Monday, November 14, 2011

Weekend, Aurally

The past weekend gave me a bumper opportunity to refine my aural taste. I was off to Rishikesh, that promised at least 12 hours onboard those rickety sarkari buses, another 6-12 hours of rambling about, and a chance few hours through a sleepless Saturday night (my body clock's messed up). The newly-possessed iPod Nano was guaranteed to be my best companion, if not some smalltalk-hobbyist in the bus or during my hike. So right before leaving, I loaded it with 'appropriate' music (a very selective choice, as dictated by my then-mood and sentiment); and further created a 'todo' playlist for the new stuff. Of the (potential) two dozen hours that I imagined I'd be plugged in, reality saw me at it for only a third of those - half the hours in the bus were dedicated to sleep, Rishikesh ghoom went sans any accompanying iPod, and the hike was best-enjoyed (and best-survived, too) tuning my ears to nature. But even those few hours gave me enough to listen, like, and reject.

TODO: Three albums that featured on this playlist were:
- Four Tet: Everything Ecstatic
- Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures
- Metallica and Lou Reed: Lulu (a musical adoption of Frank Wedekind's titular novel)

Individual reviews would be needless here - they all sucked. Tragic to see me deleting my music upon return.
- Four Tet was awesome with Rounds, but appalling with Everything Ecstatic.
- Joy Division, I think I can never get.
- Love Metallica. Love Lou Reed. But their threesome (Frank Wedekind being the third here) is a painful affair, probably THE most painful (as in "OMG this axe wound is painful") music to be ever made. As much a counterculture label as I flash, this one is too un-endorse-able.

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