My good buddy John Bryndal (who, as you can tell from his name, lives in Japan) suggested we resurrect the blog's periodic iPod Shuffle game because it's always interesting to see what people have in their music libraries.
The rules are simple: Just put your iPod or other music-playing device into its respective random/shuffle mode and report back on the first five songs that come up. You must be 100% honest as to the five songs that play, no matter what they are. In no way should you be ashamed of the fact that the first three tunes in your queue are by Wham!, Vanilla Ice and Spandau Ballet.
You are encouraged to respond either in the comments here on the blog itself or, if you access the blog this way, on Facebook. Either is fine.
I'll go first. Here's what randomly comes up on my iPhone:
(1) "All Will Be Well" - Gabe Dixon Band
One of the things I love about Spotify is the automatically generated "Discover Weekly" playlist, which every Monday presents you with a new list of songs you might like based on your previous listening. That's how I discovered this tune, which I can't stop listening to. I'm glad it came up first.
(2) "I Ran" - A Flock of Seagulls
Did you ever see that show that used to air on VH1 called "Bands Reunited?" They would run around trying to get old 80s bands back together to play a one-off concert after years of being apart. Some sounded better than others. The Flock sounded...OK in their reunion concert. They definitely didn't have the same hair. Anyway, this is such a great tune. My friend Mel loved, loved, loved A Flock of Seagulls.
(3) "New Mexico" - Billy Joel
I have always been a big Billy Joel fan. Back in the 70s and early 80s when he had hair, he looked strangely like a less muscular version of Sylvester Stallone. Not that that has anything to do with anything, but I always thought it was funny. Anyway, this is a never-released demo tune of his that I greatly enjoy.
(4) "Talkin'" - Najee
Very cool, early 90s funk/jazz. I wish I could play tenor saxophone like Najee does on this song.
(5) "Dear Prudence" - The Beatles
This song will forever make me think of my daughter Elissa. My little Prudence.
Showing posts with label iPod. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iPod. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Monday, February 23, 2015
Come and do the iPod Shuffle with me
It has been a couple of years since we last did the iPod Shuffle, the game in which you put your iPod (or equivalent digital music player) into shuffle mode and let everyone know the results, along with any commentary you would like to add.
No cheating on this, by the way. You have to report the first five songs that come up when you hit shuffle no matter how embarrassing they may be. Feel free to respond in the comments section of the blog itself with your results. Or, if you're someone who comes to us through Facebook, you can do it there, too.
Here's what my iPod just spit out when I let it go all random on me:
(1) "Seasons of Love" – Donny Osmond
Wow, that got really bad really fast, didn't it? There's no way I can justify having this song. It's from the musical "Rent," which of course is the manliest of all musicals. And it's sung by Donny Osmond who is, um, the manliest of all singers. I just really like the tune, OK? And plus I've seen Donny Osmond perform live twice, which is in no way something I should have just typed. Let's move on...
(2) "Going Somewhere" – Colin Hay
I have a lot of Colin Hay in my library. You'll remember him as the lead singer of the Australian band Men at Work back in the early and mid-80's. I've been keeping up with his solo career ever since and even got to meet him 10 years ago. Good guy.
(3) "In Your Eyes" – Peter Gabriel
This is a hard song to escape if you listen to radio stations that play 80s music, as I do. It was probably the prom theme at a few schools back then, and it actually holds up well over time. Also, it includes some vocal work by Youssou N'Dour, a Senegalese musician who has never gotten the credit he deserves.
(4) "Message in a Bottle" – The Police (Live in Boston - 1979)
I have 11 different versions of this song in my iTunes library. Some are live, some are recorded. Some are by The Police, some are by Sting as a solo artist. And one is by a band called The Swingers, who recorded an entire album of Sting covers as cheesy, horn-based instrumentals. This is probably my second favorite Sting-composed song behind "The Lazarus Heart."
(5) "Grim Cathedral" – David Francey
Chances are you don't know who David Francey is, though his name might ring a bell if you're Canadian. Or if you're into folk music. If you're a Canadian AND a folk music fan, then you darn well better know who he is. David is an outstanding musician from the Toronto area who has won multiple Juno Awards, which is like the Canadian Grammy. He's also a Facebook friend of mine who might see this, so if you could pretend that you're as big a David Francey fan as I am, I would appreciate it.
