(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 82: Ho, Ho, Ho…

Happy Holidays if you celebrate. if not, I hope the closing of the year finds you in a place of peace and comfort. Me? I’m celebrating with friends, in a house filled with too much noise, dog hair everywhere…and I love it. My soul needed it, and so I’m making this quick so I can get back to games and naps and too many cookies and laugh. This playlist is a quick compilation of the rock and roll holiday songs that soundtracked our travels to family and back again. We run the gamut from classic rock to punk to metal to…Cheech and Chong. Enjoy.

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(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 77: Dumb Fun

Sometimes you want to fall into the depths of a great song or album, stretching your senses around and in between the notes, feeling the rhythm shifts and tempo changes. Sometimes you want to dig into the marrow of lyrics, searching for analogues to your life and experiences. Sometimes, though, you just want some DUMB FUN. That’s this playlist: dumb, mindless fun for my soul. Note that my definition of DUMB FUN may differ from yours…and that’s perfectly okay. Let’s get it.

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52 Reasons Why

Wanted to do something different today. It’s my birthday, and I already built a playlist last week celebrating a bunch of great music that came out during the year of my birth. But the music of 1973 isn’t what made me into who I am now – that’s an ever-growing, ever-evolving store of musical moments and memories. And so I wanted to make another playlist, of the songs that inspired me, moved, me, marked significant moments of my life.

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(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 5: Big Bands, Deep Cuts

It started with watching Pete Pardo talk about Van Halen on his inaugural entry for Sea of Tranquility’s Favorite Albums to Listen to in Summertime. I’m already planning a “Summer Playlist” in two weeks when I leave for a lengthy (for me) vacation, but Van Halen lingered, and it was a simple matter to put together some kind of “deep cuts” playlist filled with what are – to me – some of the biggest bands I happen to love. So that’s where we’re going this week. Warning: some of these might not be traditionally “deep cuts” – they’re not all buried in the sequencing. Some are favorites from reviled or unpopular albums, at least one was a big hit for another band. And of course one is a Zappa cut. Enjoy the weekend and let’s dig in.

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AC/DC, Alcest, and Music That Hurts

It’s probably not a shocking revelation that as I’ve been doing this project I’ve also been buying music.  Since it’s still in its infancy, the chances of picking up an album that would have already been reviewed is small.  But it does and did happen, so I wanted to take the time to spend a few words on two recent purchases: Highway to Hell from AC/DC and the debut full-length from Alcest, Souvenirs d’un autre monde.  Over the short course of writing this, it turned into something else. Continue reading “AC/DC, Alcest, and Music That Hurts”