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Abba
--Sure, it’s classified as “disco” and I won’t admit to anyone that I actually like the disco genre’, but Abba is cool in my book.
They have great melodies and when I do dance (and I love to dance), I like to listen to Abba. Plus, it’s fun to sing too. They’re Swedish and I’m part Swedish, English, and Irish.
Albums I own:
“Abba Gold”
Favorite songs:
- “Take a Chance on Me”
- “Lay All Your Love On Me”
- “Super Trooper”
(I really like this one. It’s about a performer’s desire to see a familiar face in the crowd.)
“I Have a Dream” (“I believe in angels, something good in everything I see.”)
“Money, Money, Money” (Perfect song since I work at a bank, although I don’t share the author’s desire to find a “wealthy man”. I just want to write a best seller. LOL! “I work all night, I work all day to pay the bills I have to pay, ain’t it sad?”)
“S.O.S.” (One of the best. It’s slow at the right times, then builds to a great energy. I love it!)
“The Name of the Game” (My favorite Abba song. “I’m a bashful child beginning to grow. And you make me talk. And you make me think. And you make me show what I’m trying to conceal. If I trust in you, would you let me down? Would you laugh at me?”)
“Thank You For The Music” (Great song. “Thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing. Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing. Who can live without it? I ask in all honesty, what would life be? Without a song or a dance what are we? So I say thank you for the music, for giving it to me.”)
“Waterloo” (So sue me, I like this song. The piano is really hard and I love that. It’s so catchy. Ear candy.)
Ace of Base
---Ace of Base was my favorite group when I was in Junior High. I had “The Sign” and “The Bridge” on cassette and I played them all the time. I lent out “The Sign” to someone back then and I never got it back, and I lost “The Bridge”, but recently found it in a used CD bin at Best Buy. Another Swedish group. Must be in the blood.
Albums I Own:
“The Bridge” (CD)
Favorite Songs:
- “Beautiful Life”
- “Never Gonna Say I’m Sorry”
(“I’m never gonna say I’m sorry for the essence of my soul. There’s so many ways to change my life, ‘cause I want to.”
“Lucky Love (Acoustic Version)”
“Edge of Heaven” (“Time. Close your eyes see dreams of tomorrow. Time. The wheels are turning to eternity.”)
“Strange Ways”
“Ravine” (My favorite Ace of Base song. The music is so beautiful and haunting. The lyrics are very profound to me. Almost every one can relate to my life. “Was a flower, so frail and I let the trees grow wild around me. Grew so high, hid the sky. Shaded everything I needed to see…I am standing here in my ravine. Once again I see a piece of the sky and my joy’ll never be denied, ‘cause I was meant to be here.” What I really think is cool is that in the liner notes, the author, Jenny writes—“The song is a metaphor: The song symbolizes God. A flower which can’t be reached by the sun can’t survive. It has to be replanted. I am such a flower. I was replanted. I’ve never felt better”.)
“Perfect World” (“Our father’s father says that things were better then. How easy they forget, on every page in every book of history a thousand tears were shed.”)
“Angel Eyes”
“Wave Wet Sand”
“Que Sera”
Aerosmith
--One of the only classified “hard rock” bands I enjoy. I’ve liked Aerosmith since I was little and I first heard “Walk this Way”. Then, I had no idea what half of the lyrics meant, I just knew I liked the way they sounded. While these days I’ve realized that not all of their lyrics are totally clean and “appropriate”, they do have a great sound. When I want something that really rocks, I listen to Aerosmith.
Albums I Own:
“Greatest Hits” (cassette)
“Get a Grip” (cassette)
“Big Ones” (CD)
Favorite Songs:
(My very favorite Aerosmith songs. Pure good stuff. Plus, I think it’s the song where Steven Tyler discovers his “screechy” voice. LOL.)
“What It Takes” (When I was about ten, I had a tape of songs I recorded off the radio that I used to listen to over, and over, and over. It wasn’t until I got “Big Ones” last year that I found this song and discovered that it was one of the songs on that tape! Brought back a lot of memories.)
“Janie’s Got a Gun” (Kudos to Aerosmith for writing a song that really brings to light the issue of child abuse. I know people who have been affected by it, and while it was never taken to such measures, it is a huge deal. A really powerful song.)
“Cryin’” (One of the three in the mid-nineties video trilogy for Aerosmith with Alicia Silverstone. I watched a lot of MTV then, I never watch it now, and those videos were all over the place.)
“Amazing” (Pretty orchestration. “It’s amazing with the blink of an eye you finally see the light…And how high can you fly with broken wings? Life’s a journey, not a destination.”)
“The Other Side” (I cannot resist this song. I really like the sound.)
“Crazy” (Another song from my MTV watching era. LOL)
“Angel” (Good torch rock ballad. I remember this song at a lot of junior high dances.)
“Livin’ On the Edge” (Another great song about society. “There’s something wrong with the world today, I don’t know what it is. Something’s wrong with our eyes. We’re seeing things in a different way, and God knows it ain’t His…If you can judge a wise man by the color of his skin, then Mister, you’re a better man than I…Tell me what you think about your situation, complication, aggravation is getting to you. If chicken little tells you that the sky if falling, even if it wasn’t would you still come crawlin’ back again?…There’s something right with the world today, and everybody knows it’s wrong, but we can tell ‘em no or we could let it go…”
Carolyn Arends
---Although I don’t have much of her music, or her song “Seize the Day” (which I really love), I enjoy Carolyn’s stuff. She’s one of those artists that when you listen to them, you can actually hear them smiling. Very few people have that.
