Something lighthearted

Phil Ritchie, over at Phil's treehouse, has posted a meme at his blog (at the time of writing this it was on the right hand side of the blog in my links) which caught my imagination!  It's a fifteen song meme, and I will cut and paste his intro here:

First fifteen music meme

1) Turn on your MP3 player or music player on your computer.
2) Go to SHUFFLE songs mode.
3) Write down the first 15 songs that come up–song title and artist–NO editing/cheating, please.


So here's my list (If the Song is highlighted, the link goes to the song on Spotify - though some of these may be linked to my own iTunes library and may come up blank - if so, sorry - , if the album is highlighted you can go and have a look at Amazon.co.uk's listing):

1. It's The Sun – The Polyphonic Spree (The Beginning Stages Of....)
2. The Last Time – Talk Talk (The Collection)
3. We Declare Your Majesty – Kate Miner/Derri Doughtery (More...Best Worship Songs Ever)
4. River of Bass – Underworld (Dubnobasswithmyheadman)
5. Zadok The Priest – Choir Of King's College, Cambridge (The World of King's)
6. Offertorium: Assumpta et Maria– Pro Cantiona Antiqua (Palestrina - Missa Papae Marcolli)
7. Give Me A Sign – Foreigner (Can't Slow Down)
8. Temptation – Heaven 17 (101 80s Hits)
9. Walk On Water– Marc Cohn (Marc Cohn)
10. Still – Hillsong (iWoship: No Boundries)
11. Turn Turn Turn – Bruce Cockburn (Where Have All The Flowers Gone: The Songs of Pete Seeger)
12. Wrap Me In Your Arms – Freddy Rodriguez (Light In The Darkness)
13. Shipwrecked – Genesis (Calling All Stations)
14. The Swamp Song 1 – Oasis (What's The Story Morning Glory)
15. You Get Bigger As You Go – Bruce Cockburn (Humans) 

Not sure if I am meant to add any comments here - but I will anyway (Phil did, so I am just following his example)...

Interesting mix - it made me check how many tracks on my iTunes library - having transferred 20 years of CDs and made the most of cheap downloads I am now at 15815 tracks in my collection, so there was a pretty good selection.  

Not all of the above tracks are ones I particularly like - things like my 101 80's hits I bought so I had some albums for 'guess the track' at the quiz nights I run - and Heaven 17 were never a fave band for me, though the song has grown on me... A few of them are from albums I have reviewed for Cross Rhythms (a duty which I have neglected in the rush of the past few months, I have some really very very very overdue reviews due and feel awful but haven't had time to do them!!!) and the ones randomly chosen above are the worship ones (Freddy Rodriguez & iWorship), both very good albums! (The More....Best Worship album was bought a few years back to increase my new songs vocabulary and so I could learn to play some new songs for worship).


Every time I buy a CD, either for myself or my wife, it goes onto iTunes so we can argue about what to listen to in the car on long journeys, so a fair number of things on my iTunes are 'definitely not my bag, baby' - to quote Austin Powers.  Having said that some things have grown on me, like Talk Talk (on the list above) and Gabrielle, Jack McManus and a few others...


Classic Music is something I came late to, and I am still not always convinced that it is in any way more 'cultured' than any other type of music - in fact quite a lot of classical music I find a bit overdone and the simplicity of a guitar and voice I find profoundly moving.  My musical taste is eclectic (or as some call it 'a mess') but I do like lots of different kinds of music -rock, pop, metal, piano, classical, choral, vocal, folk, electronic, jazz, blues, dance, ambient, experimental, orchestral, worship, country, acoustic... the list goes on and on and on.  And I am always willing to give most musical genres a listen.... there are some I veer away from just because they do little for me - hip hop, dance, grindcore, thrash, big band, opera - but there are outstanding tracks in each type of music and now it is so easy to download legitmately and to listen online to so many tracks I am more likely to try different styles than I was.  But with so many already on my iPod and PC, I don't really need to branch out more.


  I was glad to see two tracks by one of my very favourite artists in my random selection - Bruce Cockburn,   fantastic singer songwriter and wonderful guitarist.  Sad that the Underworld track wasn't from their earlier stuff which I really enjoy - Underneath the Radar and Change The Weather particularly (though I like their odd synthy rock stuff from when they were Freur, or squiggle as some knew them), and disappointed that my favourite band of all time DARE didn't make it despite taking up a disproportionate amount of space in my music library - I think I have pretty much everything they have ever recorded....          

A glimpse into my strange musical mishmash mind - thanks Phil for the inspiration!  I think I might have done this before without quite so much waffle, might look back over my blog posts and see if that's the case... or perhaps it was on Facebook!