Fun With Music: Crowded House

Tonight’s Background Music is provided by Crowded House.
Album:  After Glow
Best Song:  Private Universe

I’m adding a new feature to my blog entries.  I’m going to indicate what background music I’m listening to at the moment when I’m writing a journal-type blog post.  Why am I doing this, you ask?   No good reason.  It fills up space.  It adds a bit of color to an otherwise uninteresting blog post.  It’s like when the teacher would ask you to write a 500 word essay on something, you very quickly became adept at padding the essay with a lot of unnecessary words.  This is no different.  Padding R Us.

By the way, when I pick out what music I’m going to listen to when I write, it is largely random.  My iPod has over 6000 songs on it and choosing a song can be a little overwhelming sometimes.  So I just sort of “spin the wheel” and see what comes up.  However, I veto a lot of things that pop up.  For instance, I don’t like to listen to anything too abrasive  or “heavy”  when I’m writing.  This would include artists such as Nazareth, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (or any ELP spin-offs or derivatives), Def Leppard, GooGoo Dolls, etc.

Also, I generally don’t like to listen to songs with lyrics to them if I’m going to be writing, though there are exceptions.  Crowded House is one of those exceptions.  Their music is just so evocative of a certain mood that I really like.  Their songs are very literate and cerebral, as well as very complex musically.  Pink Floyd is that way, too.

When i write, I usually like to listen to jazz (e.g. Kirk Whalum,  Chuck Mangione, Dave Koz, Larry Carlton, Eric Darken, the Rippingtons, etc.) or “new age” (e.g. David Lanz & Paul Speer, Andreas Vollenweider, Acoustic Alchemy, Jim Brickman, Secret Garden, etc.) or “international” (e.g. Loreena McKinnet, Enya, Basia, etc.).  Those types of music help block out ambient noise without intruding into my thoughts too much.  They shape my thoughts in subtle ways, but they don’t derail my thoughts.  I feel they enhance, rather than distract.

What about you?  What kind of music do you like to listen to while you write?