Category: Musical Balance

Today, I received four CDs that I ordered at the beginning of May, but I don’t think I’ll be putting them in my computer to rip them.

Imperial Age is a symphonic metal band.

I ordered these CDs from the band’s Web site, signed, and then I got to thinking. Because Imperial Age is a Russian band, these are Russian CDs, so I’m not sure I want to put them into my computer. Or near it for that matter.

In May, I didn’t actually count these albums probably because I did not get them yet, but my balance was way out of alignment with 12 metal albums to 1 jazz songbird album.

So what have I gotten since?

• The aforephotographed Imperial Age albums.
• Alive and Spectrum by jazz pianist Hiromi. Not a song bird, per se, and more traditional jazz piano than Keiko Matsui.
• For All We Know by Gloria Reuben.
• A Woman Like Me by Lindsay Webster, whose “One Step Forward” I included in my May post.
• Revolution by Damascus, the band of a guy I know from high school. I’ll probably do a whole post of it by and by.
• “Yes, I Have Ghosts” by David Gilmour (as I mentioned).

So I haven’t gone crazy on the buying in the last two months, and it’s kind of even. Well, four jazz songbird to five metal band CDs.

I did preorder the new 10 Years album, and I see that Unleash The Archers and Amaranthe have new CDs dropping this fall. So it looks as though my balance might be out of whack the rest of the year as well. If only I could get to the gym.

It was March when I last updated you, gentle reader, as to my musical purchases and checked to see how balanced they were between heavy metal and jazz songbirds.

I’ve been a little naughty in buying CDs here recently, so I thought I’d go back through time to see how I’m doing.

In the last six months, I’ve purchased:

• True Love by Jessy J
• Second Chances by Jessy J
• Rewind, Replay, Rebound by Volbeat
• Cherry Blossom by Keiko Matsui
• A Drop of Water by Keiko Matsui
• Another Place by Hiroshima (I already own it on vinyl, but want it available when I am not at a working record player.)
• Meliora by Ghost
• Crossfade by Crossfade
• All I See Is War by Sevendust
• Storyteller by Morgan James
• Hunter by Morgan James
• We’ve Only Just Begun by Ashley Pezzotti
• Core by Stone Temple Pilots
• No. 4 by Stone Temple Pilots
• The Purple Album by Stone Temple Pilots
• Shangri-La Dee Dah by Stone Temple Pilots
• Tiny Music…. by Stone Temple Pilots
• Storyteller by Tine Thing Helseth

In my defense, the Stone Temple Pilots CDs came in a set that cost as much as a single CD.

So we’ve got 8 jazz songbirds, although Hiroshima is a stretch even with Barbara Long on the vocals and Morgan James considers herself to be a soul singer and not a jazz singer. We’ve got 9 metal albums. So it’s not as unbalanced as I thought. Also, one classical trumpeter who might be the second prettiest trumpeter in the world.

But it doesn’t make up for the jazz-heavy winter and spring, but there’s a new Hellyeah! album coming out next month. Which will help. Also, my opportunity to listen to metal has been curtailed. I’ve not been going to the gym that frequently lately. My job has frequent phone meetings which interrupt. And I’m not driving far enough to listen in the car.

So perhaps it is just as well, although it’s just as sad.

It’s been like eight months since I posted about my musical balance, wherein I prove yet again that my musical taste runs in jazz songbirds and heavy metal.

Well, Brian J., you ask. How have you done over the Christmas season, where the One For You/One For Me protocol takes effect?

Well. Last Christmas, the One For You/One For Me protocol took place mostly at antique malls which don’t count in the arbitrary classifications that I made up for these posts (especially since they don’t fit into the schtick of these posts, but note that my album buying tends to be jazz or easy listening from the mid-twentieth century, R&B, and lately a little disco and 80s pop). So I’ve only bought fourteen CDs new in the last eight months (is that a lot?), and most of them have been the jazz songbirds. Reeling backwards through my Amazon order history, I see that I bought a bunch of metal in the late summer and early autumn and mostly jazz songbirds since.

Here’s what I’ve bought since last July:

• Cindy Bradley Unscripted
• Cindy Bradley Natural
• Sara Gazarek Return to You
• Erin Bode Little Garden
• Erin Bode Be Still My Soul
• Erin Bode A Cold December Night
• Erin Bode Here and Now
• Erin Bode The Little Garden
• Natsumi Kiyoura Jyukuiro
• U.D.O. Rev-Raptor
• Diamonte Coming In Hot
• Unleash The Archers Time Stands Still
• Ghost Prequelle
• Unleash the Archers Apex

That’s eight jazz, one Japanese pop singer, and five metal CDs (three of which are bands fronted by women who might be metal songbirds if the concept were not so alien as to be almost incomprehensible).

I warned you that Erin Bode would unbalance my purchases, but that’s not the only reason.

I haven’t been listening to Spotify to find metal artists that sound similar to bands that I already like. I haven’t been hearing much new metal on the local hard rock station. That’s partly because I’ve been listening to audio courses or books like this one, and partly because Q102 hasn’t yet convinced me that I like Bring Me The Horizon.

