In your CD player
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The Soft Machine - Soft Machine 1968 original release. 2009 remaster. Their debut. With a band name borrowed from a novel by the legendary beat poet William S. Burroughs who was also on the "Sgt. Pepper" cover you'd expect something wild and imaginative. And both ideas and performances are breathless. With a young (pre-broke his spine) Robert Wyatt on drums and lead vocals. Musically I think it's somewhere between psychedelic rock and pop and free jazz. A record of its time but with so much individual creativity that it is an eternal original.
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Celtic Music (Relaxing And Beautiful Mix)
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Off the ground
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Ocean's Kingdom - Paul McCartney 2011. His latest classical album so far. Composed for a ballett. McCartney's such a melodic genius that the music flows wonderfully. I think it's a glamorous touch to it, I don't visit the opera regularily but I think that it would reach a momentum of beauty if watching a ballet while listenting to it. Playing it as an album on my stereo, it's nice but maybe not his most memorable piece of music ever. Maybe time for chamber music? His classical music so far have been quite grand.
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Star Wars - Wilco 2015. Released today. At least physically, for us who collect and like to smell and touch and feel records as well. It's their first in four years but it's not a polished kind of record that sounds like they spent years making. It was given away as a free download in July, so I interpret it as a bit of a loose tie and a need to make something less ambitious and more spontaneus. It is a kind of garage rock. Whether this is a new start, or new direction ... we'll see/hear.
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Before this World - James Taylor 2015. I got the new James Taylor album today along with Wilco's new one. I played a lot of JT in the 90s when I worked in a record store. In between all the trendy records coming out and an overdose of playing through records to know what you sold, listenting to the friendly feelgood voice of James Taylor felt soothing. I'm playing it for the first time now. My first JT album since "Hourglass" in 1997. Just the same, only different. Sounds good.
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Popular Problems - Leonard Cohen 2014. Cohen's latest. Incredible that he is already 80 years old. He belong to the 60s generation of artists but Cohen was a poet and a writer before he made his long playing debut in 1967. I think he is a bit like James Taylor in the way that you know what you will get get. Cohen is a singer / songwriter with literary lyrics. There's been much focus on the lyrics of his but I've tried to listen to his music without listening to the lyrics and it actually works fine. His dark voice has charisma and takes you on a moody trip.
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Arcade fire -funeral
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Julian Lennon - Photograph Smile
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Hendrix Ibsen:
Ocean's Kingdom - Paul McCartney 2011. His latest classical album so far. Composed for a ballett. McCartney's such a melodic genius that the music flows wonderfully. I think it's a glamorous touch to it, I don't visit the opera regularily but I think that it would reach a momentum of beauty if watching a ballet while listenting to it. Playing it as an album on my stereo, it's nice but maybe not his most memorable piece of music ever. Maybe time for chamber music? His classical music so far have been quite grand.
Wish there was a DVD of the ballet! It was truly beautiful!
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A DVD. Yep, I haven't thought about it. I have a DVD with the performance of "Standing Stone". It's nice but still a symphonic pleasure more for the aesthetics of the ears than the eys. "Ocean's Kingdom" was specifically written for the eyes and the ears, with a ballett in mind, I think more than any other of his classical works.
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The Studio Albums 1969-1987 - Yes 2013. Box set with all 12 studio albums released between 1969-87. I saw this on Amazon and it was so cheap, like 12 CD's for the price of 2. When I was at the local (crap) record store to get the new Wilco album I noticed this on their shelf, and hey, it was just as cheap. I have their classic prog albums of the 70s, but I'd yet to collect 80s albums like "Drama" and "Big Generator" and thought it was well worth it to finally get them. I play chronological and listen to "Fragile" (1971) right now. This is such glorious music. I was a bit slow to get started, had to listen to Wilco first (and James Taylor's new), but now... well I'm close to the edge.
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Best of three dog night
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Sprout and the Bean / What We Have Known - Joanna Newsom CD single. 2004. And just when you thought the normie crowd had taken over the world with paintings by numbers, along come Joanna Newsom. A true original. And it's all because of the Indie scene at the time that makes it possible. Singer/songwriter and a harp player. It's a strange and wonderful sound.
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Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band - Joanna Newsom EP. 2007. I love the vinyl EP's of the 60s. The Beatles... In the 70s and 80s it seemed to have died out but in the 90s there was an EP revival going on. Bands/artists used the format to release tracks that maybe didn't fit the flow on a studio album but was a perfect match on an exclusive EP for the fans to collect. "Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band" contain an unrelased track and two previously released songs with new arrangements. It's a folky and medieval mood. The title is a pun on Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band.
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Tales From Topographic Oceans - Yes 1973. Progressive rock epic. One of those albums you just as likely will find on top ten worst albums ever lists as top ten best. 'Pretentious', like 70s prog-rock is often accused of being. It was not radiofriendly anymore. I've always loved it. Partly because it's so over top. It's virtuoso musicians who wanted their music to be as big as Beethoven rather than having big hits. It's more like compostions than songwriting. In a way you don't need more than three minutes and two guitars, bass and drums to nail rock music, but I like the musical ambitions here, stretching out, in a genre that had gone from "Be-Bop-A-Lula" to "The Revealing Science of God (Dance of the Dawn)" . And Yes is an amazing band with the talent to pull it off.
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Rubber Soul
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Acquiring the Taste - Gentle Giant 1971. I'm probably quite fond of 70s progressive rock when it comes down to it. I think I like the musical adventure and the general sound of it with the folk influence. Gentle Giant was a band of technical virtuoso but it never gets in the way of heart and emotion. I don't think they ever made it big and broke up in the early 80s after a few less successful albums where they tried to adapt to what was popular with a younger generations at the time. The 80s were difficult times for prog. I wonder if the lead vocalist Derek Shulman went on to work as a record executive for Polygram Records where he discovered and signed Bon Jovi among others. I'll stick to Gentle Giant to be honest. And ranking "Acquiring the Taste" maybe as high as top 5 favorite progressive rock albums.
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The Beatles "The Night Before" (Vinyl) Figure out how I got that in the CD player.
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Golden Child ~ Neil Finn Live at Royal Festival Hall