SOUNDTRACK: GUSTER-Parachute (1995) & Goldfly (1997).
I have seen Guster twice live, and since then I have become a huge fan of the band. The first time, they opened for Tori Amos, and I didn’t pay them too much attention, but I liked what I heard (this would have been for their Goldfly album). The second time, they opened for Ben Folds, and I was really impressed. I rushed out and got a copy of their record and now I listen to them all the time. They have such a great pop sense, without being treacly; in fact, at times they can be quite dark–and yet so catchy!
Parachute: A really great debut, that, in retrospect, sounds almost nothing like the Guster we know and love. This sounds a bit more like the Indigo Boys. Solid harmonies over a very acoustic sounding record. Over the years, Guster have written fantastic melodies and lyrics. And this album is no exception. It’s really the production that sounds so unusual here. Very sparse and almost cool, as opposed to the warmth that they bring to their later albums. The songs are top notch, though.
Goldfly: “Airport Song” is such a fantastic single, and such a great precursor of what’s to come from Guster, that it tends to overshadow the rest of the album. Goldfly starts Guster down the road of what we’ve come to (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: KT TUNSTALL-The Eye to the Telescope (2006).
Such a pleasant album. I’m not entirely sure what possessed me to get this, aside from the fact that it was on virtually every respectable (in my opinion) critics’s 2006 Top Ten list. I don’t think I’d heard any of the songs before (somehow so many of them sounded familiar, and evidently she was everywhere, and yet, I wasn’t sure what she even sounded like). So, I did research, and decided it was worth the purchase. And I was right.
SOUNDTRACK: RICHARD THOMPSON-Small Town Romance (1984), Guitar Vocal (1976), Starring as Henry the Human Fly (1972).
Small Town Romance: This is a collection of live solo recordings in NYC from 1967-1982. The sound quality isn’t always the best, and RT’s voice isn’t always up to snuff. I’m thinking that all the songs are Richard & Linda or Fairport Convention works. I don’t like the early material as much as his later work so, aside from appreciating the venues and the cozy atmosphere, this isn’t a favorite disc of mine. 
I Just Read About That... 