Monday, July 25, 2005

I have an impairment.

I have a music deficiency. Andre makes fun of me all the time. He likes to play the "Who sang the song?" when we listen to the radio in the car, knowing that he'll be able to mock me when I shrug my shoulders at every single song. Every song. I'm not exaggerating. I can usually sing along with the lyrics if it's a song from the late 80s or early 90s, but I never have any idea who the singer is. Andre thinks it's a pretty funny game, but I must say I'm a little tired of it.

You see, my parents cursed me with this problem by bringing me up in Podunk, Arizona. We didn't have cable television (because there weren't enough people living in our area to warrant stringing some cable across the river), so I never watched MTV. We had one radio station that played lots of Hall and Oates and Kansas and I wasn't really a fan so I didn't listen to it. Instead I hooked up my dad's turntable to a cassette recorder and made mix tapes from his old records. For a while I went through an early 60s phase and sang along to things like "Louie Louie" and "Leader of the Pack." Then, I discovered all of the protest music and let me tell you, I was totally against the Vietnam war, because you know "it's all over for the unknown soldier." I wept, I tell you, I wept. I did feel a little ineffectual in my protest since the war had been over for approximately 16 years at that point, but no matter, it still felt good to plan on heading out for San Francisco with flowers in my hair. And poor Alice, I wanted to help her get off the shrooms.

I did move into some 70s music toward the end of high school and got a good education in the Eagles before my first contemporary music craze, Edie Brickell's "Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars." I don't know where I got the tape, but I stuck it in the player in my car and it never came out. For a year. Seriously, ask my sister, I listened to that tape for a year straight. It was a a sickness, I'm pretty sure my sister wanted to gouge out her ears, but it was either ride with me or take the bus so Edie Brickell it was.

The result of my teenage music habits is that I have absolutely no skills in seeking out new music. I sometimes find something I like when I hear it as part of a movie soundtrack, but I don't get to the movies too often these days. I don't listen to anything contemporary on the radio, just NPR and the best of the 70s and 80s station that plays my comfortable old favorites. Sometimes my sister will send me mix CDs with a few new songs thrown intothe old classics. She tends toward Britney Spears though and I haven't really felt compelled to buy any of the Brit.

So down to the problem. I have an iPod that needs music. I've already filled it with the Doors, the Eagles, and lots of 70s compilation CDs. I have expanded my collection a little with some movie soundtracks, but I'm really feeling the need to add some new music in there. I have a $25 iTunes gift card burning a hole in my pocket and I need some help spending it. So, please, please see the list below and if you have remotely similar tastes recommend something for me.

My current favorites: The Doors, the Eagles, Simon and Garfunkel, Edie Brickell, Indigo Girls, U2, Sting, Gipsy Kings, Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack. Oh and that Dandy Warhols song from Veronica Mars. Help me! (Please don't make fun of my taste though, thanks.)