The ever-popular "Currently Listening" thread

My afternoon has been spent with the glorious sound of Tool, at the moment Aenima is blending in quite well with the hockey game. I'm not sure what my neighbours think of Tool, but I can state for a fact that today they are loving it.....that, or they've fled the area!!
 
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My afternoon has been spent with the glorious sound of Tool, at the moment Aenima is blending in quite well with the hockey game. I'm not sure what my neighbours think of Tool, but I can state for a fact that today they are loving it…..that, or they've fled the area!!

Does Tool fall into the category of psychological weapon?.
 
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Today was a beautiful day. The first day of the year when there was not a single cloud in the sky all day & one could wear shorts and a t-shirt from morning till dusk. In celebration I shall post the four Beatles songs with Sun in the title in order of popularity:

Here Comes the Sun (1969, primary credit: George Harrison), 17th most popular Beatles tune with 9,878,408 video views in the 9 months since it was uploaded:



I'll Follow the Sun (1964, though written in1958/9 when Paul was only 16/17, primary credit: Paul McCartney), 99th most popular Beatles tune with 589,321 views in the 9 month period:



Sun King (1969, primary credit: John Lennon performing a one-upmanship and shout-out to Fleetwood Mac's Albatross), 125th most popular Beatles tune with 417,049 views in the same timeframe as those above:



Good Day Sunshine (1966, primary credit: Paul McCartney, once considered to be their worst song by the more edgey crowd due to it's dedication to cheesiness and early morning riser style upbeat sound, this opinion is innaccurate), 137th most popular Beatles tune with 372,134 views for the period:

 
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George Harrison was easily my favourite Beatle. His concert from Bangladesh is amongst my most favourite of concerts to watch/listen to.

Today was a bit rainy this morning/early afternoon, I spent that time listening to three excellent albums: Facelift, Jar of Flies, and Dirt. Yessir, Alice in Chains makes my ears giddy!!!
 
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Yes, Harrison really picked up in the popularity stakes the more The Beatles went on. His earlier Beatles stuff is quite hit and miss and his singing, let's be honest, really stunk on a few of his starter songs, around the 63-65 period, but the later stuff starts to really shine above both John and Paul. The above Sun King track was also John poking fun at Harrison, the word Sun King being a derivation of George's Something & uses the same "here comes the sun" lyrics. People being more popular than John really triggered his inner Jealous Guy.

It's also no surprise that Harrison had arguably the best track record in popular music once the band split up, especially with the Eric Clapton connection. Clapton, like lots of other people, was an honorary 5th Beatle. One of my favourite Harrison tracks is the relatively underrated Savoy Truffle from 1968's White Album. It's a song where Harrison sings about Clapton. Apparently Clapton had an uber sweet-tooth & guzzled sugar products like a 10 year old:



Ranking only the 144th most popular Beatles song for the period with 338,572 views. IMO this is scandalous, but then again it does say something when a band can produce tunes this good and for them to be considered also-rans. As many people note, Beatles album fillers are usually songs that would have made other bands only famous song.

The drawback to The Beatles making quite so many relatively perfect pop songs is that it can feel suffocating for all the other bands, what with there only being so many hours in a day & the ease to which one can just listen to The Beatles all day, for many days, without ever getting bored or tired of the same old thing.

I mean, I myself have an extremely huge list of talents and songs I'd love to post about and it's actually quite odd for me to like a band that doesn't have some dancing going on somewhere & I regularly feel guilty for all the others I neglect when I find myself listening to 5 hours of Beatles music, but then that's the whole point about them, they're sort of a central point where everyone can gather before once again spreading out to their preferred niche, they're the music equivalent of Grand Central Station & as such benefit the wider industry by being so busy.

Savoy Truffle is freakin' amazing isn't it ;)
 
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that rocks…
Crankin' Up the 3-String Shovel Guitar!

 
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Thanks to Lackblogger for reminding me of the great music by The Beatles. Here are my top 4 from the fab four:









pibbur who as a runner up will mention the song about prudence
 
I'm in the middle of a concert series at SFJazz produced by bassist and bandleader Marcus Shelby. The first night was a new piece of his own that hasn't been recorded.

Last night, the second night, was a celebration of women in blues with commentary by (!!) Angela Davis. Below is one of the three singers, Kim Nalley, performing with her own band (her band's pianist, Tammy Hall, also played last night.)



And Sunday will be an Ellington concert with his full orchestra, so here they are playing Ellington a couple years ago.



(the actual song starts 45 seconds in to the last video -- I couldn't get a timestamp to work in the 'Watch's youtube embed code -- is there a way?)
 
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(the actual song starts 45 seconds in to the last video -- I couldn't get a timestamp to work in the 'Watch's youtube embed code -- is there a way?)
Use the URL tag instead. Takes a little extra work, but then you're not limited by the youtube tag.
@HiddenX; - incredible amount of sound for 3 strings, eh?

For me, I continue to spend time with Birthday Massacre. While the rest of the CD ranges from quite good to decidedly meh, the first two tracks are just incredible. That seems to be somewhat typical for the band though. Kinda reminds me of Concrete Blonde, a band with lots of great tracks spread rather thinly across numerous releases.
 
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That's a great selection there @pibbur who;, those are all on my most repeated plays selection, as is Dear Prudence.

Here's the ranking for those five:

Tomorrow Never Knows: No.75, 837,331 views
Strawberry Fields Forever: No.16, 11,474,807 views
Come Together: No.4, 21,175,145 views
I am the Walrus: No.32, 2,807,229 views
Dear Prudence: No.46, 1,742,342 views

By way of coincidence, I saw Goldfinger this weekend, it was released in September of 1964, right at the height of Beatlemania and The Beatles even get quoted in the film, just not very politely:

Bond:
"My dear girl, there are some things that just aren't done, such as drinking Dom Perignon '53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That's just as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs".

Which made me laugh out loud. At this stage of their career, of course, they were still viewed as a 'dumb boy band' by the 'people with taste', just as you see nowadays how we all view pretty much any new group of boy bands as an opportunity to debase the tastes of 'the youth', particularly with regards to female fandom.

And had they ended around this time then this is the view of them that likely would have stayed through the ages. But they didn't. And great proof of just how much their music managed to break into every strata of society, Live and Let Die's 1973 Bond Song was made by Paul and Linda McCartney.

While Bond movies are great at keeping references going and never missing the opportunity to self-reference, I was surprised they didn't re-reference that initial line in Live and Let Die by having Roger Moore say something like "Hey, these guys aren't so bad after all" or "This wine's matured like a vintage Beetle" or something. :D

Bond movies are also a great source of music, another factor which made them stand out from the crowd and another reason why they are just so damn rewatchable. You can just listen to them and feel thrilled:



This movie even produced one of Louis Armstrong's most famous songs, and you don't get much better in the music world that a bit of Loius:



And it's amazing how many people don't even realise this song was written specifically for a Bond movie, the tune being composed by John Barry, who also composed the above Bond Theme (and eleven others) and was written by Hal David (of raindrops keep falling on my head fame).
 
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In which I continue to pimp (at one remove, since I'm not finding many relevant videos of the venue itself) the SFJazz center.

The Ellington concert last night introduced me to this guy, Mads Tolling, a Danish fiddler. Here he is playing the song that -- with a vocalist rather than him -- closed the set.

 
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Na Zare is great, but I often just listen to game soundtracks, available for download from steam etc or sometimes some athmospheric symphonic metal
 
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