28 March 2014

Music on Fridays

Today was thankfully an office day, writing my submission on the new Health and Safety Reform Bill for the Select Committee process. First time I've done one of those! I was having a chat with my brother over his choices for Thursday Night is Music Night, which included my perennial favourite, the stunning Alan Parsons Project (APP), and discussions about a new-to-me band called The Enid. He suggested that I might like them, so I found their latest album Invicta on spotify and had a crack. And it's brilliant - weird, but brilliant. In terms of sound, it's a cross between APP and Queen, one of my other favourite bands that I have been revisiting on Spotify, with a bit of classical thrown in. It worked particularly well when followed up with APP's Eye in the Sky.

Speaking of Spotify, hubby has been trying to convince me to try it for ages, but it was useless in my previous job because the website was blocked by the company. Now, I can have it on when working in the office, which suits me just fine. The funny thing is that it keeps trying to suggest things I might like - and I have a really eclectic taste in music! It did get it right for me today when it suggested The Sixteen, one of the world's best sacred choral groups (probably from my listening to King's College Cambridge Choir a couple of weeks ago!). I wasn't in a choral mood today but will definitely be listening to some of their stuff again soon.

This afternoon was dedicated to a rediscovery of APP's weird and weirdly wonderful Tales of Mystery and Imagination, a concept album taken from Edgar Allen Poe's terrifying short stories of the same name, while I was working on a new training course around the upcoming changes to safety legislation. Tales is one of those albums that you can't shake off: like the Poe stories, it stays with you for a long time (especially "The Raven").  I had a listen to Turn of a Friendly Card as well, but it was never my favourite album of the Project (although I like the title track). Ammonia Avenue is my all-time favourite Project album and it got played over and over when I was at work on site (I have that one on CD so could take it to work).

I also explored some of Train's back catalogue a couple of weeks ago, following up on the California 37 album that hubby gave me for Christmas and I really like. I liked "Hey soul sister" that came out a while back on a previous album, and love most of the songs on the California 37 album, particularly the opening track "Baby, this'll be our year", and the hilarious but slightly naughty "Drive By" and "50 ways to say goodbye".

As I said, a bit eclectic....

No comments: