I was reading an article on a UK newspaper website, ‘How Spotify silenced rock bands’ (The Telegraph, 11 August 2024), about the small number of new bands who made it to number one, and with it the challenge of finding new music via streaming services. The article indicated the music we listen to is selected using algorithms that are driven by our listening habits and those of your cohort.
It was something my own experience completely bore out. Overwhelmingly my listening habits are centred around the 70s and a decade either side. I have posted before about 1975 as the greatest year in music. This apart from my other passion country, an occasional dabble with Christian/Gospel and classical, pretty much reflect my preferred listening. Continue reading →
Like everyone who subscribes to Spotify, at this time of the year, we receive the wrap of our listening for the year. I have posted on this topic in the past. It’s always interesting to see what I have listened to and what I listened to most.
There is always Springsteen with Born to Run, usually in my most listened to songs. In 2023, it was no different, however, it was my continued love of The Beatles and Paul McCartney that showed through. Band on the Run was among my most listened to songs; it’s the crashing guitars as the song breaks from its intro to the main song that I always notice, no matter how often I listen to it.
In 2023, The Beatles were my most listened to band. On reflection, it was no surprise. I regularly pick one of their albums or songs to listen too. Often, I will listen to their albums from start to finish or from the start to Revolver or Sgt Peppers to Let it Be. Continue reading →
In recent months I have faced the challenging role of being sandwiched between an ageing parent, my children, and the role of a grandparent. Each has fabulous rewards, but they also come with challenges. Thank the Lord that I have the time to devote to each.
As I sat listening to Elvis Costello’s Veronica, I could not help but reflect on the last few months with my ageing and, sadly, now Alzheimer-affected natural mother. My natural mother came into my life around 30 years ago when adoption laws changed in my state, and my desire to meet my natural mother became more important to me. My keenness to meet my natural mother was certainly not through any lack of love and affection from my parents, who, from the time they adopted me until their death, were the most loving, caring and wonderful parents you could ever wish to meet. I was blessed not just by them, but by my fabulous sister and, subsequently, my wife (my favourite person), along with three wonderful children and now grandchildren.
After the birth of our third child 30 years ago, it was clear that there was a heritage that I wanted to know about. Continue reading →
Graham Edge – source ABC.net.au/AP Photo/David Richard
From my first listening to Every Good Boy Deserve Favour, there is no time that I have not enjoyed listening to The Moody Blues. I was introduced to them by a school teacher who proved to be the biggest musical influence of my life – he also introduced me to Dylan and Springsteen and sparked a mini revival of Richard Harris’s version of MacArthur Park in my home town. Edge who died aged 80 this week was pivotal to The Moody Blues.
Edge was a founding member of The Moody Blues, who when formed in the early to mid 1960s had a typical Mersey beat style about them. Their hit Go Now was the most memorable of that incarnation. The band progressed to be an early proponent of Prog Rock.
The Moody Blues were distinctive. Edge’s poetic introductions to songs were part of that, but as I realised when I saw them in concert for the last time a few years ago, their distinctive style was the drumming. Yes, there were soaring vocals, and harmonies but through it all the drumming was central. Just listen to the drum solo to I’m Just a Singer if you need reminding.
Justin Hayward is quoted in The Guardian saying “Graeme’s sound and personality is present in everything we did together and thankfully that will live on.” Just as his drumming was central to the Moddies sound, he was central to the band’s very existence.
I was lucky enough to see the Moody Blues twice. They still had it even in their early 70s, when if my memory is correct Edge said perhaps my favourite ever concert line, that he’d been lucky enough to live through the 60s twice. At 80 his time has come for which I’m very sad but also grateful for the music, his drumming, his poetry and the Moody Blues.
I was in the car with my daughter with the car radio tuned to Cruise 1323, a local hits and memories AM radio station and on came “It”s Good News Week” the 1965 hit by British pop band Hedgehoppers Anonymous. As the opening beat commenced I knew exactly what it was and said to my daughter that it was the very first pop song I ever recall hearing.
It would have been on a large sideboard type valve radio my Grandfather had given to me. I was lying in bed, with the with radio tuned to 5AD. As I write the memories flood back of the time and DJs Big Bob Francis and John Vincent flood back. They are both now dead but were icons of our local radio scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Vinnie continued well into the 1980s when commercial FM launched in Adelaide. Big Bob was a late night talkback radio host for many years.
Its Good News Week, just two minutes and five seconds long, Continue reading →