No cheating on this, by the way. You have to report the first five songs that come up when you hit shuffle no matter how embarrassing they may be. Feel free to respond in the comments section of the blog itself with your results. Or, if you're someone who comes to us through Facebook, you can do it there, too.
Here's what my iPod just spit out when I let it go all random on me:
(1) "Seasons of Love" – Donny Osmond
Wow, that got really bad really fast, didn't it? There's no way I can justify having this song. It's from the musical "Rent," which of course is the manliest of all musicals. And it's sung by Donny Osmond who is, um, the manliest of all singers. I just really like the tune, OK? And plus I've seen Donny Osmond perform live twice, which is in no way something I should have just typed. Let's move on...
(2) "Going Somewhere" – Colin Hay
I have a lot of Colin Hay in my library. You'll remember him as the lead singer of the Australian band Men at Work back in the early and mid-80's. I've been keeping up with his solo career ever since and even got to meet him 10 years ago. Good guy.
(3) "In Your Eyes" – Peter Gabriel
This is a hard song to escape if you listen to radio stations that play 80s music, as I do. It was probably the prom theme at a few schools back then, and it actually holds up well over time. Also, it includes some vocal work by Youssou N'Dour, a Senegalese musician who has never gotten the credit he deserves.
(4) "Message in a Bottle" – The Police (Live in Boston - 1979)
I have 11 different versions of this song in my iTunes library. Some are live, some are recorded. Some are by The Police, some are by Sting as a solo artist. And one is by a band called The Swingers, who recorded an entire album of Sting covers as cheesy, horn-based instrumentals. This is probably my second favorite Sting-composed song behind "The Lazarus Heart."
(5) "Grim Cathedral" – David Francey
Chances are you don't know who David Francey is, though his name might ring a bell if you're Canadian. Or if you're into folk music. If you're a Canadian AND a folk music fan, then you darn well better know who he is. David is an outstanding musician from the Toronto area who has won multiple Juno Awards, which is like the Canadian Grammy. He's also a Facebook friend of mine who might see this, so if you could pretend that you're as big a David Francey fan as I am, I would appreciate it.
Monday, February 2, 2015
The Keurig vs. the iPod - Which is the greatest invention of the last 30 years?
As the son of a Gadget Guy, I gravitate naturally toward technology. I can rarely afford to buy it, you understand, but I do gravitate toward it.
Growing up, we were among the first people in our neighborhood to have cable TV, a VCR, and a home video game system.
Actually, I should have put "home video game system" in quotes, because what it was was a cheap, black-and-white Pong-based game from Radio Shack that my dad brought home one night in 1978. He hooked it up to our living room TV, and suddenly I was playing video games. At home. In my living room.
A stunning innovation at the time.
Two years later, he bought us an Atari 2600, and thus began a long love affair with video games and computers that peaked in the mid-1980s when I got really good at the arcade game "Track and Field." This was a game where you had to mash two buttons really, really fast in order to make your little pixellated video game athlete run and jump through a variety of events.
A lot of guys (and it was really only guys who played it) would cheat by putting a comb between their fingers, which allowed them to develop a lightning-fast rhythm that would propel their video runners to sub-8-second 100-meter dash times.
But I played it straight. In large part because I couldn't figure out the comb thing. The point is, I was really good.
Well no, actually, the point is I like technology and gadgets and stuff like that. And for my money, the two best gadgets of the past 30 years are the Keurig coffee maker and Apple's wonderful iPod.
My kids bought me a Keurig for Father's Day a few years ago. I was just getting into coffee then, and getting the Keurig pushed me over the top into full-on addiction. I'm proud to say I remain physically and mentally dependent on the hot brown liquid until this day!
OK, not something to be proud of, but also not something to be denied. Coffee snobs will tell you the Keurig makes a low-quality drink, but I ignore them. What it does is make coffee as fast and convenient as it can be. It's ingenious, really, and it spawned an entire industry of companies that do nothing but make those little K-Cups.
All of which is cool. But the iPod? Well...the iPod is mythical. When I was a teenager, I was really into music. And the accepted medium for popular music in the 80s was the cassette. I had lots of cassettes. Like hundreds of them, all stored in cheap plastic holders that my dad undoubtedly bought at a discount store and screwed into my bedroom wall.