Instead, I’ve been listening to the stream of WSIE a lot, and it has reminded me that I like Sara Gazarek and recently introduced me to Cindy Bradley who sounds a little like later Herb Alpert:

She might be the second prettiest trumpeter in the world. The first, unfortunately, is not on YouTube.

I go on and on about how my musical purchases tend to fall neatly into two camps: Heavy metal and jazz songbirds (or maybe three if you include “Pop Music Recommended By Mr. Hill). But the truth is much more complicated.

Okay, it’s not. I will also buy CDs of local artists when I find them in silent auctions, and sometimes I do not include them in my balance tallies simply because I use my Amazon order history to build those lists. Which is why I don’t mention the Liz Moriondo self-titled CD I bought at a trivia night silent auction last winter, although I did mention her parody “All About That Bass” (which is not on the album) here.

Well, friends, I confess: I did it again.

On Friday night, I went to the Republic Pregnancy Resource Center for its annual Bluegrass and BBQ fund raiser which features bluegrass music from local bands and a silent auction. I behaved myself this year and did not bid the face price on every gift card and buy a bunch of Branson shows and attraction gift cards since the summer is winding down, and we won’t be traveling an hour to the south much this year. But I did bid on two CD auctions.

The first was for a single CD from Lily Belle called The Sunshine Projects.

The has a video for the catchy song “Good Morning”, which would I guess be the first single from the album if anyone still thinks in those terms:

It’s a little poppier than what I listen to, but darn, if it doesn’t kind of make me want to smile. Which is about as close to smiling as I get.

I just assume that she’s local, so I’d like to think I recognize the park as Sequiota Park, but I’m likely mistaken. My Springfield park knowledge is pretty limited, although I did visit Nathaniel Greene park yesterday.

The second auction I bid on was a lot featuring CDs from the two performers that played at the event, That Dalton Gang and Lonesome Road:

I’ve listened to the That Dalton Gang CD, but not yet the Lonesome Road album. Bluegrass. You know. I actually have a number of bluegrass CDs bought in this manner, but I don’t tend to listen to them a lot. It’s not my bag, but supporting the Republic Pregnancy Resource Center is.

So, yeah, I paid more than the asking price for these CDs.

Now, before you get to worrying about me, I also did get a No Grave But The Sea by Alestorm and From Birth to Burial by 10 Years on the heavy metal side (and I’m looking closely at Prequelle by Ghost to pick up when I next buy Christmas gifts on Amazon according to the One For You/One For Me protocol). I’ve also picked up another disc from Natsumi Kiyoura, Hodo Auko.

So on the whole, I’m still in balance, but the silent auctions throw me out of whack a bit.

Not that you’re keeping track, but my musical purchases have, in fact, remained in balance the last few months. As I’ve pointed out (originally here), my music purchases tend to be two types of music: Jazz songbirds and heavy metal. Over the last year and a half, this balance has been remarkably consistent. Sometimes, the balance shifts if I hear more metal or more new jazz, but it always seems to return to equilibrium. At the end of March, I last provided an update on my music purchases.

Well, I’ve bought essentially ten albums since then (with some asterisks).

Here’s what I’ve gotten:

• Natsumi Kiyoura Hologram; technically, she might be pop.
• Jessy J Tequila Moon
• Pier Angeli Italia Con Pier Angeli; as you probably know, I bought this on vinyl.
• Alma Micic Introducing Alma
• Gloria Reuben Perchance To Dream
• Three Days Grace Outsider
• Shinedown Attention Attention
• Leap Frog Studios’ Leo Moracchioli Metal Covers; I bought about fifty of his tracks, which is, what, four or five albums’ worth (he does offer CD compilations, but I made my own).

Forget the buying, you might say. How’s the balance in listening?

Well, to be honest, the metal songs by Leo get the heaviest rotation. They’re among the oldest selections on the list, and I burned them to CDs and listen to them in the car, so they get a lot of play then. I only just got the Jessy J album this weekend, and the Natsumi Kiyoura CD has yet to arrive. So it’s mostly Leo.

As you might recall, gentle reader, for the last part of a year, I’ve highlighted how my CD purchases tend to be balanced between heavy metal or hard rock bands and female jazz singers. (See here, here, and here.)

You might also wonder if the trend continues.

Indeed it does.

Here are the last ten CDs I got:

• Everclear Ten Years Gone (Resulting in this parenting goal.)
• Keiko Matsui The Ring
• Keiko Matsui Sapphire (Who mentioned this artist? I don’t think she appeared on WSIE, but I’m not sure.)
• 10 Years How To Live As Ghosts (The one bright spot on the Q102 playlist currently.)
• Hard Loss Never Better (A St. Louis Blues loving group that an Internet friend likes–I got their EP.)
• Testament The New Order
• Testament Brotherhood of the Snake (A middle school friend and member of the Legion of Metal Friends Facebook group posted some Testament; he was a little reluctant to post old stuff because he was sure we were already familiar with it. As I came to metal late, I was not, so I bought something old and something new.)
• Sara Gazarek Yours
• Sara Gazarek Blossom & Bee (WSIE played her, and she’s on the vocal spectrum near Sacha Boutros, so I picked up a couple of albums.)
• New Noise #5 (I got this CD when I bought a copy of the new Metal Hammer magazine.

