Put together a soundtrack for your thesis, or play around on itunes a collect one CD of your favorite music. This first exercise turned out to be quite fun, and it required more thought that I originally expected it to. Not only does it provide a particular challenge of sorting through months and months of music, editing, sequencing, and rearranging, but it also requires me to make very particular decisions based wholly on my preferences. Obviously searching through the endlessness of my musical sampling from the last 4-5 years was difficult without some goal in mind. So I made a few, I wanted to open with a classic, I wanted the songs I choose to be exhilarating in some way shape or form , I wanted not to tire out the listener but just challenge their stamina. I also wanted to expose my peers to some bands that they might not have been exposed to before, while still providing some familiar or forgotten ones to enjoy.
What resulted from these goals is a thirteen song compilation that provides a pretty good cross section of my musical preferences, while still providing me with a playlist that I will enjoy in the coming months.
Opening with "Four Dead in Ohio" was picked because of the guitar, because of Neil's voice, because its a warning for the next couple of songs. "Songs For the Dead" is next and it serves as a sprint, a cold shower, it gets your eyes open, your blood pumping and hopefully your foot stomping. but I can't keep this pace forever. Pink Floyd slows things down a little while before climbing to one of the best, most haunting Solo's that David Gilmour has ever blessed my ears with.
Mogwai, Wintersleep, 65 Days, give a sampling of some of my favorite music to work to. Jack White then steps in to remind us that there is in fact an Axe on the cover of this compilation. At this point I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue on the Axe path and bombard the listener with metal and garage rock, or if wanted to let the rest of the CD bump and bounce away. In the name of moral, and in light of the inevitable slog through masters, I choose the later. "City Middle" provided me with the segue I needed to go from my heavy choices into the lighter side of my musical tastes. TV On The Radio, MGMT, and Arcade Fire turn my head bang into a head bop and my headphones just seem to bounce from side to side. Muse's "Map of The Problematique" was chosen to shake the listener out of the pleasant skipping of arcade fire and remind them that this is still a thesis, and some revolt, some rebellion, some violence may need to take place, so keep fighting.
Oceansize and their 3 pronged guitar 5 peice rock outfit from Manchester bring us back to the metal. The slow progression of instruments, the repetition of notes, hollow echos, and the unprecedented amount of tremo picking rise and rise until I've forgotten what the vocals even sound like. My speakers are at 11, the neighbour knocking on the door, and I'm only half way through this song. but alas, after carrying me up through the storm clouds the song lets me drift sideways under the stars as the band steps of of the stage one by one.
-DS
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