Cassettes were an extremely portable form of music, if by "portable" you mean "assuming you're willing to lug around a 13-pound boom box on your shoulder." But then came the Walkman, which allowed you to listen to your favorite cassettes in a little metal box that weighed less than a pound.
I figured that was the pinnacle of technological achievement. You had to carry multiple cassettes if you wanted musical variety, but that seemed a small price to pay.
But then – I don't even know how to describe how stunning and revolutionary this was – Apple came out with the iPod in the early 2000s. There were no tapes involved. Everything was digital. And the darn thing fit in the palm of your hand.
I just...I mean...if you're old enough to remember it, you know what I'm talking about. Suddenly, the future was here. You could carry around hundreds of songs. And nowadays it's well into the thousands.
Amazing.
So while the Keurig and the iPod are both life-changing inventions for me, if you ask which one is better, I'm going with the iPod. Every time.
Seriously, I can listen to Iron Maiden AND Air Supply back to back with just a couple of screen swipes? Yeah, I'm buying into that.
Growing up, we were among the first people in our neighborhood to have cable TV, a VCR, and a home video game system.
Actually, I should have put "home video game system" in quotes, because what it was was a cheap, black-and-white Pong-based game from Radio Shack that my dad brought home one night in 1978. He hooked it up to our living room TV, and suddenly I was playing video games. At home. In my living room.
A stunning innovation at the time.
Two years later, he bought us an Atari 2600, and thus began a long love affair with video games and computers that peaked in the mid-1980s when I got really good at the arcade game "Track and Field." This was a game where you had to mash two buttons really, really fast in order to make your little pixellated video game athlete run and jump through a variety of events.
A lot of guys (and it was really only guys who played it) would cheat by putting a comb between their fingers, which allowed them to develop a lightning-fast rhythm that would propel their video runners to sub-8-second 100-meter dash times.
But I played it straight. In large part because I couldn't figure out the comb thing. The point is, I was really good.
Well no, actually, the point is I like technology and gadgets and stuff like that. And for my money, the two best gadgets of the past 30 years are the Keurig coffee maker and Apple's wonderful iPod.
My kids bought me a Keurig for Father's Day a few years ago. I was just getting into coffee then, and getting the Keurig pushed me over the top into full-on addiction. I'm proud to say I remain physically and mentally dependent on the hot brown liquid until this day!
OK, not something to be proud of, but also not something to be denied. Coffee snobs will tell you the Keurig makes a low-quality drink, but I ignore them. What it does is make coffee as fast and convenient as it can be. It's ingenious, really, and it spawned an entire industry of companies that do nothing but make those little K-Cups.
All of which is cool. But the iPod? Well...the iPod is mythical. When I was a teenager, I was really into music. And the accepted medium for popular music in the 80s was the cassette. I had lots of cassettes. Like hundreds of them, all stored in cheap plastic holders that my dad undoubtedly bought at a discount store and screwed into my bedroom wall.
Cassettes were an extremely portable form of music, if by "portable" you mean "assuming you're willing to lug around a 13-pound boom box on your shoulder." But then came the Walkman, which allowed you to listen to your favorite cassettes in a little metal box that weighed less than a pound.
I figured that was the pinnacle of technological achievement. You had to carry multiple cassettes if you wanted musical variety, but that seemed a small price to pay.
But then – I don't even know how to describe how stunning and revolutionary this was – Apple came out with the iPod in the early 2000s. There were no tapes involved. Everything was digital. And the darn thing fit in the palm of your hand.
I just...I mean...if you're old enough to remember it, you know what I'm talking about. Suddenly, the future was here. You could carry around hundreds of songs. And nowadays it's well into the thousands.
Amazing.
So while the Keurig and the iPod are both life-changing inventions for me, if you ask which one is better, I'm going with the iPod. Every time.
Seriously, I can listen to Iron Maiden AND Air Supply back to back with just a couple of screen swipes? Yeah, I'm buying into that.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Bringing back the iPod shuffle
On two previous occasions, we played the iPod shuffle game on this blog (here and here). The idea, as you may recall, is to put your iPod or other MP3 device − we're not Apple-specific here at They Still Call Me Daddy − on "shuffle" mode and post the first five songs that pop up, no matter what they are.
