In the past few days I have rediscovered my joy of reading books, and actually enjoying listening to music again.

By this I mean more than just listening to random tracks on my iPhone, but also paying attention to the music and alle the details in the artists work. I have been so used to just having music on in the background or listening to it on the bus to and from work, without actually listening. If this makes any sense to you, well done give yourself a pat on the back…

Current rediscoveries: Ani DiFranco, Indigo Girls, Tegan & Sara and Mazzy Star

Recommended listening from these fine artists:

Ani Difranco – Cradle and All and the album “Live at Babeville”

Indigo Girls – Become You, Yield and their cover of Mrs. Robinson

Current new discoveries:

Sia -

Now they say you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but that is what I did with this album.

The cover art and title made me buy this album, and it was good, very good.. I took a chance with iTunes Music Store’s recommendations and bought it without even “previewing” it on Spotify. The title of the album was:

Sia - Some people have REAL problems (album art)

It just looked so whimsical and fun that I had to buy it, and the lyrics are quite amusing. Some make little or no sense. But you get the feeling that it was supposed to be like that, and you just enjoy the song (particularly “Academia“) and with an album title like this, how could I resist.

Her vocals are very dominant on most of the tracks with all the instruments playing second fiddle so to speak. Pardon the deadbeat joke there, it was to obvious to leave out. I recommend this album without any reservations. However if whimsical and lighthearted music is not something you generally enjoy you might reconsider.

Other discoveries:

Erin McKeown -

The entire album “We Will Become Like Birds” but especially the song Aspera. And from the album Grand I recommend   Slung-lo and The Taste of You. Now if you really want to stalk me, my last.fm profile will show you what I have listened to recently.

On a completely different matter, if you are like me and are using last.fm and Spotify, you might want to take a look at this:

Last.fm Spotify Search – Script that adds a wee green note icon next to tracks, albums and artists on Last.fm’s website. To use, install Greasemonkey then add the script. You can then click the note icon to search in Spotify. I find this one really useful, it saves on typing and binds Last.fm and Spotify together nicely (Full article here.)

There are similar “plugins” for those who use Safari as well, I will update with details when I find that link (or I might end up writing my own how-to)

Since I’ve put a fair few Spotify links in this article I will also put some Spotify invites here (on a first come first serve basis), if you try them and they don’t work, odds are someone beat you to it. The invites listen below:

1. c27E3jifiZp4ff4S this one is used, and without even leaving a comment of thanks…..

2. jN72Nkby7cBXTNnb

3. PmHi5PVuxtYZeXUd