Au Courant (with the music scene!)

DEBORAH CROMBIE: To say that I am unmusical would be an understatement. I can't sing, can't read music, don't play an instrument (my best friend and I took guitar lessons in 6th grade, We were so embarrassingly awful in the recital that the guitars were put away and the subject was never mentioned by our parents again) and although I can hear a tune in my head, I can't repeat it to someone else. I can manage Happy Birthday, barely.

That said, I like listening to music and I love keeping up at least a bit with what's current on the music scene. When I was eleven years old and my parents couldn't bear to watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, I decided that I was never going to be such a fuddy-duddy. I'm still willing to give most things a try. I love watching the Grammys even in ordinary years, but this year it was fabulous to see the big productions back, and such a lot of talent!

And Jon Batiste!

What a joy! If you missed his Grammy performance, you can see it here!

(Sorry about the YouTube video! Here's the performance from Jon's Facebook page.)

If that number doesn't make you want to get up out of your chair and dance, nothing will.

On the other hand, my hubby is really not interested in music other than what he grew up listening to, and that he plays, by ear (I'm so envious) and very well.

I think we have a tendency in the US to get very culturally "fixed" on a type and era of music, and that this is not nearly so prevalent in the UK, because everyone listens to the BBC. Of course there are for-profit, genre-specific radio stations, but nothing overrides the ubiquitousness of the BBC stations in everyday life, and the BBC plays everything.

How about you, dear REDS? Do you like to keep up, or are you content sticking with your generation's Golden Oldies?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Debs,  I think you are so wise that we are culturally fixed–I bet I know the words of basically EVERY song that was on the “radio” between 1964 and 1979. My brain is full of it, and sometimes I’d give up knowing “Come on Down to My Boat, Baby” to make room for learning Italian or something. Or remembering where I put my phone. When I worked at Rolling Stone in the 70s, I vowed I would always keep up with music.

HA.

So that didn't work. But I try and try to hear the current music, and I do usually watch the Grammys (and a lot of it sounds familiar, so there's that) , and I always ask my grandsons to play me the music they like. And that’s very helpful!

 

Sometimes, in an attempt to keep up, I say: “Alexa, play me the top songs,” and I get All Hits Radio. So, for the blog’s sake,  I just tried it and got “Bones” from Bones by Imagine Dragons. Then I got "West Coast" by One Republic. Then "Heat Waves" by Glass Animals Are those...new? I have no idea. Do you?

DEBS: Ha, Hank. I had to check. First two are new, the Glass Animals (yay British indies!) not quite. And for the record, I'd never heard any of them.

HALLIE EPHRON: I confess I checked in a time or two on the Grammys only to find another young woman whining her heart out without any discernible tune or rhythm. I feel like I lived through that in the 60s coffee houses. And then JON BATISTE! Knocked me out. And of course he bears more than a passing resemblance to the late great Little Richard. 

Debs I defer to you when it comes to current music.

DEBS: Hallie, Jon Batiste comes from a New Orleans musical dynasty, and is a Juilliard trained pianist and composer. Best of both worlds!

JENN McKINLAY: I am a terrible musician’s wife. I know songs and melodies but can never remember who wrote them or when they came out. I just hum my earworms as I move around the house until the Hub begs me to change it up. 

Hub is a working musician with several gigs every week and he was the music editor for the now defunct East Valley Tribune for many years. He knows all genres, plays all genres, is a favorite guitar slinger in the local music scene and is just way way cooler than I will ever be. So, I just listen to and enjoy whatever the Hub and Hooligans throw my way and either I like it or I don’t but I’ll never be able to identify the artist. It’ll just become an earworm  someday down the road…lol.

LUCY BURDETTE: I am a little bit musical, I can carry a tune and love to sing. However, I am fixed, I am stuck, I am no courant! Even in college I depended on my pals to tell me what to listen to and they expanded my horizons. But I certainly cannot listen to anything while I’m working, so I end up hardly listening at all. If there’s a wedding with dancing, I get grumpy if it’s not Motown and other oldies:).

RHYS BOWEN: I’m Welsh–we’re born musical. My grandfather was an orchestra conductor, my mother studied piano and ran music festivals, I used to sing in folk clubs, also in an opera chorus and my daughter and son have both had musical careers (one opera, one musical theater). So I have to have music that has a real tune and words. There is very little modern music that I can stomach. I do admire Lady Ga Ga. She has an amazing voice. But when I listen to music that is non-classical it’s oldies. Love the Beatles and many of their contemporaries (who were my contemporaries). And Abba–I put on Mama Mia when I have a long drive and sing along.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’m like Jenn - I remember tons of songs, can sing along (I have an excellent alto voice and have been in several choirs) but I can’t name an artist to save my life. I knew a lot more contemporary music when I was spending time in the car with kids - I can recall singing along to a Flo Rida song, “Apple bottom jeans, boots with the furrrrr, all the club was looking at herrrr,” to the mortification of my family.

But that resource faded out in the late aughts, and by the time I was driving Youngest to high school, she was listening to her music on her phone, with earbuds, so I lost track of who was singing what. Nowadays, if I’m not listening to classical, it’s probably country music. Embarrassing, but true.

DEBS: Jenn, I love my daughter's fancy new car, which tells you what's playing on the radio. That way, I don't have to ask!

What about you, dear readers? Do you like to keep up with the music scene, or are you, as Lucy says, "no courant?"