music collection review, post 4
Jan. 23rd, 2026 12:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thedarlingoneHaving spent the evening working on a rag rug for my floor (braiding it is quick and fun, sewing it up takes for fucking ever), let's try a little more in the way of music.
* Battle Hymn of the Republic. I have two covers, Brentwood and Gettysburg. The Gettysburg one, which I don't think I've listened to before, is exactly what I'd want out of a marching-band cover of the song, peppy and driving, with a leading instrument that might be a fife? It's higher and brighter than a trumpet but I don't think it's a flute, it has a brassy resonance. Maybe it's some sort of piccolo bugle, idk. Brentwood is more moody, very orchestral, with a male choir joining in on some bits, and I've mainly kept it around because I didn't have a version I liked better, so that's probably an easy call.
* Bay of Biscay, Finest Kind. I feel like I used to know this chantey but it doesn't sound familiar? Maybe I'm thinking of a different song about the Bay of Biscay-o. I really want to like Finest Kind, their harmony is very pretty, but neither of their songs I've heard yet are ones I actually like.
* Beat the Drum, Great Big Sea. Like I said, I think Great Big Sea is largely too... rocky, instrumentated, for me? I'm not sure how I feel about this one.
* Beautiful Enemy, Dar Williams. I don't think I understand this one. The music grabs me but the lyrics confuse me.
* Beauty and the Beast (Reprise), stage musical soundtrack. So Kat showed me the Dresden Files TV show some twelve or thirteen years ago now, and that led to giving me a bunch of Terrence Mann's Broadway cast soundtracks, which included his work as Javert, Chauvelin, the Rum Tum Tugger, and the eponymous Beast of Beauty and the Beast. His baritone is exactly what I want my singing voice to be; it was aspirational back then, when I was still solidly an alto, and while I'm nowhere near matching him on agility (ever) or breath control (except when I'm very much in practice), I can now match his full vocal range, which pleases me intensely. Anyway that's why I have an assortment of odd bits of Broadway musicals in here, of which this particular track is not relevant to my interests.
* Beer Is Great, The Longest Johns. This... sounds exactly like a hobbit drinking song (positive).
* Before My Time, Johnny Cash. Not really grabbing me?
* Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms, from an album called It's a Great Day For the Irish which I strongly suspect of being relabeled; like so many of my albums, it came with no credits, so I have designated the musicians as the Great Day Irish Singers for convenience, although like a weird assortment of the singers of my Irish songs they do not have Irish accents. I thought I also had a Frank Patterson cover of this song but perhaps I'm imagining things.
* Belle, Beauty and the Beast cast / Belle (Reprise), ditto. I did not grow up on Disney movies so I'm not really attached to the rest of the storytelling beyond Terrence Mann's work.
* Belly Button, VeggieTales cast. Silly Songs with Larry has really evolved over the years, and this was their attempt at creating a boyband-style song. It's not a genre I'm familiar enough with to know whether they achieved the goal, but I always have to admire the commitment they put in.
* Benjamin Bowmaneer. This appears to have zero artist metadata that VLC can parse. It's an a cappella male chantey group with approximately the sound of the Longest Johns, but I don't have the ear to tell if it is them or another similar group.
* Better Things, Dar Williams. I have two versions of this. It's a hopeful song lyrically but musically I'm just not loving it?
* Big Band Hits of the Thirties, album for which I do not have a tracklist, and therefore all the tracks are named things like Big Band Hit 10. There are ten tracks, none of which are songs I recognize the tunes for, and that's all I know about them, so it's very hard to decide what to do with them since they pretty much blend together to my ear. Also for some reason I only have tracks 2-10.
I think I'm going to call that a night. I'm under 105 hours left to review, that's some sort of progress.
* Battle Hymn of the Republic. I have two covers, Brentwood and Gettysburg. The Gettysburg one, which I don't think I've listened to before, is exactly what I'd want out of a marching-band cover of the song, peppy and driving, with a leading instrument that might be a fife? It's higher and brighter than a trumpet but I don't think it's a flute, it has a brassy resonance. Maybe it's some sort of piccolo bugle, idk. Brentwood is more moody, very orchestral, with a male choir joining in on some bits, and I've mainly kept it around because I didn't have a version I liked better, so that's probably an easy call.
