Additional Content

Geoff Edgers on Sinéad O’Connor

Sinéad O’Connor is still in one piece

“She tore up a picture of the pope. Then her life came
apart. These days, she just wants to make music.”

This was true as of 2020, when Geoff Edgers wrote his touching and insightful story about her.

To give you the flavor of the piece, a series of text messages she sent him can be seen below.

I do feel like I was a monster. I feel awful. I do beat the living s- - - out of myself. Am full of grief about it would be a better way of describing it

Was Not my purpose on the planet to have hurt anyone …

But no one ever minded if they hurt me

Is the thing

That’s part of the code also

All artists have one dream that will never come true

If you can figure that out you know them

They teach that in acting school. Key to finding a character is what dream does he or she have that will never come true

Mine is a mom

Rest in peace.

The Paradox of ‘Pleasurable Sadness’: Why Do We like Sad Music?

An enjoyable read from Medium.com. An excerpt:

Despite the recent surge in the number of studies on the beauty of sad music, researchers admit that the “paradox of pleasurable sadness” remains unsolved.

While future investigations may gain a deeper insight into the appeal of gloomy melodies, it could also be argued that the power and value of music lie in its ability to connect the listeners to their inner selves, thus creating a transcendent experience that defies explanation.

View at Medium.com

 

The Hollies Remember – On a Carousel (various session segments)

More Hollies

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of The Hollies

If only their recordings were better. Most of their early albums sound like they are playing on an AM radio.

Thanks god The Beatles were so well recorded (although I have to say With the Beatles and A Hard Day’s Night are consistently thinner and brighter than they should be, and thinner and brighter than the albums that follow and Please Please Me before them).

Dave Brubeck Quartet / Take Five

More of the Music of Dave Brubeck

Reviews and Commentaries for Time Out

Live music just can’t be beat.


Further Reading

10cc Is Not in Love

More of the Music of 10cc

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of 10cc

This was my first 10cc album, and I completely fell in love with it.Played it all the time.

Une Nuit A Paris, the suite that opens side one, is just an amazing demo track. As you may have read elsewhere on the site, it’s the kind of sound that requires a big powerful stereo to reproduce. Even back in the mid-70s I had speakers as tall as me that weighed 300 pounds apiece (the Fulton J, shown below), so playing a record like this was just a thrill.

It still is. I still love it. And I recommend it highly for those who are fans of the band. If you don’t know who 10cc are, this album and this band will probably make no sense to you, but if you have an open mind and like “art rock” from the ’70s, you might just really get a kick out of this one.

More on the amazing album that this song is found on, The Original Soundtrack.



Further Reading

Reviewers Weigh In on The Beatles in 1964 – Who Knew the Band Was This Awful?

“The Beatles are not merely awful, they are god awful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art that they qualify as crowned-heads of anti-music.”

—William F. Buckley, Jr. , Boston Globe, Sept. 13, 1964

“Visually they are a nightmare…musically they are a near disaster…their lyrics are a catastrophe.”

—Newsweek, Feb 24, 1964

“The Beatles vocal quality can be described as hoarsely incoherent.”

—Theodore Strongin , New York Times, Feb. 19, 1964

“The Beatles must be a huge joke, a whacky gag, a giant put on.”

—Donald Freeman, Chicago Tribune, Feb. 19, 1964

“Just thinking about the Beatles seems to induce mental disturbance.”

—George Dixon, Washington Post, Feb 13, 1964

“Not even their mothers would claim that they sing well.”

—Los Angeles Times, 1964