The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

You are here: Home / Forum / What albums are your musical blanket? The one you go to, to calm you down after whatever annoying moment in your life.

What albums are your musical blanket? The one you go to, to calm you down after whatever annoying moment in your life.

by 71 Comments

The Waterboys ‘A Pagan Place’ for me

0

Comments

  5. For “calming down”:
    Henry Priestman – Chronicles Of Modern Life
    Marillion – Misplaced Childhood
    Deutsche Elektronische Musik – Kraut Rock compilation

    For “being noisy”:
    Sex Pistols – Never Mind The Bollocks
    The Who – Quadrophenia
    Carter USM – 30 Something

    Somewhere In Between:
    Pink Floyd – The Wall
    High Fidelity Soundtrack
    Goodbye Nashville, Hello Camden Town – Pub Rock Compilation

  6. JS Bach – Goldberg Variations, preferably played by Rosalyn Tureck.

    Oh: and Kind of Blue. And John Coltrane’s Ballads album. And anything, really, by Ella Fitzgerald.

  7. I have three albums that are guaranteed to make me feel relaxed and content:

    Jimmy Giuffre – The Train and The River
    Charlie Byrd – Blues for Night People
    Djivan Gasparyan – I Will Not Be Sad In This World

  9. Martin Stephenson & Daintees- There comes a Time.
    Ian Dury & Blockheads- Do It Yourself.
    Christy Moore – Voyage.
    There are probably a few more but these 3 are who come to mind .

  10. Fly like an eagle – Steve Miller Band
    Dixie Chicken – Little Feat
    Some day my prince will come – Miles
    Trois Gymnopedies – Satie
    Ballads – John Coltrane

  12. It would be a compilation I’ve put together featuring Christy Moore, Simon and Garfunkel, This Mortal Coil, The Waterboys, World Party, Beach Boys and more. The thing is I seldom get annoyed.

  13. The thing is if you are annoyed you need something noisy and aggressive to help get it out of your system. That said I find I want smoother sounds these days, some kind of escape from noise and constant work phones, colleagues loud exchanges.

  14. As mentioned elsewhere on this site recently I have mega-compilation minidiscs linked to certain moods but if there’s one album I play when I need to chill out, my go to is New Gold Dream by Simple Minds. I’ve three copies on CD now; one in the kitchen/sitting room, one in my den and one at work in case I just need to switch off.

  15. Kirsty McGee – Contraband
    the confident, tender voice of a mother intimate in your ears
    Penguin Cafe Orchestra – When In Rome
    All Simon Jeffes’ classics, live, so they get the warm applause they deserve
    Angelo Badalamenti – The Straight Story
    Tender cradling from strings and plucked guitar, echoing a simple yet plangent film. Especially Rosa’s theme
    Van Morrison – Common One
    Take off your big boots, your great coat, and rest awhile.

  16. A combination of familiar and much loved, and calming, stuff is what I go to. So Van is an obvious choice – Astral Weeks, Veedon Fleece, Common One, Poetic Champions Compose always hit the spot. But there are others; for example Bill Frisell’s The Intercontinentals, Ry Cooder and Ali Farka Toure’s Talking Timbuktu, Kandace Springs’ Soul Eyes all remind me that life is too short etc etc

  17. Something I know every note of. 3 strong contenders would be Richard and Linda Thompson – Pour Down Like Silver, Thea Gilmore – Rules for Jokers, Tom Waits – Rain Dogs

  19. Something that takes me back to those times when all seemed possible or reminds me of people I have loved and miss.
    Prefab Sprout Steve Mc Queen
    Camel Snow Goose
    John Grant The Queen of Denmark
    Rachmaninov 2nd Symphony
    Olafur Arnalds re:member

  20. This is a really great thread already.

    I’m going to listen to a bunch of these I’ve not yet heard.

    Mine are Logical Progression Volume 1, Bob Dylan Albert Hall 66, Rhythm of the Saints, The Imperfect Sea by Penguin Cafe, Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers, Diamond Life by Sade and Tarot Sport by Fuck Buttons.

  21. Grand Prix – Teenage Fanclub
    Morning/Evening – Four Tet
    Diamond Mine – King Creosote & John Hopkins
    Rattlesnakes – Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
    Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust – Sigur Ros
    Boxer – The National

    • Oh, yes!!! Soil Festivities is an amazing album, I listen to it often. It should be as widely acknowledged as Eno, but I guess the big guy was just not taken seriously.

      • Nice, I thought I was alone in loving it. It’s amazing that an album full of 80’s synths could sound so warm and organic.

        I think he was taken fairly seriously (there’s Blade Runner, and didn’t he win an Oscar for COF?) but faded after that, as most artists do.

  26. A few years ago I had a bit of a health scare and a rush into hospital. First album I scrolled to to calm myself was Blood On The Tracks, so I guess that’s the definitive answer for me.

    The Saint Etienne thread also reminded me that So Tough is one I always go back to in times of upheaval.

    Springsteen’s Tunnel Of Love is a touchstone too. It’s not many people’s favourite by him, but it is mine.

    Honourable mentions also to Graceland, Boxer by The National and Takk by Sigur Ros.

  27. Not so much emotional comfort blankets, but my go albums for relaxing late night with headphones on would be
    – Talk Talk / Spirit Of Eden
    – Dire Straits / Love Over Gold
    – Pink Floyd / Wish You Were Here

  28. Definitely ‘The Köln Concert Part I’. I think it’s the most perfect piece of music ever and very, very calming. I can still hear every note of it in my head.

    I also love an album I have called ‘Buddhist Chants & Peace Music: Music for Reflection and Relaxation from the Far East’ by Jin Long Uen & Song Huei Liou, plus a New Age album called ‘Medicine Woman’ by Medwyn Goodall. Calm, calm, calm.