* Bay of Biscay, Finest Kind. I feel like I used to know this chantey but it doesn't sound familiar? Maybe I'm thinking of a different song about the Bay of Biscay-o. I really want to like Finest Kind, their harmony is very pretty, but neither of their songs I've heard yet are ones I actually like.
* Beat the Drum, Great Big Sea. Like I said, I think Great Big Sea is largely too... rocky, instrumentated, for me? I'm not sure how I feel about this one.
* Beautiful Enemy, Dar Williams. I don't think I understand this one. The music grabs me but the lyrics confuse me.
* Beauty and the Beast (Reprise), stage musical soundtrack. So Kat showed me the Dresden Files TV show some twelve or thirteen years ago now, and that led to giving me a bunch of Terrence Mann's Broadway cast soundtracks, which included his work as Javert, Chauvelin, the Rum Tum Tugger, and the eponymous Beast of Beauty and the Beast. His baritone is exactly what I want my singing voice to be; it was aspirational back then, when I was still solidly an alto, and while I'm nowhere near matching him on agility (ever) or breath control (except when I'm very much in practice), I can now match his full vocal range, which pleases me intensely. Anyway that's why I have an assortment of odd bits of Broadway musicals in here, of which this particular track is not relevant to my interests.
* Beer Is Great, The Longest Johns. This... sounds exactly like a hobbit drinking song (positive).
* Before My Time, Johnny Cash. Not really grabbing me?
* Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms, from an album called It's a Great Day For the Irish which I strongly suspect of being relabeled; like so many of my albums, it came with no credits, so I have designated the musicians as the Great Day Irish Singers for convenience, although like a weird assortment of the singers of my Irish songs they do not have Irish accents. I thought I also had a Frank Patterson cover of this song but perhaps I'm imagining things.
* Belle, Beauty and the Beast cast / Belle (Reprise), ditto. I did not grow up on Disney movies so I'm not really attached to the rest of the storytelling beyond Terrence Mann's work.
* Belly Button, VeggieTales cast. Silly Songs with Larry has really evolved over the years, and this was their attempt at creating a boyband-style song. It's not a genre I'm familiar enough with to know whether they achieved the goal, but I always have to admire the commitment they put in.
* Benjamin Bowmaneer. This appears to have zero artist metadata that VLC can parse. It's an a cappella male chantey group with approximately the sound of the Longest Johns, but I don't have the ear to tell if it is them or another similar group.
* Better Things, Dar Williams. I have two versions of this. It's a hopeful song lyrically but musically I'm just not loving it?
* Big Band Hits of the Thirties, album for which I do not have a tracklist, and therefore all the tracks are named things like Big Band Hit 10. There are ten tracks, none of which are songs I recognize the tunes for, and that's all I know about them, so it's very hard to decide what to do with them since they pretty much blend together to my ear. Also for some reason I only have tracks 2-10.
I think I'm going to call that a night. I'm under 105 hours left to review, that's some sort of progress.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-23 07:26 am (UTC)Awesome.
Beer Is Great, The Longest Johns. This... sounds exactly like a hobbit drinking song (positive).
I don't know either the band or the song and having resorted to YouTube, that's amazing.
I feel like I used to know this chantey but it doesn't sound familiar? Maybe I'm thinking of a different song about the Bay of Biscay-o.
I've got one by Waterson:Carthy which is a lover's ghost rather than a chantey.
I really want to like Finest Kind, their harmony is very pretty, but neither of their songs I've heard yet are ones I actually like.
I like their version of the Bellamy setting of Kipling's "A Pilgrim's Way." I also play their "Blackest Crow," although it's got something in the instrumentation that starts to crowd in on the close harmony. My favorite version of that song as opposed to any of its close relatives is probably Angi West, who may not work for you at all.
Big Band Hits of the Thirties, album for which I do not have a tracklist, and therefore all the tracks are named things like Big Band Hit 10.
Any chance it's this one?