I’m not a big classic rock guy – I mostly like new stuff, whatever new is – but when I want the musical equivalent of comfort food, there are a few things I go back to:
Grateful Dead in their countrymost mode – Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty, and the acoustic live Reckoning.
Everything Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong recorded together (except not too much of Porgy and Bess).
Fleetwood Mac, Tusk (which over time has been a more satisfying listen than the hit-filled Rumors or s/t).
Joni Mitchell, Blue
The Shanachie compilation, The Indestructible Beat of Soweto. And Graceland, which it inspired.
Freedy Johnston, This Perfect World.
A couple of Colombian albums, Aterciopelados’ Gozo Poderoso (Aterciopelados have made an entire career out of energetic, upbeat, positive, but chill music) and Carlos Vives’ La Tierra del Olvido.
Cheri Knight, The Northeast Kingdom. There must be 10 people who own this, but all of us think it’s one of the best records ever.
Ryan Adams, Heartbreaker – but not exactly angst-free. (Actually, none of this stuff is angst-free, except maybe for Aterciopelados. I don’t really do angst-free.)
B-52s “Love Shack”
Walk the Moon “Shut Up and Dance”
U2 “Beautiful Day”
Billy Idol “Dancing with Myself”
Michael Franti “Sound of Sunshine”
The Kinks “Come Dancing”
^just off the top of my head. Songs that make me happy.
Also, in a different vein, most REM, particularly early stuff, which is like a drug shot straight into my brain.
I recently rediscovered a band I liked shortly after college … The 10,000 Maniacs. So then I started binge watching videos of them on YT and remembered how really cool lead singer and principal lyricist/poet Natalie Merchant was. I also found out, by way of YT, that David Letterman had a big time crush on her and that she and REM lead singer Michael Stipe had a brief relationship early in their career.
She is not traditionally pretty. She had that sexy geeky girl thing going for her. Her hair recently turned gray. She is still mesmerizing especially when she was dancing back in the early parts of her career and I can’t even begin to explain why.
A more recent artist I’ve recently grown to like a lot is John Mayer. I’ve always like Matchbox 20 and Rob Thomas and Hootie and the Blowfish and Darius Rucker but I am so into the 10,000 maniacs now I won’t listen to anything else for a few weeks. I will say this, of their albums, they are deeply rich in so many ways you simply will not hear music like this nowadays when most artists just repeat the same lines over and over. Merchant was/is a poet who just happened to be the lead singer for a band. Her appeal was simply enhanced by the fact, I say fact, that me and a lot of other guys simply could not take their eyes off her for some reason.
Joni Mitchell is my go-to person mood management when I am sad and need to wallow in my misery or cry it all out of my system (Blue) or want something more comforting and/or uplifting (Miles of Aisles, Court and Spark).
@intparent -Thanks for the link; I love classical guitar, which brings me to my music to be soothed by: Spanish Guitar - anything by Paco de Lucia; Los Romeros - Concierto de Aranjuez/Concierto Andaluz.
General love to listen to - Medieval/Renaissance music, Adele, the Grateful Deal (@jhs - I’m with you on the acoustic stuff) and any album (yes, I still think of them in those terms, even if they are either on CDs or playlists) that I wore through in the 70s like Tapestry, Sweet Baby James (Taylor), Simon and Garfunkel (Bookends, Sounds of Silence, Bridge over Troubled Water), Dylan (too many to name), Buffalo Springfield, CSN&Y.
I also love folk music, especially live and especially Joan Baez.
Edit - After I posted, I remembered a whole other genre of go-to music I have and love and how American and Eurocentric my though process was. I love to listen to Brazilian music anytime – especially Caetano Veloso (his rendition of Cucucrurucucu Paloma sends chills down my spine, Elis Regina and anything by Jobim or Gilberto), Andean Music and the salsa of my youth (my especially worn out Ruben Blades/Willie Colon’s Siembra comes to mind).
Since I had kids, Enya makes me ugly cry so I can’t listen to her anymore. I have no idea what childbirth did to that part of my brain, but I had to give away my Enya CD’s years ago. A LOT of the songs you guys like (like Imagine and anything by Fleetwood Mac) tend to make me super sad!
Mozart’s Piano Concerto #23, second movement (adagio), is “daffodils” to me:
How did Wordsworth put it?
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
As for the power of music to transport us back in time, yep. My Fountain of Youth is the music of the '80s and '90s. And there are a handful of songs that remind me of all of the more serious relationships I’ve ever been in, and even some of the less-serious ones…
The College Ex: All My Life, Gettin’ Jiggy With It, My Heart Will Go On
The Denver Ex: Titanium and a bunch of other dance-pop songs of around 2011-2013, and ET
My Wife: Ongoing selection. :-). Probably most impactful is the one I wrote for our wedding.
MotherofDragons brings up an interesting point. Lots of the older music brings back memories, brings us to the place where we originally listened to it. Someone up thread mentioned music that I associate with my first husband…thus, tainted.
That’s why I appreciate the wide variety of suggestions. Y’all are the best.
Missypie, how difficult to have experienced those shootings so close. Prayers for you all down there. <3
It is a well known fact that I hate sappy music! I REALLY need and prefer upbeat music. For me, music is to bring me up, not settle me down. That’s just me.
My answer would be the last couple of Coldplay CD’s. I rinse and repeat them constantly. I went to a Coldplay concert this weekend in Chicago - not my first - and told my son afterwards that I like to think that a Coldplay concert resembles what heaven will be like - everyone happy, in sync, dancing, celebrating life and just utter joy.
Johnny Cash’s version of the Beatles’ “In My Life”, with his voice all old and trembly.
“Et incarnatus est” from Mozart’s Mass in C minor. Just nearly 10 minutes of wonderful slow scat singing with a soprano and a clarinet (or something). Pope Francis says, “it lifts you to heaven”.
Here’s a link to the first third of that piece, with a conductor who looks a bit like Harrison Ford:
@MotherofDragons Yes. Some of the soft music named here actually agitates me further. I can breathe when I listen to EDM/electronic dance music. Some of the young 'uns I know, especially guys, do a double take on that. After a hard day at work, I used to get in the car and turn the volume way up.
Sure, also some high brow tastes. A nice symphony concert out on the lawn at a venue. But dance music is the distraction I need to be, to use the word others did, serene.
