Category Archives: Music

Listened to last week: Bad Religion

I’ve been on a Bad Religion binge recently.  I’ve never heard them before.  It pisses me off a little, because this is fantastic.  I’m getting all sorts of “recommendations” from the music software I use, iTunes and last.fm, but they are never any good.  Never.  They’re more like “hey, you just listened to something from subgenre X, here’s some more recent music from that genre, which is all derivative of that one good band you like, but don’t blame us, you’re the one who apparently likes this crap”.  What I want is: “OMG you’ve missed out on Bad Religion?!  There’s a hole in your mind!”

Bad Religion – Portrait of Authority, from the 1993 album Recipe for Hate

Bad Religion – The Answer, from the 1992 album Generator

Bad Religion – 21st Century Digital Boy, from the 1990 album Against the Grain

Bad Religion – I Want to Conquer the World, from the 1989 album No Control

Listened to this week: Vangelis, Christopher Franke, Mr Flash, Händel

Vangelis – Tales of the Future, from the soundtrack to the 1982 movie Blade Runner

In the future, it’s always 2am and raining.

Christopher Franke – Theme from a cancelled Babylon 5 Sierra game

Every TV series I watch, I compare to B5.  It usually falls short, so I operate with a double standard: a separate definition of “good” for everything else.

Mr Flash – Motorcycle Boy, from the 2010 album Blood, Sweat and Tears

Händel – Minuet in G Minor

Dangerous music. The vulnerability rubs off.

Listened to on vacation: Prokofiev, Alex North, Michael Nyman, Alan Silvestri

More music my shuffle button dug up for me on vacation, kind-of-classical edition:

Prokofiev – Piano Concerto No. 3, first movement

Prokofiev is for taking 90 degree turns into dimensions you didn’t know existed.

Alex North – Main Title from the 1965 movie The Agony and the Ecstasy

Every time I hear this soundtrack there’s a book I want to read while listening.  I’m not sure what book it is, because I haven’t found it yet.  I’ll know it when I find it.

Michael Nyman – The Masque, from the 1991 movie Prospero’s Books

Nyman has a repetitive, trance-inducing style that, when it’s bad, is really boring, but when it’s good, when he gets it right, it just goes on and on and on, flowering in new directions all the time, and it seems impossible that it hasn’t ended yet.  How can this go on for twelve minutes?!

Alan Silvestri – Beowulf Slays the Beast, from the 2006 movie Beowulf

I used to wonder where all the classical composers had gone, but then I realized they went to Hollywood.  Classical music split in two.  The fine arts crowd kept the pretensions and the integrity, but all the emotions, all the rousing epic scores, which had been part of classical music and opera from the beginning, that went to the movies.  Some people can’t stand this sort of music, and, some times, neither can I, but, look, if you can’t add an epic soundtrack to your life once in a while, what kind of boring person are you?

Listened to on vacation: Ratatat, Shiina Ringo, Deep Purple, Misstrip, Eero Johannes

I don’t know how I ever managed to travel without a 160GB mp3 player.  The people, they are annoying, and they talk all the time!  Gah!  The optimal solution would be to make it socially obligatory to use sign language when you talk on the bus, train etc., but I guess it’s .. easier to just turn on some music if you’re the kind of asshole who is annoyed by that sort of thing.  So here’s what my mp3 player dug up for me this vacation:

Ratatat – Wildcat, from the 2006 album Classics

Shiina Ringo – Ishiki, from the 2003 album Karuki Zamen Kuri no Hana

Deep Purple – Listen, Learn, Read On, from the 1968 album The Book of Taliesyn

Misstrip – Lilly White, from the 2009 album Sibylline

Eero Johannes – HAL Manifesto, from the 2008 album Eero Johannes

Listened to this week: Miklos Rozsa, Python Lee Jackson, Ayumi Hamasaki, Air, Kenny Ball

Miklos Rozsa – Theme from the 1961 movie King of Kings

This version is without the choir, but what I like is that it’s clearly just some student orchestra playing in a mall, and one of my dreams (it’s true) is that one day I’ll walk into a mall and find a student orchestra there playing the theme from King of Kings. Here’s the actual theme, with epic movie font and everything.

Python Lee Jackson – In a Broken Dream, from 1969

A one hit wonder, with Rod Stewart on vocals.

Ayumi Hamasaki – Depend on You, from the 1999 album A Song for XX

For some reason it’s the transition at 0:50 that gets me. Always.

Air – Tropical Disease, from the 2009 album Love 2

Let me take this opportunity to ask how come every single review ever written about Air’s 2001 album 10 000 Hz Legend calls it a disappointment.  I listened to it for years before I learned how horrible it was.

Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen – Midnight in Moscow, from 1961

Don’t say the Soviet Ministry of Culture never produced any hits.  There’s this song, (here covered by some goofy English “jazzmen”), and then there’s .. probably many more.