Put Another Nickel In

So, I finally signed up for a paid music service: Slacker Radio. I'd been listening to the free version for a few days. It seemed to have the right set of features for my expectations -- bunches of genre-specific channels, and a recommendation I can have fun confusing. (It's a game I like to play: stump the recommendation engine. I feed in Steely Dan, Massive Attack, Sarah Vaughan, Frédéric Chopin, Weird Al, and a Gregorian chant or two; and tell it "recommend something, I dare you".) But I got sick of the commercials, so I upgraded. Technically, I'm still on the free trial, but I had to enter my credit card info even for that.

Speaking of manifestations of the terpsichorean muse (and the Firefox spell checker gets a point for knowing how to spell 'terpsichorean'), I've got a persistent earworm: "Something the Boy Said" by Sting has been running through my head for several days now. I don't dislike the song; but it's not my favorite, in fact it's not even my favorite from that album. I have no idea why it's stuck in my head, and has stayed there despite listening to it several times. (That often cures an earworm for me, but no such luck in this case.) On repeated listenings -- real and obsessive-imaginary -- it does strike me as a very Police-y tune, in the vein of "Wrapped Around Your Finger" or "Tea in the Sahara"; I can easily imagine Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland playing it. (There'd be more flourishes in the drumming, though; I don't know if that would make it better or worse.)

The album that song came off of, Ten Summoner's Tales, is one of my desert island picks, even if the list were as short as five albums; there's a lot of very good material there. (Though as is often the case, the flagship single from the album, "Fields of Gold", leaves me unmoved.) "Seven Days" and "St. Augustine In Hell" are great fun; "Shape of My Heart" is simply sublime; "Love Is Stronger Than Justice (The Munificent Seven)" is ... forgivable; and the 'eleventh tale', "Epilogue (Nothing 'Bout Me)" is a nice bouncy finish. It's good enough that I didn't regret the breakup of the Police after that; if that's what it took for Sting to do that kind of music, good for him.

I haven't paid attention to Sting in a while; I was WILL YOU SHUT THAT BLOODY BOUZOUKI UP!

... sorry. Anyway, seeing him listed in the 'soft rock' and 'easy listening' category, along with Celine Dion and Kenny G, left a bad taste in my mouth. It also rubbed me the wrong way to see him doing softer, acoustic remakes of his older works: to me it seems like a way of pleasing crowds and selling discs without covering any new ground musically. Granted I've heard only part of his modern output, but nothing I have heard of his has grabbed me since "We'll Be Together".

But, I've never believed that music comes with an expiration date. I think I'll queue up Synchronicity in Winamp and chill for a bit. See you when I'm back from 1983.