Sic Semper Tyrannis

Whatcha Listenin' To?

Sorry it’s been a while since my last post, friends, but man! Life is flying by at a pretty fast clip these days! Yet I still press on in my quest to educate myself to the varieties of free musical experience...

The Pretenders The Singles
This is catchy 80s pop. To read interviews with lead singer Chrissie Hynde and see her image, you would think she would sound like a punk rocker from the Sex Pistols’ mold. So, it was a little bit of a surprise to hear how clean and polished the production was on this collection of songs. Very rarely do you even hear distortion on the guitars. This music would have translated to radio so easily. That’s why it’s a shame they never got much recognition beyond “Brass in Pocket,” (a pretty catchy song in its own right.) Hynde’s voice is pretty distinctive and I, for one, like that about this music. But by all means, do not listen to the cover of “I Got You Babe” with UB40!

Joe Henderson Big Band
This album features uber-tight, imaginative arrangements that venture well-beyond your basic swing tune. I find it kind of funny that this is billed as a Joe Henderson album when the band and the arrangers are really the stars.

Moody Blues Best Of
In my exploration of well-known “classic” bands and albums, I’m discovering an archetypal story: “progressive late 60s art rock band carries on into the 80s to produce really crappy, easily-digestible pop music.” (See also Emerson Lake and Palmer, Genesis, Yes…)

Jimi Hendrix Live at Woodstock
Sometimes it’s easy to take for granted Hendrix’s contribution to the electric guitar. That is to say, obviously he’s famous, a real hero on the instrument, etc. But do we ever stop and think about just how weird those sounds coming out of his amp were (and still are?) In one way of listening, a tune like his iconic treatment of the national anthem is just noise. I mean “strangling-a-cat-with electrified-barbed-wire” noise. But in the other way of listening it’s a musical revolt—prescient musique concrete as avant garde as anything the academic concert hall was producing at the time. Was he just a stoned hippie or an artist saying something valid and relevant about his time?

posted by Mike @ 3:13 PM