I've been listening to lots of music while shoveling snow. I continue to love getting the free Itunes cards from using my credit card and then just browsing through albums and artists and seeing (and hearing) what I find. It's kind of like the days at the old Dartmouth Bookstore music section when I'd spend time flipping through CD's, but with the huge advantage of being able to hear stuff before I buy it.Some recent gems:
- Bruce Hornsby released a new album last fall called Levitate. "The Low Country" is an upbeat celebration of a year in the life of a place and people. It's got the carnival-like tempo of "Circus on the Moon" and it just feels like Hornsby is having fun singing and playing the piano. I especially like the rhyme "We love our Swaggart and Haggard..."
- David Gray also put out new stuff last fall, Draw the Line. "Fugitive" and "Kathleen" are brilliant: not as melancholy as many of his songs (though he does melancholy as good as anyone) and with good drums and his powerful voice.
- Citizen Cope is something I've recently discovered. His real name is Clarence Greenwood and he's originally from D.C. He's firmly of the alternative-style. "Lifeline" finds the melancholy that David Gray lost and seems to strike a tone for our recessionary times:
If you've come looking for hard times
Hard times ain't hard to find
Cause we've been given that lifeline
Only once in a lifetime
Baby we were born
Maybe we were born
To be sure ... to endure
When the storm comes
This picture is from our yard during last week's snowstorm.