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Today:
Songs for Seasons
Posted: Oct 26, 2007 in Music
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For me, popular music seems to have a seasonal quality, best heard at a particular time of the year. I wonder if I'm alone.
Van Halen is summer music. A song like "Summer Nights" from 5150 is sort of a given, but pretty much every Roth-era album conjures images of summer.
Counting Crows' August and Everything After is autumn music (assuming one can operate a calendar), capturing the feeling of open air, the images of turning leaves, the smell of harvest season.
Winter, depending on the sunlight, could call for Black Sabbath or Joseph Arthur. My armchair diagnosis connects this to seasonal depression, and how it's mangling my mood. I usually describe a gray, Indiana winter sky as "looking like a Black Sabbath album."
So what must you hear, and during what season?
(And why, if you're feeling loquacious.)
Let's see:
Winter: Skinny Puppy, Rage Against the Machine, Ming + SF
Spring: Basement Jaxx, The Prodigy, The Go Team
Summer: Outkast, 311, Beastie Boys
Fall: NIN, Portishead, Massive Attack
Winter (or rainy days): Bright Eyes, Pedro the Lion, Kings of Convenience, Erik Satie, Paper Route, The Notwist, Margot and the Nuclear So and So's, Sufjan Stevens, William Fitzsimmons, Miles Davis, Iron & Wine, Regina Spektor
Spring: The Arcade Fire, The Long Winters, Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service, Grandaddy, The Magic Numbers, Pico vs. Island Tree, The Decemberists
Summer: The Rosebuds, 13 & God, K-OS, Pinback, Mew, Chromeo, Jimmy Eat World, Minus the Bear, Saves the Day, Craig's Brother, Morcheeba, Zero7
Fall: See Spring. Something about listening to those bands while driving with the windows down that works in both Spring and Fall.
Here are some that come to mind..
Winter: Sigur Ros, Röyksopp, DJ Shadow
Spring: Boards of Canada, Air, Goldfrapp
Summer: The Flaming Lips, Prefuse 73, M.I.A.
Fall: Broken Social Scene, Atmosphere, Broadcast
Red House Painters - Songs For a Blue Guitar is a perfect fall record. Cat Power - Moon Pix is the perfect fall turning in to winter record.
ooh, I like the DJ Shadow and Sigor Ros picks for winter. For some reason Belle & Sebastian works for me, too.
Richard Buckner's 'Since' has taken me through every fall since '98. "Once" is a gorgeous song.
Josh Rouse feels like spring, though he hits the other seasons as well.
Give me Basement Jaxx, Daft Punk and Prince in the summer.
Josh Rouse always reminds me of summers in Bloomington.