Thrill Me to My Fingertips

Some of my co-workers and I started sharing some of our favorite music. We’ve been doing it for a while, but now we’re actually reviewing them and sharing those reviews with one another.

I’m not sure what brought it up, but one of my coworkers thought it would be fun to share stuff one of our parents (biological or adopted) listened to in high school. It’s an odd way to recommend music, but whatever.

My parents both graduated in 1970. My mother’s dad was in the Air Force and he treated his kids not unlike he treated the men under his command. So my mother was a straight-shooting, over-achieving kid. She skipped a grade somewhere and graduated high school a year early. Three years later, she finished her Master’s Degree. Her Masters. By the time she was 20. When she was home, she was doing homework. And the only music I know she listened to was classical music. While I certainly love some classical music, I thought I’d share something my dad introduced to me. But first, here are the three albums that were suggested to me this week.

A note on how I rate things. One star means I don’t think it qualifies as music. Five stars mean I wish I wrote the thing. Most music for me is a three.

The Crickets – The “Chirping” Crickets (1957)

I had heard Crickets songs before, but I’m not sure I had ever heard The Crickets’ versions. I listen to a lot of old rock and roll, but I went straight from Elvis’ country-rock to The Beatles, totally skipping the most influential band of the era. I can say that because The Crickets didn’t overlap with The Beatles, who were obviously influenced by Buddy Holly’s group – both in name and style.

Don’t Waste Your Time or Time Will Waste You

Some of my co-workers and I started sharing some of our favorite music. We’ve been doing it for a while, but now we’re actually reviewing them and sharing those reviews with one another. So here are the two albums that were suggested to me this week.

A note on how I rate things. One star means I don’t think it qualifies as music. Five stars mean I wish I wrote the thing. Most music for me is a three.

Muse – Black Holes and Revelations (2006)

I got into Muse after this album came out. But before all the Twilight fans became Muse fans because one of their songs was in the first movie.

I really got into this and their next album. They are all great musicians and they can write some pretty good songs. I used to love them. Used to.

I’ve Had Enough of Your Tainted Love

I work in my company’s marketing department. We also take care of PR and most internal communications. In an article in our most recent company news magazine, one of my coworkers made allusions to a song I had honestly never heard before: Pharrell Williams’ Happy. Apparently it’s a huge hit.

So of course our friend Weird Al has made a parody of it on his newest album. And it’s tacky.

No really, that’s the name of the song, Tacky.

I Got My Mind Made Up

Some of my co-workers and I started sharing some of our favorite music. We’ve been doing it for a while, but now we’re actually reviewing them and sharing those reviews with one another.

As some of you may know, I play music. So when I listen to music, much of the time I listen for things to try, to push my skills and make me better. There are some musicians – like Chris Thile – who are so good, I get discouraged that I’ll ever be that good. One of those musicians is Django Reinhardt on guitar.

The man was born to gypsies and grew up on the streets of Paris. When he was a young man, he got caught in a fire and burned his ring and pinky finger on his left hand. But he didn’t let that hold him back from his playing. Not only did he invent and pioneer gypsy jazz as a genre, but using only his first and middle finger, he is still a better – and faster – guitar player than 99 percent of the guitarists I’ve heard. Just watch 20 seconds of this and you’ll understand what I mean:

He died in ’53, so pretty much all of his work was singles; before recording musicians thought of albums as anything more than collections, like greatest hits. Since it would be hard to make sure my coworkers – who use a random assortment of iTunes, Spotify and Google Play – all listen to the right album, I’m going to share a different artist who has albums like we tend to think of them, but I couldn’t let Django go unmentioned. FYI, I’d score almost anything Django plays at least a 4/5.

Before we get to my coworkers’ suggestions, though, this is one of my favorite Django Reinhardt songs. He led a jazz group for 14 year called le Quintette du Hot Club de France with violinist Stéphane Grappelli. Here’s a collaboration between the Quintet and singer Beryl Davis called Undecided:

Just Livin’ Up my Dreams

Some of my co-workers and I started sharing some of our favorite music. We’ve been doing it for a while, but now we’re actually reviewing them and sharing those reviews with one another. So here are the four albums that were suggested to me this week.

A note on how I rate things. One star means I don’t think it qualifies as music. Five stars mean I wish I wrote the thing. Most music for me is a three.

Living Colour – Vivid (1988)

My first thought was that this is not at all what I was expecting. Frankly, I thought I wouldn’t like it as much as I do. Only Open Letter (To a Landlord) had elements of what I was expecting, but it also had some face-melting guitar and a steady groove.

Second, I thought I’ve heard this before, even though I know I haven’t. It took me a couple of days to realize these guys are the less manic precursors to Them Crooked Vultures. The opening track especially reminded me of the Led Zeppelin-Foo Fighters-Queens of the Stone Age supergroup’s Elephants.