The Listening Project–Week 6

Well another week has passed by and I was able to get through a few more CDs in my listening project.  I was able to listen to 5 CDs each day on average so I am finally ahead of my 20 per week schedule.  You can reference this blog entry for details about this project.  Here are the CDs I knocked off of my list this week.

#	Artist	Album	Date	Again?
101	Mariah Carey	Butterfly	8/29/2011	Yes
102	Kim Boyce	By Faith	8/29/2011	Yes
103	Disciple	by God	8/29/2011	No
104	Caedmon's Call	Caedmon's Call	8/29/2011	Yes
105	Candlebox	Candlebox	8/29/2011	Yes
106	Plumb	candycoatedwaterdrops	8/29/2011	Yes
107	Sarah Masen	Carry Us Through	8/30/2011	Yes
108	Casting Crowns	Casting Crowns	8/30/2011	Yes
109	Celine Dion	Celine Dion	8/30/2011	Yes
110	Chaqueño Palavecino	Chaco Escondido	8/30/2011	Yes
111	Chagall Guevara	Chagall Guevara	8/30/2011	Yes
112	Carman	The Champion	8/30/2011	Yes
113	Michael W. Smith	Change Your World	8/31/2011	Yes
114	The Alarm	Change	8/31/2011	Yes
115	Charlie Peacock	Charlie Peacock	8/31/2011	Yes
116	The Choir	Chase the Kangaroo	8/31/2011	Yes
117	Garth Brooks	The Chase	9/1/2011	Yes
118	Chosen Few	Chasing The Sun	9/1/2011	No
119	Cheri Keaggy	Child of the Father	9/1/2011	Yes
120	Michael Gleason	Children of Choices	9/1/2011	Yes
121	Erasure	Chorus	9/1/2011	Yes
122	Various Artists	A Christmas Collection (Disc 1)	9/1/2011	Yes
123	Various Artists	A Christmas Collection (Disc 2)	9/1/2011	Yes
124	U2	Boy (Remastered)	9/2/2011	Yes
125	U2	Boy (Remastered) Disc 2	9/2/2011	Yes

Here are my thoughts on a few of these CDs that I have listened to over the past week…

• Mariah Carey “Butterfly”: For some reason Windows Media Player does not sort correctly.  It places last week’s final CD (Butterfly Kisses) before this weeks first CD.  I listenend to LeAnn Rhimes’ “Blue” first before the other “Blue” albums when I noticed this but I was not paying attention when the Butterfly CDs came.  I also listened to “Change Your World” before “Change” this week.  I don’t care much for the songs on this album but I lover Mariah’s voice.
• Disciple “by God”: A rare NO goes out to this CD.  I just could not get into this group.  I was really ready for the whole thing to be done after a 4 minute sermon at the end of the CD (the last track).
• Caedmon's Call “Caedmon's Call”: And thus starts a plethora of self titled CDs for this week.
• Candlebox “Candlebox”: This is the only CD that I own by this group (their first).  I really like it but I wonder if I would be disappointed with the rest of their (less commercially successful) releases.
• Plumb “candycoatedwaterdrops”: What an awesome voice and sound for this “group”.  I think I have one more by them.
• Sarah Masen “Carry Us Through”:  I first heard this artist on a sampler for Charlie Peacock’s label.  A nice, quirky songwriting style.
• Chaqueño Palavecino “Chaco Escondido”: This was given to me by a coworker from Argentina.  It is in Spanish and is mostly Spanish guitar oriented music.  Very soothing, one day I will look up what the lyrics mean.
• Chagall Guevara “Chagall Guevara”: This “super” group only ever put out one CD (despite having a 2 CD deal with their label).  Steve Taylor (whom I am sure we will meet several times later on this project) is the singer and Dave Perkins (whom we will not meet) are the core of this group.  Very deep lyrics.
• Carman “The Champion”: This CD sounds hokey now but I remember seeing Carman in concert (he actually came to Kokomo) during the tour that supported this CD.  The 8 minute long title track played in concert is very emotional.
• The Alarm “Change”: I need more CDs by this band, seriously.
• Charlie Peacock “Charlie Peacock”: What could have been.  This is Charlie’s 2nd full length album and was released on Island records back around the time that U2’s “The Joshua Tree” came out.  Wanna guess how much money was left in Island’s budget for this CD after promoting U2?  This CD is the reissue that I bought off of Charlie himself over the internet so it has some additional tracks.  This is the 5th self titled CD of the week.
• The Choir “Chase the Kangaroo”: The Choir (and eventually just Choir) are a group that really could have gone places with some promotion.  As such they are what they are.  An awesome band that hardly anyone has heard of.  This CD contains the song “The Rifleman” which is the only tribute song to that old TV show that I know of.
• Michael Gleason “Children of Choices”: The only solo CD by this artist who was 1/2 of the lead singers for the Kerry Livgren (think Kansas) band AD.  I preferred Warren Ham’s voice while listening to AD but very much like this CD.
• Various Artists “A Christmas Collection”: It had to happen eventually I suppose, Christmas music.  This 2 CD collection of artists from the Sparrow record label is pretty good.  Highlights include the rock version of “Drummer Boy” by (the Rick Florian led) Whiteheart.  Still, it was hard to get into the “Let It Snow” mood when it was pushing 100° here this week.  The first CD for next week will also be a Christmas themed CD.
• Boy “Boy (Remastered): I bit the bullet and spent $15 on ebay (including shipping) on this 2 CD Deluxe Remastered release of U2’s first album.  It came in the mail this week so even though I am past the B’s in my alphabetical trek through my CDs it immediately went to the top of the list when I imported it into my library.  Hard to say just yet how much I will like CD 2 with the extras and previously unreleased stuff.  It did come just in time to avoid another Christmas CD.  I blogged about all the songs on this CD (and their 2nd CD) a while back if you are interested.

With the short work week next week and with a few days of vacation coming up the following week, I will soon fall behind my pace I am sure.

Jon