Category: Music

In 1985, James Taylor wrote a song about being a star in the music business. One part always struck me: “Perfect strangers … pay good money to hear Fire and Rain again … And again and again.”

It’s 26 years later. He has sung Fire and Rain countless times since.

I can’t imagine the pain of singing a hit song over and over. And over and over.

I guess you just numb yourself to the experience.

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Two months ago, I saw one of my recent favorite bands live. A few of their songs stuck in my head since then. I played them enough times that I had to stop.

I followed their tour on Instagram. Compared to pre-Covid times, it was a short tour – about fifty performances over a few months. But they must have gotten tired of singing their songs every night. Forty years from now? I can’t imagine…

Live music is something many of us greatly miss in the wake of Covid.

An alternative has been tossed over the fence – live streaming.

I’m sorry, but it’s just not the same. (No one said it would be.)

Often, what’s already out there on YouTube is better than a streaming show you might see. And you’ll probably see some actual crowds.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for supporting musicians! A good solid alternative is to go to their page on Bandcamp and buy some music or merchandise.

I just did. And since our cars are old enough to have CD players, some sweet new tunes will be playing in a few weeks – with better sounds than Spotify can deliver.

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Aimee Giese, a Denver friend, spent a good amount of time compiling a page with links to support Denver musicians. You can buy lots of fun merch from a wide variety of artists.

If anyone out there has another similar page, please put the link in the comments. Thanks.

Music falls into many categories. I’m not referring to genres but rather to human appreciation of musical works.

The broadest way to describe the value of how one appreciates music is shelf life. How long will you enjoy a piece of music?

Three categories, from worst to best:

1. Loser: Listen once and you don’t need to hear it again.
2. Ephemeral: When you first hear it, you like it. You listen again, over and over. Much later, you hear it and wonder what the attraction was.
3. Timeless: These works stand up to multiple listens for your whole life. (You may need to take a break from time to time, but when you come back years later, you still enjoy the album.)

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1. At one time, U2 was one of my favorite bands. The Joshua Tree is an amazing album.

Zooropa is not good. U2 failed when they released that album in 1993. Their previous work was majestic and melodic. Zooropa was experimental, and not all experiments succeed.

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2. Jefferson Starship was a late 1970’s revamp of Jefferson Airplane, a seminal San Francisco band that started in 1965.

While Jefferson Airplane broke new ground, Jefferson Starship tried the formulas of their era to make catchy tunes designed to receive as much radio play as possible. Those melodies caught my ear enough that I listened over and over to Red Octopus.

Then, after a break of more than fifteen years, I listened again. I couldn’t even listen to the whole album. The songs were bathed in a syrupy pop sound that made me nearly choke.

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3. Little Feat was one of my very favorite bands during my late high school years. I first heard The Last Record Album in a high fidelity stereo shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ambient swampy sounds seemed to come from every corner of the room, even though that expensive sound system had just two (large) speakers. Melodies went all over the place and blended soulful longing with weird perspectives on life that I still don’t understand.

After I saved up a bit, I went to a record store and bought that album. I still have it.

I’ve listened to that album from its creation in 1975 until now. And I still love it.

AURORA is a young musician from Norway. She’s kind of a modern Enya.

NPR’s Bob Boilen recently interviewed AURORA. She had a very wise thing to say while talking about the life of an artist or musician… when your hobby becomes your job, it can be both a blessing and a curse.

That immediately reminded me of my short career as a radio DJ. Every Friday morning, I played three solid hours of my very favorite tunes. Occasionally, I had to cover the next DJ’s shift, which meant six solid hours of my favorite tunes. By the end of those sorts of shifts, I didn’t want to hear any music for the next several days.

I’ve always loved music, but too much of a good thing can be more than a boy can handle.

So I never made music my career.

Similarly, I love cars. But selling them for a living would take the joy out of it.

What’s the thing you loved and never made your career?

Why not make things better than what real life offers?

That’s the idea Andy Hildebrand applied to sound when he was working for Exxon. His technology has been applied to alter the sound of a tune so that the pitch is always perfect. But like many good things, it can be overdone. A tune can be altered to sound like a robot is singing.

Many popular musicians love this technology. When applied minimally, it can improve a musician’s ability to hit a note properly. When applied to the maximum, it will produce that robot effect.

And I get to hear robots every day. The building I work in has a Muzak music subscription service, and they chose the Auto-Tune channel to play all the time – in the halls and in the bathrooms.

Thankfully, Auto-Tune does not intrude into my office. Never shall it pass those doors.

(And I’ve written about this before. It’s a subject that is near and dear to my heart.)