampled. One of those pieces…
-
The real value of streaming music
I’ve been watching my mad money grow to four figures. My mad money comes from a small online consulting business. The business is sporadic, which is fine because I don’t have much time for it anyhow. I use the money to buy stuff I would normally be too cheap to buy. At least that’s the…
-
Ode to Ode to Joy
I recently watched Copying Beethoven (review to come), a fictional movie based on the late life of the composer Ludwig von Beethoven. It is centered around his last and most brilliant symphony, Symphony No. 9. This symphony in four movements concludes with the amazing and powerful chorale piece, Ode to Joy. The movie reenacts the…
-
The skeptic in the room
Today I take a break from blogging because someone else says it much better than I do. If you notice a theme to my blog, this might be it. Thanks, Eddie Scott, for speaking (or rather singing) for me today.
-
An Evening with Don McLean
Popular musicians often fade into undeserved obscurity. Don McLean, who wrote American Pie, is one of these musicians. Most Americans know him only for American Pie, a brilliant 1971 song interweaving an irresistible tune with delicious metaphorical lyrics. American Pie is arguably the definitive coming of age song for his generation. In fact, a Billboard…
-
30 Years of Breakfasting in America
Has it been thirty years already since the rock band Supertramp released its album Breakfast in America? Apparently. The album, originally released in 1979 as a 33 1/3 RPM vinyl record, came emblazoned with the now iconic picture of a waitress posing at the Statue of Liberty. It sold over eleven million copies worldwide. Since…
-
The measured notes of a remarkable man
Sometimes you do not realize how much someone means to you until they are gone. I find it surprising though when I am touched by the death of someone I knew mostly tangentially. Wilson Nichols Jr., the former music director at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Reston, Virginia that I attend, passed away into the…
Occam's Razor 