Wednesday, May 5, 2010

This post is alive with the sound of music!!

In lieu of anything interesting to report (still revising, in chapter two, having difficulties), I thought I'd share a smorgasbord of music I find beautiful and inspiring for your listening pleasure. So here goes!

First up, my favorite singer/songwriter of all time, the lovely Loreena McKennitt, with her adaptation of The Highwayman. I first heard this song over ten years ago and it still gives me goosebumps:


Next up, British indie rock band Keane with Atlantic:


Next up, British rock band Muse with the epic Butterflies and Hurricanes, complete with rad Rachmaninoff piano stylin' in the middle:


Next up, the lovely Vienna Teng with My Medea (which was the main inspiration for that not-really-very-short-story I wrote last fall):


Next up, British indie rock band (are you seeing a pattern here?) Snow Patrol, with the heart-wrenching Make This Go On Forever (with bonus Doctor Who video :-)):


Next up, the banjo-playin' Sufjan Stevens, with Casimir Pulaski Day, one of the saddest/most beautiful songs I've ever heard:


Next up, the champions of esoteric-yet-beautiful lyrics, The Shins, with Pink Bullets:
 

Next up, obsessed-with-gorgeous-but-melodramatic-things The Decemberists, with The Hazards of Love 4, final track of their latest album:


Next up, recent favorite Laura Veirs, with the gorgeously mellow Wrecking:


And finally the weirdly-addictive M. Ward, with Chinese Translation, which has pretty much been going round in my head for the last week or two:


Hope you enjoyed at least a few of those! What are your favorites?

5 comments:

Karin said...

Well, we have very different tastes in music for sure! :)
I like country, blues, rock, and hip-hop. It depends on where my novel is set as to what music I listen to when I write...and somethings I can't listen to anything as it's too distracting.

Anne M Leone said...

We actually have similar tastes in music! =) What a lovely idea for a post.

Did you hear that Colin Meloy of the Decemberists just got a big deal to write a series of children's books?

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/the-decemberists-colin-meloy-to-pen-childrens-books-1960787.html

Joanna Ruth Meyer said...

Karin, different tastes is what makes the world go round! :-) And yes it really depends on what I'm writing/my mood as to what music I'll put on. Sometimes I find it too distracting as well!

Glad you enjoyed the post, Anne! I did hear about Colin Meloy's book deal—I'll be very interested to check them out when they eventually get published! He certainly has a gift for writing story-songs (though most of them are a bit morbid for the kiddos o_0).

Anna Staniszewski said...

So many great songs! Listening to them was a great way to procrastinate. :-)

Joanna Ruth Meyer said...

Glad you enjoyed them, Anna, and hooray for procrastination! :-)