I'll give you my list here, and you're welcome to offer up yours in the comments below. Here goes:
Scott's iPod shuffle results - 3/20/13
(1) David Francey - "Red-Winged Blackbird"
I love me some David Francey. He's a Canadian folk singer-songwriter who looks like he should be the guy who comes over and remodels your kitchen. And in fact he DID used to be a carpenter/laborer. I highly recommend his stuff.
(2) Sting - "St. Augustine in Hell"
Have I told you guys about the time I met Sting? I can't remember if I've relayed that story here. I probably have. Two or three times. I forget these things. Anyway, Sting is my all-time favorite. I've seen him play live nine times in 25 years. This song isn't among my top Sting tunes, but it's enjoyable.
(3) The Police - "Can't Stand Losing You"
Speaking of Sting...One of his better songs with The Police. I think the BBC once banned it because it dealt with the topic of suicide. But that was more than 30 years ago. No one would even think twice about the subject today.
(4) Sheila E. - "The Glamorous Life"
Yay, a woman! Sheila E. is extremely talented. And she's still out there making music. She was in Cleveland a few months ago with Dave Koz's band, and I'm sure she sang this, her signature tune.
(5) Quarterflash - "Harden My Heart"
Yay, another woman! Well, the lead singer/sax player in Quarterflash, Rindy Ross, is a woman. Always liked the tenor sax part she plays in this song. As I understand it, Quarterflash is still going strong, but they'll forever be filed under "One-Hit Wonders" on the strength of this little ditty, which hit #3 on the Billboard charts back in 1982.
I'll give you my list here, and you're welcome to offer up yours in the comments below. Here goes:
Scott's iPod shuffle results - 3/20/13
(1) David Francey - "Red-Winged Blackbird"
I love me some David Francey. He's a Canadian folk singer-songwriter who looks like he should be the guy who comes over and remodels your kitchen. And in fact he DID used to be a carpenter/laborer. I highly recommend his stuff.
(2) Sting - "St. Augustine in Hell"
Have I told you guys about the time I met Sting? I can't remember if I've relayed that story here. I probably have. Two or three times. I forget these things. Anyway, Sting is my all-time favorite. I've seen him play live nine times in 25 years. This song isn't among my top Sting tunes, but it's enjoyable.
(3) The Police - "Can't Stand Losing You"
Speaking of Sting...One of his better songs with The Police. I think the BBC once banned it because it dealt with the topic of suicide. But that was more than 30 years ago. No one would even think twice about the subject today.
(4) Sheila E. - "The Glamorous Life"
Yay, a woman! Sheila E. is extremely talented. And she's still out there making music. She was in Cleveland a few months ago with Dave Koz's band, and I'm sure she sang this, her signature tune.
(5) Quarterflash - "Harden My Heart"
Yay, another woman! Well, the lead singer/sax player in Quarterflash, Rindy Ross, is a woman. Always liked the tenor sax part she plays in this song. As I understand it, Quarterflash is still going strong, but they'll forever be filed under "One-Hit Wonders" on the strength of this little ditty, which hit #3 on the Billboard charts back in 1982.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Do the iPod Shuffle with me again
A few months ago we played a game here on the blog where everyone would grab their iPods, play them in "shuffle" mode, and report back the first five songs that came up. Song-by-song commentary is more than welcome. I'll start, but you are highly encouraged to give us your list in the comments below or on Facebook, if you happen to be accessing this post from there.
(1) "Keeping the Faith" - Billy Joel: This is from 1983, I think, when Billy was in his 50s/60s mode and tried to resurrect the music of that era all by himself (well, with help from The Stray Cats, I guess). I've always thought Billy Joel has been unfairly maligned as a soft rock/schmaltz artist because some of his hits - like "Just the Way You Are" - have a lounge singer feel to them. In reality, he's an amazing musician whose music has spanned everything from doo wop to hard rock. Not my favorite Billy Joel tune, but a worthy representative.
(2) "Roxanne" (Live) - The Police: Sting wrote this song in Paris circa 1977 about a fictional French prostitute. It ends up being a much nicer song than the subject matter would suggest. I just counted and found that I have eight different versions of this tune on my iPod. This one was recorded at a concert in Atlanta in the early 80s, but my favorite was when Sting sang it with just a guitar and Branford Marsalis on soprano saxophone at Live Aid in 1985.
