Every time I hear a new artist I like, I tell my wife and she says I told you about her ages ago. Then I tell Matt and he says, dude, you should listen to your wife everyone knows about her.
Anyway, I just discovered Adele and, on first listening….pretty cool. So which one of you told me about Adele?
A rhapsody playlist for those of you who don’t have access to all the music in the world:
Adele
In the last couple of days, one of my offspring had me explain why the British flag looks like three flags schmusched together and the other had me dancing to God Save the Queen.
After we had reviewed the whole history of the flag, offspring #1 and I agreed that, while it is a beautiful flag already, it would look so much better with a big, red, Welsh dragon in the middle of it. Offspring #2 and I disagreed, however, on whether God Save the Queen was a meaningless dirge and possibly the worst national anthem in the world (I was in favour of the motion).
By an odd cosmic coincidence, the people in charge back in the old country are considering proposals for replacing both the flag and the anthem. The main complaint about the flag is - you guessed it! - not enough dragons. Apparently the Welsh want more dragons on the flag for some reason.
According to this blog at The Guardian, God Save the Queen “seems unlikely to upset anyone bar the most ardent republican” but given that, on the most recent census 15.5% of Britons claimed ‘no religion’ and another 7.3% declined to answer, he might have to lump in the atheists with the republicans; throw in the people who can’t stand droning, inane, funereal dirges and I think we have a majority.
The suggestions in the comments of his blog though are quite fantastic.
Among my favourites:
Jerusalem would seem an apt choice with it’s talk of “Englands green unpleasant land” and “dark satanic hills”
jerusalem would be perfect… or abba’s super-trooper.
the peter sellers version pf ‘goodness gracious me’ is perhaps ther greatest multicultural song ever written.
Our national anthem *should* be the theme from “The Archers”.
Can’t we just use the French national anthem - it is so much better
On Ilkley Moor B’tat
Until the new hymn is in place, the England football team will never win anything !!!
Why don’t we just adopt the US national anthem? It would be a tribute to the “special relationship”. Maybe we could call ours the Star-spangled banner jr?
my vote - until I hear a better suggestion - goes to that cheery, deeply philosophical masterpiece “Always Look On the Bright Side of Life”.
No song says ‘England’ better than “I’m ‘enry the Eighth I am I am”. And when it’s sung at sporting events the English players whould be made to mime actions to the song. There.
I have a soft spot for Jerusalem as it was my school hymn and, reading all the comments about how Blake was using the religious imagery ironically, methinks it would not be a bad choice. That or Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
By the time I was Dylan’s age, I had already gone through several heroes - Best, Presley, Nelson, Scott, Cook, Richard the Lionheart. By hero, I mean someone to look up to, to dream of being, to emulate, to inspire. As far as I know, my son has never had one (apart from me).
I was also heavily into music at an early age. I knew all the words to my Englebert Humperdink album when I was 4, was totally in love with Suzi Quatro at 9 and a big fan of Queen for a big chunk of my early life. My son is just now starting to get into music. Led Zep is an early favourite (Finally available on Rhapsody today! Hooray!).
I’d like to try a little parental manipulation and, Dear Readers, I’d like your help. I am going to give my offspring a list of 10-ish guitarists and 3 songs from each and have him rank them. I hope to encourage a little critical thinking and maybe one of them will inspire him to great things with that ax of his.
Here’s what I have so far (in no particular order). Help me out. Who am I missing?
I am not necessarily looking for the greatest guitarists or the greatest songs. They don’t even have to be guitarists I like (there are a few on the list already that I don’t like). I want variety more than anything.
When I have a list, I’ll put together a playlist for his mp3 player [you can listen to it here]. I’ll let you know how the rest goes.
Feel free to contribute your own rankings.
What would happen if the one of the best musicians in the world were to play anonymously as a busker?
Leonard Slatkin, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, was asked the same question. What did he think would occur, hypothetically, if one of the world’s great violinists had performed incognito before a traveling rush-hour audience of 1,000-odd people?
“Let’s assume,” Slatkin said, “that he is not recognized and just taken for granted as a street musician . . . Still, I don’t think that if he’s really good, he’s going to go unnoticed. He’d get a larger audience in Europe . . . but, okay, out of 1,000 people, my guess is there might be 35 or 40 who will recognize the quality for what it is. Maybe 75 to 100 will stop and spend some time listening.”
The Washington Post wanted to know. You should too.
The company across the street from us, Slim Devices, had an open house yesterday and Rob and I walked over to check them out.
Slim Devices sells a product called the Squeezebox that connects - via wireless networking - to Internet Radio stations and plays them through your stereo. I had had my eye on one for a while and almost bought one last week but there was one thing that was putting me off - and I wanted to go ask them about it.
Regular readers of my blog know that, in the 21st century, people will no longer buy music - they will rent it. I rent mine from Rhapsody. The Squeezebox connects to Rhapsody - so I bought one.
When I got home there were three people waiting for me. One of them just gets very, very excited by Things In Boxes. That person was delighted. Another person said:
“What’s that you have there? A thing that plays music? Don’t we already have a thing that plays music?”
And the third said
“You mean…you just type in ‘Black Eyed Peas’ and it’ll play all their stuff? Coooool!”
The device itself is marvellous - everything you could possibly want in a device. It reminded me of Julio’s Mac adventures. How can anything possibly work so well?
Steps to reproduce:
I almost cheered! Well done Slim Devices!
The black exterior to my silver cloud? Squeezbox only support 802.11g. My router is 802.11b. Need to go shopping…
Rhapsody has a feature where it generates a playlist for you based on your listening history but they seem to have got me mixed up with that other Kevin who only ever listens to Latin jazz.
¡Ay, caramba!
Where do you stand on this most important of issues? Scott Adams is against it. Scott Adams thinks that
Car singers believe they have an unalienable right to sing along with the music even if it does make other people feel as if squirrel-banshees have crawled inside their skulls to eat the parts of their brains that control joy.
I think that car singing is one of the ways that we can proclaim loudly to the world that we are alive and life is good. In the words of Mellisa Ethelridge (IIRC),
ay aya aya heye ay aya hey hey
There is no finer moment in life than when you are in a car full of people and suddenly everyone knows the words to a somewhat obscure song and joins in with wild abandon.
Particular episodes that come to mind:
… and my all time favourite…
[OK - the radio wasn't even playing on the last one but it was marvellous]
