What have you been tapping your foot to?

[Tom]

I just downloaded a 3 disc Tina Turner collection of greatest hits - from the 60's to the 90's. Wow...I only knew her for her hits, but she's AMAZING!! Some amesome soul as well as rock.

[Nancy]

Democracy is Coming to the USA

Leonard Cohen

[Doug]

Joe McElderry! I am not sure how to add a picture.

[Nancy]

Doug - right above the box where you write your comments, there are two gray links. One says "add book/author" and the other "(some html is okay)". Link on that second link and it will give you instructions on how to insert a picture.

[Nancy]

The Crüxshadows

[Nancy]

Kaki King - Gay Sons of Lesbian Mothers

[Bill, Moderator]

Just announced, The Beatles is finally available on iTunes. I've ripped most of my disks, but am missing some.

What is you favorite Beatles song:

I think mine is The Fool on the Hill. I identify with 'The Fool' and it's a great tune. I've also several instrumental versions, but I like the original best.

Close seconds are Let it Be, Hey Jude, Norwegian Wood and Eleanor Rigby.

[Nancy]

Kernos, I love all the songs you mentioned though it's really hard for me to pick a single favorite. It all depends what mood I'm in. To your list I'd like to add:

Strawberry Fields Forever
Blackbird
I Am the Walrus
Here Comes the Sun

[Bill, Moderator]

Yeh Nancy, I listened to a bunch of Beatles songs at work yesterday and there are sure a lot of good ones. I have not been able to get the Fool's tune outta my head since :-).

Have you seen the amazing musical romance "Across the Universe"? I'm not a great musical lover, but this was the bestest! Easily up there with Amadeus, Fiddler on the Roof and Sound of Music (those are the one's I can watch over and over)

[Debbie]

I've been listening to Big Mama Thornton lately.
[image error]

[Debbie]

She's truly one of the greats. One more for the road.

[Scott]

I haven't partaken in this conversation...but this just came on my ITunes randomly and I had to stop and listen to the whole album.

[Paul]

Right now I'm on an X-Factor/Olly Murs kick. Well, this song anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRCi83...

[Kevin]

Some favourite Lupe Fiasco -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XOASt... (Radio friendly edit)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp2uqG...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agdxwW... (Not official video clip)

He's here in Sydney again in January...must get a ticket.

I also have fallen in love with Janelle Monáe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzZnao...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHgbzN...

Just bought her latest album. It's grown on me. A very varied artist.

[Kevin]

Debbie wrote: "I've been listening to Big Mama Thornton lately."

The woman with the original version of 'Hound Dog', later made famous by Elvis -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1aksT...

Same tune - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEUH6_...

Great Macy Gray cover at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcsSMT... (audio only/better sound)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddfHFE... (Live video concert)

Plus Billie Holiday gets very naughty with her lyrics at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0TDNR...
Even mentions 'rock'n'roll' before its a musical genre.

[Kevin]

Kernos wrote: "Just announced, The Beatles is finally available on iTunes. I've ripped most of my disks, but am missing some.

What is you favorite Beatles song:

I think mine is The Fool on the Hill. I identify..."

My fave is Eleanor Rigby. Have several versions. Also love the Sgt Pepper's album. Have a Japanese vinyl pressing with all the original cover art.

[Bill, Moderator]

I always listen to Christmas music during the holiday and usually try to find a new and different CD.

My all time favorite album is Joan Baez's Baez: Noël What a voice, but I have an eclectic collection from Nat King Colt to Ella Fitzgerald to Bing Crosby to Pavarotti to Mannheim Steamroller and Juthro Tull .

My new albums this year were Rejoice! A String Quartet Christmas, 2 volumes, which I have thoroughly enjoyed; and 2 Vienna Boys Choir CDs. There is little sweeter than a great boys choir.

[Nancy]

R.I.P. Gerry Rafferty

[Fiona]

Right now, I am listening to a lot of Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

(Please will someone tell me how to post a photo into a comment...?)

I'm also just beginning to build my 'sister_shout' profile on last.fm. Please feel free to find me and add me as your friend; I'd love to share some sounds and songs with you...

http://www.last.fm/user/sister_shout

[Nancy]

Hi Fiona,

If you look to the right of the comments box, you will see (some html is ok). Just click on it and scroll down to the fifth item on how to post an image.

These instructions only work for pictures that are hosted on other websites. If you wish to post pictures directly from your computer, you will have to upload them to a photo hosting site, like Photobucket.

Hope this helps!