Albums I Own:
“Feel Free” (CD)
“Awesome God: Tribute to Rich Mullins”
Favorite Songs:
(“She laughs out loud when it’s funny, and when it’s not she sighs.”)
“New Year’s Day” (“I buy a lot of diaries. Fill them full of good intentions. Each and every New Year’s Day, I make myself a list. All the things I’m gonna change, until January 2nd.”)
“Feel Free” (Cool song. Sort of a Beatles sound. Expresses my attitude about my friends. “You can fill my crosswords in with ink. Speak your mind before you think. Wear your shoes inside my house. Wear my clothes or wear me out. You can loose your head or spill your guts. I’m your friend, I’m not your judge.”)
“There You Are” (The first time I heard this song, I cried. Now, that’s the sign of a great song. I heard it at just the right time in my life, and it’s one of my very favorites. “I was hoping You would write to me a message in the stars, as if the stars themselves were not enough. And I awaited Your arrival here from someplace very far, as if I couldn’t feel your constant touch. Why did I think that you’d send thunder to wake me from my slumber, when every time I open up my eyes, there you are…when my heart is doubting, even there You are.”)
“This I Know” (When I first heard this I thought, “No way, ick,” because of the hard guitar beginning, but it slows and turns out to be a great song. “Hope and love make a life worth living. Lack thereof makes a man grow old. God is good. Yeah and Jesus loves me, this I know.”)
“Father, Thy Will Be Done”
“Jacob and Two Women” (Her cover of this Rich Mullins tune is so great. “And her sky is just a petal pressed in a book of the memory…Seems that love comes for a just a moment, and then it passes on by. And her sky is just a bandit swinging at the end of a hangman’s noose, ‘cause he stole the moon and must be made to pay for it. And her friends say ‘My, that’s tragic’, and she says ‘especially for the moon.’”)
The Association
---Sigh. The Association is great. They’re songs are so incredibly smooth and relaxing. A great vocal group.
Albums I Own:
“Greatest Hits” (CD)
Favorite Songs:
- “Never My Love”
- “Along Comes Mary”
- “Cherish”
(I liked this one so much, I put it in one of my fics.)
“Windy” (I remember having to sing this song in 7th/8th grade choir. Little did I know it would become one of my favorite songs almost six years later!)
Audio Adrenaline
---I guess the name says it all. The band has a lot of energy. It’s rock, but melodic enough to keep me listening. Closest comparisons I can think of to today’s contemporary music is Everclear.
Albums I Own:
“Bloom” (CD)
“Ten: The Birthday Album” (CD)
“Some Kind of Zombie” (CD)
Favorite Songs:
- “Big House”
- “Never Gonna Be As Big As Jesus”
(“Maybe be just like the Beatles, melodic rocking heavy weights. LOL!)
“Good People” (“Every day I choose to walk in their shoes. For pretty are the feet of those who bring the good news…good, good people. Everywhere, everywhere is God’s people.”)
“I’m Not the King” (“The King of Rock, some say live. The Lizard King, is surely dead. The King of France, lost his head. The King of Kings, lives. I’m not the King, I just sing, yeah! I’m just a fraction of a thing, yeah! I am not anything without the King of Kings, oh yeah!)
“Walk On Water” (“Just like Peter, I want to go farther. Tread on the sea and walk on the water. Step where He steps and go where He goes. Side by side while the sea billows roll.”)
“Free Ride” (They do such an awesome cover of this song!)
“Jazz Odyssey” (Okay, so it’s really not a song. It’s just a funny parody of those sometimes-bizarre college radio stations. “It really cooks, it’s really groovy, and all the kids are diggin’ this one…Could somebody get me a cappuccino?”)
“New Body” (“Never been accused or been confused with a model on a cover page. Never could have been a superstar in the NBA. Can’t run that fast, never could break dance. Can’t jump a building in a single bound.”)
“Some Kind of Zombie” (The way this song is set up is so original and inventive that I couldn’t stop playing it for awhile after I first got the CD. It’s incredible. The music is great. Combines rock, classical, and a ton of other stuff.)
“Original Species” (“I’m an original species. More enlightened than Nietzsche. I’m sure he’d like to meet me, ‘cause I am loved.”)
“Blitz”
Avalon
---Once of my very favorite vocal groups. I don’t have their latest, but I’m planning on it sometime. I’d love to see them live, but I missed them the last two times they were in my town!
Albums I Own:
“Avalon” (CD)
“A Maze of Grace” (CD)
Favorite Songs:
(The first song by Avalon I ever heard. While today, it’s not really my taste, I still enjoy it because it has great lyrics and brings me back. “The choice is black or white. Not a shade of gray because in love there is no such thing as half way.”)
“Don’t Be Afraid”
“Here to Deliver”
“Savior Love”
“Let It Be Forever” (This song expresses my attitude about love. “If you’re gonna call it love, then let it be forever.” If you’re going to say you love somebody, you better be serious, it’s a strong word.)
“Jesus Is Lord” (The vocals for this song are so great. I’d love to perform this with a group someday. It’s great.)
“Testify to Love”
“A Maze of Grace”
“Knockin’ on Heavens Door”
“Adoni” (Another tear jerker. “One single drop of rain, your salty tear became blue ocean. Once tiny grain of sand turning in Your hand, a world in motion.”)
“Reason Enough”
