My Generation’s Music: The Best Ever

Music has always been very important to me. I grew up loving rock and roll. I had a brief foray with Country and Western but have since regained my senses. Today I spent not an insignificant amount of time going through my collection of music, it is vast and diverse. My students sometimes remark on the wide variety of music I play over my classroom’s speaker system.

It was for good reason that I went through it. This summer I will be reuniting with the people I went to junior high school with. And elementary school. Music defined my generation and those tunes will all be played there.

And I keep playing this one over and over. It is by far my most favorite Diana Ross and the Supremes tune ever.

It holds new meaning for me.

Adele, Ma Belle.

Well the Grammy Awards is over for another year and I got a pleasant surprise. The British pop singer Adele came away with 6, count ‘em 6, Grammys.

Whenever one of her songs comes on the radio, or Pandora, I stop and just listen to it. My blood pressure goes down. My life is extended.

Adele has a very soulful breathy voice that packs a punch when she wants it to. For someone so young she sounds so mature. A less raspy Norah Jones, the pop equivalent to Diana Krall.

I was happy to see good work rewarded by her peers.

If you haven’t heard Adele, you are in for a treat. The song “Rolling in the Deep” is the record of the year and she really belts it out. But this is the one that I like, “Someone Like You.” It has meaning for me.

God Help the Girl

You might recall awhile back that I got off my soapbox one day and touted a new Scottish girl group with the improbable name of “God Help the Girl.” I then followed up with a video embed of what they called an “Introduction.”

And that was where I was going to leave it until I remembered yesterday that June 23^rd was the American release date of their first album, entitled, of course, “God Help the Girl.”

The song on track 2 on the album is, of course, entitled “God Help the Girl.”

Well I knew that while the girl group is not entirely unknown, it being an offshoot of the Scottish group “Belle and Sebastian,” I would probably not be able to purchase the CD off the shelf at my local music or book store.

But then we have the internets now, don’t we?

So you can now purchase the CD online here for $11.29 (plus shipping). Or here for $12.99 (plus shipping). Or here for 15.99 (plus shipping). Or here for ₤13.00 (plus shipping – from the UK).

Or you can cherry pick and just download the songs you like from iTunes for 99 cents apiece.

So you have lots of options, don’t you?

I went with option 1. In three days, now, I will have my copy. Then I will be able to listen to the angelic voices of this girl group any old time I want to.

UPDATE: The CD arrived on Saturday, and yes it met all of my expectations. It comes with a multipage booklet that spells out the narrative - the story of a 1st year college student who slowly descends into deep depression, her battle, and the slow climb out of the hole she dug herself.

Come Monday Night

I was all set to do a piece on Pete Olson today. Pete Olson is my congressman, but can’t seem to find his “Aye” button on the thing he uses to cast votes. Maybe I’ll get to that later, but for now, I want to give you a gift.

I found another new and interesting musical group that I want to share with you.

The group is called “God Help the Girl” (I know, how cute is that?). I heard a cut from their newly recorded but still unreleased CD of the same name called “Come Monday Night.” This song, and the lead singer, Catherine Ireton, are together, really, really easy on the ears.

Don’t take my word for it. The group’s website, found here, contains code so I can embed the song in the blog.

I just happened on this masterpiece purely by accident. It was called to my attention because of the new postal rates.

I will explain.

I just bought a roll of stamps a month ago, and then on May 11^th they raised the rates for 1^st class mail by 2 cents. So for the past couple of days I have been trying to find a place to buy 2-cent stamps to augment my now insufficient postage stamps, so I can pay my mid-month bills. And nobody sells 2 cent stamps anymore but the post office.

So I had to make a special trip to the post office after work, taking myself way out of the way to my home. Had I not done that, the car would have been in the garage when the song came on KPFT this afternoon.

And I would have missed the whole thing.

And by the same line of reasoning, so would you have.

So say “thank you” to the US Post Office, Barack Obama, proprietor, for raising those rates. It was a small price to pay in return for making this marvelous discovery.