Thursday 23 July 2015

Classic Wonders


CLASSIC WONDERS

Recently I've been spending a lot of time on Spotify, one of my absolute favourite pastimes, trawling through the seemingly endless collection of music stored within it. Finding new music, whether that be the most current emerging artists and songs, or the established classics that were put out in the world years before my time, or anything in between the two extremes, and adding them to my ever growing favourites list is something that seems to give me a real immense joy and satisfaction, The exact feeling is hard to translate into words, but it's almost as though it makes me feel like I'm connecting with something larger than life, that I'm accessing this whole other universe where music is not only integral to life, it's vital. A world which revolves around music, much like my own little world. I feel like every time I listen to music, from every kind of genre and all kinds of different artists, and I mean really listen to it, like when you take time out of your day to just sit and listen to it, not when you're out and about taking on the world, it takes me to a complete other place. Music is something that transcends life, spirals beautifully and infinitely over so many generations, cultures, beliefs, decades and like the elusive stars in the sky, it always lies just out of reach, it can never be captured. It's something that's with you always, something that lives and breathes inside you, something that surrounds you, envelopes you, inspires you. It reaches into your heart and mind and draws out those words, thoughts and feelings, and packages them into lyrics and melodies that when reflected back to you make everything suddenly seem so much clearer. I just cannot fathom a world without music. To me it's just impossible, just as I find it absurd when other people don't seem to hear the magic of music, when they tell me to turn it down, when they call it noise, when they call it rubbish. It's like we're listening to two completely separate things.

 To me, there's some kind of value in all music that can be appreciated and acknowledged, whether you like the sound of it or not, and it's such an important part of who we are and the lives we lead. My life is bookmarked at every interval by the songs I listened to during certain times, memories, periods, years. I can trace my life through music and I think that's pretty awesome, as is the fact I can listen to such diverse songs from different decades and genres, and have all these memories and feelings evoked within me. I also adore discovering new artists, as well as slowly making my way through all the existing artists, the greats, that I'm yet to discover. Exposing myself to their music, learning and reciting their names like they're some kind of gospel, picking my favourites to put on my iPod, continually updating the music library within my mind and filling it with as much diversity and in depth exposure, knowledge as I possibly can, makes me so incredibly happy. And with regards to the older classics, made many years ago now by some of the greatest artists to grace the music scene, as I grow older I seem to get more and more interested in the music from years go by. It hypnotises me in a way that a lot of modern music, in spite my love for it, just doesn't, and I connect with it on a much more personal level because it seems so much more real, accessible, honest, enticing, enchanting. It makes me sad that music like that just isn't really produced any more, although granted there are some brilliantly talented modern artists that I'm sure will be remembered for many years to come. And it's sad that you look at the charts and the top 5, as amazing as they all are, are songs we won't really remember in a month's time, songs that don't have any emotional impact. 

As I'm sure you can tell, I just love the classics, those wonderful, wonderful songs by phenomenally talented artists that remind me of everything from my childhood right through to the right here, right now, and I think it's great to give them some appreciation from time to time. It reminds you what music is really about, where it all originates from, and why it's so very special, and that's the reason I wrote this post, just as a little reminder to you lovely people and myself. So I've compiled a little playlist of some of my favourite classic wonders and artists that I've been listening to a lot lately, for you to take a listen to. Maybe it will expose you to some artists you've never heard before properly or maybe it will even take you on your own journey down memory lane, but irrespective of that, I just hope you enjoy them as much as me and my replay button do. 

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PLAYLIST


Landslide
Fleetwood Mac

I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free
Nina Simone

Midnight Train To Georgia
Gladys Knight & The Pips

Edge of Seventeen
Stevie Nicks

Be My Baby
The Ronettes

Love Train
The O'Jays

You Can't Hurry Love
The Supremes

The Times They Are A-Changin'
Bob Dylan

Big Yellow Taxi
Joni Mitchell

New York Minute
The Eagles

THUNDER ROAD
Bruce Springsteen

What A Man
Linda Lyndell

Love Is All Around
The Troggs

Get Off Of My Cloud
The Rolling Stones

Country Road
James Taylor

Heatwave
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas

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