Thriller - Michael Jackson

Just cuz.

And also because it won 8 Grammys.

Happy (almost) Halloween, and happy listening!

Michael Jackson – Thriller

Werewolves of London - Warren Zevon

Halloween week!  This weeks music selections are all about this special week of tricks and treats. And excess sugar.

We start with this classic by Warren Zevon. Originally released in 1978, this was one of the tracks that made the album, "Excitable Boy" extremely successful and helped Zevon become a familiar face in the music scene of the late seventies.

Zevon died of cancer back in 2003, very shortly after his release of his last album, "The Wind."  He has the distinctive honor of having won two Grammy Awards - both awarded  after his death, and both for this final album.

Warren Zevon – Werewolves Of London

Creole Love Song - Chanticleer

If you have never heard of Chanticleer... catch up, little tomato.


The San Francisco based ensemble was originally founded in 1978 by a graduate student in musicology interested in developing a group that sang music from the medieval and Renaissance periods. He used only male voices, as was the tradition in most churches during the Renaissance.To name the group, "Chanticleer" was suggested - the name of the "clear singing" rooster in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

The group has morphed over the years, and has included more than 100 singers over that time.  I had a chance to hear these guys perform a little over a year ago - and it was, hands down, the best concert I have ever attended. Their repertoire has expanded beyond their renaissance and medieval roots, and now perform an incredible array of music.

If you ever have a chance to hear them, I promise you, it will be like nothing else you have ever heard.

This video is from their concert in Budapest in January of this year.

Happy listening!

The Things Our Fathers Loved - Jan DeGaetani

Jan DeGaetani was someone whose voice I heard periodically through my undergraduate music days. She was featured on several recordings on the required listening lists. What I found so incredible was how lovely her voice was while she was singing all these wacky crazy contemporary pieces. She made several recordings still admired today of contemporary work, including the recording of George Crumb's masterpiece Ancient Voices of Children and Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire.

As I researched a bit more about her, I was surprised to learn that not only was she a Julliard graduate, but her students include some of the most notable voices in music of recent years, including Dawn Upshaw, Renee Fleming, and Karen Holvik.

She passed away back in 1989 from Leukemia at the age of 56, but I find her recordings to be amazingly sensitive and timeless.  This is a recording of the Charles Ives song, "The Things Our Fathers Loved."  The text is as follows:


I think there must be a place in the soul
all made of tunes, of tunes of long ago;
I hear the organ on the Main Street corner,
Aunt Sarah humming Gospels; Summer evenings,
The village cornet band, playing in the square.
The town's Red, White and Blue,
all Red, White and Blue; Now! Hear the words
But they sing in my soul of the things our Fathers loved.


Jan DeGaetani and Gilbert Kalish – The Things Our Fathers Loved

Grace Kelly - MIKA

The artist known as MIKA is a British singer/songwriter, and until about a week ago, I had never heard of him.  My bad.

His music strikes me as a ripe electronica fusion of Imogen Heap, Prince, and Elton John. Some really fun, interesting songs populate his latest album, "The Origin of Love."

"Grace Kelly" was his breakout hit from a few years ago hitting the #1 spot in the UK.  

Happy listening!

MIKA – Grace Kelly

Symphony #3: II - Henryk Gorecki

This particular piece of music is part of a larger work (Symphony #3) which is also known a "The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs." In this very unusual symphonic treatment, the composer weaves texts for a soprano soloist within the texture of an orchestra.

This movement uses as a text, an inscription on a cell wall in a Gestapo office in Zadopane, Poland during WWII:




No, Mother, do not weep,
Most chaste Queen of Heaven
Support me always.
"Zdrowas Mario." (*)
(*) "Zdrowas Mario" (Ave Maria)—the opening of the Polish prayer to the Holy Mother

Beneath this inscription is the signature of Helena Wanda Blazusiakówna, and the words "18 years old, imprisoned since 26 September 1944."

It is a beautiful, poigniant work.  The whole symphony is amazing.

Henryk Gorecki – Symphony No. 3: II. Lento E Largo - Tranquillissimo

Try - P!nk

I have a confession to make - I have a huge crush on P!nk.  (Please don't tell her husband Carey Hart. I would like to keep my face intact.)

Born Alecia Beth Moore, the singer better known as P!nk has been a fixture in the rock/pop scene for the last decade, known for her witty wordplay, female-empowering lyrics, and plain bad-ass rock stylings. She also trained as a gymnast, and stole the 2010 Grammy's while performing a mind-blowing aerial routine while singing "Glitter In The Air."  She manages to marry drama and music in her performance and videos.

The latest album, The Truth About Love, is more great music.  "Try" is one of the few songs she did not write herself, and the video is hypnotic, beautiful, disturbing, and powerful. What I think I like most about P!nk is that she is a musical artist with an emphasis on ART.  She creates music with subject matter that elicits an emotional and intellectual response from the listener (and in this video, the viewer.)

Somebody - Jukebox The Ghost

(After a month-long hiatus to handle a number of life changes, I am happy to re-fix my gaze to SongSupper. Did you miss me?)

Jukebox The Ghost is a now-NYC based three-piece band (recently relocating from Philadelphia). They have just released their third album, Safe Travels.  They have also released the accompanying commentary explaining a bit of background on the songs, which is now becoming more commonplace in the era of digital music launches.  They show a remarkable depth of thought in their songs, reflected in the unusual juxtaposition of lyrics and music.

Happy Listening!

Jukebox The Ghost – Somebody