On weekends, “M” and I might find ourselves with periods of
time between commitments together.
Sometimes we’ll spend this time by relocating to different parts of the
house to do our own thing which usually involves listening to the music that
moves us. We call this “Quality
Time”. I’ve never questioned why we
called it that but my motives are certainly ironic.
“M” is my soul mate.
My other half. My better two
thirds. Or to paraphrase C. Montgomery
Burns about Waylon Smithers, the soothing yin to my raging yang. There is only one area where we are largely
incompatible and that is music. “M”’s
taste, God bless her, is smack down the middle of the road but she tends to
favour songs over artists. She’s not a
top 40 groupie but rather someone who likes an addictively commercial song that
strikes an emotional chord.
Despite this, we have found some common ground, even making
it to gigs together. These experiences
really demonstrate our incompatible musical direction. When we saw Stevie Wonder in 2008, I wanted
to hear his classic 70’s numbers such as Living In The City, Sir Duke and Superstition;
she got off on I Just Called To Say I Love You and Part Time Love. When we saw Dolly Parton in December 2011, I
loved hearing her earlier material such as Coat Of Many Colours and bluegrass
gems such as Little Sparrow; she patiently waited for 9 To 5. Like all great marriages, we compromised later
on and sang along together to Islands In The Stream – a great song even if it
did originally involve Kenny Rogers.
But I have had some success.
When she heard k.d Lang’s interpretation of Halleijulah at the opening
ceremony of the Vancouver Olympics, I was quick to follow up. Later that year we were at the Myer Music
Bowl together wanting to hear the same songs.
She has surprised me with positive comments on some of my listening
including Television, The Pretenders and, even more bizarrely, Lynyrd Skynyrd,
or as she now knows them, “You know that Sweet Home Alabama band”. But no matter how hard I try, I know that
she’ll never develop my love for feedback, Sonic Youth, Nick Cave, Sepultura’s Roots Bloody Roots, delta blues or
Rammstein among others. Leonard Cohen
will forever remain music for committing suicide.
Since “Quality Time” has no fixed time span, I usually try
to find albums of vinyl album length. I
love listening to an album in a single sitting and loath having to go back to
hear the last few tracks at a later time.
This has been one of the drawbacks of CDs – artists who feel that they
must fill the disc with as much music as possible. Let’s face it, apart from live albums, best
of compilations and early albums by hungry young acts who’ve stockpiled a lot
of promising material as they wait to be discovered and fear that they’ll never
have another chance to record, have there actually been that many great albums
over the 60 minute mark? Not too many
readily come to mind. In much the same
way that CDs were reason for many acts to lose quality control, I think the
increasing popularity of the digital download is spearheading a return to the
more tightly focused and thus shorter album.
As artists realise that they can control their release schedule and catalogues,
a number have realised that they can now return to vinyl length albums. I’m going to give the credit for this to
Radiohead and In Rainbows, an album that was revolutionary in the way it was
marketed and released and which impressed upon everyone who downloaded it that
a great album didn’t need to be 70 plus minutes long.
I say all of this because I had time to listen to only one
album during quality time. It is of
vinyl length and by the time it had ended “M” was commenting favourably about
it.
(38) Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer
As everyone should now by know, Cee Lo was part of Gnarls
Barkley along with Danger Mouse. It is
not his first solo album but it is his first since GB’s St. Elsewhere, an album
that maybe didn’t get the kudos it deserved.
This sounds very much like a continuation of that album except that it
contains an absolute monster of a hit.
Fxxk You is one of the great singles of the last five years an
irresistibly catchy number that gets you singing along despite yourself. (The cleaned up version, Forget You, is also
on the album.)
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