(3) "Dark Blue" - Jack's Mannequin: The only non-80s song on my list. Interesting. My daughters were really into this tune when it came out six or seven years ago. It reminds me of summer 2008, when I took Elissa and her friend Jackie to see The Warped Tour in Cleveland. Warped Tour is a collection of bands that tours the country every summer. In my day, we would have classified these sorts of bands as "punk," I guess, but there's really a mix of ska, alternative, and genres I can't even identify. It was hilarious being one of the only people older than 25 there. I was also was of the few non-tattooed attendees. I may as well have been wearing sandals with black socks.
(4) "Hip to Be Square" - Huey Lews & The News: Terry and I saw Huey and his band live in concert in 1990. It was really loud. You wouldn't expect a Huey Lewis concert to be loud. But it was. There's a great tenor sax solo in this song. I wish there were more tenor sax solos in popular music these days.
(5) "Mandolin Rain" - Bruce Hornsby & The Range: This isn't the song that most people associate with Bruce Hornsby (that would be "The Way It Is"), but I think it's the best of his popular songs. Great piano, great chorus. If I could sing, this is one of the songs you would hear me warbling up on stage at some karaoke bar.
Scott's iPod Shuffle Results - 5/9/12
(1) "Keeping the Faith" - Billy Joel: This is from 1983, I think, when Billy was in his 50s/60s mode and tried to resurrect the music of that era all by himself (well, with help from The Stray Cats, I guess). I've always thought Billy Joel has been unfairly maligned as a soft rock/schmaltz artist because some of his hits - like "Just the Way You Are" - have a lounge singer feel to them. In reality, he's an amazing musician whose music has spanned everything from doo wop to hard rock. Not my favorite Billy Joel tune, but a worthy representative.
(2) "Roxanne" (Live) - The Police: Sting wrote this song in Paris circa 1977 about a fictional French prostitute. It ends up being a much nicer song than the subject matter would suggest. I just counted and found that I have eight different versions of this tune on my iPod. This one was recorded at a concert in Atlanta in the early 80s, but my favorite was when Sting sang it with just a guitar and Branford Marsalis on soprano saxophone at Live Aid in 1985.
(3) "Dark Blue" - Jack's Mannequin: The only non-80s song on my list. Interesting. My daughters were really into this tune when it came out six or seven years ago. It reminds me of summer 2008, when I took Elissa and her friend Jackie to see The Warped Tour in Cleveland. Warped Tour is a collection of bands that tours the country every summer. In my day, we would have classified these sorts of bands as "punk," I guess, but there's really a mix of ska, alternative, and genres I can't even identify. It was hilarious being one of the only people older than 25 there. I was also was of the few non-tattooed attendees. I may as well have been wearing sandals with black socks.
(4) "Hip to Be Square" - Huey Lews & The News: Terry and I saw Huey and his band live in concert in 1990. It was really loud. You wouldn't expect a Huey Lewis concert to be loud. But it was. There's a great tenor sax solo in this song. I wish there were more tenor sax solos in popular music these days.
(5) "Mandolin Rain" - Bruce Hornsby & The Range: This isn't the song that most people associate with Bruce Hornsby (that would be "The Way It Is"), but I think it's the best of his popular songs. Great piano, great chorus. If I could sing, this is one of the songs you would hear me warbling up on stage at some karaoke bar.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Let's do the iPod Shuffle
A couple of years ago, there was a Facebook meme that instructed people to put their iPods on shuffle and list the first five songs that came up. I thought that might be fun to do, especially since my iPod is filled with all kinds of strange music.
And I do mean all kinds. I have reggae and rock, classical and country, ska and salsa (OK, I don't actually have any salsa music, but I needed a musical genre that began with "s" to complete the pattern of alliteration).
