Writer's Block: Music and Moods

[i_amthecosmos]

[Error: unknown template qotd]I have a huge collection of music, yet play the same stuff over and over. I tend to mostly listen to punk or punk-influenced rock, especially when stressed. I have folk and folk rock to help me when I'm depressed. It's hard to remain depressed when listening to Irish fiddles.

I play singer songwriters while cleaning the house, but that's not really a mood.

Also, some of my feel-good music might seem near suicidal to others: I really love Chris Bell, and like to give out copies of cd. I have literally warned people: "Don't play it while driving alone at night the first time, don't play it when depressed the first time." It's a heavy record, you have to build up a tolerance. Although personally, I think "Pet Sounds" by the Beach Boys is a lot sadder.

Comments

[drummergurl4.livejournal.com]

Hello there, I noticed your icon and had to take a look. I love your answer(and your icons). I hope you don't mind if I friend you, I might add you to AIM if you don't mind that either). I usually listen to some dark music when I'm in a depressed or anger mood, for some reason it makes things seem better. I've never heard of Chris Bell though, I'll have to look him up. Hope I haven't creeped you out too much.

[i-amthecosmos.livejournal.com]

No, not creepy at all! I always plan to use another icon, and I always leave my default MCR up. I love those guys.

Chris Bell was a member of the band Big Star, who were together in the early 70's. They are a cult band now, with a strong following but still not exactly famous. Chris left the group after one record, spent some time in mental hospitals, traveled to Europe, and recorded a record nobody wanted to put out. He died in 1978.

Fourteen years after his death, Rykodisc put out the record "I Am the Cosmos" and it's been in print ever since. It's an amazing record. There's my icon of him, he was pretty good looking.

[drummergurl4.livejournal.com]

Sweet, I'm not a creeper!! I love those boys, too.

Wow, for that story alone I'm gonna go download him. And I will agree with you, he is kinda good looking.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

I suspect I would like Chris Bell too, since I adore Big Star (though to be fair my *absolute* fave is the third album). But the snippets I've heard of his post-Big Star recordings sound very familiar and very *me*. And yeah, uplifting in a blue kind of way.

[i-amthecosmos.livejournal.com]

It's just such a beautiful record, so well-crafted. He recording it using the Beatle's engineer, so it's lush and has that sound a bit.

But I can understand why nobody wanted to put the record out in the 70's. Even by singer-songwriter standards, Chris was a bit too confessional. One of the lyrics is "It's suicide/I know, I tried it twice". Which is the truth, and that must have freaked out people in the mellow 70's. You know, before punk blew everyone's doors down with unhappy emotions.