(no subject)
I haven't been around much online lately - trying to finish my dissertation proposal and started a massive experiment that's taking up a lot of my time. :( I should be back more consistently in September.
But I am excited to see that Of Monsters and Men ("Little Talks") is getting a lot of love on my Flist. They're pretty awesome, one of those indie-rock groups that is so delightful they even get play on the crappy top 40 pop stations. (If you genuinely like those stations, no offense, different tastes and all that, but they are just not my thing - the music generally sucks and Katy Perry lyrics are so inane that I want to jab my ears out whenever I hear them.) The Lumineers and Mackelmore have been getting a lot of play on pop stations recently too. I think the success of Mumford and Sons' album Sigh No More opened pop audiences up to more indie-rock/folk/underground/alternative music. At least, that was the first band that I noticed it with, and it seems to have only increased since then.
When I was in Sweden in March, I listened to a lot of Of Monsters and Men while riding through the countryside on trains, and it was a pretty transcendent experience. There is no better way to listen to music than in the place where it was created - something about the sense of place: everything just clicks, the music suddenly all makes so much more sense and you feel connected to what the artist was trying to express. (Okay yes, I know Iceland and Sweden are not the same thing, but Scandinavia has some overall cultural/geographic similarities, and it's a hell of a lot closer than the Midwestern United States.)
So my favorite Music-Place Experiences have been:
- Icelandic band Of Monsters and Men / Swedish band Miike Snow on a train in Sweden
- Peruvian-American and NYC-based rapper Immortal Technique on the subway through Harlem (warning: his lyrics can be somewhat disturbing - lots of references to 9/11 and politics, with tons of swear words)
- French-raised, Spanish-Civil-War-refugee, and Latin-America-Frequent-Traveler Manu Chao while traveling through Ecuador
Do you guys have any similar experiences with music/place combinations? Or do I just sound like a crazy person?
But I am excited to see that Of Monsters and Men ("Little Talks") is getting a lot of love on my Flist. They're pretty awesome, one of those indie-rock groups that is so delightful they even get play on the crappy top 40 pop stations. (If you genuinely like those stations, no offense, different tastes and all that, but they are just not my thing - the music generally sucks and Katy Perry lyrics are so inane that I want to jab my ears out whenever I hear them.) The Lumineers and Mackelmore have been getting a lot of play on pop stations recently too. I think the success of Mumford and Sons' album Sigh No More opened pop audiences up to more indie-rock/folk/underground/alternative music. At least, that was the first band that I noticed it with, and it seems to have only increased since then.
When I was in Sweden in March, I listened to a lot of Of Monsters and Men while riding through the countryside on trains, and it was a pretty transcendent experience. There is no better way to listen to music than in the place where it was created - something about the sense of place: everything just clicks, the music suddenly all makes so much more sense and you feel connected to what the artist was trying to express. (Okay yes, I know Iceland and Sweden are not the same thing, but Scandinavia has some overall cultural/geographic similarities, and it's a hell of a lot closer than the Midwestern United States.)
So my favorite Music-Place Experiences have been:
- Icelandic band Of Monsters and Men / Swedish band Miike Snow on a train in Sweden
- Peruvian-American and NYC-based rapper Immortal Technique on the subway through Harlem (warning: his lyrics can be somewhat disturbing - lots of references to 9/11 and politics, with tons of swear words)
- French-raised, Spanish-Civil-War-refugee, and Latin-America-Frequent-Traveler Manu Chao while traveling through Ecuador
Do you guys have any similar experiences with music/place combinations? Or do I just sound like a crazy person?