Non-Classical Music Listening Thread!

[SimonNZ]

 Hayden Pedigo - I'll Be Waving As You Drive Away (2025)

[Kalevala]

Revisiting a favorite of mine from my younger days:  Jackson Browne's The Pretender:

  I think that you can see the whole album there.

K

p.s.  Lots of special and talented artists on there...like David Lindley, John Hall, Bonnie Raitt, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Albert Lee, Don Henley, Waddy Wachtel, JD Souther, etc. And the analogue recording!

K

[SimonNZ]

[brewski]

Maria Bethânia: Noite Luzidia (recorded in 2001). Unbelievably, my first time hearing her, the sister of Caetano Veloso. This concert was just uploaded yesterday, being broadcast "live" now, and (agreeing with the comments) a treasure.

[Henk]

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

I've kind of been getting into the Canadian jazz dreampop (?) band called Men I Trust lately and have had this particular piece circling around in my mind for a few days:

[AnotherSpin]

Kayhan Kalhor - Kamancheh
Erdal Erzincan - Baglama

[71 dB]

In search of good 80s synth pop I discovered Boy Meets Girl. I was even able to buy their 2nd album on CD for a reasonable price.

Here's my favourite track from their debut album:

[SimonNZ]

"Crooner: The CBS Years 1928-1934"

I'd been wanting a good set of early Bing, not some budget label knockoff with no notes, and this 3cd Columbia set ticks all boxes. What I hadn't expected (though should have) was just how saccharine and lackluster the material he was given at this time was.

[AnotherSpin]

I gave a listen to Cheaper Than Cheep, a live album from Frank Zappa's peak period. Good reminder of why he was once worth admiring — and why, at times, it's hard to sit through even thirty minutes of his music.

On the one hand, this is vintage Zappa: a flawless band, razor-sharp precision, lightning-fast shifts from jazz-rock to burlesque and back again — and, of course, the trademark humor that originally set him apart from both musical and social conventions.

But on the other hand, Cheaper Than Cheep lays bare the tiring underside of his act: the same old gags, the endless flirting with crudeness, the constant winking as if to say, "See how clever and funny I am?" There are no surprises. The endless excess, the relentless stream of "in-jokes," and the exhausting show of "I can do anything" end up sounding like a kind of nagging monologue. Theatricality tips into caricature. Zappa playing a parody of Zappa.

Cheaper Than Cheep is a document of an era when Zappa was still in full command of his abilities, but already stewing in his own formula. It's still worth hearing — but more as a historical artifact than as living music that can surprise or inspire.

[SimonNZ]

An album I'd owned in my late teens or early twenties, but dismissed. Reacquiring it now I find my palette much more appreciative.

[SimonNZ]

On the one hand its an album I hardly ever feel like playing. On the other hand I know that whenever I do I always find something more and something new to admire.

[Karl Henning]

Vol. 2: The Helsinki Concert

[SimonNZ]

"Texas Guitar Killers"

[Karl Henning]

"That ain't the way to have fun, son!"

[71 dB]

The most recent music purchase that has arrived:

Tangerine Dream - Coventry Cathedral 22 (CD1)

[steve ridgway]

The most recent music purchase that has arrived:

Tangerine Dream - Coventry Cathedral 22 (CD1)

Oh, did they play there again?

[71 dB]

Tangerine Dream - Coventry Cathedral 22 (CD2)

Oh, did they play there again?

Yes. Sunday March 20, 2022. I guess they released the concert only now because it's the 50th anniversary year.

[71 dB]

These two CDs arrived last night and I have listened them. They are CDs (culled?) from Swedish radio music archive (Grammofonarkivet). The benefit of these music archive CDs is that they have been kept well by people who know how to handle physical music formats.

Jane Wiedlin - Tangled
Coldcut - Some Like It Cold

I also listened to this on Spotify:

Kesha - .

I have pre-ordered it album on CD, but Rarewaves just shipped it to me because it was released today on July 4 (Kesha's first independent album release on her own Kesha Records label).

This is not the strongest Kesha album based on the first listen, but the opening track "Freedom" is excellent. Pop music has become quite dull in general (all the crap in the world that we have experienced since Covid-19 hit us has made people VERY cynical I think and it has affected also pop culture in a negative way), but at least Kesha still has some edginess/creativity in her music.

[SimonNZ]

The gentlest gamelan album I've heard (from ethnographic recordings at least). A good recommendation for anyone who struggles with the mad complexity and volume that is more common.