  29. Slightly different answer. Rather than ‘when life annoys me’, I think of what I reach for when life lays me low. Then, I don’t want the familiarity of a favourite album, nor do I want one to be associated with bad times. Then, the blanket is unfamiliar classical, of which I have inherited plenty. It’s a non-judgmental voice keeping me company.

  30. A couple of years ago, I turned on the radio as soon as I got up and heard about an awful event in London within ‘seven seconds’ of so doing and vowed never again to listen to news first thing.

    So now it’s silence and work, one of those BBC comps. (Beatles, Yardbirds, Who, Kinks, Jimi) for the illusion of a morning radio show but without the music that that now entails, or folk (one of those Bert Jansch, John Martyn, Davy Graham albums or John Martyn’s first two).

    I always wake up to “Another Monday” by John Renbourn (66) on… erm… Mondays.

    • Most wise. The news is better absorbed slowly over the course of the day rather than with rapt if sleepy attention first thing. I usually start each day with a couple of chapters of whatever audiobook I’m engaged upon followed by a little music, then a little more music and a book orientated podcast. Only then do I turn my attention to the ‘outside’.

      • I worry about ignoring the news is akin to giving up. I like the concept of absorbing it over the course of the day.

        I normally start the day listening to the bits of the podcast I fell asleep listening to and, after a tea, I’ll do Wordle and get up and get ready for work. I may, then, have a peek at the BBC news and the New York Times news. And slightly deflate.

  31. Some fantastic suggestions here.

    To change mood/chill down, I love Air-Moon Safari and New York electronic guy Arp – especially the Zebra album from 2018. Try the track Nzuku first.

    Other beautiful music in a similar vein from Bibio – Petals and then there’s Morcheeba – The Sea.

    Further options are the radio including Radio Paradise Mellow Mix, the wonderful FiP from Paris in jazz mode and BBC’s newish Radio 3 Unwind, mainly classical and so well put together.

  32. I usually use music to fire me up and get me started, but for quieter periods there is Judee Sill (particularly Crayon Angels off her first album) and Karen Dalton’s In My Own Time.

    • I cannot watch the news in any substantial detail now – it is invariably depressing and often of questionable veracity.

      The go to’s for me can change but here are the ones I find myself going back to most frequently:

      Paul Simon – Still crazy after all these years
      Ron Sexsmith – self titled (the one with Secret Heart)
      Lucinda Williams – Essence
      Elvis Costello – King of America
      Elbow – Seldom seen kid
      Songs of Leonard Cohen

  34. These seem to do it for me if I need to put the earphones in and de-stress..

    Matt Deighton – Doubtless Dauntless
    Miles Davis – In a Silent Way
    Paul Weller – Paul Weller
    China Crisis – Flaunt The Imperfection
    The High Llamas – Gideon Gaye

  38. I’ve been pondering this conundrum for the past couple of days without coming to much of an answer.

    But half an hour ago I finally had the house to myself and got cooking (chicken casserole, since you ask). It’s been a stressful day, what with the son-in-law firing his nail gun into the house for hours on end, two small ratbags rampaging around the place, the mrs multitasking between working in her office and feeding up her son, not that he needs it. But of course we had to juice beetroot and celery at the eleventh hour, because the kitchen wasn’t chaotic enough. She’s now gone to spend the night with her mother. 😏

    So, comfort blanket music. Of course, Michael Nesmith! Don’t much care what – I generally kick off with the Best Of, and then move deeper as time goes on. Love his songs, love his voice, love the superb stylings of pedal steel maestro Red Rhodes.

    Aaaaah.

  39. I don’t really use music in this way.
    In fact, these days I don listen to music all that much anymore, and that has to do with the devices I listen to music to.
    On my computer I have access to all of my music, but I only listen to music when I write (which I’ve been doing a lot of lately, on my sick leave, but ordinarily I have very little time for that).

    In my kitchen I have a mini CD and cassette system – the cassette deck recently died, taking a tape with it into the grave – and I listen to select CDs when I’m cooking or doing the washing-up.
    Because of my work hours I normally do that only twice a week, cooking up a lot and freezing lunchboxes for work and washing up after myself. But since my knee injury I’ve been cooking less, settling for easy meals mostly and in no need for lunchboxes. So not much kitchen music lately, but when I do cook I want the music to be lively and uptempo, to give me energy and joy.

    I also have a CD walkman that I use to listen to new albums on just after they arrive, a few times, to get into them quicker. But I only listen this way in the morning, and not all mornings, while getting ready for work. I have several iPods full of music, but they were filled by a friend, so not all my music of choice. I usually only listen to these when I have to travel far.

    When I work, I work in a shop that blasts a radio station all day long through the loudspeakers. So after a long day of listening to the popular hits of the day at least three or four times each, I want it to be quiet when I get home. So that has changed my listening behaviour in the past ten years or so.

    The closest to what you’re asking for was, I guess, when I lived in my first flat in my twenties and early thirties, and had a heavenly bathtub. Every Sunday I would take a long bath, with a book, and blast my favourite classical LP on my stereo, bathroom door open, to reach maximum relaxation.
    That album was (and is) The English Chamber Orchestra/Raymond Leppard’s interpretations of Bach’s violin concertos (BWV 1041-1042) and Haydn’s violin concerto #1. Gorgeous.
    But I’d say that if the goal isn’t to relax, but to get in a better mood, I’d rather listen to some great dance music; disco, funk, Prince, etc. Or some joyfully noisy punk music or basically anything from the 1980s. Which, as any fule knows, was the best decade for music in history! 😀

Leave a Reply