music survey

[stormsewer]

First Record Bought: The Raw and the Cooked by Fine Young Cannibals and Don’t Be Cruel by Bobby Brown (I still listen to FYC). Fourth grade. I ordered them through my dad’s Columbia House membership.

First Concert: Smashing Pumpkins Machines of God tour. I started onto the whole concert scene a little late, but that’s the way things are when you grow up in the middle of nowhere. Oh wait! I went to the Warped Tour in Seattle in 1998. I guess that was really the first. But Smashing Pumpkins feels like the first. I’m glad I was able to see them before the end.

Favourite Music Movie: My favorite musicals would be Popeye and Moulin Rouge. My favorite movie about music… High Fidelity, I guess.

Favourite Music Book: Melodious and Progressive Studies for Clarinet, Book 1, edited by David Hite. At least 80% of my practice time since graduating high school has been spent with this book, and I’m still nowhere near exhausting it (though that may say more about me as a clarnettist than about the book).

Favourite Songwriter: Ben Folds

Favourite Record Label: Dunno! I like the name "Kill All Rockstars," though.

Favourite Music Magazine: I’ve never settled on one I really like. I had a subscription to Rolling Stone for a while, but I got tired of all the soft porn parading as journalism, not to mention the fawning reviews of Britney Spears albums.

Favourite Bassist: Flea! Honorable mentions to D’arcy and Kim Deal.

Favourite Album Cover: I’ll have to go with The Real Thing by Faith No More. And when I say that, I mean the version found on the vinyl and on the tape I bought in sixth grade, not the now ubiquitous CD cover. It may just be for personal reasons related to the pivotal role this album played in my musical (and, dare I say it, psychological) development, as well as the fact that the cover was always close at hand whenever I listened to it (which in seventh grade was pretty much every day), but I love this cover and I think it perfectly evokes the sound of the album in visual terms.

As for a cover that’s separable from memories of my formative years, I’m quite fond of the art nouveau (?) style covers of Rufus Wainwright’s Want One and Two.

Least Favourite Album Cover: I don’t have an answer to this. I don’t have many covers with me here, and the ones I don’t care for are really just unmemorable.

Favourite Teen Idol: Umm… I kinda like that “Thousand Miles” song by Vanessa Carlton. Does that count?

Artist Who Broke Your Heart: Weezer

Artist You Will Always Believe In: Björk

Singer Who Makes Your Skin Crawl: The chicks from Shampoo.

Singer Who Makes You Swoon: Rufus Wainwright is the first to come to mind, actually. Or Chet Baker! (He makes love songs sound so sad.) Or even Ben Gibbard. I couldn't tell you why male vocalists are the first to come to mind when I think of the word "swoon," but as far as chicks go, NOT Björk, interestingly enough. “Swoon” just isn’t the right word for my reaction to Björk. For swoon, maybe Fiona Apple or Tanya Donnelly or Kay Hanley or Amy Gileadi (I think that’s her name now). I don’t know!

Favourite Sound: The sound of RAWK!

Album You Will Always Defend: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by Smashing Pumpkins (which I feel is more in need of defense than their earlier albums and is more deserving of defense than their later ones)

Album You Own That No One Else Does: On The Verge by Sunfall Festival. I’m sure I’m not the only one who owns it, but almost definitely the only one you know. (I’m so indie.)

Classic Album You Own But Don't Like: White Light, White Heat by The Velvet Underground. I picked this up recently and… Maybe it just needs time to grow on me. I guess I can see the roots of the indie/alternative/garage sound here, but to me it’s the pop music equivalent of putting a toilet on a pedestal in a glass box and calling it Art. How Modern.

Artist You're Supposed to Like but Don't: Pavement. Admittedly I haven’t listened very closely, but every time I’ve heard them I totally don’t get what the big deal is.

Song You Can't Stand by an Artist You Like: “Coming Back To You” by Leonard Cohen. Most of the songs on this album (Various Positions) are musical ipecac, but this one has crappy lyrics to boot.

Band That Should Break Up: The Rolling Stones. Seriously, stop. You guys haven’t put out a good record in thirty years.

Band That Should Re-form: I feel like I’m duty bound to say Smashing Pumpkins, but really I’d just as soon they didn’t.

Guilty Pleasure: Hall and Oates

Favourite Music DVD: Björk Volumen. I love me a good Björk video.

Concert You Wish You'd Seen: Love Psychedelico at Fuji Rock, 2002. I still haven’t seen Björk or Radiohead live, either. While we're at it, I wish I'd seen Jimi Hendrix perform the national anthem at Woodstock, and I wish I'd seen Debussy perform "Claire de lune."

Dream Collaboration: Well, gee. How about Ben Folds and Björk, then? Wow, now that I think about it, I would LOVE to see what those two minds could come up with together. That would be awesome.

Comments

Something's come along and it burst our bubble yeah yeah!

[thebloodypuck.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about the swoonworthiness of Rufus Wainwright and Ben Gibbard. I've been listening to a lot of Ben Gibbard lately. I am trying to think of a modern female artist who has a voice that I might swoon over....hm, maybe Bic Runga. I have a few Sunfall Festival songs on my computer thanks to your recommendation a long time ago. : )

I'm going for my first rock concert ever next month. I am EXCITED, haha. And in March, I'm seeing the Kings of Convenience play here in Singapore. Whee. Anyway, hi Peter!

Re: Something's come along and it burst our bubble yeah yeah!

[stormsewer]

I bet you'd like Chet Baker, too. Maybe I'll send you an mp3. I have a Bic Runga album, and I wouldn't quite call it swoony. She sounds almost motherly. Like with that young mother glow. You know?