Despite the fact that the majority of my music consumption this week has been opera, I do have some things to say about music that the rest of you may or may not actually care about. (However, if you care about the opera fetish at all, I can tell you that it was much easier than I thought it would be to fall in love with it. After Don Giovanni and The Flying Dutchman, I listened to Rigoletto and half of La Traviata and Candide at work while I was working on a big boring search project, and I'm more than halfway through Fidelio. Also, did you know there's a part of Madame Butterfly that sounds like "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" for the first half of the line, and "The Star-Spangled Banner" for the second half? "Have yourself a, by the dawn's early light." That's how you should sing along to it.) So anyway, here are my thoughts:
- Have you heard about seeqpod.com? My friend Logan introduced it to me this week when he was encouraging me to listen to the new Sigur Ros album. It's a little like Pandora, but you can actually pick which songs you listen to and make playlists. Pretty cool stuff.
- You radio-listeners have probably heard it a million times already, but I was reminded of it again tonight. The Killers new song "Human." Um . . . Would someone please explain to me what the question "Are we Human, or are we Dancer?" even means? I have to admit that I like the song, but that doesn't stop me from giving it a resounding "huh?" whenever I hear it. I'd really appreciate anything you all can offer me by way of explanation.
- I just found out that Andrew Bird is going to be in Utah in February. I'm pretty sure that this would be a fantastic show, so if anyone out there wants to go, by all means let me know sometime before February.
- I'm going to see the Aquabats with Clark this weekend. I am so ready to fight those villains.
- I'm pretty sure that my 10-year-old boom box is about to die, which is sad, because although I have no problem listening to most things through compressed files and computer speakers, I feel that opera, like jazz, should be listened to on CD. However, it doesn't seem to be an improvement when the CD player starts fuzzing periodically. I'm grateful that my car sound system has some pretty quality capabilities. It's not like I'd have room for a new sound system right now, but someday I would so love to have an awesome entertainment system so that I could listen to my music and see my movies the way the were meant to be enjoyed. I can't wait to be a rich, eccentric, opera-loving supervillain librarian someday.
Despite the fact that the majority of my music consumption this week has been opera, I do have some things to say about music that the rest of you may or may not actually care about. (However, if you care about the opera fetish at all, I can tell you that it was much easier than I thought it would be to fall in love with it. After Don Giovanni and The Flying Dutchman, I listened to Rigoletto and half of La Traviata and Candide at work while I was working on a big boring search project, and I'm more than halfway through Fidelio. Also, did you know there's a part of Madame Butterfly that sounds like "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" for the first half of the line, and "The Star-Spangled Banner" for the second half? "Have yourself a, by the dawn's early light." That's how you should sing along to it.) So anyway, here are my thoughts:
8 comments:
I am going to the Andrew Bird concert. already. have you heard of Loney Dear, the guy who is opening for Andrew? Amazing stuff.
Oh, I don't have anyone to go with yet, so I think we should go together.
It's "are we human or are we denser," as in more than just human. I only figured that out like a month ago. haha. it made me go from not really liking the song to loving it.
I'll admit that makes more sense Lin, but they should make that more clear, because I even checked it on some of the lyric sites and they all said Dancer. It was also how it was billed on the A.V. Club review of the CD. This is not just a small problem on the part of the Killers' pronunciation dept.
Sydney, I concur wholeheartedly, and you should hook me up with Lonely Dear, because I've never heard him. Yay!
Okay, no, it really is Dancer. Check out this discussion. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081117132842AAAomPv. It actually has a link to the article on Amazon where he talks about the inspiration for the song - something about a comment made by Hunter S. Thompson about how we're raising a generation of dancers. Anyway. Does that take you back to not really liking? If so, sorry. But at least there was something behind it.
Ummm... Candide is one of the most brilliant scores ever written (although I might hesitate to classify it as full-on opera, more like operetta probably). My uncle once conducted the Portland Opera Company's production of it and I was thrilled from head to toe (while my brother-in-law insisted Les Mis is better... as if you can even compare them!).
I enjoy opera on occasion, maybe not too much, but I'm glad your artistic horizons are ever broadening.
You are, of course, right about Candide being an operetta Drew. But since I was already writing it in parentheses, I didn't think I'd go into that much detail. It is pretty brilliant though - and no, you can't even compare it to Les Mis. Berstein was a total genius.
wow - that was a lot of research. haha. I knew it was still up for debate - that was just the most recent (and pleasing) explanation I had heard.
it bugs me it's the other way, but whatever, it's still a fun song. avoiding the radio makes me like it more.
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