Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Tuesday's music roundup

I was expecting to have to go to a workshop this afternoon, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn it was cancelled. Sadly, the person presenting the workshop was really sick, but I was glad to have the day to hunker down and get a lot of work done.

Today, I listened to:
Fight for your mind by Ben Harper
Bridge by Blues Traveler
My better self by Dar Williams
Bleed like me by Garbage

Fight for your mind has my favorite Ben Harper song: By my side. I love how smokey and full of longing his voice is on that song. It's not a sexual longing, though, so much as a desperate need for companionship and solidarity. It might be brash and ballsy to compare him to Marvin Gaye, but I'm going to. His lyrics are alternately whimsical, full of longing, and politically charged (depending on the song). And his voice is smooth like caramel. Fight for your mind has a lot of reggae influence that Harper loses in some of his later work. I often wonder if commercial success changed his sound to appeal to a more mainstream palate.

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