R is for Records

My record collection…

Records have made a comeback.  They’re cool again, at least among a certain crowd.

We still listened to records when I was a kid.  They had cassette tapes, but they weren’t a thing yet.  Of course, I was apparently behind the times.  I remember mentioning a record to a friend in 6th grade, and that friend said, “Record?  What’s a record?”

He was being facetious, of course, but that’s kind of how records went away.  I didn’t own many of my own.  I liked to pull out my mom’s old records and listen to Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, Get Off of My Cloud, and Needles and Pins.  I remember these songs specifically because I listened to them so often.

I eventually transitioned over to tapes, then CDs, then MP3s.  I didn’t know what to think when records started getting popular again a few years ago.  People talk about them having a “warmer” sound.  I don’t know what it is, but I like the way they sound, even the pops and hisses from older records.  I like the fact that I can’t just listen to (and sometimes tune out) and album, that I actually have to get up in the middle of it and turn it over.

I still listen to CDs and to my iPod.  Modern music works best on those.  I like certain “sounds” on records, like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Pink Floyd.  Amy Winehouse has a great voice for records, and so does Adele.

Music is emotional, not factual, and people who love that emotional connection are probably people who enjoy records.  Records are meant to be social.  Thinking of listening to records conjures up ideas of a dimly lit or candlelit room with a bunch of people sitting around together, eyes half closed, just listening.

Do you listen to records?

My 2013 Soundtrack

Photo Credit: RJS Photos

Some of my taste in music is stable, and some of it changes over time.  When I listen to things, I tend to listen to them over and over.  And over.

In 2013, I listened to the radio more, and I learned a few new songs I liked.  I actually like a lot of Katy Perry, and I even like Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball,” much to my embarrassment.

On my 25 Most Played Playlist:

1. Hey, Pixies

2. Greedy Fly, Bush

3. How To Save A Life, The Fray

4. Hate Me, Blue October

5. Under My Thumb, The Rolling Stones

6. Promise, Eve 6

7. Blinded by Rainbows, The Rolling Stones

8. Waiting on the World To Change, John Mayer

9. Without You, Motley Crue

10. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, Taylor Swift

11. Clocks, Coldplay

12. Inside Out, Eve 6

13. Hold Me Up, Live

14. Where Is My Mind?, Yoav

15. November Rain, Guns N’ Roses

16. 1979, Smashing Pumpkins

17. 100 Years, Five For Fighting

18. Big Yellow Taxi, Counting Crows

19. Gives You Hell, The All-American Rejects

20. Glycerine, Bush

21. Independent Love Song, Scarlett O’

22. I Walk the Line, Johnny Cash

23. Standing On The Moon, Grateful Dead

24. Hurt, Nine Inch Nails

25. Stay, Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories

My Top 25 List changes somewhat from time to time, but this is actually a good representation.  Lisa Loeb, Nine Inch Nails, and Bush are ones I’ve liked from my college days.  I actually didn’t get into Eve 6 in the 90s; sometimes music gets stuck in my head for no apparent reason, and I have to hear it.  Or else.  I got Inside Out stuck in my head like that one day, and as a result, went out and bought a bunch of Eve 6 CDs.  The TV Guy introduced me to the Grateful Dead.  Of course I’d heard of them, but never really listened to them.

I got into Johnny Cash after watching “Walk the Line.”  I like a lot of his songs, but that one happens to be my favorite.  “Hey” and “Hold Me Up” are from one of my favorite movies: Zach and Miri Make a Porno.  “Where is My Mind?” is from Sucker Punch.  That whole soundtrack is awesome.  If you haven’t heard it, check it out on iTunes.  Or better yet, just watch the movie.  “Independent Love Song” is from “Bed of Roses,” another favorite movie of mine.  The Rolling Stones are just awesomesauce.  So there.  I had actually heard “1979” many times, but it never got into my head until I watched “Clerks II.”  Not one of my all time favorite movies, but the song has stuck with me since then.

The other songs on the list are just ones I’d heard here and there that I ended up putting into different playlists and then probably listening to on repeat until they made the list.

I also have two playlists for writing music (one all instrumental, the other not), “Moody Music,” “Stuff I forget I have,” and one I call “Favorites,” which is actually a list composed from a 25 Most Played Playlist on a different iPod.  If you follow that logic.

What do you call your playlists, and what’s on them?