I’ve been a member of BMG Music Club for some time, and while I rarely order anything from them on purpose, I get a lot of interesting music from them by accident, and as a result, over the years I’ve accumulated a number of free music points. I decided to cash some of those in last week, and the box came today.
Below is a sample of why my mp3 shuffle tends to give people whiplash:
Sam’s Town – The Killers
The Crane Wife – The Decemberists
30 #1 Hits – Elvis Presley
White Lilies Island – Natalie Imbruglia
Painted From Memory – Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach
The Best Of Sessions At West 54th – Various Artists
Lilith Fair – A Celebration Of Women In Music – Various Artists
Redemption’s Son – Joseph Arthur
Perfectly Frank (Remastered) – Tony Bennett(Part two of the order comes next week, and includes Frank Sinatra, Richard Thompson, Soul Asylum, and Geroge Gershwin.)
And I still have 24 “free” cds to order. So, what should I go looking for? Bear in mind that I’m limited to what http://www.bmgmusic.com/ actually carries, so really outfield stuff is usually not an option.
Open thread: Recommend me some music.
filkerdave
The Lilith Fair CD is one of my favourite albums. When I get a chance, I’ll look at the music offerings, but if they have volume 2 and 3, I’d get those as well.
duality
heard any imogen heap?
Rob Wynne
No. What are they like?
duality
she, and it was kinda a trick question.
i know you, so i -know- you’ve seen the narnia movie. so actually you’ve heard her w/o realizing it. she is the one that sang ‘can’t take it in’ for the movie.
here’s a link of some of her stuff via a site that’s kinda interesting in itself: http://hype.non-standard.net/flash/artist/imogen%20heap/xml/1/2/results.htm
Rob Wynne
Ahhhhh. Yeah, I recall that bit from the movie.
::goes to listen to samples:: Interesting stuff, thanks!
ex_serenejo
They’ve got the complete Decca recordings of Billie Holiday for twelve bucks. I played forty for it when I got it, and it was worth five times that much to me. My very favorite collection of music in the world, I think.
ex_serenejo
Paid, that is. 🙂
technoshaman
Seems like a perfectly reasonable string to me…
Of course, then again, RIAA CD’s aren’t very high on my list o’vices right now; I think most of the ones I’ve bought recently have been made by people I’m comfortable enough with to give a hug on a semi-regular basis… so I’m not gonna be much help. But just wanted to say that it seems “normal” to me… heck, I’ve even *heard* of half of those folk 🙂 No, it was WREK that would go from classical to industrial noise on the cart changer and really eat your brains…. Alanis to Frankie? Light action. 🙂
(Best musical doubletake: Billy Joel’s 1984 “Allentown” concert on HBO, when all of a sudden “Waltz of the Sugarplum Fairy” starts coming out of the piano… This is Billy Joel goofing off…)
Rob Wynne
Seems like a perfectly reasonable string to me…
This doesn’t surprise me. My wide range of musical tastes isn’t as unusual among my friends, especially my filk friends, as compared to the averge person on the street.
No, it was WREK that would go from classical to industrial noise on the cart changer and really eat your brains….
When I’m in the mood to stretch my horizons, I’ve always preferred WRAS to WREK. Album 88 has been one of my presets for over 15 years.
(Best musical doubletake: Billy Joel’s 1984 “Allentown” concert on HBO, when all of a sudden “Waltz of the Sugarplum Fairy” starts coming out of the piano… This is Billy Joel goofing off…)
I remember the first time I heard “This Night” on the Innocent Man album. My brain went *whrrrrr-click wah???*, and i picked up the record to check — yep, he not only put lyrics to Beethoven, he even properly credited him for it. 🙂
technoshaman
Oh, yeah. Album 88 is definitely preferable..
Although Album 88 taught me a hard musical lesson. Every Sunday at 4 they used to play something that sounded suspiciously like “My Country Tis of Thee” only on rock guitar… followed by a show called “The Best of Britain.” Hem, hem. Silly Yank, that’s not “My Country Tis of Thee”, that’s “God Save the Queen”, *by* Queen.
For some reason I skipped buying An Innocent Man, so I never saw the Beethoven clip…. but I’m not surprised.
celticdragonfly
Well, that’s frustrating. Pretty much everything I can think of to recommend, they don’t have. (I already know, for example, that I don’t need to recommend, say, Jim Croce.) They have only 1 Fogelburg album, none of the best ones. And most everything else, even some NOT really all that far out, nada. :-/
peteralway
Those all look like music sung in popular genres in the last few decades. You could go slightly farther afield without leaving stuff I play regularly in filk circles--Saint Saen’s “Carnival of the Animals” is very nice music when not played on a banjo ukulele and kazoo, and Eric Satie’s gymnopedies are as good on piano or with orchestra as they are on mountain dulcimer and Banjola. Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” is nicer than just a little excerpt on dulcimer. And Leaving the filk room behind, a little Balinese gamelan is interesting, Renaissance dance music can be charming, and Phillip Glass and Peter Schikele rock, too.
But I have to admit that the last time I was in the CD section of Barnes & Noble my reaction was “what’s with all this music by total strangers?
Rob Wynne
Oh, I could go much farther afield without leaving my own music collection. When ordering from BMG, I’m constrained by what they have. In fact, putting the above order together, I ran several searches that returned “Sorry, we have nothing by that artist”.
moonbeamjedi
Hmmm..I like the oldies
How about Monkees? I’ve always enjoyed them.
Rob Wynne
Re: Hmmm..I like the oldies
Er, I already have pretty much everything they ever recorded, plus a lot of bootlegs. 🙂
moonbeamjedi
Re: Hmmm..I like the oldies
Share?
filkferengi
Do you have Dolly Parton’s bluegrass cds? They’re Little Sparrow & Halos & Horns. She also has “Those Were The Days”, which seems to be covers of 60s songs with lots of interesting guests. The bluegrass is excellent; I haven’t listened to the other one yet. Speaking of bluegrass, the Skillet Lickers [with various generations of the Tanner family] rock majorly but, although they’ve been top sellers for 4 generations, may not be mainstream enough for BMG.