Other: Top Five Lists

Music is not something I like judging comparatively. As I've said before, I prefer to enjoy artists on their own merit rather than thinking about how they stack up against others. I thought it'd be interesting, then, to force myself to write some top five lists about my favorites when it comes to music. Ranking things is hard for me, but each list will pretty well include my top five in some order; these may be "collections" of top fives rather than "countdowns." That itself may be hard, though, because I will admit that my taste in music can vary greatly from day to day.

Top Five Favorite Albums
Albums 5-3 are associated with a specific memory or time in my life and will always carry a huge amount of emotional weight. Albums 1 and 2, however, are associated with many, many memories and times in my life. The fact that they are so timeless and so enduring locked down the top spots in my book.
5. Mmhmm, Relient K (2004)
4. Les Misérables: The Dream Cast in Concert, Les Misérables 10th Anniversary Cast (1995)
3. Paramore, Paramore (2013)
2. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles (1967)
1. Abbey Road, The Beatles (1969)
Honorable Mentions: No Strings Attached (*NSYNC), A Night at the Opera (Queen), Let it Bleed (Rolling Stones), A Hard Day's Night (The Beatles), Collide (Skillet)

Top Five Oddball Artists
These artists are ranked using a loose sort of equation:
Oddness of artist * How frequently I listen to them
In practice, this means that, though I listen to *NSYNC far more often than Joe Dassin, they at least have something to do with a lot of the music I listen to. The opposite is also true; Red Army Choir is by far the strangest artist I've listened to extensively, but I rarely listen to their music anymore.
5. High School Musical Cast
4. Red Army Choir
3. Clay Aiken
2. *NSYNC
1. Joe Dassin
Honorable Mention: Barry Manilow

Top Played Songs on Spotify, 2015
This is an extremely specific category but gives some insight into last year in music for me. As a reminder, The Beatles were not available on Spotify until extremely late last year.
5. "Can't Smile Without You," Barry Manilow
4. "Bent to Fly," Slash
3. "Do You Feel Like We Do (Live)," Peter Frampton
2. "Señorita," Justin Timberlake
1. "Cry Me a River," Michael Bublé

Top Five Favorite Guitarists
Until junior year, when I started chorus and learned more about musical theatre, my taste in music was almost entirely dictated by the question, "What songs are fun to play on guitar?" These are the guitarists I most admire.
5. Peter Frampton
4. George Harrison/ John Lennon (The Beatles)
3. Gary Moore
2. Slash (Guns N' Roses)
1. Brian May (Queen)
Honorable Mentions: Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Gary Clark Jr., Taylor York/ Josh Farro (Paramore)

Top Five Musicals
Musicals are a relatively new phenomenon to me. This list will change greatly the older I get I'm sure, but I know for sure that Les Misérables will always be my favorite musical.
5. The Lion King
4. Annie Get Your Gun
3. Jekyll and Hyde
2. Once
1. Les Misérables
Honorable Mention: Aladdin, The Secret Garden

Top Three Favorite Artists
I know for a fact that these are my three favorite artists. However, I couldn't make any decisions about the last two.
3. Queen
2. Paramore
1. The Beatles
Honorable Mentions: *NSYNC/ Justin Timberlake, Alfie Boe/ Les Misérables Cast, Oasis, Rod Stewart, Aerosmith

How I Discovered: Queen

Queen is a band that you never really seem to discover. Everyone knows "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions," and most people can sing along to at least part of "Bohemian Rhapsody." Few bands have so many songs that are so iconic: off the top of my head, I can remember commercials on TV featuring "You're My Best Friend," "Don't Stop Me Now," and "I Want It All." Much like the Beatles, I can't think of a time in my life where I wasn't aware of Queen's music.
Unlike the Beatles, I didn't stray too far from Queen's hits for years, letting my knowledge of them be defined by their compilation albums like Greatest Hits and Classic Queen. It will probably not amaze you to hear that I started diving into Queen's catalog when I got Spotify, starting with A Day at the Races and A Night at the Opera. I then moved onto Queen and Queen II, learning more about this wonderfully bizarre group.
A lot of my appreciation for Queen has been because of my guitar playing. Brian May is one of the best rock guitarists of all time, and I've always tried to figure out why his playing style is so instantly recognizable. Learning about his work has naturally led me to imitate it somewhat; in fact, the biggest performance I've given as a guitarist was a Queen song, "Somebody to Love." Great artists inspire more art, and Queen has certainly done that for me.

