Bands suggestions too, curious what folks are into!
Lots of classic rock. Billy Joel, led zeppelin, etc.
But lately I’ve been on a classical music kick.
I was recently revisiting some Billy Joel. He really was a great folk storyteller.
Like, Allentown tells a history so succinctly but authentically. It really is a skill he honed.
He’s incredibly good at turning experiences into words. Allentown is still relevant today, the way he wrote it it just describes so many peoples American experience.
But he did that a lot. Where I think he’s best with it is more emotional songs, he really captures whatever emotion he’s getting into words well. Like, Captain Jack does a good job of telling the story of someone in small town America, but I always heard it as a song about depression. All this stuff is happening around you and you’re just kinda there for it, not really feeling much of anything.
Or how he captures that nervous feeling about meeting a girl for the first time in Get it Right the First Time. He is so good at getting emotion into music.
I recently started listening to classical and boy does it require a completely different listening approach! I’m listening almost exclusively to Mahler’s No.5 since my attention fades away after the first movement and I need lots of listening to know what’s actually going on
Mahlers 5th is good, but I think his 4th is better.
But my personal favorite is Beethoven’s 5th. I used to HATE that symphony when I was a kid, my grandmother loved it and it bored me to tears.
Turns out the version she had on CD that she always listened to was the worst recording you can find of it. It was WAY too slow, it made the whole thing drag on. That symphony works best when it’s damn near rushing. When I got back into classical a few months back I found the Berliner Philharmoniker playing it directed by Simon Rattle, and the sprint through that symphony, and it works SO MUCH BETTER. It was very clearly intended to be played fast, so many of the parts feel way more interesting and there’s sections where each part of the orchestra feels like it’s tripping over the others to be heard.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Since you look much more knowledgeable than me, could you help me understand how to navigate the overwhelming amount of different versions for every piece of music? For now I’m completely ignoring who’s playing and conducting and sometimes I timidly try to listen to another version, usually just to come back to the comfort of the first version I listened
