Listen Close

Music Genres and Active Listening

  • Listen Close: "Mehu Moments" by K-X-P - I like to think of myself as an open-minded music fan with varied tastes to match. But if you were to open up my iTunes and scan through the genres, you’d find that my eccentricities, no matter how expansive I wished they were, actually don’t stretch all that far. I’m probably the same as a […]
  • Listen Close: “Better Already” by Northern State - Northern State are no longer together, and though that’s a bummer, they left us with three hyper-fun—and very different—albums before they hung up their microphones a few years back. I’m not here to give you a Northern State history lesson (though I’d love to), but it’s worth mentioning because they’re one of those groups whose […]
  • Listen Close: "Pack Up The Cats" by Local H - Local H are known for being a reliably straightforward rock band (you probably at least remember them for their few and minor radio hits in the mid to late ’90s), but on Pack Up the Cats, their third proper LP, the two-piece pulled some left-field moves that I’ve always thought were uniquely strange, kind of […]
  • Listen Close: "Turnin’ on the Screw" by Queens of the Stone Age - Recent talk of the possibility of a new Queens of the Stone Age album before the end of 2011 has me certifiably giddy. I’m a big fan of lead-Queen Josh Homme’s side project Them Crooked Vultures, and their 2009 self-titled LP spent some serious time on my turntable. So, I suppose that has helped to […]
  • Listen Close: “Give Up the Ghost” by Radiohead - Sometimes it can feel like the music world is just treading water between Radiohead releases. Yes, we’ll listen to tons of other bands and fully enjoy many of them, but Radiohead remains one of the only groups that can still stop everyone dead in their tracks, getting them to drop what they’re doing and run […]
  • Listen Close: "Psychoanalytwist" by Milk Cult - Steel Pole Bath Tub were an undeniably prolific band, releasing somewhere in the neighborhood of ten EPs and LPs between the years 1987 and 1995, as well as a heaping handful of singles. But even this level of productivity wasn’t enough for these noise-rock weirdoes, and the 90’s found the main members of SPBT participating […]
  • Listen Close: "Pagan Poetry" by Björk - Find out what makes "Pagan Poetry" by Björk such a special track, and how you can use it to improve your musical listening skills through ear training.
  • Listen Close: The Sound of Sport - Note: Unfortunately Coca Cola have now taken down their web pages for the 2012 Olympics, so we have had to remove many of the links from this article. The London 2012 Olympic Games are sadly coming towards their close, but there’s still time to check out one of the coolest projects of the games: “Anywhere […]