Anyway, as I type this, I haven't yet pressed the "shuffle" button, so I don't know what five songs will pop up first. But I'm predicting that Sting and Colin Hay will both be in there, since I have just about everything those two artists have ever recorded. And there's a good chance some Dave Matthews Band and Billy Joel will make the cut, too. Let's see what happens:
(1) "Murder by Numbers" - The Police
OK, this pretty much qualifies as a Sting song since he co-wrote and recorded it as the frontman for The Police in 1983. I love Sting. I have been obsessed with his music for nearly 30 years. I actually met him, too. It was July 1996 and I managed to score a backstage pass with my nephew Mark when Sting was performing at Blossom Music Center. We met him before the show, and he was as nice as anyone can be when they're getting ready to perform in front of 12,000 people in about 15 minutes. He never calls, though...
(2) "Genus Rockus" - SRO
Who? What? There are only about five people in this world who would hear that song title and know what it is. It's a song written by my good buddy Nathan Woods and recorded by SRO, the two-man band that consisted of me, Nathan, and an old IBM personal computer. We recorded one album, titled "Sandlot Tunes," in the summer of 1990. And I'm just vain enough to have my own music on my iPod. Hey, I like listening to it, OK? And I have to say, I turn in a particularly nice tenor sax performance on this song, which we always used as our closer when playing live.
(3) "Moondance" - Van Morrison
I was stunningly ignorant of Van Morrison and his music until I joined a band called Tooney Loons about 13 years ago. I was by far the youngest guy in the group, which played a lot of Eagles, Beatles and Van Morrison stuff. This is one of Van's most popular songs. If I knew how to play the flute, I would join a band again just to play this. What a great tune.
(4) "Cuban Highway" - Dave Koz
Dave Koz is the king of smooth jazz. I realize that's an almost meaningless designation to most of you, but trust me when I say that when it comes to smooth jazz, Dave is The Man. Strangely enough, he's also a good acquaintance of Terry and me. We met him at a benefit concert in 2000, and since then he has always graciously left us tickets to his shows and backstage passes whenever he plays in Cleveland. He's also my favorite Jewish saxophone player, in that he's the only Jewish saxophone player I know.
By the way, I mentioned that I have a lot of different kinds of music on my iPod, but so far we've had three rock-pop songs and a smooth jazz tune. Let's hope we pull off another genre with song #5...
(5) Movement #4 ("Presto") from Beethoven's 9th Symphony - Cleveland Orchestra
Yes! I know it totally seems like I staged that, but this really is the fifth song that came up in my random iPod shuffle. I have just enough knowledge of classical music to be dangerous, and Beethoven's 9th is definitely my favorite of his symphonies. Powerful, emotional, almost mind-bending stuff. Just incredible music from one of the few people in history who truly deserves the title of "musical genius." Give it a listen if you haven't already.
So in the end we have three musical genres and no sign of the predicted Colin Hay, Dave Matthews and Billy Joel sightings. Which is fine. I was scared to death Barry Manilow, Pet Shop Boys or Cyndi Lauper would come up and make you all think less of me...
(Hey, feel free to do the "Top 5 Shuffle" with your iPod and report the results below in the comments!)
And I do mean all kinds. I have reggae and rock, classical and country, ska and salsa (OK, I don't actually have any salsa music, but I needed a musical genre that began with "s" to complete the pattern of alliteration).
Anyway, as I type this, I haven't yet pressed the "shuffle" button, so I don't know what five songs will pop up first. But I'm predicting that Sting and Colin Hay will both be in there, since I have just about everything those two artists have ever recorded. And there's a good chance some Dave Matthews Band and Billy Joel will make the cut, too. Let's see what happens:
(1) "Murder by Numbers" - The Police
OK, this pretty much qualifies as a Sting song since he co-wrote and recorded it as the frontman for The Police in 1983. I love Sting. I have been obsessed with his music for nearly 30 years. I actually met him, too. It was July 1996 and I managed to score a backstage pass with my nephew Mark when Sting was performing at Blossom Music Center. We met him before the show, and he was as nice as anyone can be when they're getting ready to perform in front of 12,000 people in about 15 minutes. He never calls, though...
(2) "Genus Rockus" - SRO
Who? What? There are only about five people in this world who would hear that song title and know what it is. It's a song written by my good buddy Nathan Woods and recorded by SRO, the two-man band that consisted of me, Nathan, and an old IBM personal computer. We recorded one album, titled "Sandlot Tunes," in the summer of 1990. And I'm just vain enough to have my own music on my iPod. Hey, I like listening to it, OK? And I have to say, I turn in a particularly nice tenor sax performance on this song, which we always used as our closer when playing live.
