What Music (albums, songs, etc.) Are You Listening To These Days?

These days (especially with Memorial Day weekend here in the U.S. around now), I've been listening to some CD's I picked up a few years back featuring recordings made by the American Band of the AEF back during WWII.





Some of the programs were originally broadcast from the Queensbury All-Services Club in London.

I've been sitting up half the night on Fridays, watching vintage 1980s epiodes of the BBC's old weekly chart show Top of the Tops. I love most early eighties music, that was 'my' era. Particularly the new romantics.

I listen to Leonard Cohen covers on the train when I'm depressed.

Lucy McGough wrote:I listen to Leonard Cohen covers on the train when I'm depressed.

And that helps, does it?

tony ingram wrote:

Lucy McGough wrote:I listen to Leonard Cohen covers on the train when I'm depressed.

And that helps, does it?

Yeah, his music MAKES me depressed.

I like a lot of music. Prince, to start, and been listening lately. Miles Davis also.

Continuing with my listening to WWII-era music listening,

Glenn Miller: The Lost Recordings

And for a slight change of pace,

The Essential Artie Shaw

MajorHoy wrote:Continuing with my listening to WWII-era music listening,

I often listen to WWII era radio shows, and that music is on them often. Pretty good stuff, really.

Mbast1 wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:Continuing with my listening to WWII-era music listening,

I often listen to WWII era radio shows, and that music is on them often. Pretty good stuff, really.

There were many entertaining radio programs back in the 1930s and 1940s.
Years and years (and years!) ago, it was easy to find either cassette tapes or (later) CD collections in book stores like Barnes & Noble here in the states, and often at halfway decent prices. They were great when I was driving for about an hour or so on highways late at night.
However, I haven't seen them in stores for a while now, nor do they seem to be at a couple of libraries I've checked. You either have to download them from the internet (but I don't own any device to play them on other than a home computer) or buy them through the internet, but that can involve paying quite a bit for just the shipping!

MajorHoy wrote:You either have to download them from the internet (but I don't own any device to play them on other than a home computer) or buy them through the internet, but that can involve paying quite a bit for just the shipping!

I've bought them from Ebay for really low prices. You can just download them from Archive.org (and a player would be pretty cheap too) and listen at your leisure. I usually listen while I'm driving.

tony ingram wrote:And that helps, does it?

Yes, because he sings how I'm feeling.

Currently been listening to


Sentimental Journey: Hits from the Second World War
(music from The War - A Ken Burns Film)

It features various songs / artists from that era, including:
* "Little Brown Jug" (Glenn Miller)
* "Pennies from Heaven" (Teddy Wilson & His Orchestra with Billie Holiday)
* "Memories of You" (Louis Armstrong)
* "Blues In The Night (My Mama Done Tol' Me)" (Cab Calloway & His Orchestra)
* "Sentimental Journey" (Les Brown & His Orchestra with vocals by Doris Day)

Artie Shaw & His Orchestra with  Robert Benchley ‎– Old Gold "Melody & Madness" Shows (from 1939)

I've been listening to modern music because a new addition to my office insists on listening to a radio while she works. I have come to the conclusion that modern music is rubbish. Sometimes she listens to a station that plays older music, but it just does the same songs over and over again. So that's rubbish too.

Lucy McGough wrote:I've been listening to modern music because a new addition to my office insists on listening to a radio while she works. I have come to the conclusion that modern music is rubbish. Sometimes she listens to a station that plays older music, but it just does the same songs over and over again. So that's rubbish too.

The annoying thing about radio is that even stations that are more of a Top 40/heavy rotation type will have the problem that after they play a song, it's probably not uncommon for them to get people calling up and asking the station to play that same song again. (I know when I use to work in radio years ago that would frequently happen.)

But back then people couldn't listen to music on their phones or computers, so they had more of an excuse.

Lucy McGough wrote:But back then people couldn't listen to music on their phones or computers, so they had more of an excuse.

Back in the last century, people still had access to personal music listening devices, primitive as they may have been.

MajorHoy wrote:

Lucy McGough wrote:But back then people couldn't listen to music on their phones or computers, so they had more of an excuse.

Back in the last century, people still had access to personal music listening devices, primitive as they may have been.

I loved my Walkman...

tony ingram wrote:I loved my Walkman...

When I was in junior high school (late 70s) one of my friends made money by taking a cassette tape player, attaching it to a flat board, and then adding speakers to it.

Mbast1 wrote:

tony ingram wrote:I loved my Walkman...

When I was in junior high school (late 70s) one of my friends made money by taking a cassette tape player, attaching it to a flat board, and then adding speakers to it.

A primitive "boom box"?

"Yes! We Have No Bananas"


from Benny Goodman & The Rhythm Makers: Good to Go

(Unfortunately, I don't believe I own any albums with the song "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts".

Tracy is off work for the rest of the week, so I have some respite from the endless 'music'.

Lucy McGough wrote:Tracy is off work for the rest of the week, so I have some respite from the endless 'music'.

Time to crank up the Leonard Cohen tunes and rock out!

MajorHoy wrote:A primitive "boom box"?

Exactly. I'm not saying he invented them, of course, because he made them after the first one's came out. I just thought it was interesting.

MajorHoy wrote:Time to crank up the Leonard Cohen tunes and rock out!  

No. I'm enjoying the silence, since it has become a rare and precious commodity.

I'm guessing I might have been the only one here to have a Close 'n Play phonograph when I was a kid?


By the way, I also had (and still own) some 8-track tapes from back in the '70s. (Never had a separate machine to play them; there was a player as part of an old one-piece stereo system I use to have.)

