Music Diary Project, Day Five

9 AM
Mor Karbasi - "Shecharhoret" (youtube)
Culled from my last.fm recommendations. Since I restarted my blog last year, Last.fm has become indispensable tool for discovering new music. I know I plug them a lot, and believe me, they have more than their share of problems from the on-site player crashing to the server being down for days at a time, but I can't imaging not having last.fm. This song is super-pretty, sung in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish.) Might download later.



It was warm enough this afternoon to open a few windows. I love this time of year when it’s warm but not warm enough for air conditioning, and the cool, early days of spring seem to be over. Someone was blasting Eminem out a car window, but I couldn’t identify which song.

3-4 PM (or thereabouts)
The Mountain Goats - “Family Happiness”
Paul Westerberg - “Mr. Rabbit”
The Monks - “Monk Chant”
Richard Thompson - “Keep Your Distance’

I had high hopes for this project. I wanted to use it as a way to get back into writing rather than just linking to other, better writers, but it’s turning out to be nothing more than a log of the music I listened to throughout the week, with maybe a little pithy commentary. I wanted to do something like Rob Sheffield’s Talking To Girls About Duran Duran, where each song is a chapter, except I am neither an emotional nor am I an sentimental music listener. I don’t use music to set a mood, or elevate my own. Basically, I like good songs for the sake of being good songs. And I have very few personal anecdotes to go along with them. As women, we’re expected to write about our lives, or at the very least, how the world at large effects our lives, and I’ve never been able to grasp that. One of the criticisms I’ve gotten over the years is that my writing isn’t personal enough. I’ve had people tell me it “just doesn’t resonate with me.”

David Bowie - "Prettiest Star"
Josh Ritter - "Right Moves"
Freddie Mercury - "The Great Pretender"
John Cale - "Andalucia"
Rufus Wainwright - "Danny Boy"

7 PM
Glee, The Music: Vol. 2
I borrowed this from my mom some time ago, and never got around to playing it. I'm not a huge Glee fan, and listening to the music divorced from the show isn't making me one. I really wanted to like this. because within the context of the show, I actually do like the music. I'm officially adding Glee to the list of "really, really popular things that I just don't get."