I’ve never liked Springsteen except for some of his ’70s stuff and the album Devils and Dust. Never heard Echo and the Bunnymen although I downloaded their discography then deleted it when I cleaned up my music files after about a decade (deleted everything pirated from Napster; if I liked the music I redownloaded it from Soulseek as FLAC files.) If I hadn’t heard it by then I probably wasn’t going to, at least not without specifically redownloading.

Haven’t heard the new PSB yet. I need to get on it but Hotspot (their last one) wasn’t very good. Mostly dreary ballads and slower songs, and not in a good, downbeat Elysium way. Sounds a lot like the album cover actually. Is their new one more upbeat?

My own spins are mostly early music and playlists I’ve put together. I got a few Hilliard Ensemble discs at the record store for $1.99 each (Music for a Tudor King, Sacred and Secular Music from Six Centuries – 11th through 16th – Music from a Russian Cathedral, et al. I’ve used a few tracks in playlists, formerly mix CDs.) A few months ago I was listening to a lot of Schubert lieder and Brahms – string sextets, late piano pieces, motets, songs. I think for rock music my taste is about as evolved as it will ever be. I haven’t made many new discoveries in the last half-decade, mostly Nuggets and other psych/garage stuff and Spacemen-3-adjacent stuff (Flowers of Hell, the Darkside, etc). I like jazz but it’s probably my least-favorite genre I’m into. Mostly archival live bebop recordings (where the tracks are seven minutes rather than three, LP-length rather than 78-, and they can stretch out) and big band, mainly Fletcher Henderson.

TL;DR mostly Brazilian and more obscure classical. Most listening is to enjoy it in its own right but the overarching goal is to come up with material for future playlists/mix CDs. This is a very 2006 thing to do but I don’t care. I’m an old man, dammit, albeit strong, limber, agile, flexible, and with only a mildly arthritic finger joint and a hip susceptible to being strained. Maybe the hip is all the same injury and I just keep aggravating it.