The Sweetest Tunes on Earth

Over the past year, the literature-bred residents of Butterfield exposed me to more music than I’d ever experienced in one place. Consequently, I was able to get a better feel for what I like and dislike in music, as well as add to my resume of drunken party song singalongs. My tastes haven’t changed, rather I’m more confident when I say that I like or don’t like something when I hear it. So here we go.

Favorite Band: Guster — This has actually been my favorite band for a few years, but having had time to listen to other artists and now come back to them, I can tell my judgement still holds true. Although I don’t have ALL their music, I do have most of it, and every track has its own beautiful melody, meaningful lyrics, and perfect harmonization by the two lead vocals (my favorite element of music). They have a great sense of humor too, best displayed by when they released an entire album in which they replaced their vocals with cat meows, then released them on Kazaa in an attempt to deter illegal downloading of their real songs.

Favorite Album: Parachutes by Coldplay (Not to be confused with Guster’s album Parachute, singular) — Yea I know, shouldn’t my favorite album be from my favorite band? What are you, some kind of music Nazi? Shut up. Like Guster, I was aware of Coldplay and this album in particular (it was their first one) long before college, but in school I gained a whole new level of appreciation for it. The soft, slow acoustic guitar echoes and reverbs are enough to sooth an angry gorilla. It’s the perfect nighttime driving music. Chris Martin’s equally soothing voice still has the most fire out of all the instruments, though occasionally the bass takes his place and ends up driving the whole song, aided by some light piano. The lyrics are peaceful, with major themes being 1. dreaming for a simpler life, 2. observing natural beauty, 3. optimism despite hardship, and 4. asking forgiveness. Get a good pair of headphones to listen to this album, there are so many little things in the background that could be easily missed, yet add so much to each song.

At one particularly sad moment in my life I decided that instead of staying in my room and moping I would walk around my campus with Parachutes on loop. It was a cloudy overcast day, but as I walked the edges of the university and the hours went by, the sun started to come out and the music seemed to be getting progressively more hopeful. After an hour or two I was cured of my blues, further attaching me to this album. It’s my favey fav.

Favorite Song: Navras by Juno Reactor — Listen to this in a car.