(3) "Moondance" - Van Morrison
I was stunningly ignorant of Van Morrison and his music until I joined a band called Tooney Loons about 13 years ago. I was by far the youngest guy in the group, which played a lot of Eagles, Beatles and Van Morrison stuff. This is one of Van's most popular songs. If I knew how to play the flute, I would join a band again just to play this. What a great tune.
(4) "Cuban Highway" - Dave Koz
Dave Koz is the king of smooth jazz. I realize that's an almost meaningless designation to most of you, but trust me when I say that when it comes to smooth jazz, Dave is The Man. Strangely enough, he's also a good acquaintance of Terry and me. We met him at a benefit concert in 2000, and since then he has always graciously left us tickets to his shows and backstage passes whenever he plays in Cleveland. He's also my favorite Jewish saxophone player, in that he's the only Jewish saxophone player I know.
By the way, I mentioned that I have a lot of different kinds of music on my iPod, but so far we've had three rock-pop songs and a smooth jazz tune. Let's hope we pull off another genre with song #5...
(5) Movement #4 ("Presto") from Beethoven's 9th Symphony - Cleveland Orchestra
Yes! I know it totally seems like I staged that, but this really is the fifth song that came up in my random iPod shuffle. I have just enough knowledge of classical music to be dangerous, and Beethoven's 9th is definitely my favorite of his symphonies. Powerful, emotional, almost mind-bending stuff. Just incredible music from one of the few people in history who truly deserves the title of "musical genius." Give it a listen if you haven't already.
So in the end we have three musical genres and no sign of the predicted Colin Hay, Dave Matthews and Billy Joel sightings. Which is fine. I was scared to death Barry Manilow, Pet Shop Boys or Cyndi Lauper would come up and make you all think less of me...
(Hey, feel free to do the "Top 5 Shuffle" with your iPod and report the results below in the comments!)
Monday, January 9, 2012
The miracle of the iPod
I've said this many times before and I still believe it's true: The iPod is the single greatest item that Western Civilization has produced in the last 20 years.
Actually, I should probably use the generic "MP3 player" there, since I think all of these devices are incredible. But like Kleenex and Scotch Tape, the iPod has so dominated the market that its name has come to be used for any related product. So if you own a Zune or a SanDisk or a Sony or whatever, rest assured that you're still part of the club.
We're an iPod family. Everyone but Jack has one, and I don't doubt that he's close to wanting one. The kids have essentially grown up with them, so it's probably difficult for them to imagine NOT having a small, thin, handheld device that holds the equivalent of thousands of 45 RPM records.
That's what I started on: 45 RPM records. When I first got into music round about 1982, you could go to your local record store and sort through racks and racks of vinyl. There were the 33 RPM albums, of course, but I was more interested in individual songs at the time, and those came in the form of 45's. You had to buy the little adapter so that your record player could accommodate the larger 45 RPM record hole, which you did gladly because darn it, how ELSE were you going to hear the latest from Kool and the Gang outside of the radio?
There were also cassettes, of course, and eventually I graduated to those in the mid-80's. With a cassette deck you could make easy copies of other peoples' tapes -- music piracy is no new phenomenon, kids -- AND record songs off the radio. It was perfect! And with the advent of 17-pound boom boxes, it was easy (relatively speaking) to take your music with you wherever you went. At one point I had about 300 cassettes in racks mounted on my bedroom wall.
I received an early version of the Sony Walkman in late 1982 from my brother, who as a member of the U.S. Air Force had been stationed in Korea, where the latest consumer electronics were readily available. The Walkman was cool, and over the next 20 years or so I took a Walkman with me on countless runs and bike rides.
Then came Christmas 1987, when I received my first CD player. The CD wasn't any more portable than the cassette, but the sound! For years we had been listening to dull, muffled recordings, and we didn't even know it. The CD was something.
But like cassettes, you had to keep large supplies of them in your car if you wanted to listen while you drove. Some people had multi-CD changers installed in their trunks. So while we had the sound quality, we still had the hardware problem. This was just something you lived with, and yet it still seemed as if we were living in the best of all possible worlds.
