Albums I should have listened to on Spotify first....

Wednesday afternoon, 'readers'. At work but with no fewer than three potential distractions...

1. Blogger. I wanted to get this post written this afternoon if possible.
2. Cricket. West Indies v England starts in just over half an hour. Am very tempted to try and listen to TMS without anyone noticing.
and the biggest distraction of all...

Spotify.

T&G is well and truly in love with Spotify. As detailed in previous posts I am very much opposed to file sharing and the like but Spotify is something different. Its a throwback to the days where I would ask the staff of 'Sounds Good To Me' or Andys Records to let me listen to an album so I could decide whether or not to buy it. In the last couple of years, I have probably been purchasing 50% more music than in the past, all because I no longer have a local record shop where I can test things out. Spotify is one big online jukebox where I can listen to those albums that I'm curious about, but not totally decided on buying. Superb.

This will only punish those artists who make albums that aren't good enough. I have no desire to listen to music on a computer so anything that I hear on Spotify that I like, will be purchased on LP or CD for 'proper' listening. My view is that Spotify will actually encourage artists to try to make better music!

Anyway....a couple of albums that I bought recently that would have benefited from a pre-purchase-spotify...

Bruce Springsteen 'Working On A Dream'....'The Wrestler' is not at all representative. Much of the rest of this album is throwaway pop/rock. Whether or not some of it is tongue in cheek is debatable but also irrelevant. I'm sure Bruce and the guys had a great time making this record, but I had a terrible time listening to it. 4/10

Animal Collective 'Merriweather Post Pavillion'....I sort of knew I wouldn't like this. Just not my sort of thing. But the unbelievable amount of hype and excitement made me think this might be some sort of new 'Yoshimi'. Not at all. It makes your head spin certainly and some of it sticks in your mind, but to me it is no more than reasonably pleasant background music.

Am still assessing the J Tillman LP. Check back in a few days for my review of 'First Love' by Emmy The Great.

now, Cricket, Spotify or Work??

Bruce Springsteen 'The Wrestler'

I've never been a big fan of Springsteen. Have liked the odd song here and there and I really liked 'Radio Nowhere', the lead track from his last album ('Magic'), but then bought the album and wasn't that impressed.

We went to see 'The Wrestler' yesterday and without giving too much away, the film has a very powerful and emotional ending. Just as the credits start to roll a song plays and a voice sings "Have you ever seen a one trick pony in a field so happy and free / If you've ever seen a one trick pony then you've seen me". Two thoughts entered my head: 1. This is Springsteen and 2. This is absolutely brilliant.

and it continued to be so. Rarely has a song fitted the emotion and feeling of a film so well. A simple song, hardly any instrumentation, but so affecting and sung so well. Everything is so stripped down that it reminds me of the recordings Johnny Cash made with Rick Rubin, taking everything away except the voice and the feeling of the song.

Further investigation reveals that this was written for the film, that much was obvious, on the request of Mickey Rourke. Rourke and Springsteen both deserve great acclaim for their work on 'The Wrestler'.

A beautiful song.

['The Wrestler' is out now as a digital single. It will also feature on the LP 'Working On A Dream' out 26 Jan]