[Fiona]

Nancy wrote: "Hi Fiona,

If you look to the right of the comments box, you will see (some html is ok). Just click on it and scroll down to the fifth item on how to post an image.

These instructions only ..."

Like magic, all these options and tips appear! I didn't think to click on that link, how silly of me!

Thanks for your help and for rudely disrupting the flow of this great discussion....

[Scott]

I chilling out to the mellow, but fantastic, strumming of Mr. Willie Nelson.






I'd Have To Be Crazy is on my top ten of all-time greatest songs.

[Debbie]

Where'd everybody go? No music to help make it through winter?

My dial is usually set to my stations at Last.fm. If you want to "friend" there, just let me know you're from here. Favorites on my turntable lately include: Janelle Monae, Annie Lennox, Aretha Franklin, and Laura Izibor, who I just stumbled across.

[Nancy]

Oh, I've been listening to lots of stuff, but haven't been around here too much.

At the moment, I can't seem to get Dirty Old Town out of my head.

[Nancy]

I decided to subscribe to Last.fm since they've made some changes that will prevent me from listening on my iPhone and that's where I do most of my listening.

[Fiona]

Debbie wrote: "Where'd everybody go? No music to help make it through winter?

My dial is usually set to my stations at Last.fm. If you want to "friend" there, just let me know you're from here..."

Debbie, if you'd like to, we could hook up at Last.fm? That we have "Super Compatibility" surely indicates that we ought to become 'friends' there too...

Right now, I am on a 'Blue Afternoon', 'Lorca' and 'Starsailor' Tim Buckley buzz.



But then my mind and feelings alter and I find myself falling in love too easily with Chet Baker, swimming in ocean songs with Dirty Three, kozmically blue with Janis Joplin, ringing out for Songs: Ohia, and always caught up in my solitude with Billie Holiday.......

[Debbie]

That is a great song! I haven't listened to the Pogues a lot but when one of their songs find me I like it.

[Debbie]

Fiona, that's you! I wondered who it was. :) Just accepted friend request. I look forwarded to listening to your library there.

[Fiona]

Debbie wrote: "Fiona, that's you! I wondered who it was. :) Just accepted friend request. I look forwarded to listening to your library there."

Great!

[Bill, Moderator]

I was listening to NPR on my way to work yesterday in my CR-Z (Great to have a radio again!) and, though I don't really like choral or vocal music, they were playing Faure's Requiem which I loved. It would be perfect to read to. So I got a copy on iTunes as well as a set of Brahms symphonies.

Up The Classics!

[Grace]

I'm listening to Taylor Swift's Better Than Revenge. It is an awesome song.

[Fiona]

Okay, so this is not at all the kind of music I would normally listen to, but..........

Adele was glitteringly good at The Brit Awards earlier this month:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qemWRT...

[SpritetheRight]

I stuck on Amanda Palmer and the dresden dolls coin operated boy is one of my favs

[Damon]

I'm having a weird DIxie Chicks FLY renaissance.

Sin Wagon!

[Fiona]

Damon wrote: "Sin Wagon!"

Great phrase! ;)

[Debbie]

The Dixie Chicks are good stuff.

I stumbled across the Collins Kids over at the rockabilly station on Last.fm Anyone heard of them? I guess there were big on TV in the 1950s.

Check out "Hoy Hoy Hoy" here. That kid can play!

[Cole]

I'm into a fair bit of mainstream stuff, so lately I have been listening to "Hold It Against Me" by Britney Spears.

On top of that, I am listening to a lot of Reba McEntire, Quincy Coleman, Priscilla Ann, A Fine Frenzy, and The Maine.

[Fiona]

I've recently been listening to a wonderful recording of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's 'The Threepenny Opera' (Die Dreigroschenoper).

And I just found this brilliant The Threepenny Opera site which I thought I might share with you all here.

[♥Laddie♥ (Lee Lee)]

I'm all about Kings Of Leon lately.

This video makes me so happy

[Doug]

I like Kings of Leon and I love Britney Spears!

Recently I picked up Ronan Keating singing Burt Bacharach songs . Ronan is an Irish lad who sang with the boy band Boyzone (which I loved) and now does his own thing, and singing Burt songs is heavently though my partner thinks I am listening to elevator music. So what!

[Mark]

Anything by Bruno Mars or Paolo Nuttini.

[Doug]

I love both those two, Mark! I just found the new cd by Danny Saucedo called "In the Club" and I love it, especially the single called "tonight" and I like the song "cassandra"

[Sergey]

I’ve been romanticizing The Poet: Romances for Cello by Michael Hoppé lately. I stumbled up on it quite by accident, and oh, boy!

