Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Come on skinny love just last the year

This one's for my friend Mark who asked me yesterday for some recommendations. Always tricky that - what if they don't like them?

I thought for a minute and blurted out - BON IVER. It's such an amazing experience listening to his music. Bon Iver isn't his real name, by the way. It's Justin Vernon. The mystery associated with the choice of Bon Iver to perform under is also there in the haunting music on the album For Emma, Forever ago.

I've written a lot about Flume on the 49er list below so I thought I'd add a few clips to this post instead. There's a guerrilla style a cappella version of For Emma; Lump Sum; I have to include Flume and a raw version of Skinny Love from the Jools Holland show Later. It's spectacular. Enjoy!!



Tuesday, September 8, 2009

49 Bye Byes

Thought I'd do a bit of a summary post of those last 49 songs, mainly for my own interest sake, just to see a breakdown of decades, genre, gender (although I already know it will be heavily tilted to males) and maybe some other things.

So here's the list:

1 The Beatles - Don't let me down
2 Eels - Grace Kelly blues
3 The Carpenters - Rainy days and Mondays
4 Jim Croce - Alabama rain
5 Rory Gallagher - Cradle rock
6 Charlie Parker - Romance without finance
7 Dave Brubeck - Take five
7 Glen Hansard/Marketa Irglova- Falling slowly
8 Grover Washington Jnr - Jamming
9 George Harrison - Under the Mersey wall
10 John Lennon/Yoko Ono - Cambridge 1969
11 Paul McCartney - Ode to a Koala bear
12 Ringo Starr - Love is a many splendoured thing
13 Patti Smith - Babelogue/ Rock 'n' roll nigger
14 Ricky Nelson - Garden Party
15 Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the name
16 Rammestein - Asche zu asche
17 Avenged Sevenfold - Almost easy
18 Jethro Tull - Thick as a brick
19 Bon Iver - Flume
20 Jefferson Airplane - Crown of creation
21 Bob Dylan - I shall be free
22 Jimi Hendrix - All along the watchtower
23 George Harrison - Be here now
24 Badfinger - Without you
25 The Raspberries - I can remember
26 Aimee Mann - Red vines
27 Billy Bragg - Levi Stubb's tears
28 The Four Tops - I can't help myself (Sugar pie honey bunch)
29 Headband - The laws must change
30 Evermore - Light surrounding you
31 Chi-lites - Have you seen her?
32 BoyzIIMen - The end of the road
33 Oasis - Sunday morning call
34 Van Morrison - Haunts of ancient peace
35 Joni Mitchell - Song for Sharon
36 Prince - Let's go crazy
37 Beach Boys - California saga: California
38 Brian Wilson - Orange crate art
39 Woody Guthrie - Deportees
40 Mountain - Nantucket sleighride
41 David Crosby - The lee shore
42 Frank Zappa - Big swifty
43 The Tremeloes - Here comes my baby
44 Syd Barrett - Dominoes
45 Velvet Underground - Waiting for the man
46 Rolling Stones - Wild horses
47 New Radicals - You get what you give
48 Embrace - Ashes
49 The Beatles - Let it be

Okay I know there's actually 50 songs there - I stuffed up with repeating number 7. Neverthemind.

So - what have we got? The male female split is overwhelmingly male. Only three females figure in their solo state. And only four entries are of a mixed gender. So even at best it's only 7 female and 43 male. I don't consciously just listen to male musicians - it's just worked out that way. The females I do gravitate towards are strong/different ones - Yoko, Grace Slick, Marketa Irglova, Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, Aimee Mann types rather than the Karen Carpenter types.

Groups and soloists are fairly even though.

The Americans outnumber the British almost 2 to 1 and of the others there were two NZ, and one German. This is interesting because I generally feel that my cultural bias is to British bands and soloists. I was a tad surprised to see such a lack of balance.

Rock music clearly predominates in the genre stakes because as I stated along the way - that's what I love most!

All the decades since the 50's are represented on the list. The most heavily represented decade is the seventies - when I was aged 13 to 23. The least represented are the fifties (2 entries) and the nineties (4); then the eighties (5); the naughties (9); the sixties (12); and the seventies are the champs with 18 entries. What surprised me a little are the number from the eighties - a much maligned decade.

Okay - next entry will be about the (very few) songs I can not stand listening to.