Author Archives: Jane

2011 was a fantastic year in music, and with the year coming to a close, we thought we’d go ahead and recommend 20 (err, 22) of the year’s best albums.

Chamber Music by Ballake Sissoko and Vincent Segal
The King is Dead by The Decemberists
Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars
The King of Limbs by Radiohead
Femme Fatale by Britney Spears
Nine Types of Light by TV on the Radio
So Beautiful or So What by Paul Simon
Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes
Let Them Talk by Hugh Laurie
The Book of Mormon, book, music and lyrics by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone
Bon Iver by Bon Iver
Alpocalypse by “Weird Al” Yankovic
Sky Full of Holes by Fountains of Wayne
Watch the Throne by Jay-Z and Kanye West
Strange Mercy by St. Vincent
Father, Son, Holy Ghost by Girls
Drive (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) by Cliff Martinez and Various Artists
The Whole Love by Wilco
Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming by M83
Smile by The Beach Boys
Take Care by Drake
El Camino by The Black Keys

Listen up all you loyal inTune@SCPL readers, it’s time for some soothing music! WARNING: Do not play this just after you’ve had a big lunch. Eyelids will close.
 

                 Here’s one for the more mature ear,

Who’s this Rayna person?

Rayna, a mere fan in the audience for Paul Simon’s show, shouted out a request for Mr. Simon to play his song ‘Duncan’. She added that she learned to play guitar on that song. So, Mr. Simon invited her to the stage to play it with him.  A fan’s fantasy come true.

Enjoy and keep practicing, just, you know, in case.

Two new CDs I can’t stop playing…

Paper Airplane by Alison Krauss & Union Station
CD 781.642 KRA

AK&US hit it out of the park with their first release since a few years back.  Lots to love here. “Dimming of the Day,” “Bonita and Bill Butler,” “Dust Bowl Children,” and, of course, the title track, “Paper Airplane.”  You’ll hear the AK&US signature sound of banjo, fiddle, mandolin and of course Ms. Krauss’s plaintive vocals.  This CD has been getting deserved stellar reviews so I anticipate a waiting list for it.  Put a copy on hold if you have to – it will be worth the wait.

scala & kolacny brothers
CD 782.42 SCA

This is hard to categorize. Scala is an all female choir of about 40 women. The brothers Kolacny are classically trained Belgian musicians. (It feels odd to write anything but ‘waffles’ after ‘Belgian’.) They reworked the Radiohead song “Creep” which someone in Hollywood heard; the song got featured in the movie, The Social Network; now these musicians are getting a lot of attention on this side of the Atlantic.  Lucky for them and us!  Their harmonies and interpretations are really beautiful. Here’s their website.

Watch this pared down version of an original work by Scala & Kolacny Brothers. 

In our country, we have the likes of  Joe Hill, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, who helped bring about social change through their music. From YouTube, and listed most views to least, here’s an offering of the musical face of Egypt’s revolution:

97.1FM The Drive recently devoted a day’s worth of airtime to the history of Rock ‘n Roll. With a bit of clicking around you can listen to their selections from their web site.

Want to hear the whole album? Come in and browse our Rock ‘n Roll collection. Rock music is filed under 781.66. CDs are organized alphabetically by the band or artist’s name under that number.

Perhaps you’ve had trouble locating Taylor Swift or Handel or the Drive-by Truckers in our CD collection.  This is an unfortunate consequence of having such a large and diverse collection;  how to organize all those artists and music genres.  If every artist had just one title to their name it would be so simple!

Thus, we Dewey.  Yes, that dorky sounding cataloging system is really quite ingenious when you take a look at it.  Here’s a basic tutorial. The numbers to the left of the decimal point indicate the general subject and the numbers to the right indicate specific sub-categories. So the bulk of our CD collection has call numbers beginning with 781 (Music).  Familiarizing yourself with a specific sub-category (the numbers to the right of the decimal point) will make your search a little easier.  Soundtracks are 781.54, Country Music is 781.642, Rock is 781.66 and so on.

There are ’cheat sheets‘ located in the CD collection and of course, the Staff is always at your service, but now that you have a basic understanding of Melvil Dewey’s system, you’ll have no trouble locating those Yanni CDs you’ve been meaning to get to.

Wow, these three musicians must share the same stylist.