So when Apple introduced the iPod in 2001, it was little short of a miracle. Even the earliest iPod Shuffles could hold hundreds of songs. Hundreds! Without having to trade out CD's or tapes, and without carting endless plastic cases around. And the sound was still great, even with those little white earbuds. Seriously amazing. I didn't get my first iPod until 2005, and it immediately became such an important part of my life that I gave it a name (Bruce. We have a Christmas ornament of an old-model iPod with the name "Bruce" inscribed on it. My current iPod Nano is named Milo. Yes, yes, I know, I'm a freak. Let's just move on.)
My point, I guess, is the same point that countless old men before me have made: You kids don't know how good you have it! You're spoiled, and you're lazy with your digital media players and your iPads and your Chipotle burritos and your zip-up jeans without button flys. When I was a boy, I carted my 36-pound Walkman 8 miles each way to school. And it snowed in September and it was of course uphill both ways and the teachers would hit us upside the head with 2x4's if we so much as looked at them the wrong way. AND WE LIKED IT THAT WAY, DO YOU HEAR ME? WE LIKED IT THAT WAY!
Sorry. My point really is that iPods are awesome. I hope I made that clear.
Actually, I should probably use the generic "MP3 player" there, since I think all of these devices are incredible. But like Kleenex and Scotch Tape, the iPod has so dominated the market that its name has come to be used for any related product. So if you own a Zune or a SanDisk or a Sony or whatever, rest assured that you're still part of the club.
We're an iPod family. Everyone but Jack has one, and I don't doubt that he's close to wanting one. The kids have essentially grown up with them, so it's probably difficult for them to imagine NOT having a small, thin, handheld device that holds the equivalent of thousands of 45 RPM records.
That's what I started on: 45 RPM records. When I first got into music round about 1982, you could go to your local record store and sort through racks and racks of vinyl. There were the 33 RPM albums, of course, but I was more interested in individual songs at the time, and those came in the form of 45's. You had to buy the little adapter so that your record player could accommodate the larger 45 RPM record hole, which you did gladly because darn it, how ELSE were you going to hear the latest from Kool and the Gang outside of the radio?
There were also cassettes, of course, and eventually I graduated to those in the mid-80's. With a cassette deck you could make easy copies of other peoples' tapes -- music piracy is no new phenomenon, kids -- AND record songs off the radio. It was perfect! And with the advent of 17-pound boom boxes, it was easy (relatively speaking) to take your music with you wherever you went. At one point I had about 300 cassettes in racks mounted on my bedroom wall.
I received an early version of the Sony Walkman in late 1982 from my brother, who as a member of the U.S. Air Force had been stationed in Korea, where the latest consumer electronics were readily available. The Walkman was cool, and over the next 20 years or so I took a Walkman with me on countless runs and bike rides.
Then came Christmas 1987, when I received my first CD player. The CD wasn't any more portable than the cassette, but the sound! For years we had been listening to dull, muffled recordings, and we didn't even know it. The CD was something.
But like cassettes, you had to keep large supplies of them in your car if you wanted to listen while you drove. Some people had multi-CD changers installed in their trunks. So while we had the sound quality, we still had the hardware problem. This was just something you lived with, and yet it still seemed as if we were living in the best of all possible worlds.
So when Apple introduced the iPod in 2001, it was little short of a miracle. Even the earliest iPod Shuffles could hold hundreds of songs. Hundreds! Without having to trade out CD's or tapes, and without carting endless plastic cases around. And the sound was still great, even with those little white earbuds. Seriously amazing. I didn't get my first iPod until 2005, and it immediately became such an important part of my life that I gave it a name (Bruce. We have a Christmas ornament of an old-model iPod with the name "Bruce" inscribed on it. My current iPod Nano is named Milo. Yes, yes, I know, I'm a freak. Let's just move on.)
My point, I guess, is the same point that countless old men before me have made: You kids don't know how good you have it! You're spoiled, and you're lazy with your digital media players and your iPads and your Chipotle burritos and your zip-up jeans without button flys. When I was a boy, I carted my 36-pound Walkman 8 miles each way to school. And it snowed in September and it was of course uphill both ways and the teachers would hit us upside the head with 2x4's if we so much as looked at them the wrong way. AND WE LIKED IT THAT WAY, DO YOU HEAR ME? WE LIKED IT THAT WAY!
Sorry. My point really is that iPods are awesome. I hope I made that clear.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)