Music To My Ears

Being a radio personality and a DJ, it's more or less an imperative that I listen to music on a daily basis to continue exploring and curating new music for the various things I use it for.  Some of the songs I find get listened to on an almost daily basis by me, and others may only be checked out every so often.  Others are used solely for my drumming practice and not much else, if anything past that.  And then there's that collection that I hear once or twice and decide never to listen to again.  It's a wide mix.

But the problem I always have is trying to describe what my favorite type of music to listen to is to my friends and co-workers.  Listening across a wide variety of genres gives me this issue and I don't really have a favorite genre, though I do have a mixture of favorite sounds that make me ten times more likely to put a song on repeat for my personal collection.  It's a strange criteria for me, but after I describe it a little bit you may be able to fill in the blanks for your own song ideals and find music that fits across genres.

So, here are my "favorite sounds" to listen to concerning music.

Orchestral Folk with Piano

As heard in the song "Lighthouse" by Ben Miller Band, I love a small orchestral arrangement set to a folk song.  In this track, you hear the violin, a little bit of cello, maybe some bass, and a classic piano to back it up with the guitar.  The only thing for me that would make this a better song for me is a drum track, but that's my personal preference.  You get this fullness in your ears when listening to this song through headphones and you get drawn back to it instantly.  I think it's the violins that are the most ear-appealing instrument to me, but I'll let you be the judge.

Songs From Any Genre That Add Horns

"Sorry You're Sick" was my introduction to blues artist Anderson East, and I really was impressed.  This brings me to my next favorite sound.  You just can't beat a strong brass section against a rock and roll or blues track.  This song packs such a punch in it's 2:30 runtime, and the guitar riff in the chorus blows it out of the water.  Fast-paced music is my cup of tea only about twenty percent of the time, if that even, and this track is part of that twenty percent.  Maybe I just enjoy a slower downbeat than the others.

Covers of Songs That Sound Very Different

This cover of the Owl City song "Fireflies" by rock band Walk Off The Earth features a few of my favorite things.  First, a hard rock track that's not too hard, which is most apparent in the chorus.  There are times where I feel that a band does screamo rock a little too hard, and it makes the song less appealing.  But this band does it just right, and the fact that it used their pipes to play a beat as well makes it ten times as better.  I love it when a band gets creative in the way that these guys did. Also, it's my favorite thing when I get to hear a cover of a song that's like ten years old with such a fresh spin on it you suddenly want to listen over and over!  Bravo WOTE!

Orchestral/Operatic With Big Movements

Opera is another one of my favorite genres, and for the past few years, Phantom of the Opera has been on my radar quite a bit.  There is a song near the end of the opera that I really enjoy called "Music of the Night", and it took me a little while to find an arrangement of the song that I could truly enjoy listening to.  This version, preformed in 2011 in the UK, takes the cake by far.  Listen to the track at 4:45 for my favorite section of the whole song, where the orchestra really gets together and just swells up into this beautiful section of notes that you won't regret hearing.  It's sometimes considered weird when a person my age wants to listen to jazz or orchestra, but I fully embrace it and enjoy it all the same! 

Banjo

The banjo hasn't always been my favorite instrument to hear in a song.  Actually, I used to despise them quite a bit.  But that changed a few years ago when I started hearing them more often in the music I was listening to.  There are songs where you hear a folky-sounding track backed up by the banjo, and it really adds something to the song.  This track from Steve Martin (yes that Steve Martin) and Edie Brickell titled "Won't Go Back" totally shows what a banjo can do to amplify a song up to level 10 for me. 

So there we are!  My favorite sounds to hear when pursuing music.  I'm hoping that some of you might have your own ideas now, and can fill in the blanks yourself.  I can't wait to hear your thoughts!