Category: Music

Taking a cue from Tim, I’m posting a list of the last 10 MP3s that iTunes, set to Shuffle, played for me:

1. Playground Love – Air
2. Hateful – The Clash
3. You Gotta Walk (And Don’t Look Back) – Peter Tosh (with Mick Jagger)
4. Thank You Boys – Jane’s Addiction
5. Celebrity – Luxuria
6. Rocketman – William Shatner
7. Sheela Na Gig – PJ Harvey
8. Wig In A Box – Hedwig and the Angry Inch
9. This Is Not A Photograph – Mission of Burma
10. Arc Arsenal – At The Drive-In

Why don’t you join in the meme? Make a post to your blog, then let me know in the comments below.

And yes, I’m aware that you can already see what the last 10, in fact the last 50, songs I’ve played just by clicking here. Don’t rain on my parade.

Audioscrobbler looks cool. I’d like a way to keep track of what bands I’m listening to, and see how that compares to other people’s tastes, and get suggestions for new artists. Unfortunately, it’s only for Winamp users (ie. Windows only). With all the other cool stuff out there for music on OS X (Kung-Tunes, Synergy, iChatStatus), couldn’t somebody work on something like this, too? Please? Is this another one for Lazyweb?

Related to my last entry, how about songs where the cover version has become more famous than the original? Here are a few cases where I prefer the original, less well-known version:

• Blinded By The Light – Bruce Springsteen (covered by: Manfred Mann’s Earth Band)
• Video Killed The Radio Star – Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club (covered by: The Buggles)

I love cover versions of songs. Inspired by links found in Timo‘s sidebar, I’m compiling my own list of the 12 Best (and 1 Worst) Cover Songs Ever:

1. Children of the Revolution – Violent Femmes (original: T.Rex)
2. Satisfaction – Devo (original: The Rolling Stones)
3. Higher Ground – Red Hot Chili Peppers (original: Stevie Wonder)
4. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald – Rheostatics (original: Gordon Lightfoot)
5. Ride Into The Sun – Luna (original: Velvet Underground)
6. Friday On My Mind – David Bowie (original: The Easybeats)
7. White Lines – Duran Duran (original: Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five)
8. Has He Got A Friend For Me? – Maria McKee (original: Richard and Linda Thompson)
9. Sweet Thing – The Waterboys (original: Van Morrison)
10. Ziggy Stardust – Bauhaus (original: David Bowie)
11. I Dream Of Wires – Robert Palmer (original: Gary Numan)
12. A New England – Kirsty MacColl (original: Billy Bragg)
13. Surfin’ Bird – The Ramones (original: The Trashmen)

Can you find the bad one? Now, let’s hear some of yours…

And though I’ve mentioned it before, check out The Covers Project, a collaborative database of cover versions.

Oh, and watch this space. I may try experimenting with posting MP3s of cover and original for each song, if there’s interest. Let me know…

Maybe you can say it’s a sign of creeping fogie-dom, but over the past five years or so, I’ve begun to take an interest in film scores. Most of the time, these are just the muzak that fills in the space when people aren’t talking, but just as in any field, there are giants and geniuses.

The first time I walked out of a theatre and almost immediately into a music store to buy a soundtrack CD was in 1997. I’d just seen Cate Blanchett and Ralph Fiennes in the film adaptation of Peter Carey’s novel, Oscar and Lucinda. The film was enjoyable but flawed, but I thought the soundtrack was fantastic. Since that time, I’ve enjoyed Thomas Newman’s soundtrack for Erin Brockovich as well as the theme he wrote for the HBO series Six Feet Under.

What’s amazing about film score composers is that by necessity they have to be prolific. For instance, in the same year he wrote the Oscar and Lucinda score, Newman wrote scores for two other films, and in 2000, when he wrote music for Erin Brockovich, he also scored two other films and wrote a theme for a television series. The Internet Movie Database lists more than 60 credits over the past 25 years.

To be able to make art out of an inherently commercial medium is a rare gift. So I just want to record here, for the benefit of those that don’t know already, that Thomas Newman Rocks!