There's no good reason for me to have fallen as hard for Taylor Swift as I have. Her voice is pretty enough, but a tad thin--especially compared to that of a true belter, such as Stevie Nicks, with whom she tried to keep up at the Grammy Awards the other night. Swift's primary theme is the high school crush, a malady I have not had to confront--blessedly--for well over 20 years. She's cute, but half my age, a demographic that holds little appeal for me now that I'm, well, older.
Continue reading "If I Start Drawing Unicorns on My Book Covers, Then You'll Know I'm in Trouble" »
Every so often when I was a kid, my mom would rearrange the furniture for no other reason than personal whim. And I absolutely loved it. The new perspectives, the different angles of light and shadow, and the unfamiliar footprint combined to shake me out of my everyday routine for a week or two, but in a harmless and easily accessible way.
I'm doing something similar right now with my music.
Continue reading "Recreating an iTunes Library Unearths Even More Treasured Cheese" »
It would infuriate the R.E.M. purists to no end to know that Automatic for the People is my pick for the band's best record. Elegiac and deeply moving, it is a fully realized work: Shattering lyrics speak directly to the soul; Michael Stipe vocalizes strongly, and clearly; clean production augments the spot-on instrumentation, a bridge between the clangy guitars of the early days and the sometimes overwhelming experimentation of recent albums.
Automatic is a record that I can listen to today, nearly two decades after its release, and still hear new things in. More, I still find myself enthralled, still am subject to its emotional wallop.
Continue reading "I Will Try Not to Breathe, I Will Hold My Head Still With My Hands on My Knees" »
Count me among those who have noticed the tendency of iTunes's shuffle function to be less random than one might expect. Today I have the evidence to prove it. Sprinkled among the repeats, though, is some delightfully cheesy music. Happy weekend, friends.
Continue reading "The Friday Cheese Report: Gather 'Round, All You Clowns" »