I’m not alone here in my love for Steve Mason’s Meet the Humans.
Headphones on, I’ve been listening to this ear candy constantly at work.
It’s making me both happy and productive.
I think I’m in love with it.
Who makes you happy, smiley and productive at work?
If I was to have headphones on at work, I would get the sack. So I sing to myself. My vocal projection is such that I sing to the first carriage of the train as well. This is my new favourite song.
This is lovely Cheshire. Very mellow, nice guitar. Thanks.
Are you a train driver…? ❤️
Yup.
Martin made a series of fabulous (now hard to get) instrumental albums in the 90s for US labels. Then he came back to Britain, started singing again and winning a folk award for something every year, and I haven’t bought an album since. I just don’t like his voice. But his instrumental playing and arranging (of instrumental music) is sublime, to my ears.
Maybe you’d prefer to hear my version then *smiley face thing*. His voice is idiosyncratic, to say the least, but he shares that quality with many of our finest lyricists, who reserve the right to sing their own songs, I guess. I really rate him as a songwriter; I have several of his in my repertoire.
Oh yes, I love Martin Simpson’s instrumental albums. What a player!
– A Closer Walk with Thee (this is the first one I bought, and also my favourite – that’s normally the way of things, isn’t it?)
– Leaves of Life
– Cool and Unusual
You forgot one – a great one – ‘When I Was On Horseback’. Like most of this stuff, not on youtube.
I would agree with Colin about his early stuff, mainly as he tended to play it bleak and solo. Solo performances even now can still be both severe and a severe test of listening to. But his last 3 or 4 albums, and those within collaborations, like the Full English are great (or, apropos the FE, his songs are) as his voice resonates within a wider swell of instrumentation. He can write a good song too, these days
It is a stonker, and has massively relieved the monotony of washing up and housework in the past couple of weeks.
For getting stuff done quick (with no real care for the quality) I recommend Sex Pistols and/or Clash (or any other fine act from the genre we call Punk).
Indeed rigid. I love punk, being just the right age. Give me sex pistols, stranglers, Buzzcocks especially, but I think work would feel kinda different unless my tunes were mellow. I’d want to pogo around the office….
I like Beck too, his newish album has the right vibe for work. ❤️
My last couple of “working to” albums were:
Booker T & The MGs – McLemore Avenue
and
Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott – Wisdom, Laughter And Lines
both very productivity inducing, and just hold back enough to stop you wanting to jump around
I find it difficult to work with vocal music on. I only work rarely with music at all but have done so very recently with a couple of purchases made from AW recommendations: the Miles Davis mono box (the ‘Jazz Track’ LP several times) and a Roy Buchanan best-of – long instrumental passages, not so keen on his guest singers. i’ve worked out for 40 mins with the third of my three recent AW recs playing (which would definitely be no good for ecomonic activity), the new King Crimson live album.
I don’t think I have a favourite artist for work but most of the stuff that fits is what I would class as Americana. On most Fridays I put my collection of 10 Emmylou Harris albums on shuffle. I can’t see that I will ever tire of them.
Am I correct in thinking that they, the 10 albums that is, are the Original Album Series Vol. 1 & 2 @johnw?
You are. I don’t actually have any others digitally except collaborations such as the trio albums. It’s a hole that needs filing.
I work at home, and usually have R4 or 5 on with the volume fairly low.
If I put some music on, I prefer things which are quite evenly paced; sometimes acoustic, sometimes electronic, often with non-English lyrics.
iTunes reckons I play these the most; Goldfrapp’s Felt Mountain, Seventh Tree and Tales of Us; Kraftwerk Tour De France Soundtracks and Minimum Maximum; Gotan Project (the first two); The Imagined Village (mainly the first two); Shrift’s Lost In a Moment; Massive Attack’s Mezzanine; Blue Nile Peace At Last.
In my job it was all numbers, so I could listen to any kind of music at full blast and still be productive, probably more so.
These days when reading or writing it has to be instrumental-only stuff. This recent purchase is quite a trip, I expect you’ll love it 🙂
Side 1:
Side 2:
The Organist entertained you over both sides, I see.
I find Underworld albums to be very good when I really need to focus for a couple of hours. Not sure that I play them at any other time.
Blimey, playing music at work. The one time I do that is flu clinics, with background instrumental stuff to divert from the fact it is, basically, a conveyer belt and in/out. Because my job is primarily talking, if I had songs on whilst I’m consulting, I’d be stopping, or interrupting the patient, everytime a good bit, a lyrical couplet of brilliance or a solo segment of joy, to say, listen to this. And my musical tastes baffle my colleagues, so lord knows what the punters would feel about the Chumbas and Jackie Leven.
As I work in a fairly noisy factory Music and specifically Headphones are a must. Pretty much everyone listens to Music, Audiobooks or the Radio. And ones that don’t are the weirdos!
So in answer to the OP everything and anything.
I don’t want to be happy at work. I go there to suffer and punish myself for not trying harder in school.
I can’t play anything I would be distracted by, but sometimes need to avoid the distraction of office babble. I often play podcasts, though I often couldn’t tell you what they were about afterwards – gentle babble to block out babble. Other than that it’s instrumental mood music, the back catalogue of The Necks has been getting a run through of late.
I think I must be related to Gerald Ford (he of the chewing gum and falling downstairs). When I listen to music I can’t be doing anything else, certainly not work. I’m bad enough as it is, adding anything melodic could only mean trouble. However the spoken word helps and the occasional podcast is good first thing in the morning, especially the Witness ones from the World Service. They’re only 10 mins and interesting without being intrusive.