Listening adventures

I get to use my iPod at work. It's one of the biggest perks of my job, not just because it gives me an excuse to listen to so many things, but also because the organization leads to interesting finds. Half of what I listen to are podcasts—some just for entertainment, others for information (at least one right in between: NPR's hilarious newscast "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me")—but there are only so many of those, usually released on a weekly basis, and I need at least 6 hours of listening material a day.

There are also audiobooks, and one resource I've heavily mined is Podiobooks.com. These are all released under Creative Commons' licenses, so they aren't works most people are familiar with. But they're free, easily downloadable, and some are quite good and enjoyable ("The Rookie" by Scott Sigler, for instance, despite the atrocious foul language). Eventually I'll run out of those, and have to resort to getting books on CD from the library, but until then these will do.

But some days I have no podcasts, and I'm not in the mood for audiobooks. My brain's worn out, and I won't do the story justice by trying to listen to it when I can't fully focus. So, when it comes to that, I have actual music to listen to. I have various playlists of my favorite songs, sometimes sorted by genre, sometimes just by how much I like them. But, given that they're my favorite songs, they get played a lot at home as well—and I don't want to get tired of them by playing them overmuch at work.

So sometimes I make playlists music that, while it isn't something I'm excited about at the moment, used to be well-loved or favorited. And a couple days ago, I put together a playlist of a few of the whole albums I own. Mostly I buy songs on an individual basis, but I decided to go "traditional" with some albums that I hadn't listened to in a while. Oddly enough, given its eclectic nature, it was the perfect combination of music for how I was feeling that day; it's nice when that works out.

First was the Redding Brothers' album "Physics of Immortality". I only got this because I know the band personally, but it was nice soft rock that was perfect for background music. Next was The Chieftains' album "Further Down the Old Plank Road". More soft music, but a little spunkier, and the homegrown feeling made the rainy day seem brighter. Third was Selah's album "Hiding Place", which had similar qualities to the Redding Brothers in how it made good soothing background music. Last was the perfect kickstart to the end of the day: Within Temptation's album "The Silent Force". This is pure epic music, and after hours of school and work, it pumped me up for the evening. I've forgotten how much I love this style of music, though I never thought I'd say that about Eastern European "gothic rock".

Despite the oddness, I'm probably keeping that playlist. I don't want to listen to it too much and tire it out, though, which means that I probably need to look over next week's playlists...