Here are some pieces I've written about music (some of which appear elsewhere on this website too) and some recommendations, including the Incomplete History of Classical Music, from Baroque to Plunk ... The links will take you to the amazon uk page for the CD recording. Note that I've tried to choose CDs with RealAudio samples, so that you can actually listen to excerpts of the music before (or instead of!) purchasing.
I don't solely listen to classical music: for some reason, though, it brings out the pretentious
philosophical element in me, and I find myself writing about it and relating it to other
aspects of my life. The most recent live performer I saw was Iggy Pop (you haven't lived
until you've heard Iggy saying 'disaffected' over a decent PA): great fun, and very
cheering, but not conducive to Intellectual Meandering.
The Music of 2001: notes on the soundtrack of Kubrick's masterpiece. Published in Vector #215, January / February 2001 - the critical journal of the BSFA
Science Fiction and Classical Music, an overview: published in Vector#204, (March/April 1999) - the critical journal of the BSFA
A Gap in the Landscape (Banana Wings #11, 1998) ... and the Brahms recording [Stephen Hough / BBC Symphony Orchestra / Colin Davis] that inspired it
Rachmaninoff's Dog: A Jigsaw Puzzle (Banana Wings #12, 1998) ... and the best-I've-heard-yet version of Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto [Martha Argerich] ... and here's a literate and intriguing page about the music
Handel's Samson at Freemason's Hall, 2nd June 1998: a review I wrote for no especial reason
... well, it just grew ... and then it moved here ...
... and, for the young-at-heart [urgh] among us, a selection of non-chart popular beat combos - not a comprehensive list of my fave raves [damn, where is that ironics font?] but a good selection of the ones you can listen to and sneer at, courtesy of lovely amazon.uk. More soon, but there aren't that many of my favourite albums with sound samples ... this isn't an especially representative sample of my tastes!
lionheart
- Kate Bush
version 2.0
- Garbage
to bring you
my love - P J Harvey
led zeppelin
- led zeppelin
horses
- Patti Smith
... check out their sites via the Ultimate Band List, which has collected info and fuelled fantasies for years and years, and was the very first site I ever looked at on my own, back in >gasp< 1995.
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