RADIO HANNIBAL

5 songs for Father's Day

An in-depth Joni Mitchell interview for Canadian TV

Yesterday someone turned me onto this brand new interview with Joni Mitchell made for Canadian television by the CBC.  The chat runs 2 hours and 15 minutes.  That's a lot of time to discuss an array of topics ranging from her artwork, to her feelings on Dylan and Cohen, to how she got into this business of music. 

The interview is done by veteran Canadian broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi who played in the 1980s band Moxy Fruvous. 

Mitchell is arguably the best female singer/songwriter of all time.  Her body of work intoxicates me.  If you feel likewise or, better yet, haven't delved into Joni's world the way I have, this is time well spent. 

 

Radio Hannibal's mid year Top 10 singles of 2013

Soundtrack for a rainy summer day

It's Monday and it's raining.  There's a song about that. Here's a playlist for a rainy day.

 

The lyrics or the music?

It's probably the best debate in popular music.  What draws you into a song, the lyrics or the music?  There's plenty of folks on either side of the question and many, too, who straddle both.

I'm one of those straddlers.  While I may initially be drawn to a song by the music, the lyrics help galvanize my enjoyment of it quickly. 

I'm a good listener.  Back in high school I went through a two day battery of tests by a psychologist at John Carroll University to determine where my strengths were.  Actually my parents were trying to find out if I was malfunctioning I think.  I scored extremely high on any test that involved hearing.  It's how I remember things best. 

I could have told them that.  I'd already been a music and radio nut for years and had countless lyrics to songs embedded in my brain.  So, in my case the lyrics are just as important as the music.

NPR's All Songs Considered poses the question in a new advice column of sorts called The Good Listener written by Stephen Thompson, The Good Listener: What's More Important, Lyrics Or Music?.  There's a nice debate going on in the comments section. 

How about you?  Is it the music or lyrics that grab you?

 

5 music videos for a Monday

                                                                  

Five summer music videos

                                                                   

Is humanities' taste in popular music really that bad?

I was at the Indians game last night.  You can't win them all, especially when Scherzer, the Tigers pitcher, really had his stuff.  Still, I enjoyed myself.  It felt like a summer night in downtown Cleveland and everyone was in good spirits.  Surrounded by little leaguers, die-hard fans and girls in short shorts it was a great night in one of my favorite places, the ballpark. 

There were these particularly loud and chatty girls behind me.  Their constant yakking only paused long enough to sing along to some of that awful music that passes for country these days.  It got me to wondering if it was their fault or are they merely unaware.

There's so much great music being created every year.  That includes country and evey other genre you can name.  Unfortunately what we hear on commercial radio is dreadful for the most part.  There are exceptions but most of it is lowest common denominator crap decided upon by programmers afraid to take chances.  These songs play consantly on amazingly stagnant playlists that seem to change with the pace of a glacier. 

So these girls behind me are pretty much brainwashed right?  Their taste can't be that bad.  If I could perform an experiment on them, expose them to only good music in a tight rotation would they find this music just as enjoyable? 

Or is what Marshall McLuhan said back in the 60s a truth and not an opinion?  Are the masses asses?

Google may announce streaming music service today

The Google Developers Conference begins today at noon time here in Cleveland.  Google Glass will probably be the hot topic, but CNBC is reporting that a streaming music may be in the works as well.

According to the story, Google Inks Deal With Sony, Universal for Streaming Music Service, the new streaming music service may be announced today.  They had already come to terms with Warner Music Group and with these new signings the pieces are in place. 

As an Apple guy I'm not too happy about this.  I've been hoping for a long time now that we'd see a streaming music service from them and now Google has beaten them to the punch. 

Even if the Google streaming service is launched I'm going to stick with Spoitify for now.  For one, I have a good amount of time vested in compiling playlists.  And I'm still hoping that Apple, the once visionary company, takes off its blinders and sees that the future is streaming music and not the iTunes store.

 

 

The jazz age

Is the Great Gatsby a good movie?  I haven't seen it so I don't know.  Metacritic has it rated 55.  Not too good.  That it was pulled from a Christmas 2012 release date is a red flag. 

I can tell you that the book by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a classic.  Read that instead.

The story takes place during a time some refer to as the jazz age.  The new, purely American form of music was just being conceived. 

There's two soundtracks to the movie.  One contains usual suspects like Jay-Z, Will.i.am, Lana Del Rey, etc.  It's about as mediocre as the film.  Then there's this, The Great Gatsby - The Jazz Recordings (A Selection of Yellow Cocktail Music from Baz Luhrmann's Film.  Here we have newly record music by The Bryan Ferry Orchestra.  Earlier this year Ferry released a collection of his Roxy Music songs arranged for this 1920s style jazz band. 

Listening to this yellow cocktail music has me wanting to host a Gatsby-style party.  Now how do you make bathtub gin?