Favorite album: A Night at the Opera (1975)
Favorite songs: "Somebody to Love," "Killer Queen," "You're My Best Friend," "Seaside Rendezvous," "Dragon Attack"

How I Discovered: Gary Moore

I'm not entirely sure when exactly I first heard Gary Moore, but I do know that it was his incredible cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Red House" at the 2004 Strat Pack concert. It's hard for me to describe the performance itself, but I will say that one of the most memorable comments from that YouTube video basically said that he completely embarrassed Eddie Van Halen with his ability.

Comparing artists in terms of merit is something I generally try to avoid, especially when it comes to those of completely different genres. However, I will say with confidence that Gary Moore is one of the most talented guitar players I've ever heard. Towards Christmas of last year, I purchased his hugely successful Still Got the Blues on iTunes (one of the very last albums I ever bought before switching to Spotify). My first love is rock, but I've always loved blues guitarists because of both how foundational the blues is to rock and how expressive their music is in its own right. Around this same time I started listening to artists like Eric Clapton, B.B. King, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, and quickly felt drawn to the raw emotion in their playing. In Gary Moore's case, though, it is impossible not to be blown away with the sheer level of musicianship that drips from every one of his songs.
In a sad coincidence, I learned that Gary Moore had died about a month after I really started listening to him. Upon hearing the news, my mind was instantly turned to his performance of "Parisienne Walkways" at Montreux. His last major public performance, it defined everything that Moore had been for so many years: a rare talent whose guitar playing made his emotions plain for everyone to see.

Favorite album: Still Got the Blues (1990)
Favorite songs: "Parisienne Walkways," "Too Tired," "Still Got the Blues, "Hey Joe"

How I Discovered: Bahamas

In the fall of my sophomore year, I was asleep on my bed. It had been a long day. I was having some nice dream about something incredibly pleasant when I was woken up by a phone call from my friend Nathaniel. Curious, I thought, because I really didn't know Nathaniel too well at the time. Still half asleep, I greeted him. He asked me if I wanted to go to a Jack Johnson concert with him later that month. "Sure," I said, "yeah! Sounds good!" We then wrapped up the conversation and I went immediately back to sleep.

Upon waking up, I realized that I was going to a concert featuring an artist I knew almost nothing about. Turns out I had nothing to worry about with Jack Johnson, because his opener, a Canadian named Afie Jurvanen, was far weirder than Jack Johnson could ever be. He was sarcastic, oddly accompanied (his backing group was a drummer and two female singers)... and I loved him. His music is not what I typically listen to even today, but I have to respect his talent and strange onstage persona. My brother, coincidentally, latched onto Bahamas far more than I ever did and listens to him very often.

Favorite album: Barchords (2012)

Favorite songs: "I Got You Babe," "Hockey Teeth"

How I Discovered: Musicals (part three)

Seeing the Les Mis film was a turning point in how I watched musicals. The following shows have largely defined my life since 2015.

Miss Saigon
Enloe's production of this show in spring 2015 was a grab bag. On one hand, they had some fantastic actors and musicians, and the story itself is fairly engaging. On the other, their technical theatre department seemed to be having an off day. This, combined with an evident lack of acting experience among some of the leads, somewhat dampened my experience of the show. I will always love "Why God Why?" and "Kim's Nightmare" even still.

