3 - Favourite Musician ... Part One

I have something of a reputation amongst the leadership at work for being a girl who will step up to a challenge and out-perform my own expectations.  To be fair, it's not difficult to exceed my expectations of myself, because they're never very high in the first place.  I constantly feel as though one day someone will realise I'm bluffing and my work-world will come tumbling down around me.  On the other hand, there's a level of conceit in that isn't there?  To think that someone would pay that much attention to the inner causes behind my success and that the ruination of that success would domino into the work-lives of the people around me.
Anyway, I'm rambling.  My point was going to be that I have this reputation for accepting challenges yet for all that I despise challenges.  I somehow manage to revel in the brain gym they provide while shying from the responsibility and requirement to perform.  Without extrinsic motivation I not only shy away from challenges, I show an indolent indifference to fulfilling them.  So... what started out as a 30-day challenge taken from Calvin's Cave of Canadian Coolness, turned very quickly into an I-can't-be-bothered-putting-in-all-that-work.  I didn't even think anyone was reading it - that it was just me being a bit narcissistic (well I have to do it somewhere now that I've left Facebook) and ranting on to the metaphorical sound of my own voice.
So I'm sorry Nick and Rachie - my two loyal followers - for not giving daily answers to the 30-day challenge.  I shall instead do the 30-thingies challenge which affords me a lot more time to accomplish the same task.  Laziness be mine.

I therefore present thingie number 3, my favourite musician.


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I currently legally own approximately 150 or so albums on CD, forty four second hand albums on LP (plus one brand new) and thousands of songs which I have obtained by other means.  I don't listen to them all, but I have listened almost all of them.  Except some of the music in the folder named From Jonesy. And some stuff Casey put on my computer.
What kind of music do I like?  Better to ask what music I don't like.  I don't like much in the way of metal (heavy or not) although some mainstream Metallica is okay.  I used to announce I don't like hip hop, but as the lines of D&B, R&B, hip hop, rap and other genres merge, intertwine and compete with each other, I find myself admitting that I like a fair amount of individual songs from those areas too.  I'm deeply affected by music.  I can - and do - use it to deliberately alter my mood, and I am most profoundly affected by melancholy songs, and songs in the minor key.  Music with a strong and lively beat makes me want to dance - I have trouble listening to it if I cannot dance.  Sunday Hangover Music (you know the stuff I mean) helps me to relax.  When I am angry I listen to The Cranberries' Zombie then immediately follow it with No need to argue.

New albums I listen to over and over until I know all the words, then I discard them for (up to) years, and listen to them again with fresh ears.  Now knowing the words I can focus on the instruments, and my ears listen to different parts not only each time, but throughout each listening.  Sometimes the beat, sometimes the strings, the brass, the chorus and back-up singers... It's not really possible to listen to the whole of the song at once, but I strive to have heard every contribution at some point in the music.  And for the whole of the music.
I hate the radio.  They ruin music with advertisements and talking.  Radio DJs should be banned.

How can I nominate one musician from so many and say This One.  This Musician is better than all others.  Nick made me listen to what Lily Allen was singing, and I have discovered a great respect and, yes, love for her lyrics.  Lady Gaga is growing on me, but mostly because she makes me want to dance.  My sister gave me an album by Paolo Nutini (makes me think of a jawa) which I love because he is so varied; fast, slow, happy, melancholy... I am listening to him a lot.

Fleetwood Mac are also infinitely varied and wonderfully complex.  There is a depth and vivacity to their music which constantly challenges me as a listener and provides healing to the soul.  There is another, one who isn't classed as a musician but deserves an honourable mention - Mantovani.
A. P. Mantovani is more of an arranger... he would take popular music of his time and arrange it to be played by an orchestra.  Some of his works include: Speak softly, love; The Candy Man; Cabaret, Love Theme; Upstairs, Downstairs; Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps; and Catari, catari.  He has made wonderful adaptations of music I might well have never listened to otherwise.

I'm not going to continue rattling off names of musicians I love.. I am going to nominate a favourite, but you'll have to wait for part two because I have to get to work.




PS, please do comment.  Indulge my ego...