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I've been described as a "music nazi," and I
fear that I cannot deny it. I have strong opinions about
music. Perhaps more pertinently, I have trouble tuning sounds
out,
and music strongly affects my
mood. So, when I listen to sad, overwrought, angry, or otherwise
emotionally upsetting music for too long, I get really depressed.
The depression goes away when the music stops. This means I'm not
very tolerant of music I don't like and that the music I do like is
almost all happy, bouncy music.
A lot of people claim that when they're in a bad mood it makes them feel better to have their music agree with that mood. To me, that sounds like thinking that drinking when you're depressed does anything other than depress you more. So, next time you're depressed, try some of the amazing, uplifting music listed here. It just might make you feel better. |
| Brian Wilson His music proves that good does exist in this world. |
| The Beach Boys I'm a completist, so I've heard just about everything that the Beach Boys have ever done. I have to admit that their '70s stuff is surprisingly good. If you want a good starter album, I recommend Pet Sounds, Today!, or Surfer Girl. |
| The Monkees As a completist, it deeply bothers me that I have not heard just about everything the Monkees have ever done. This stems from the simple fact that there are two ways to go about owning Monkees music. You can get some form of cd anthology, or you can get all the albums released by Rhino with wonderful liner notes and bonus tracks. My sister got the four disk anthology. I got the two disk anthology. (Don't ask me why, these were birthday presents from my mom.) And, my mom was collecting the albums. This got further complicated by me going away to college (and thus losing most of my sway over my mom's record buying habits), and my parents getting divorced...the relevant aspect of their divorce being that my dad inexplicably ended up with one of the worse Monkees albums. Which completely breaks up the ability to collect all of them. What're you gonna do? Rebuy a bad album? Or have an incomplete collection? It's hopeless. (Oh, and, by the way, Micky is my favorite.) |
| The Beatles It's all good. My favorite is Paul. |
| Elton John My new favorite! (Favorite overall artist, that is. Not Beatle or Monkee.) (Replacing the long enthroned Brian Wilson, of course.) I decided that constancy and consistency count. And, you don't get too much more constant and consistent than Elton John. He's released almost an album a year since 1970, and I haven't yet heard a track that's half as embarrassing as Brian Wilson's song "Vegetables." So far, I like his really early stuff best, though I seem to like his work from every decade. Even his latest, Peachtree Road, is good. Also, I hear he's working on a musical based on Anne Rice's vampire novels. That sounds very exciting. |
| Jim Croce He died too young. I recommend the 50th birthday two-cd set. It's just about everything he ever did, and it's all wonderful. |
| Carole King The only actual Carole King album I have is Tapestry, but it's good enough to warrant her being here. She also wrote some wonderful songs for the Monkees (and various other groups from that time). I quoted her song "Now and Forever" in my high school graduation valedictorian speech... |
| Cat Stevens Sad lyrics to a light, happy sound. An intoxicating combination. |
| America No one could have been better to do the songs for the movie of The Last Unicorn. Their album Homecoming is wonderful. And, they strongly contend for having my favorite song. |
| Simon & Garfunkel My first boyfriend only owned three cds (until I bought him a Neil Diamond collection). They were the three discs of a Simon & Garfunkel box set. He played them constantly, and I couldn't help but come out of that relationship loving Simon & Garfunkel. (That is, after the obligatory six months to a year where I couldn't bear to hear them because my heart was still broken.) |
| Wilson Phillips Here is true rock royalty, three princesses of rock'n'roll. As Brian Wilson says, they have the voices of angels. (When he said it, I believe he was only talking about his daughters, but it's true of John Phillips' daughter too.) They've done three albums: an eponymous album, Shadows and Light, and California. All three are beautiful. The first, especially, has a youthful energy and innocence that makes me love it. |
| Frank Sinatra What a voice! He was my favorite from fourth through eighth grade. I recommend getting a big collection and heavily editing it, until you're down to just the happy songs. He had a little too much fondness for melancholy. In fact, I suspect that inciting suicides may have been among his goals. |
| James Darren He doesn't have the flawless voice of Sinatra, but he's friendlier. I, of course, grew to love James Darren from his role as holosuite lounge singer Vic Fontaine on Deep Space Nine. Most of the songs he did on Deep Space Nine are available on his album This One's From the Heart. His follow up album, Because of You, is similar. Some day I hope to hear his albums from the '60s. I suspect they'll be cheesy, and I'll like them anyway. |
| Raffi Honestly, I don't remember much of Raffi's music except for his Christmas Album. When I was really little, I apparently listened to it every night as I fell asleep for a year. It may be my all time favorite album. |
| Carly Simon Like Brian Wilson, Carly Simon writes music that I love. Not music I necessarily like, but music that I love. The difference is this: when I first listen to a song by Brian Wilson or Carly Simon, I may think "these are terrible, stupid lyrics that make no sense -- in fact, they're kind of embarrassing, and I wouldn't want to play this around other people;" then, a year or more later, I'll listen to the same song and think, "oh my gosh, this is so deep -- this is teaching me about life." Now, this kind of worries me. Somehow, these two artists write music I love so deeply, that it actually makes me lose my sense of perspective. That's frightening. On the other hand, what is life without music that you love? I just may not play it around other people much. For that, I have Elton John, whose music I really, really like. |