Because I love this sort of thing, let's face it...
'First, make a list of your overall top-20 artists. Then, for each of these artists, add the 8 most similar artists to your list. Delete any duplicates, add up the number of entries on your list and this will give you some idea of how eclectic your listening habits are. A score of 9 represents an extremely unvaried musical taste while a 160 represents an extremely varied one.'
*An aside: I still don't understand why all of OtR's linked bands are Christian, as some of their songs are about sex and none that I have heard have obvious religious messages, they do not mention god during concerts, and they say nothing about Christianity on their website. Still looking for some insight here...
This is my personal taste and not a criticism of anybodies music, or taste. I set this up so that all the new bands I have found I can easily know what I think of them
This Circle mix collects together recordings of people I know telling stories, an old recording of mine (Catchers), a new cover version ('Abilene' by Damien Jurado) which is exclusive to this mix, some label mates from Talitres (Thee Stranded Horse, Swell, frànçois and the Atlas Mountains) and some music I like to listen to.
Finding indie artists of today covering Frank Sinatra on iTunes inspired me to look through my music library for some more singers of today covering the hits of yesterday, preferred songs from the 30s, 40s or 50s. Well, this was the plan but finally it turned out that I wasn't able to find covers of such old songs. The second approach was gathering cover songs twice as old as the performer but this rule has been broken if I found a cover song that was too awesome to exclude it from the list. Special thanks go to the people at the Flowerbox at KGRL's website for their contributions.
I also purchased but am waiting to receive the following: B! Machine - The Other Girl (I don't think it is actually out yet) The Innocence Mission - The Innocence Mission (a vinyl copy. Heard a few tracks here and decided I must have it. Vinyl should be even better)
My sister more specifically bought the Depeche Mode stuff, but I listen to it to. She also bought Muse - Absolution, but it's not really my cup of tea.
To celebrate the artist #10,000 in my Last.fm library, Kira Willey, I follow the advice of my friend MagdA88 and set iTunes on shuffle to create a playlist from the 120,000 tracks:
43
359 Anna Ternheim 43
359 Scott Matthews 43
359 Port O'Brien 43
359 The View 43
359 Richard Youngs 43
359 Alexi Murdoch 43
370 Lightspeed Champion 42
370 Arid 42
370 Blaudzun 42
370 John Phillips 42
370 Larkin Grimm 42
370 Secret Machines 42
370 Sleeping States 42
370 JJ Grey & Mofro 42
370 R.E.M. 42
370 Bowerbirds 42
370 Room Eleven 42
370 Hole 42
382 Mew 41
382 Calla 41
382 Cat Power 41
382 Eric Clapton & JJ Cale 41
386 Kathleen Edwards 40
386 The Stone Roses 40
386 Danna 40
386 Mellow Candle 40
386 Nouvelle Vague 40
386 Mavis Staples 40
386 Nina Nastasia And Jim White 40
386 Zita Swoon 40
394 Right Away, Great Captain 39
394 Patrick Watson 39
394 Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man 39
394 Four Tet 39
394 The Rakes 39
394 James Yorkston and The Athletes 39
394UNKLE 39
394 31knots 39
394 José González 39
394 Malcolm Middleton 39
394 Dennis Kolen 39
394 Madeleine Peyroux 39
406 Pixies 38
406 Super Furry Animals 38
406 Maritime 38
406 Cranes 38
406 Carla Bruni 38
406 Tapes 'n Tapes 38
406 The Black Crowes 38
406 Gravenhurst 38
406 George Michael 38
406 Newton Faulkner 38
406 Mark Lanegan38
406 Felix da Housecat 38
406 Dire Straits 38
406 Efterklang 38
420 The Reindeer Section 37
420 Robert Gomez 37
420 Rainer Maria 37
420 Matt Nathanson 37
420 David McComb 37
420 Stuart A. Staples 37
420 The Besnard Lakes 37
420 Kaiser Chiefs 37
420 Laura López Castro 37
420
37
420 Play
Gallon Drunk
37
420 Play
John Vanderslice
37
420 Castanets 37
433 Neil Diamond 36
433 The Twilight Sad 36
433 Vyvienne Long 36
433 Sun Kil Moon 36
433 Nina Simone 36
433 Ben Folds Five 36
433 The Radio Dept. 36
433 Grand Archives 36
441 Raul Midon 35
441 Old Crow Medicine Show 35
441 Franz Ferdinand 35
441 Soul Coughing 35
441 Traffic
Want to listen to "Moon River" over and over again? I've tagged as many cover versions as I could find on last.fm - plus the original sung and instrumental versions, of course - as moon river covers, and the list is still growing.
"MOON RIVER" is a song composed by Johnny Mercer (lyrics) and Henry Mancini (music) in 1961, for whom it won that year's Academy Award for Best Original Song. It is most well-known for being sung in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's by Audrey Hepburn, although it has been covered by many other artists.
It became the theme song for Andy Williams, who first recorded the song in 1961 and performed it at the Academy Awards ceremonies in 1962. He sang the first eight bars of the song at the beginning of his television show; he also named his production company and venue in Branson, Missouri after Moon River. Williams' version was vetoed by Cadence president Archie Bleyer, who believed it had little or no appeal to teenagers. Williams' famous version never charted, except as an LP track, which he recorded for Columbia in a hit album of 1962.
The success of the song was responsible for relaunching Mercer's career as a songwriter, which had stalled in the mid-1950s because rock and roll replaced jazz standards as the popular music of the time. An inlet near Savannah, Georgia, Johnny Mercer's hometown, was named Moon River in honor of him and this song. The popularity of the song is such that it has been used as a test sample in a study on people's memories of popular songs.
The original version
Mercer and Mancini wrote the song for Audrey Hepburn to fit her vocal range. Initially the lyrics started, "I'm Holly, like I want to be / like Holly on a tree back home...", however they were later changed to fit the theme to the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Although an instrumental version is played over the film's opening titles, the lyrics are first heard in a scene where Paul 'Fred' Varjak (George Peppard) discovers Holly Golightly (Hepburn) singing them, accompanied by her guitar, on the fire-escape outside their apartments.
There was much behind-the-scenes consternation which erupted when a Paramount Pictures executive suggested deleting the song from the film immediately after a very successful San Francisco preview. Hepburn's reaction has been described by Mancini and others in degrees varying from her saying "over my dead body" to her using somewhat more colorful language to make the same point.
Hepburn's version was not included in the original score album to Breakfast at Tiffany's. Instead, an album version recorded by Mancini and his chorus was released as a single and became a #11 hit. In different versions, Joel Whitburn's "Top Adult (Contemporary) Songs" reported the song as a #3 or #1 easy listening hit, due to unpublished charts in Billboard. Only months after Hepburn's death in 1993, her version was released on an album entitled Music From the Films of Audrey Hepburn.
Other recordings
"Moon River" was released by South African singer Danny Williams, and reached #1 in the UK. Shortly thereafter, Andy Williams recorded the song and made it his theme song. It was a hit for Jerry Butler in 1961, reaching #11 in the Billboard charts. Artists who have recorded the song include: