Music that will change your life.....

.....or at least sounds good in the background while you are doing other things. Aimee did a meme about her iPod and since I don't own an iPod, I thought I would just share some of what I'm listening to.

My musical tastes run the gamut, please understand, and there is really no excusing my taste. The CDs in my visor are the most telling (my visor Cds are on heavy rotation, understand) - I will share you with them now, the ones I can remember without actually walking out to my car, anyway, and you can furrow your brow and wonder what is wrong with me:

• Medeski, Martin and Wood - Let's Go Everywhere - a friend of mine let me borrow this quite a while ago and I have not returned it yet. It's a fun, upbeat, downright funky album for kids. Bella loves it and begs for me to play it the moment she gets into the car.
• Best of Mozart - I would link to it, but I'm sure there are a billion Cds with this title, so I'm not going to bother. Pretty self-explanatory.
• Mexico and Mariachis: Music From and Inspired by Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi Trilogy See, told you it was a diverse collection
• Best of Lynyrd Skynyrd Oh, yeah, I've got it. You know you're jealous.
• And this got some heavy play until the stroller dislodged my car's speaker cables, forcing me to drive around with only my own thoughts for company (scary!): Songs for Christmas, Sufjan Stevens Some good, light, folk-y Christmas tunes, and was a total surprise gift from a good friend, which I think makes the music even better in its' own way.

Geez, without going out there, I can't remember them all. There are always two or three Harry Connick, Jr. albums hanging around in the visor - depending on my mood and the season. There's usually a Beck CD floating around, too. I also have a couple of CDs that people have burned for me, one of them collection of horribly cliche yet utterly enjoyable bad pop songs from the last twenty years or so, and the other is a collection of rap/hip-hop songs from the last twenty years or so. I do enjoy some rap and/or hip-hop music from time to time. I even own a few CDs - Jay-Z, Tupac, Ludacris, and a few others. Dr. Dre, of course. But anyway --- rounding out my wacky music collection is Mr. Ray Lamontagne.

I love......love love love Ray Lamontagne. If you like some light, easy on the ears, singer-songwriter type of stuff, please check him out. You will not be sorry. If you have to spend a lot of time in the car, his music is good driving around music. I own these two:

Trouble - The first three tracks on this album - Trouble, Shelter, and Hold You In My Arms, are worth the price of the CD, if you even buy CDs anymore.

Till the Sun Turns Black - I love almost every song on this album.

And I discovered, when poking around on Amazon this evening, that Mr. Lamontagne released a new CD in October of last year. So. Ahem. Any family members reading this and thinking to themselves, "whatever can I get Val for her birthday this year?", well, there you go.

So now that I have forced my musical tastes on you all and made a pathetic plea for a birthday gift, I will leave you with this funny/embarrassing story that really gives away how terribly un-hip I really am: waaaaaay back in the day, when Brian and I were dating, he bought a CD one night while we were out - I can't remember who exactly it was - Ice Cube, or Dr. Dre, or someone similar. I was reading the back of the jewel case and saw an artist I was unfamiliar with, so I asked a question. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Who's McRen?"

Brian: "Who?"

Me: "McRen, it says the name right here" and I showed him the name. He just looked at me for a moment, and then exploded with laughter - the kind where you have to wipe your eyes and your nose and you can't talk.

When he had finally settled down, I asked what was so funny, and he said: "It's not McRen, it's M.C. Ren" and then went off into gales of laughter again. So there you go then.

Happy weekend to all.