Aladdin
Seeing a show with your family or friends is one thing. Seeing a live show with close friends who love theatre just like you do is something else entirely. I saw Aladdin on the spring dance and drama trip last year and was impressed by a lot of the choices they made. The actor playing Genie was a genuine star, and I remember being amazed during "Never Had a Friend Like Me," which had been made into a spectacular show-stopping number. As an aside, I sat next to Millbrook's own theatre director throughout the show. He was harder to please than I was but definitely seemed to enjoy himself.

Les Misérables
I've already detailed my experience at this show but would be silly not to at least include it on this list.



Once
Once was a show recommended to me by one of my good friends in chorus. I was about to just buy a ticket and go myself, but when I mentioned it to my aunt, she said that she'd wanted to see it herself for months. As had been the case with Les Mis, I enjoyed seeing it with her thoroughly.
I've never seen a musical like Once. The entire "pit orchestra" is onstage, so any music you hear throughout the story is played by the actors themselves. The music is a mix of acoustic singer-songwriter and Irish folk performed by a colorful cast of characters who are both heartbreakingly real and completely ridiculous. I ended up liking the music so much that I bought a mandolin of my own a few weeks later.

I've mentioned some moments that I'll never forget throughout these last few posts, so I'll say that I will never forget the dimming of the lights and the raw emotion throughout the show's first real number, "Leave."

High School Musical
What a mess. I saw Heritage's production of High School Musical with two of my friends from my own school's theatre department this spring. I must say, I was thoroughly entertained. The show felt like a complete farce, which may have been what they were going for. In any case, I would not have necessarily been proud to have been in it.

Annie Get Your Gun
I never technically saw Annie Get Your Gun. I was in it, which I suppose counts.

How I Discovered: Les Misérables

I have only cried in a few movies, and Les Misérables is one of them.
There is no classic Broadway show with as good music, plot, and characters as Les Misérables.
I have loved few things as much as I love Les Misérables.

I first saw the 2012 film adaptation of Les Mis with a group of friends during the "canceled" spring break days last year. I had heard about it once or twice maybe but had never really had an interest in seeing it. Having said that, I will never forget that day. I had perhaps not been completely sold on the "operatic musical" concept (that is, a musical in which everything is sung), but the passion and intensity brought out by the actors was more than enough for me to hang onto every word. Even Russell Crowe, by far the worst singer in the cast, I considered irreplaceable in the context of the film.
The show became the source of jokes, songs that would stay stuck in my head for days, and spontaneous singalongs with any number of my friends- including those who hadn't even been there the day when I had first watched it. That in itself speaks to the beauty of Les Mis: it's accessible to anyone.
Since that day in spring 2015, I've watched the film maybe six times, listened to various versions of the soundtrack more times than I could possibly count, sung some of the songs in front of my chorus class, and even seen the live show in New York.
I could write endlessly about what exactly Les Misérables means to me, but at least now you know how I discovered it.

How I Discovered: Musicals (part two)

I saw these two musicals early in my junior year.

Into the Woods
I saw Into the Woods as an accident on a date. We were going to see Selma, but had comically (romantically?) talked all through dinner and missed the showing we wanted to see. We walked into Into the Woods knowing nothing about it; in fact, neither of us even knew that it was a musical until they started singing. During "Agony," though, I had a breakthrough. My friend had described that exact scene to me weeks before. I cracked up and explained it to my date, who knew that friend and laughed quite a bit with me.
P.S. I got a second date after that.

Jekyll and Hyde
If Spamalot planted seeds, then Jekyll and Hyde was an invasive vine. I had promised to return to run track my junior year even after dropping cross country to audition for the fall play, but again I wonder how different life would be had I just auditioned. Junior year, the core of my friends outside of the track team were all involved in the musical in some way. I remember sitting on a bus with Jekyll/ Hyde himself and listening as he excitedly described one of the most intense scenes in the show. I remember thinking, "I have no idea what you're talking about, but I know it's going to be good."
As I sat in the audience on opening night, I started to hear some familiar lines and see some familiar movements onstage. It was that same scene he had described to me all those months ago.
Seeing my friends on that stage and realizing that I could very well have been there was the last straw. I would audition for the musical no matter what.