Sometimes I get into work buzzing, and I think 'Let's have a bit of rock, or something that's really motoring.' Other times, to borrow a phrase from my wife, 'I'm not quite ready for my day.' And this was one of those days.
Music can really jar if you're not in the mood for it. Something slow and quiet when you're fired up can be as irritating as loud music when you've got a headache.
Interestingly (well, to me anyway), I remember reading something about this ages ago. If you want to use music to change your (or somebody else's) mood, the trick is to match the mood, then slowly alter it.
So if you're furious about something, putting on some relaxing Cowboy Junkies or similar is likely to exacerbate the problem.
But put something shouty like Iron Maiden on and you'll probably enjoy shouting along for a track or two. Then take it down a notch - maybe some Bon Jovi or Bryan Adams (the rocky stuff, not the ballads) - then a few tracks later, take it down again.
In half an hour you can go from hopping mad to chilled out.
Trust me! It works.
Anyway, like Ronnie Corbett in that bit of the Two Ronnies where he sits in the chair and tells a long, rambling story, I digress.
I'd come in, and I could have done with something easy on the ears. But it wasn't my choice.
I threw the five over to Matt and waited to see what he'd pick. And as luck would have it, he picked a good 'un!
I like film soundtracks. Sometimes I buy them specifically because I like the music, other times I'll buy them as they're a great reminder of a good film. This was a bit of both.
Babe. The one about the pig that's brought up as a sheepdog.
It's got a great mix of 'proper soundtrack music', and songs. Although many of the songs were sung by the farmyard animals, the mice being particular stars - "If I Had Words" sounds like a UB40 song being sung by Pinky & Perky on helium.
Which isn't as bad as it sounds.
Anyway - good start to the day.
DSP rating - 7
And I stayed on a film theme for the next album, 'Simply The Best Movie Album, Ever'.
Modesty clearly has no place in a music marketing department...
This was a mixed bag of songs from recent-ish films. The entertainment industry has become a very incestuous affair in the last 30 years or so, with songs promoting films and the films being used as videos for the songs (which almost certainly come from artists who just happen to have a new album coming out).
Some are huge - I suspect there are more people who own the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack than have seen the film.
And Top Gun, which ought to carry a health warning, given the amount of cheese it contains, is fantastic. This was soundtrack-put-out-to-tender. The film was almost complete and a good way through the editing suite when the studio touted scenes from the film and asked artists to turn up and 'audition' songs. Kenny Loggins did very well out of it. Not only did he sing the main theme - 'Danger Zone', which was written with Giorgio Moroder, but he also had 'Playing With The Boys', for the volleyball scene. He said he chose that particular one because he thought that not many other people would.
Takes all the romance out of the movies, doesn't it?
Anyway - good CD.
DSP rating - 7
Now we're talking...
The greatest band in the world - and this is not my opinion, this is FACT! - is Rush.
If you've not heard of them, they're a Canadian prog-rock power trio, and they're the greatest band in the world. Nip over to Amazon and buy their entire back catalogue (it's quite big, they've been going since 1974) - I can wait.
Back?
Rush vary between very, very good and excellent, although as I am completely unbiased, I can see that not all of their output is stellar. A few years ago they put out an album called Vapor Trails, and it was heavy on the riffs and light on the tunes. Not one of my favourites.
Though if you read up on what had happened to the band in the prevous five years, it was a small miracle that we got an album at all.
Anyway. Since then, they have most certainly got back in the groove, and the last album, Snakes & Arrows, from 2007 is the best thing they've done in years.
It's safe to say that the three of them are getting on a bit. I went to see them live in 1988, and again in 1992. And then it all went a bit quiet. Their European follwing isn't huge compared to the States, and for a while it wasn't commercially viable for them to tour over here.
But then, in 2005, they rolled the R30 Thirtieth Anniversary Tour into Europe, and more interestingly for me, to Wembley Arena.
For two nights.
One of which was my wife Katie's birthday.
Katie was going to have lots more birthdays... these guys might announce their retirement at the end of the tour!
So we went.
Both nights.
And then as luck would have it, two years later - they were back.
At Wembley.
For two nights.
Over Katie's birthday...
Clearly the likelihood of this being their last tour of the UK had increased.
So we went again.
Both nights.*
And this time the album they were promoting was Snakes & Arrows. Some time later, they put out 'Snakes & Arrows - Live', and some time after that, Matt picked it as my next Shuffleman album.
It's great. Really great. Really, really... well you get the idea.
Fantastic music, staggering musicianship, great lyrics.
And a drum solo.
DSP rating - 10 (like it was going to be anything else)
Well, well, well. Matt was clearly on a roll today! He was flying blind as he had, by his own admission, got no idea who this lot were or what the album was like, but it was another top pick.
Interestingly, fact fans, I had no idea what this album was like when I bought it, in HMV in Enfield. It's one of only two albums that I've bought solely on the strength of the cover, knowing nothing at all about the artists at all.
It was... Magnum - On A Storytellers Night.
Another slice of prog, though from Birmingham rather than Toronto this time. This is probably (though I'm willing to be corrected), Magnum's finest hour. It has a Swords & sorcery / faires & goblins feel to it, though that's probably more down to the cover than anything else. A good slab of tunes, from hard rock to some lighter-waving ballads.
DSP rating - 8
(The other album I picked up on the cover alone, if you were wondering, was Warren Zevon's 'Transverse City')
* For those who think that I've been incredibly mean to my beloved, Katie does actually like Rush.
A bit.
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