Somehow I got bored with music. Never mind that I have two iPods (don’t laugh) loaded with almost 4,000 songs. For months, I haven’t been able to get into any sort of music aside from a few tracks I added to The Muse’s sequel playlist.
Every once in a while I get in this funk and it’s hard to get out unless I find the time to do some major shopping or sit down to listen to samples or freebie streams. Winter Break gave me a chance to do that and I ended up finding some great new music to add to my Classic iPods (more on these dinosaurs later).
On the pop and rock end of things, these are some of my new favorites:
Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mix Vol. 1
The Script – No Sound Without Silence
So far, I’m digging every one of these albums, especially Ed Sheeran. I knew I liked him based on what I’ve heard on the radio, but I had no idea his albums were so good. There’s a song for every mood, yet they all string together beautifully. In particular, X explores a number of different styles without losing the common thread that connects every song.
Guardians of the Galaxy was hands down my favorite movie of 2014 (aside from Grand Budapest Hotel), so I was thrilled to get my hands on Awesome Mix Vol. 1. Part of what made that movie so great was how vintage music was integrated into the storyline and soundtrack. Even though I already had a couple of the songs in my collection, it was worth picking up this CD for the rest.
While loading my new music onto my old iPod, I poked around the iTunes Store and found even more goodies to add to my playlists.
For my BritFolk playlist, I found new-to-me music from one of my all time favorite artists, Johnny Flynn. A couple of years ago he composed the soundtrack for the indie movie, A Bag of Hammers. It wasn’t available for download until now! As expected it is all kinds of awesome.
For The Muse’s sequel playlist, I had jotted down the name of a song I heard on the radio and it dawned on me that I should look for it on iTunes. I found it and ended up liking the entire album. Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness offers an interesting mix of modern pop with a throwback feel of the 80s. The song, Cecilia and the Satellite is helping me dig deeper into my main character as I set up his storyline.
While all of this new music is fun, I’m also reminiscing with my iPods. When Apple stopped selling the Classic iPod I think I had a small stroke. I’m not a fan of streaming or cloud storage when it comes to music, because I’m not always plugged into the internet. I like my music downloaded and accessible without being tethered to an internet or 4G connection.
Just the other day I pulled out my 5th Generation 2006 Classic iPod. I took it to work and my students snickered at it’s brick-like appearance until I showed them it’s 80GB storage capacity. Those snickers quickly turned to gasps of awe. Then, I showed them my 6th Generation 2008 Classic iPod. I thought their heads were going to explode when they saw it had 160 GB of storage space. Yeah, the screens are small and there’s no touch screen, but for me nothing beats having enough space to keep my stuff!
My new music plays beautifully on my antiquated iPods. The fact that they both still work perfectly after 9 and 7 years respectively, is pretty remarkable given the average life-span of electronics these days. All I can do is hope that Apple launches a new generation of something that is Classic iPod-esque.
Until then, I’ll be jamming to my new favorite music on both of my Classic iPods!
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What’s your favorite thing this week?
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c.b.w. 2015
C.B. Wentworth 