  

  You might be asking, “Did Brian J. buy the magazine for the CD because he is disappointed with what he’s hearing on the radio or because Floor Jansen is on the cover?” Yes.)

So I bought like ten CDs (well, nine the Hard Loss EP was a digital download) this quarter. You can tell when I’ve been working a full time contract for a couple of months as my CD expenditures go up. As do our trips to restaurants. Which, if I trim the latter expense, I can get more music. Depending upon the contents of the sampler CD and the new albums from Shaman’s Harvest and Pop Evil, I might need all the help I can get.

Well, perhaps it’s not the music library and more the recent purchases.

As I’ve mentioned, my music purchases tend to fall into two camps: Heavy metal and female jazz vocalists.

However, the I recently noted that I’d bought a run of metal:

• Danger Danger Return of the Great Guildersleeves
• Fozzy Judas
• Danger Danger Danger Danger
• Disturbed Indestructible
• Hellyeah Unden!able
• Herb Alpert Music Volume 1
• Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey Music from the Motion Picture
• All That Remains A War You Cannot Win
• Ozzy Osbourne No More Tears
• Sacha Boutros Live from Hawaii

Well, I recently bought a run of jazz and pop:

• Anna Danes, Find Your Wings

  

  She, like Sacha Boutros, is based in San Diego, which means clearly San Diego is a hotbed of jazz divas.

   

• Lauren Meccia, In Your Eyes

  

  I have joined the 21st century and have installed Spotify to get introduced to a few more musicians akin to those I already like, so I’ve used it to discover the aforementioned Anna Danes and this artist.
   

• Anastacia, Heavy Rotation

  

  I already had Freak of Nature based on a friend’s Facebook post. (Another good source of new music: Facebook. Also, old music, like the aforementioned Danger Danger.)

   

• Rebecca Black, RE/BL

  
   
  Hey, this salesman won’t take no for an answer.
   

I also bought the new Imagine Dragons CD, Evolve, but it really doesn’t fit into the two categories listed above.

So clearly I am due to go on a tear and buy a number of new metal CDs. Perhaps the new Rudyard disc.

Danger Danger’s The Return of the Great Gildersleeves:

Well, all right, maybe not, but the old timey blogs pointed the way.

First, on the Facebook, Blackfive posted a song by eighties band Danger Danger:

I liked the sound–man, do I miss the eighties–so I bought the debut CD.

When I was thinking about picking up something else, I looked for another Danger Danger album, and their 2000 release was called The Return of the Great Gildersleeves.

If you’re a Lileks reader, you know who the Great Gildersleeves was. He posts about the old radio show all the time. Including today.

So I had to have it.

I don’t regret it; it’s a pretty good album.

So thanks to all those guys who I’ve been reading for years (one of whom actually visited our home in Casinoport, if you can believe it, making me like a real blogger back in the day) for the pointer.

“How’s the hard rock/songbird balance going these days, Brian J.?” you might ask.

Well, it’s not fifty/fifty these days.

Here are the last ten albums I got:

• Danger Danger Return of the Great Guildersleeves
• Fozzy Judas
• Danger Danger Danger Danger
• Disturbed Indestructible
• Hellyeah Unden!able
• Herb Alpert Music Volume 1
• Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey Music from the Motion Picture
• All That Remains A War You Cannot Win
• Ozzy Osbourne No More Tears
• Sacha Boutros Live from Hawaii

I just haven’t heard anything compelling on WSIE and have been looking for stuff to put on my iPod at the gym.

But I’ve got The Return of the Great Gildersleeves. If the blogosphere as any recommendations for songbirds, I’m all ears.

When I was younger and people asked me what music I liked, I proclaimed eclectic tastes. I listened to oldies. I listened to Album Oriented Rock (kids these days call it “classic rock”). I listened to country. I listened to pop. I even listened to jazz when I could find it.

Well, now I’m older, and nobody asks me that question any more because I’m old (they must assume it’s all 60s easy listening/Sinatra/Alpert, and they’re not far off). But judging by my Amazon purchases over the last six months, my musical taste has streamlined into two categories:

• Naz Time After
• Trapt Trapt
• Kristi Merideth Kristi Merideth
• Leonard Cohen You Want It Darker
• Shinedown Leave a Whisper
• ShinedownThe Sound of Madness
• The Pretty Reckless Who You Selling For
• Devour the Day Time & Pressure
• Gabriela Anders Last Tango in Rio
• Lorde Pure Heroine

It’s all hard rock or jazz songbirds except for the Leonard Cohen and Lorde.

It’s either something to get me pumped up for the gym or something to mellow.

Although being it is the Christmas season, the one-for-you-one-for-me Amazon ordering protocol is in effect, so the ratios may change as I buy new music on whim. But given that I learn of new artists from the hard rock station on the radio, my Legion of Metal Friends Facebook group, or the radio stations I stream (KCSM and WSIE), perhaps they will not change much at all.