Music 🎼 🎶 🎵 You’re Listening To Today

[riverhorse]

I can rent The Sapphires on Amazon Prime for €2.99 - tonight's viewing sorted!

(Not sure I'd want to buy it for €9.99, would probably only watch once but can find the soundtrack on Spotify or Amazon Music...)

[Liiisa]

riverhorse - that was really powerful; you're right that I love stuff like that. Now I have to read the history of colonialism in the Torres Straits Islands, though I can kinda guess unfortunately.

pero and I were looking at #s 75-100 in the Hot 100 last night and I thought it was kind of cool that we hadn't ever heard of like 90% of the artists.

Phar Laura Branigan's "Gloria" is good too, and I was very pleased that the estate of the late Laura Branigan sued the former administration (i.e., the Menace) for using that song at one of his fascist pep rallies.

[riverhorse]

Have left CPE Bach behind and am now on a 90s Britpop/indie odyssey, and have just downloaded Cruel Intentions to watch again. The Sapphires will have to wait!

[Liiisa]

Radio station is playing the theme song from the original Twin Peaks, which brings me back to 1990 or so when my entire department was obsessed with that show.

[tucano]

I was 12 or 13 when that show was on and it was very trippy (and iirc, quite adult, I may have been watching in my room).

[Liiisa]

tucano I let Spawn watch it, and it looks like he's a couple years younger than you... hmmm this may explain some things, Spawn-wise. Well hang on, I think there was one episode that I knew would be really disturbing, so I videotaped it and watched it by myself later. So many work hours lost as we obsessed about what was happening on "Twin Peaks" the next morning at the office.

Music wise, yesterday pero drove when we went to visit our friend, and he had the latest Coathangers cd in the car. lol speaking of disturbing (what is going on with this video?) but it's a great song:

[Liiisa]

While doing some work this afternoon, I decided to listen to Messaien's Quartet for the End of Time. I love this performance:

[ozziegiraffe]

Listening to this in my car, and obviously showing my age. Apologies for the ad.

[tinaja]

Mountain/Appalachian sound. It helps me with creativity. But by late afternoon I had too much twang.

[HalcyonDaze]

When your Sydney based radio station plays a German hip hop song you really notice it.

[riverhorse]

Oh that's really cool, Hal! I've never heard of this band or song. I wonder if I can somehow shoehorn it into an IB lesson?!

[Phar Lap]

I’ve been listening to another song I grew up with. Always loved it.  It is a Japanese song the correct title is “Ue o Muite Arukō”, but the title was changed to “Sukiyaki” for the American market because it was too hard for Americans to pronounce!
The song writer had been to a Japanese student demonstration protesting against the continued U.S. military presence in the country and wrote the song walking home expressing his frustration and feelings at the failed protest. It translates as Let’s Walk Looking Up.

[riverhorse]

Actually, that reminds me, Hal. I'm posting this one for you - it's about Germany's "Gastarbeiter" from Turkey in the 1950s and 1960s, that I use with my Year 12s when we're discussing migration and integration. Particularly interesting is that the German-Turkish rapper uses the really strong "immigrant" accent that a lot of kids with a migrant background deliberately use.

[HalcyonDaze]

Jan 25, 2021 3:20:49 GMT -5 riverhorse said:

Oh that's really cool, Hal! I've never heard of this band or song. I wonder if I can somehow shoehorn it into an IB lesson?!

I started to listening to more from Ace Tee and also Lucio after that. Some good stuff.

Reasons why I love community radio!

[Liiisa]

Hal: That was great, thank you. I've heard French- and Spanish-language hip hop, but never German until now.
Phar: Wow, I remember that song but didn't know the background.
River: That was sad and very touching, and I'm sorry I don't speak German. Did his family go back to Turkey, so he misses them, or did he?

I love community radio too! Here the station isn't particularly good, but we listen to stations on the internet, mainly from Berkeley, NYC, and Seattle. I listen to one from Mexico City too sometimes.

[HalcyonDaze]

The one I listen to:
fbiradio.com

But I can't say what it would be like for my overnight times, which possibly work out best for you. And the Robbie's Modern Life lot on a Monday are crap - avoid.

[riverhorse]

Jan 25, 2021 5:55:16 GMT -5 Liiisa said:

Hal: That was great, thank you. I've heard French- and Spanish-language hip hop, but never German until now.
Phar: Wow, I remember that song but didn't know the background.
River: That was sad and very touching, and I'm sorry I don't speak German. Did his family go back to Turkey, so he misses them, or did he?

