Rec Request: Music

[forestofglory]

I'm not very musical. I have an auditory processing disorder and I've always kinda treated music as some kind of sound emotion magic that doesn't really work on me. When I was younger people used to ask me what type of music I listened to and I would embarrassedly mumble that I didn't. Thankfully no one had asked me that in a while.

However I've in the last several years I've made friends with other people with auditory processing problems who listen to music and it's made me wonder if I could enjoy that too. I want to learn more about music, so I'm doing a project.

Every day for the month of June I'm going to listen to a new song. And as I have very little idea of what I like I’m asking all of you to please recommend some music you enjoy. It can be anything. I’m trying to learn and experience new things! If you can please write a bit about why you like the song or what it means to you -- I find it easier to engage with music when I have some context for it.

I know listening 30 songs isn’t going to make up for all my unmusical years but hopefully I will find some things that I like, and some things to explore further.

Comments

Sorry it's so long!

[suncani]

Hope this is okay, thought it might be easier to keep them all together and I'd have more room to write on a DW post than twitter. What all of them have in common is there is something that's fascinated me about them. A strong riff that I don't get bored with, a unique voice style, a memory attached to it, interesting lyrics or just doing something clever with the arrangement.

Paloma Faith - Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful Paloma Faith has a very interesting voice and its a mixture of modern and vintage sounding. I find it a little bit difficult to hear what she's actually saying but it's worth looking up the lyrics. I randomly found this song when I was at uni when my housemate at the time and I were flipping through channels at midnight and an acoustic version was playing.

Placebo’s cover and the Kate Bush original of Running Up That Hill. The placebo version is a lot more stripped down and eerie. It's almost a lack of emotion rather than having too much. The lyrics are much clearer though. The original one, it's Kate's voice that makes it, but then I love a lot of Kate Bush because again she has a very distinctive voice and at the time what she did was quite odd and unusual although probably less so now.

Jean-Michel Jarre - Concert in China the whole album but in particular Fishing junks at sunset which is Chinese instruments combined with a synthesizer. I grew up listening to this as both my parents loved his music. It's very mellow with lots of interesting rhythms. Jarre was also the first western performer to be allowed to perform in the PRC and this is a recording of that concert.

Violent Femmes - Blister in the Sun
This is completely down to reading The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger as violent femmes are the band Clare and Henry go and see. I love the riff and the singers voice, I tend to not really take in the lyrics.

I'm in two minds whether to rec this one or not as you really might not enjoy it but I'll explain why I’m recommending it. Fiona Apple - Hot Knife it starts out very simply and is just a couple of lines repeated. But as the song progresses, each set of lines is layered on topso it's almost in a round (when one voice or group sings and another sings something else at the same time, not necessarily in harmony, usually the same line the first voice has just sung) It's an amazing effect but it can be a lot to take in particularly if things have a tendency to blend in together.

Re: Sorry it's so long!

[forestofglory]

Thank you!