Posted on 02/07/2021 8:53:50 AM PST by SamAdams76
One of the benefits of having a music subscription service (i.e. Spotify; Apple Music) is that you can stream pretty much everything ever recorded.
Kind of makes your carefully curated music collection obsolete. If only I knew this 40 years ago.
Since about 1975, I've been building a massive music library. Started out as vinyl, a few 8-tracks (that played mostly in my AMC Pacer), then went to cassettes for a while, finally to go to compact discs sometime in the mid 1980s.
Anyway, I probably spent a good $50,000 on recorded music between 1975 and about 2010 or so in all the various mediums.
If I recall correctly, the first album purchased (with my own newspaper route money) was Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon." Before that, I only had what my parents bought me which ranged from Partridge Family to The Carpenters. They never would have bought me a Pink Floyd album.
Now at first I thought the "all you can eat" music subscriptions were a great deal. But I was always having trouble selecting what to stream (or download). I had no idea what to listen to since EVERYTHING was available.
A classic case of paralysis by analysis.
I missed the days of having a finite music collection, where I would pluck a CD out of my many racks and slide it into the player. I knew I would like whatever I picked because after all, I had put down my own hard-earned money to purchase it.
In recent months, since I have pretty much shut down all media and gone back to serious book reading (I'm currently into Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago"), I've been streaming music in the background. For me anyway, background music is very conducive to a good reading session. I know others prefer silence when reading but that's not me.
So since I have unlimited access to all recorded music, I've decided to explore the full catalogs of some of my favorite music artists, particularly from the 1970s to 1980s.
I will start from their debut album and take it all the way through the final album in their catalog. Including the live stuff, the expanded "deluxe" versions of their albums and the box sets as well that have all "B" sides, outtakes and alternative versions.
Tom Petty, U2, Emmylou Harris, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Dylan, Dire Straits, just to name a few.
Fleetwood Mac in particular really impressed me. Their first albums (featuring Peter Green) way back in 1968 were based on Elmore James blues. Then Bob Welch came into the band and paved the way to their massive success after Buckingham and Nicks joined the group. But I was surprised how important Christine (Perfect) McVie was to the band's transformation into becoming a pop juggernaut.
In conclusion, a lot of great music out there still to be discovered even though it was recorded decades ago. Of course,
I listened to the Asia albums much of last week. Everybody knows their 1982 debut with "Heat of The Moment" and "Only Time Will Tell" but they had a dozen subsequent albums that also deserve a listen.
I’m also a big fan of Public Image Ltd, the band he ripped off a lot of the style of Landing on Water from. So I probably listen to it most when I’m in a PiL mood not a Neil Young mood. The Geffen years were definitely sketchy.
Letter Home is an interesting experiment. Good ol Jack White. But yeah it was odd to release the craps and pops album while complaining about industry fidelity. That’s Neil.
I have it all on harddrives, and a lot “it all”. I never like letting somebody else pick music. I’m very album oriented. I’m certainly not going to tell others not to use the services, they’re just not for me. Never even really looked at them.
You may be right as the 70s can be a fuzzy memory for me.
I do recall there was an overlapping of Brand X and Genesis...but I was never a Genesis fan/follower of their music.
I discovered Phil Collins thru Brand X as I was in my fusion & jazz period at that time - Weather Report, Return To Forever, etc...
LOL, that pretty much describes every song by The Fixx.
The 1990s hits were also because he was singing the soundtracks of Disney movies like “Tarzan”.
Phil Collins wrote so many excellent albums/songs.
I have been systematically unplugging from streaming platforms (and amazon, netflix, google, etc.), but absolutely miss the convenience of being able to pull up whatever album or song that I want (and finding new music), and “blue-toothing” it through my system. The simplicity and convenience of streaming can’t be replicated.
I have gone back to vinyl, which I never truly left, and have started spending my money at my favorite “local” record shop (it’s a 45 minute drive away). They always have something excellent, and their used LPs are carefully selected and always in good condition (just picked up some Sam Cooke. Gosh he was amazing). And, if they don’t have what I want, they will order it and mail it to me. Their prices are a little higher than Amazon, but it’s worth it to me to keep them in business.
The amazing thing is that this record shop has done more business in recent months than they have in a very long time. It is always packed.
All that is to say that I love vinyl, but “convenience” and “vinyl” don’t belong in the same sentence (laughing).
If there was a streaming service that got profits from streams straight to the artists, I would be all over it.
Fun story of Buckingham/Nicks...
They recorded that album at Sound City, just over the hills from my Hollywood apt. The studio was in a junky part of the Valley but was known for it’s great acoustics for drums. They also had Neve board considered state-of-the-art at that time.
One day when LB was mixing the album, this tall drummer from the UK walked in looking for a studio and a replacement for their lead guitarist. He heard LB’s solos during the mixing and decided to ask LB to join Fleetwood Mac. LB accepted ONLY on the condition the offer included his girlfriend, Stevie.
The rest is history...
“I never like letting somebody else pick music. I’m very album oriented.”
Hmmm. I am the same way.
You don’t have to listen to what they want you to hear. I never use my service that way.
You can search for an artist or a song and it retrieves most of an artist’s entire catalog. You can see all their albums and play them by album if you want. At least that is how it works with my Napster subscription and how it worked before when I used Rhapsody.
You can get a lot of albums through Amazon Prime; however, some albums Amazon wants to include in their paid music server business. I think I have about 200 albums reserved for listening in my Prime account.
That looks like a ‘65 Impala rust bucket.
Phil Collins and Peter Cetera are both in the same boat.
Both started out mainly as instrumentalists, with Collins on drums and Cetera on bass, both excellent at their instruments.
Then they started to sing on more of the songs, even though they weren’t the main writers.
And then they started writing songs and getting big hits with them, and that’s what moved their bands in a more pop direction.
They also were on a lot of songs by other artists, namely Frida's "There's Something Going On".
I have a playlist called “Eclectic Christmas” which is about 400 songs at this point. Each year I had about another dozen or so to it. Spans all genres and is nothing you would ever hear at the shopping mall! But very Christmasy.
First, it was Tales of Mystery and Imagination because it was so innovative for its time. I got it when it first came out. A friend turned me onto it as a contrast to Queen's A Night at the Opera, which came out at about the same time.
Then it was I Robot because it was so different from Tales. I actually strung the songs together into a movie in mind, something along the lines of Logan's Run.
Then it was Turn of a Friendly Card, because the songs told a story in a movement style.
But now it's Eve. The songs are very 80s in style, and my overall favorite song from the collection is on it - "If I Could Change Your Mind".
Although I'm also partial to the later album Vulture Culture.
-PJ
Seconds into that song and you’re: “yep, that’s Phil drumming”. Great song.
Phil drummed on and toured with Robert Plant, and drummed with Zeppelin at Live Aid.
Interesting story about that by the way (Note there is some language in the article)
I just cruise my folders with Media Monkey. I’ve got over a terabyte, and I’m always getting more.
Howard Jones “No One is To Blame” is another one.
Also drummed on Tears for Fears “Sowing the Seeds of Love”.
Big fan of Alan Parsons. I did not realize it until recently but he played a major role in the commercial success of Al Stewart during the late 1970s.
I’ve listened to In The Air Tonight since it first came out,
and until just two weeks ago realized the repeated words weren’t, ‘Hold On’
they were, ‘Oh Lord’
Don’t know how I managed to mishear them for decades.
The verse ‘I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life, Oh Lord’
Make me think that ‘moment’ is the moment of my death.
In some sense I have been waiting for that moment all my life.
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