Comments on: On Pop Music

By: Sarah Flashing

Sarah Flashing — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 23:04:34 +0000

My iPod allows me to enjoy my favorites without the shame of everyone knowing who my favorites are :)

By: Craig Payne

Craig Payne — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 21:29:53 +0000

I’m 51, but I do like contemporary alternative stuff–”The Hazards of Love,” by the Decemberists, is amazing. Also pretty much anything by Sigur Ros.

Before that, we have to skip all the way back to the Psychedelic Furs before we hit anything I really get excited over.

Christian music: Iona, The Violet Burning, King’s X (if you still count them as even semi-Christian). And, of course, Bach.

By: J.C.

J.C. — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 17:21:14 +0000

I enjoyed this post. May I suggest that you check out “Barton Hollow” by The Civil Wars? The album is stunningly beautiful–and it would fit well as part of the above-described musical smorgasbord.

By: Marguerite

Marguerite — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 14:56:25 +0000

Oops, and Gaither Gospel music. :)

By: Therese Z

Therese Z — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:57:07 +0000

“Hearing Pop’s pop is a decent education on what moved Dad back in the day/”

This is so true, and I am so grateful my dad essentially forced big band music, swing, early jazz and the like down our throats, in the nicest possible way. He would put a record on, or turn up the radio, and we’d groan, but he would say “listen to that rhyme! See how that horn echoes the singer? This line was an in joke when I was young….” and we would listen. And little by little, we broadened our musical horizons back in that direction.

Don’t just make your kids listen to something out of your past, but tell them why you like it, what you remember about hearing it back then, what the clothes were like on the band, or you. It’s a connection that can’t break when you are dead and gone.

By: David

David — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:48:01 +0000

To JMR

LOL

thanks!

By: Marguerite

Marguerite — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 05:52:13 +0000

You’re music taste and insight is amazing! Your Sherlock Holmes, unfortunately, sort of misses the point ;) (have you even read “the Hound of the Baskervilles or did you just see a movie?) :P

PS. Dragostea din tei, Celtic Women, lots of Beethoven, various musicals (Phantom, Les Misérables, Jane Eyre), Michael W Smith, Howard Shore, Mozart, Josh Groban, Yo-Yo Ma, Hayley Westenra, Enya, Nora Jones, Puccini, Verdi, Gilbert and Sullivan, Regina Spektor, and Keith and Kristyn Getty. How old am I?

By: John Mark Reynolds

John Mark Reynolds — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 01:56:22 +0000

He said with a grin.

By: John Mark Reynolds

John Mark Reynolds — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 01:55:20 +0000

David is 24.

By: John Mark Reynolds

John Mark Reynolds — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 01:54:25 +0000

On Monk… Easier than what my wife usually consumes.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 01:37:13 +0000

As a jazz fan, I must protest your label for Thelonious Monk as “easy listening.” He’s not even easy listening for jazz. Eccentric, quirky, genius– but not easy listening. He might not be the antithesis of smooth jazz, but he’s certainly not melodic or lyrical.

By: David

David — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 23:43:06 +0000

My iPod carries lots of classical music of all kinds, heavy on baroque, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, Mahler, some opera, & sacred music (Messiah, Requiems of Verdi, Brahms, Mozart).

Then when it comes to popular: Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, ABBA, Judee Sill, Neil Diamond, with bits and pieces of ELO, Meatloaf, Chicago, Crosby Stills & Nash (& Young), Kansas, Three Dog Night.

So how old am I?