MajorHoy wrote:I'm guessing I might have been the only one here to have a Close 'n Play phonograph when I was a kid?

I had something similar. It looked like a typewriter case, but it was a record player.

MajorHoy wrote:some 8-track tapes from back in the '70s. (Never had a separate machine to play them; there was a player as part of an old one-piece stereo system I use to have.)

My grandmother gave my brother and I (we shared a room as kids) a cabinet with a record player and an 8-track player. And the first car I had (technically my Dad's, but he let me drive it) had an 8-track player in it.

Mbast1 wrote: . . . the first car I had (technically my Dad's, but he let me drive it) had an 8-track player in it.

Never had a car with an 8-track player in it.
Did have a cb radio hooked up to a car I had.
And I also tended to refer to the family automobile when I first started driving (a 1976 Plymouth Volaré station wagon) as "my car" because my Mom didn't have a driver's license and my Dad only drove it on weekends. I normally drove it during the week to school and a part-time job I had a few weeknights and on Sunday during the school year. (By the way, it did actually become the second car I owned; when my Dad got a new car, I took his old car and he traded in my car in exchange.)

Albums I've most recently been listening to are:

Tommy Dorsey - Greatest Hits (RCA Victor, 1996)
and

Swing! - Greatest Hits (RCA Victor, 1996)

We've gotta pick a track for me to walk up the aisle to. So far we're leaning towards 'Here Comes the Bride', because it's traditional.

Lucy McGough wrote:We've gotta pick a track for me to walk up the aisle to. So far we're leaning towards 'Here Comes the Bride', because it's traditional.

A friend of mine is always partial to "Brick House" by The Commodores (from back in 1977).
"Ow, she's a brick house
She's mighty-mighty, just lettin' it all hang out
She's a brick house
That lady's stacked and that's a fact
Ain't holding nothing back

Ow, she's a brick house
Well put-together, everybody knows
This is how the story goes

She knows she got everything
That a woman needs to get a man, yeah, yeah
How can she lose with the stuff she use
Thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six oh what a winning hand

'Cause she's a brick house
She's mighty-mighty, just lettin' it all hang out
She's a brick house
Ow, that lady stacked and that's a fact
Ain't holding nothing back

Ow, she's a brick house
Yeah, she's the one, the only one, built like an amazon

The clothes she wears, her sexy ways
Make an old man wish for younger days, yeah, yeah
She knows…"
(Admittedly, it's probably not very "traditional" . . . )

No, I will not be walking down the aisle to 'Brick House' by the Commodores.

Lucy McGough wrote:No, I will not be walking down the aisle to 'Brick House' by the Commodores.

Don't worry . . . I won't suggest Billy Idol's 'White Wedding'.

We've gone for 'Here Comes the Bride'.

Lucy McGough wrote:We've gone for 'Here Comes the Bride'.

Aw, man, did you guys miss an opportunity. I could just see the giant musical number from Brick House!

Mbast1 wrote:

Lucy McGough wrote:We've gone for 'Here Comes the Bride'.

Aw, man, did you guys miss an opportunity. I could just see the giant musical number from Brick House!

Or Kool & the Gang's "Get Down on It".

"What you gonna do? You wanna get down?
Tell me, what you gonna do? Do you wanna get down?
What you gonna do? You wanna get down?
What you gonna do? You wanna get down? Tell me

Get down on it, get down on it
Get down on it, get down on it, come on and
Get down on it, get down on it
Get down on it, get down on it

How you gonna do it if you really don't want to dance
By standing on the wall?
(Get your back up off the wall) tell me
How you gonna do it if you really don't wanna dance
By standing on the wall, get your back up off the wall

'Cause I heard all the people sayin'
Get down on it, come on and
Get down on it, if you really want it
Get down on it, you gotta feel it
Get down on it, get down on it
get down on it, come on and
get down on it, baby, baby
Get… "

They didn't even play 'Here Comes the Bride' all the way through...

Lucy Ingram wrote:They didn't even play 'Here Comes the Bride' all the way through...

Did you walk too quickly?

Yes, maybe that was it

These days, I've been alternating between Big Band and Blues, but currently I've got


Tommy Dorsey in the cd player.

Cocktail Lounge cd, originally from Pottery Barn (store chain here in the U.S.) back around 2000.

Includes tracks from Mel Torme, Lena Horne, Wayne Newton, Sarah Vaughn, and Eartha Kitt (among others).

MajorHoy wrote:
Cocktail Lounge cd, originally from Pottery Barn (store chain here in the U.S.) back around 2000.

Includes tracks from Mel Torme, Lena Horne, Wayne Newton, Sarah Vaughn, and Eartha Kitt (among others).

I see there is a (from the  Bats tv series of the 60s) comics connection even in what you are listening, Major!

Barry_Allen wrote:

MajorHoy wrote: . . . Cocktail Lounge cd, originally from Pottery Barn (store chain here in the U.S.) back around 2000.

Includes tracks from Mel Torme, Lena Horne, Wayne Newton, Sarah Vaughn, and Eartha Kitt (among others).

I see there is a (from the  Bats tv series of the 60s) comics connection even in what you are listening, Major!

For that one there was, but now I'm listening to another cd from Pottery Barn,

Martini Lounge (1996)
and while it includes the theme song from a Matt Helm movie of the 1960s, that's about as close as this one comes to anything vaguely comic book-related.

Moving on to


Ultra-Lounge Vol.5 - Wild, Cool & Swingin' (1996)

Had been listening to

Artie Shaw: Best of the Big Bands
but now I've got

Les Brown: Best of the Big Bands playing.