I love community radio too! Here the station isn't particularly good, but we listen to stations on the internet, mainly from Berkeley, NYC, and Seattle. I listen to one from Mexico City too sometimes.

Liiisa, he talks about how his grandfather came to Germany so that the family could have a better life, he worked and worked and worked all his life, never got the chance to learn the new language, his mother was working in a paper factory from the age of 15, no schooling. He also talks about the fates of some of his family, like a cousin who was killed in a car crash, and his cousin who went to America as an au pair and had a tragic death (no more details). He talks about how none of the family that came after would have had the opportunities they had unless the grandfather had come to Germany for a better life. He also talks about how these migrants all love Germany and the opportunities it has given them, but that often, they are not loved so much back in return by the Germans. One particular line goes "Nobody wants to see their neighbours fail - unless of course, we're talking about "Gastarbeiter"".

This is always a really interesting lesson - there's a website called lyricstraining.com, where the music video plays, and then you have to fill in some gaps in the lyrics which come up while you're listening, and the kids get all competitive about how many points they score (sometimes they even beat me, they can type so fast!) And then we have a discussion about the more serious side to the video, and what it means to integrate into another culture and the expectations of integration. Which is really interesting, because every single kid in the class (and me too) have moved to Germany as migrants, so we can all talk a lot from personal experience!

[Liiisa]

I am super EXTRA stressed out at work this week, and the best thing for calming me down as usual is Radiohead and more Radiohead, so it's 7:30 in the morning and I'm listening to "How to Disappear Completely" at ear-splitting volume.

lol I was going to post the video but why put you all through that. Unfortunately, happy, relaxing music make my neither happy nor relaxed!

[mei]

I've put on an '80s playlist and currently have David Bowie's Let's Dance on. :-)

[mei]

okay, now it's ABBA. I think it's time to switch playlists!

[Liiisa]

Jan 26, 2021 8:55:09 GMT -5 mei said:

okay, now it's ABBA. I think it's time to switch playlists!

ha! That's the catch with playlists.

I was a little less stressed out this afternoon, but I still ended up listening to a 2-hour-long compilation of acoustic Radiohead tracks on YouTube, of which about 90% were fantastic.

Right now pero is playing tracks by this band Hinds from Spain. lol at the beginning of this latest track I said "Hey this sounds like the beginning of 'Spanish Bombs'" and in fact it turned out to be a cover of The Clash's "Spanish Bombs"

[Phar Lap]

This is another favourite of mine, it was recorded in 1963. Sung by Michiyo Azusa, Kon Nichi Wa Akachan translates as Hello My Baby’s Face. 

[ozziegiraffe]

This is special.

[tucano]

It's kinda annoying having music across a few different formats. I wanted to listen to an old De La Soul album, but they are not on Spotify due to a dispute with their old record company. I uploaded the CD years ago to my MP3 player, but that doesn't work any more. So I'll have to dig out the CD.

[tucano]

This was just on the radio, takes me back.

[Liiisa]

Some excessively autotuned woman on the radio whom I would prefer to avoid in future if at all possible

[Liiisa]

Ahhh! They're playing "O Superman" by Laurie Anderson on the radio (WPRB Princeton)! The first time I heard this (again, on the radio, in my car), I did a U-turn in the middle of the street and drove directly to Joe's Record and Tape Paradise to buy a copy. That was nearly 40 years ago and I still know all the words.

The amusing thing is that the guy who was the cashier that day ended up starting a record label, and about a half hour ago the dj just did a shout-out to that same guy and his label, so that's one of those cool/weird coincidences.

[Phar Lap]

Because it’s Friday and I’m staring at a big mess which is making me feel a bit blue and maudlin, I want Daydream Believer with the Monkees. It’s 1968, I’m wearing dark cherry coloured suede pumps, pantyhose (didn’t everybody?), a kingfisher blue wool blend dress with long sleeves, white colour and cuffs, a yoke and it comes just to my knees, I remember you could see my knees, my hair is in a high pony tail onto of my Jed and I have a pink velvet bow in front. The photo was taken on the patio outside the lounge room window and I have my feet in third position (ballet position) with my hands held slightly together in front of me.

I dont think I have that photo anymore, but I remember it distinctly. It was taken in 1968.

[tucano]

I mostly listen to BBC 6 Music, but I don't like the mid-morning DJ (Mary Anne Hobbs) so switch to Spotify while she's on.

[riverhorse]

Whilst I can't post it here, I am enjoying listening to PG practising the flute this morning - he by now knows exactly when my break is between 2nd and 3rd lessons, and picks up the flute then so that it isn't annoying my students in the background. We have a few Bach pieces on the playlist today!