The piece combines the beauty of the violoncello with the eloquence of poetry. The cello is succulent, moving, romantic, melancholy—a weeping instrument to a weeping soul. From the start, from the first note my mind departed the mortal world for the edges of another realm, another paradise to contemplate, to roam free, to discover that which is forgotten, lost in the mundane routines of a life. I had the overwhelming urge to fall on my knees and beg forgiveness (of whom I know not) as I was carried worth by the tenderness, the tears of the instrument to a place unique to my own imagination: from nothingness to eternity to finality to renewal, hope.

Brilliant! And I don’t find cello (on its own merit) all that beautiful, but rather quite depressing.

[Sergey]

Kernos wrote: "I was listening to NPR on my way to work yesterday in my CR-Z (Great to have a radio again!) and, though I don't really like choral or vocal music, they were playing Faure's Requiem which I loved...."

Faure's Requiem is one of my favorite pieces by the composer!

[Bill, Moderator]

Welcome Sergey! The cello can certainly be melancholy, but also immensely romantic (Elgar's concerto, eg, though the first time I heard it was around a fire, alone with a new love sipping wine which probably effects my interpretation).

I have been searching for a great cellist since Jacqueline Du Pré succumbed to MS. Everyone screams Yo Yo Ma, but for me he has little soul. Suggestions would be appreciated. I will check out the disk you mentioned. Thanks!

I'm very, very particular about choral music, but have been really enjoying the Fauré. My other 2 favorite big choral works are Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Berlioz's Requiem. I'm beginning to like Mozart's Requiem, in Dm, but need to study it more. Hummm, seems I have a thing for Requiems?

I like works where the voices are used as instruments in a symphonic orchestra. I don't grok opera, except for the great arias and agree with Debussy who said, "In opera, there is always too much singing."

I recently got several discs of Romani (gypsy) folk music, this after reading June's brilliant group read Counterpoint:Dylan's Story. I'm familiar with Zigeunerweisen of course and have several versions by great violinists: Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman (whom I once met), Joshua Bell and a Cello version with Joseph Kaizer and of course Brahms Hungarian Rhapsodies. But, I was not familiar with Romani folk music per se which is important to the novel.

And I made another NPR discovery Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op 33, by Tchaikovsky, another Cello work with Mischa Maisky as Cellist. It puts me into a reminiscing mood, for some reason. Besides I love theme and variations of which Beethoven (my Hero) was a master.

[Sergey]

Thanks, Kernos! :) Cello can certainly be romantic, no doubt, and tragic, but I much prefer it accompanied with other instruments. One of my favorite pieces with cello is Tchaikovsky’s Trio in A minor, Op. 50 for piano, violin, and cello. It is glorious the sound of the three instruments together lamenting on the death of Rubenstein! The finale e coda is especially a heart-wrenching experience!

I like choral works. I mostly enjoy the sound of voices sans orchestration creating glorious sounds, but I also like opera ;). I still recall the first time I heard Gregorian chants and the chills overtaking my body, not simply for praising a higher power, but for the sheer beauty of sound a human voice can create; or the serenity washing over me with Tchaikovsky’s or Rachmaninov’s Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (I prefer Rachmaninov’s version, albeit both are equally thrilling). It was later that I discovered the requiems, of course, with Mozart first, then graduating to Brahms (and if you’ve not listened to this requiem, I recommend it), Fauré, Verdi, Berlioz (though I must admit it’s been many years since I listened to it). Oh, and I have a flare for the dramatic in the music and song, e.g., Orff’s Carmina Burana. Of Beethoven, the Choral Symphony blew me out of the water! I’ve been searching for a reputable performance of Handel’s Messiah, but no luck.

[Cole]

Wow, compared to you guys I am insanely mainstream.

I picked up both Born This Way and Femme Fatale and have been listening to them non stop! Definite step forward for Britney, but I don't think Born This Way is as good as The Fame Monster.

[Charles]

I love the blues because they tell a story from beginning to end. Pretty much like country. But then I might be listening to Little Wayne. Music is a good way to keep up with trends and life outside of your normalcy.

[Sergey]

Cole wrote: "Wow, compared to you guys I am insanely mainstream.

I picked up both Born This Way and Femme Fatale and have been listening to them non stop! Definite step forward for Britney, but I don't think ..."

I like "phonography" by spears from previous CD.

[Harry]

E. Power bigs on the pedal harsichord.................the way Bach first heard it.............http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wea7So...