There hasn't been that much to write about musically for the last few weeks. I'm working my way through my listening list in order to write the next installment in the My Favorite Artists series. As I think I stated somewhere or other in this blog, this one will focus on The Police. I've already gone back through the band's five studio albums, but there are a lot of solo albums (most of them by Sting) to get through, and some live stuff and compilation albums as well. So it will be at least a few more weeks before I'm ready to write that one.
I'm listening to a lot of music, as usual, but I'm listening differently than I used to. Since I'm rarely in my car in these post-COVID days, I'm listening to almost everything in my house, and I've almost entirely replaced CDs with mp3's. (I can honestly say I never thought I'd do that.)
I've caught some musicals since the virus hit us. For awhile, Andrew Lloyd Webber had a series going on YouTube where each weekend, he'd post a full version of one of his shows and make it available for free for 48 hours. I caught a number of these, although sadly, most of his shows that I've never seen and would like to don't have professionally filmed versions available.
The one new one I hadn't seen (or heard of, really),
Jeeves, was godawful, and I only lasted through 45 minutes of it. (Although in fairness, I suspect that that's partially because it's a peculiarly British show. I might have liked it better if I'd been born in London instead of New York.) I also saw
Love Never Dies, the
Phantom of the Opera sequel again. It has some nice music, but it's a deeply,
deeply flawed show. On the other hand, I saw a version of Stephen Sondheim's
A Little Night Music on YouTube, and that was worthwhile. (And I usually much prefer Webber to Sondheim).
There are a few I plan to watch in the weeks to come. Since the virus caused me to miss out on finally seeing
Cabaret (I had plans to see it at the Argyle Theater on the week when everything closed down), I'm going to watch it YouTube. They have one of the productions starring Alan Cummings up there. They also have the revival of Sondheim's
Company. I heard the soundtrack and read the book for that one many years ago, but I've never actually seen it live. And Amazon Prime has the film version of
Paint Your Wagon available free to Prime members. As frightening as the idea of Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin in a musical is, the show (and movie) at least has the song "They Call the Wind Maria" in it, so I'm willing to check it out just for that. So these three are all on my watchlist for the weeks to come.
Now for those Sput contests. There are different contests and things to participate in all the time on the Sputnik website. The Song of the Day thing for each month isn't technically a contest, but it's been fun to be a part of. I'll have the results of the July one up at the end of the month. And competitions where people vote on albums, like my recently completed Folk contest or the yearly Prog Rock contest, are also enjoyable.
But sometimes, people run competitions based on their own tastes, where people submit songs or albums of particular genres, years, etc. to them, and they eliminate contestants based on their own tastes. These are kind of silly in a way, but still fun. (I've always been tempted to run one of these myself, but I've just always thought it was kind of weird to make yourself the sole arbiter of quality and taste. Nothing against those who do it. I'm glad they're willing to create and run them.) So during the Covid months, I've participated in two of them.
One, called the Umbrella Contest, has been hosted by a User named ArsMoriendi. Every week or so, Ars names a genre, and participants submit a song from within that genre that Ars has never heard before. This was a tough one for me, because Ars and I have completely opposite tastes. I consistently gravitate towards the melodic, and Ars not so much. I only lasted until the fifth round of this one (he's currently up to round 10), and to be honest, I barely made it that long.
Here are the songs I submitted, the genres, and the rating (out of 5) that Ars gave them.
Round 1 - Pop - Johnny Marr - "Easy Money" - 2.5
Round 2 - Folk - Joni Mitchell - "The Urge for Going" - 3.3
Round 3 - Orchestral - James Horner - "Main Title from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" - 3.0
Round 4 - R&B - Tina Turner - "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)" - 2.5
Round 5 - Electronic - Tangerine Dream - "Charly the Kid" - 2.2 (Eliminated. Boo! Ars sucks!)
If you feel like following it yourself, here's the link to Ars' list page: ArsMoriendi Umbrella Contest. Just click on the various links for the Umbrella Contest in the "Lists" section near the top of the page.
Another tournament that I'm participating in for the third straight year now is called the Continental Recfest. This one is an album contest, run by a User called Sharkattack. For this, Shark names a continent, then we rec him albums from that Continent that he hasn't heard previously.
My taste is a little closer to Shark's than it is to Ars', but it's still tough. In the past, he's eliminated me on Echo & The Bunnymen's Porcupine and This Island Earth's Welcome to the Merry-Go-Round. (I know, right?)
Anyway, I'm still alive in this one, but we'll see if it lasts. Here are my recs so far for this year's Tournament, and the scores Shark has given them (again, out of 5):
Round 1 - North America - The Good Rats - Tasty (USA) 3.8
Round 2 - Asia - Isao Tomita - Snowflakes Are Dancing (Japan) 4.3
Round 3 - Africa - Awilo Longomba - Coupe Bibamba (Congo) 4.2
Round 4 - Australia - Bodyjar - How It Works (Australia) ?
This last round has been a tough one. I've done well with Australia in previous years, moving on with Midnight Oil's Diesel and Dust and The Church's Starfish. I could have gone with Midnight Oil's Blue Sky Mining, but that would have felt like cheating, given that I already moved on once with Midnight Oil. (Although I reserve the right to do so in future competitions). The album I would have liked to have rec'd was Men at Work's Cargo, but I think it would have gotten me eliminated. (As best I can tell, I like my music a little smoother than Shark. He likes something with a bit of a kick to it. Although he did like the Tomita LP, so who knows?)
I thought about giving him Kick by INXS, but I'm not really a fan of theirs. The only song I really like on that album is "Mystify". Denise is an INXS gal, but our tastes differ on this band. So in the end, after extensive research, I gave Shark the Bodyjar album. He's a punk rocker, so maybe he'll go for it. We'll see.
You can find the various rounds of the contest here, once again in the list section near the top: Shark's Continental Recfest. And if you really want, you can even go back through his lists and see the results from the first two years.
Anyway, to flat out steal a line from my new favorite film and television reviewer, YouTube's The Critical Drinker, that's all I've got for today. Go away now.
