One of the downfalls of living outside the United States is a feeling of disconnection with the English language music scene. Here in Cali, station after station plays enough salsa and reggaeton to leave me hopelessly day-dreaming of a Cities 97 New Music Monday.
Since being in Colombia I have had some CDs mailed here (thanks Mom!), bought some music on iTunes and swapped singles on Skype (thanks Joe & Kirsten!). (Yes, you can send music files through Skype - it's amazing) However, I still wish I knew what the new music was, who the new artists were, etc.
Since August 2009 I have added the following CDs to my iTunes:
- Jayhawks LIVE at Cities 97 Basilica Block Party
- John Mayer's Battle Studies
- Cities 97 Sampler Volume 21
- Carrie Underwood's Play On
I have also added the following songs:
Yet, despite these additions I am still desperate for new music. I miss the days of exchanging music daily with co-workers, roommates, friends, or the person next to you in class. That being said - I need suggestions so I am calling upon YOU to help me out...
What should I be listening to? What are you listening to lately and just loving??
Thanks!
4 comments:
oh my God, this really opens things up for a guy who loves music, loves playing it, loves talking about it, etc. First, with the teacher in me, definitionally "new music" let's define as new to the listeners ears, it expands the listeners musical horizons, no matter when said music was released, whether yesterday or a sunny day in NYC in Sept '29 (that would be 1929 people, and I'm thinking the great jazz chanteusse Billie Holiday must have released something about then).
So anyhoo, there's some little male/female duet thing called She and He you should give a listen to, saw them do a song or two on Elvis Costello's Spectacle show on the Sundance Channel a few months back. Find the Jamaican reggae group Toots and the Maytals doing John Denver's "Country Roads", where they of course substitue "West Jeeeemaiicca!" for "West Virginia", it's at this point in your maturation process you should listen to Van Morrison's epic album Astral Weeks from cover to cover, preferably on a rainy Sunday afternoon, if there is such a thing in Cali Colombia. Mix in some Allman Brothers and Little Feat, get a dose of Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald for that jazz thing, find the first 3-4 albums by Jackson Browne, I would do this immediately. Why? You can either learn about relationships and life and love over time, or you can simply listen to these records and pretty much have a deep sense of what goes on amongst human beings in the human condition. Anyhoo, back when I was a kid, radio actually broke new artists, introduced new music, music that really mattered. And that reminds me of the guy who sang, "everything dies baby that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back.... put your make up on, fix your hair up pretty, c'mon and meet me tonight in Atlantic City!"
Jay-z and the Kings of Leon. Thats all you need.
I'm with papa rads. Check out He and She. And everything else he said, about van Morrison and Billie Holliday.
Actually, Papa Rads, I think you might mean "She and Him"...they are a relatively new music group on the scene with M. Ward and zooey deschanel (think 500 days of summer).
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