Noisy Deadlines

music

I was listening to the radio this morning and the song playing was “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits. I’ve listened to this song hundreds of times before, but something struck me today that made me curious about its origins. It’s one of the band’s most iconic tracks and the 1985 video clip is groundbreaking with its computer-animated characters.

Anyway, I knew the lyrics were a criticism of rock stars “easy” fame and luxurious lifestyles. What I didn’t know is that Mark Knopfler actually wrote the song while he was in an appliance store in New York, standing in front of a wall of TVs tunned to MTV. A delivery guy at the back of the store was making sarcastic comments about what he was seeing on the channel. It turns out the narrator of the song is this man who works in the store, and I had never noticed that!

I read that the album in which this song was released is one of the best-selling albums of all times, and that led me to browse the list of top albums. That search brought me to another classic: “Bat Out of Hell” by Meat Loaf. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to that song. Released in 1977, it has such a wild, theatrical energy, even though the lyrics are about a guy who dies in a motorcycle accident.

That led me to a video clip of “Bat Out of Hell” and then to a YouTube channel by a classical musician analyzing rock songs. The channel is called Virgin Rock by Amy Shafer. She started the channel in 2022 and it is her personal journey into rock music, a genre she wasn’t familiar with. I watched two videos in a row:

And I just loved her videos! I looked at her back catalog and now I want to watch most of them.

And that’s what I really wanted to mention in this post: I love this kind of serendipitous discovery—how one song on the radio can lead me down a rabbit hole of music history, unexpected connections, and interesting perspectives.

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Post 94/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

This weekend marked the 40th anniversary of Metallica’s album “Ride the Lightning”! I decided to listen to it again from start to finish and was pleasantly surprised to rediscover that “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “Fade to Black” are both on this album. These two songs are among my all-time favorites and laid the groundwork for what would later come in the “Black Album” (which is wildly successful). For the record, “Ride the Lightning” is the band’s second album, released in 1984.

This weekend my local rock radio station, CHEZ 106, did a Metallica weekend special, and they played “Ride the Lightning” and the “Black Album” in full, which I loved!

I was trying to remember how old I was when I first heard about Metallica. It must have been in the early '90s. I remember copying Metallica songs onto cassette tapes to listen to them. It just struck me that when “Ride the Lightning” was released, I was only 5 years old! So, when I listened to this album for the first time it was more than a decade after its release. Yet, it felt quite recent and new at the time! When the album came out, Brazil was still under a military dictatorship and many things (including international music and some movies) weren’t accessible till later in the 90s.

Anyway, I later got all their CD’s and I had posters of the band on my teenager bedroom walls. Metallica is still one of my favorite bands of all time. I particularly enjoy their phase up until the Black Album, so I’m not 100% caught with their newer stuff.

I found pictures of my old CD I got in Brazil. I sold it (along with the other albums I had) to collectors before I moved to Canada.

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Post 26/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I've created a music playlist called “Folk Metal, Viking & Celtic” to group my new favorite discoveries.

I don't remember how exactly I discovered these bands, but it could have been by launching a track mix based on other bands I like (like these ones) and also from friends recommendations. All the songs I've listed here give me some sort of calmness but also this powerful energy boost, stirring something inside me, giving me literal goosebumps.

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I have been listening to a lot more music recently.

I usually have my own playlists and rarely rely on AI generated lists based on my “taste”. I mostly listen to rock music, going from 60's/70's rock classics, heavy metal, a little bit of progressive and symphonic/melodic metal.

I saw a playlist on my music streaming service called “Swords & Sorcery” and gave it a try. I ended up discovering cool metal bands and songs and immediately created my own “Epic Metal” curated playlist. For some reason this playlist is now my “work mode” soundtrack: I listen to it when I need to do deep work and it puts me in the zone!

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