Music
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I'm just barely making my before-Ash-Wednesday deadline for this last of three music posts, so I'll be brief. I avoid reading reviews before encountering the thing itself, whether the thing is music or book or film. But I like comparing my views to others' after I've formed my first impression. After hearing this album once…
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I guess we've all heard people say of this or that style of music, generally one they don't care for, that "it all sounds the same." And from a casual distance it's usually a fair assessment. After all, Metallica and Megadeth sound vastly more like each other than either sounds like Bruce Springsteen, and someone…
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Isn't that an evocative title? I have a mental backlog of music that I've been meaning to write about, especially non-classical music. As I'm planning to go on a sacred-music-only diet for Lent, which is now only a week away, I'll try to get several of them out of the way before then. As of…
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As a fan of ambient music, I admit that I've sometimes asked myself the uncomfortable question: is this really any different from Muzak? (If you don't know that word: it's the brand name for the service that provides background music for stores, offices, and so forth. Like "Kleenex", it also serves as the generic term…
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Not mine, Craig Burrell's. He does this every year (I think), and it's always interesting and informative. Books. Music. I don't know how he manages to make time not only to absorb all these things, but to write so engagingly about them.
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Rap has always been a bit frustrating to me, because I like blues and jazz so much, and so have figured that I should find at least some rap appealing. I've made some effort to find something I like, but for the most part even the artists who are reputed to be the very best…
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I partly agree with what Martin Scorsese says in this NYT piece. In case the link doesn't work, here are a couple of excerpts: I was asked a question about Marvel movies. I answered it. I said that I’ve tried to watch a few of them and that they’re not for me, that they seem…
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Summary for Twin Peaks fans: I'm pretty sure you'll like this album. I've been meaning to write about this for a while. Chrysta Bell is the singer/actress who played Agent Tammy Preston in the Twin Peaks sequel that appeared a couple of years ago. Twin Peaks: The Return was the official title, I think. As…
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Those were not my words, but I used them a week or two ago to describe to a friend my reaction to hearing Das Rheingold again (this making the third time): inwardly squealing like a teenaged girl. And they were even more apropos yesterday, at the end of Die Walküre. It seems I have become…
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I bought a used CD copy of this album at least ten years ago on the strength of something I'd read about it. I think I only played it once, wasn't especially taken with the sound, and never got back to it until recently, when I put it in the CD player of my car…
Light On Dark Water 