Friday Music

Here we go again….

As I said in a post on Wednesday, I picked up Radiohead’s new album, In Rainbows, and I’ve been enjoying it. I highly recommend that you go to the website and purchase it (especially since you can set your own price, and it all goes directly to the band). As a “radio-single” sample, here’s my favorite track: Radiohead – “Bodysnatchers.”

I also picked up Bruce Springsteen’s new album, Magic, this past week. Absolutely amazing. I was a huge Springsteen fan by the time Born in the USA was released, thanks to a friend’s older brother leaving his LP collection at home while he was in college (this was also where I discovered Steely Dan). As huge a hit as Born was, I had always preferred his earlier work…and none of his later albums seemed to recapture that sound. Until now. Magic is easily the best, most uniformly solid Springsteen album since Born to Run, in my opinion. Here’s my favorite track, a lament to a fallen soldier. Bruce Springsteen – “Gypsy Biker.” He never directly references Iraq in any song on the album, but there are lyrical pointers — such as this song’s opening line: “Speculators made their money on the blood you shed.”

More new music. Fact #1: Kylie Minogue is going to appear in the next Doctor Who Christmas special, “Voyage of the Damned” (see promo image here.). Fact #2: Time Lords have two hearts. Fact #3: Kylie’s newest single has leaked to the internet. It’s title? Kylie Minogue – “Two Hearts.” Possible tie-in? Christmas single? Hmmmm…..

New-old music: I picked up an interesting album recently: Masterworks Reworked, an import in which various electronic acts and DJs do remixes of classical compositions. Some interesting stuff. For example, the following: Jazzelicious – “Ravel’s Bolero.”

Slipping sideways through the New-Old, some more “Baroque Pop” from Patrick Wolf: Patrick Wolf – “The Libertine.”

Moving solidly into the “old” — well, the 80s at least. First, the closest thing that I’m going to do to a Halloween-themed post this year: Oingo Boingo – “Dead Man’s Party.”

And, lastly, one of my favorite tracks from the period, which, typically, often seems ignored in the “TOTALLY AWESOME 80’S RETRO WEEKEND” radio broadcasts that pump false nostalgia down the throats of a willing public: The Fixx – “Red Skies At Night.”

There you go, kids. Hope you liked this week’s selections.