A-1
Between my husband and me, we have quite a few CDs, mostly
of music from the 90s and before. Some
of them were purchased to replace old LPs.
Some are his, most are mine. When
we got married, we discovered some duplicates (Tom Petty’s “Full Moon Fever”
springs to mind) which I took to a local store and traded for others, or sold
on eBay. I still buy some CDs, but they're mostly older stuff. I'm not the most adventurous of listeners, and my tastes are pretty middle-of-the-road. I'm also trying to challenge and shake that up some. I’ve mostly been listening to
public radio in my car for a time, but this year’s political coverage has
become more than I can take. I do often
listen to the public adult alternative station for music, but with a recent
move, I’ve become even more painfully aware of all the stuff I have that I don’t
use. “Why did I buy that? Where did this
come from? How much of this crap do I really need, or want?”
I think about the music we own that I don’t listen to and I feel
minor pangs of guilt over the money spent and the space they take up. The money
is not a huge thing, until you take into consideration the fact that there are
many CDs that were probably only listened to all the way through once. At least
the price of music seemed to hit a peak a couple of decades back, and then
dropped to a more manageable amount. The
space is also not so bad when you compare CDs to LPs. Buying CDs has never been as satisfying open
the cellophane around an LP, pulling out the disk, and…but that’s a topic for
another time. I can’t listen to LPs in
the car, and I haven’t taken the time to digitize most of mine, so we’ll leave
that alone for now.
To avoid feeling wasteful, I’ve decided to listen to some of
our CDs on my way to and from work, as I have a longer commute now.
- I’m just listening to one CD per artist, in alphabetical order, although some of the cases do contain double albums, so I may or may not listen
to both.
- If there
are artists whose CDs I could sing through in my sleep, I do not have to listen
to every song, but if I haven’t listened in years or don’t know the album at
all, I will listen to every cut. My
game, my rules.
- This is car listening, so it is not a place I
can concentrate on every word, nuance and note of an arrangement. That’s not really the point, unless there's something that just demands to be heard. I just want to know why I have this
stuff. Plus, my car stereo isn’t the
best, and the speakers Garland bought me for Christmas several years ago are
still uninstalled and in their original box, so I’m listening through fairly
cruddy factory speakers. I’ll still get
the gist.
- My music is divided into sections. The overwhelming majority is pop/rock, but there's a country portion, a few contemporary Christian (which actually aren't very contemporary--mostly 90s to 2008 or so), some standard/show stuff, and some classical. My current activity just involves the pop/rock.
I started this exercise several weeks ago and wasn’t
recording my thoughts until I got to Jimmy Buffett, but I’ll backtrack and jot
something down. I’ve just realized that our box sets are stored in a different
area right now, so I need to bring them and get them in the mix in so no one is
left out.
5/2/16
Jimmy Buffett – “Fruitcakes” (1994)
Background:
My husband is(was?) a Parrot Head. He used to be in the fan club, and has been
to several concerts. I surprised him
with tickets once when we were dating in the mid-90s, and we also went to a
show with friends after we got married.
I like Jimmy fine, but all the CDs, albums, posters, books, mugs, etc.
in the house are definitely Garland’s.
CD thoughts: Listening to Jimmy Buffett on the way to work might
not be the best way to start a Monday morning.
I have no immediate prospects of a tropical vacation. We don’t have a swimming pool. We haven’t even figured out how to operate,
maintain or repair the hot tub that came with the house where we moved two and
a half months ago. The first 2 songs on
this CD are 15 minutes combined, and the fun feels a bit forced. The ballads fare somewhat better. I found the
start of one song nice, and then realized it was a cover of “Uncle John’s Band.”
It all sounds fine and relaxed, and as you’d expect, there’s a bounty of clever
lyrics and breezy singing. The female
backup singers are irritating on some of the tracks. A couple of years ago I finally realized what
I want to be when I grow up. I want to
be a session singer in the 1970s. This
CD is from the 90s, and I would’ve been sad to sing these outdated
arrangements. One cut is an annoyingly highjacked cover of the Kinks' "Sunny Afternoon" in which he includes a Parrot Heads reference. There is an even more annoying cover of "He's Got You." Jimmy sings "the only ting different, the only ting new," to show just how Caribbean he is, and also throws in some "I don't know"s from "Volcano" in the mix. The final song has the cloying title of "Apocalypso", but it's actually decent.
Takeaway: Steel drums, pan flutes (I think it was a pan flute),
and conga drums probably feel better around Thursday lunchtime and later in the
week, unless you’re in the Caribbean, in which case let the Jimmy flow. Just probably an earlier album.
Why this CD: I guess when the Babys were in their heyday in the 70s I was under the impression that they were harder rock than they really are. Either that, or I was so besotted with Shaun Cassidy, Barry Manilow, and others I didn't pay attention. Anyway, I realized much later that I really liked them.
I don't think I'd ever listened to an entire AC/DC album before. I've heard quite a bit of AC/DC, especially having worked on the air at some Classic Rock stations, but I'd probably never heard more than maybe 3 in a row during some kind of Rock Block weekend. This CD belongs to my husband.