5 CDs a Week, week 1

CD List of the Week:

1. Modest Mouse, The Moon & Antarctica
2. Music from the Motion Picture The Talented Mr. Ripley
3. Padraic, My Playlist, a mix by John Vettese
4. Mother Redcap, All This Nothing
5. Live, Throwing Copper

My blind grabbing of CDs for this week turned up a few I was excited to listen to again, along with one that, I'll admit, I hadn't yet listened to. I even tore through one of the rooms in my apartment looking for my portable CD player. Yeah, that's right, I'm giving the iPod a periodic break and going old school for this project. I probably won't be carrying it around every day, but I'll bring it with me for my walk to work more often now, so I can get more listening done. I should keep track of how often I go through the rechargeable batteries I'm using too. I really can't remember how often they need to be changed with this thing. I won't be using the portable player exclusively, but I'll still keep a tally going of battery changes for my own amusement.

The first CD I popped in was Modest Mouse's The Moon & Antarctica, which made me so incredibly happy to pick out first among my entire collection. It also must've been one of the last CDs I listened to on the portable before it got locked in the closet prison, because it auto-recalled to track 15 when I turned it on--fun to note. I got into Modest Mouse not too long after I started interning at the studio, and so listening to this album is a bit of a time-traveling event for me. Not all of it was happy memories, though. Even though I was starting up something really truly awesome, I was terribly lonely, dealing with moving back home from college and having virtually none of my friends in the area anymore--some were still up in Ithaca, others across the country with new jobs or starting grad school, so I had a lot of fish out of water moments. But I also remember being up at the front desk at the studio listening to different Modest Mouse songs with Matt and really liking what I heard. Around the same time I got "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes" on a mix, and I knew even more that I liked the band's style. This was before "Float On", before the band had so many of their songs showcased in commercials, before they were getting a ton of radio airplay (at least on major stations). There's something about catching a band just before they blow up big that's just so...neat to be a part of. Don't get me wrong--I'm not trying to be of the mentality of "Ohhh, I knew this band before they got big," but more of "Oh, I know this band, and they're getting big--cool!" I loved the sound of the album, from the cool mellow of "Gravity Rides Everything" to the driving strings on "The Stars Are Projectors". I think a lot of these songs really stand up years after I first heard them, and it was refreshing to get another listen.

The next CD I popped in was the soundtrack to The Talented Mr. Ripley. I remember watching the movie and loving the jazz songs that played throughout, but the pieces composed by Gabriel Yared were haunting, taking you to places of beauty but with a sense of unease. While I was listening to some of this on my walk home last night, it was easy to imagine myself as someone in a film being followed by a suspicious man. Thankfully, that wasn't actually happening, but I love that the music could take me to that place and let my imagination run wild. On top of all that, there were also some great vocal performances. Sinead O'Connor's performance on "Lullaby For Cain" gave me chills, and John Martyn's singing on "You Don't Know What Love Is" is slow, sad, and about as close to what the human voice can do to combine howling and singing. I'd go out on a limb to say that in the past, he convinced me that I didn't know what love is. Then again, maybe I didn't.

"Padriac, My Playlist", was a great mix put together by my friend John. He had an iTunes gift card and didn't know what to spend it on, so he decided to ask his friends to suggest songs that he didn't already own, and, in the order of the suggestion, he'd put them together on one CD. I thought this was a great idea, so I made my own suggestion of "At Last" by Etta James, which made it in at track #3. I love the fact that 20 people were able to suggest such diverse songs, and I think it turned out as a very successful mix; John did as well, because he did it one more time (and you might see me write about that in the near future). For some examples of diversity: Mark Mothersbaugh to Big & Rich, Harry Nilsson to 2Pac and Dr. Dre. It really spanned the gamut and was worth another spin.

"Selling the Drama", "I Alone", "White, Discussion", "Lightning Crashes", "All Over You"--five great songs on one great album. Listening to Throwing Copper took me back to eighth grade, and it was nice to step back into '94-'95, thankfully only for a short time. Sometimes you listen to an album and you forget how many good songs come from it. I don't think I need to be reminded twice with this one.

I had to unwrap Mother Redcap's All This Nothing--I won't lie about it. Sometimes I get CDs fresh from clients who have recorded them, bring them home, and then promptly forget to open them up and give them a listen. Bad Pattae! I wasn't sure exactly what I was in for--I'd only heard bits and pieces of it over the course of the many months that the guys were in the studio working on it, but I was surprised. There were a few good tracks on it--the Jersey guys can do rock alright, and I think their hard work showed.

That wraps up my first week of listening. I'm sure as I go through this project I may change up format, decide I want to post about every CD on a different day (which will get me to post more often BUT will likely be shorter than this one), or figure out a way to do this better, but I'm going to continue. I've been getting a lot of positive feedback already, and I hope that I can live up to the hype. Then again, I want to do this for myself. With luck, others will find this just as entertaining. So, until next week, happy listening!

Battery Tally: 1 set of rechargeables went out this morning on my way into work. Set 2 will start tomorrow.