I’ve always had a lot of interest in music. Incapable of making
it myself, I have a deep respect and love for those who can.
My favorite artists would be
described as complex without complication. The best songs ideally invoke subtle
depths that provide plenty of food for thought. Songs don’t have to go all over
the place. Contrapuntal harmonies don’t have to be at loggerheads throughout
and singers don’t need to command seven octaves when what they can do with two
or three just blows you out of the water.
Of course not everything I listen to needs to be so terrifically
complex and arch and subtle. Sometimes I just listen to stuff because I enjoy
it and it makes me happy. But most of my favorite artists and music got that
way because of emotionally satisfying chord progressions and powerful poetry.
One of the coolest things about being alive right now is that if
you hear it and love it, you can almost certainly own it. Along with a number
of iTunes purchases, my collection has been growing since high school. My 45s
and vinyl LPs and my earliest mixes taped off the radio gave way to cassettes,
cassette singles and eventually CDs. I’ve been buying mp3s almost exclusively
for years now. It’s a little weird not having the CD, but the tradeoff in
convenience is incredible.
Along with nearly 3,500 songs I brought in from my cassette and
CD collections and mp3s I’ve pulled in from iTunes, I listen to a number of
podcasts over the course of any given week, mostly while out walking. My
favorites include Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, News From Lake Wobegon, This
American Life, Thistle and Shamrock, the LOST podcast, Sound Opinions, the
Sunday Puzzle and NPR’s Science Friday. And naturally I’m quite pleased with my
own TV is
the New Reading podcast. There are all sorts of quality podcasts out
there, and they make the walk just fly on by.
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