Do you find that certain albums or artists are more suited to particular seasons for you, to the extent that you almost exclusively listen to certain things during certain times of the year?

For example -

Summer's all about Basement Jaxx's "Rooty", Daft Punk's "Discovery" and Deee-Lite's "Dewdrops in the Garden".

Fall is all about The Residents for some reason (maybe cuz they're kinda sorta Halloweeney?), Nick Cave, the Cure...gothy stuff works when the leaves start going all orange.

Winter is the best time for me to listen to Bjork, and stuff like This Mortal Coil, Alice Coltrane, Gavin Bryars, etc. - really deep, dense, textured stuff for dark, cold, isolated Chicago winter daze.

My ultimate Spring album is Prince's "Parade" album, but I also dig on Saint Etienne a lot when I'm first cracking open the windows and enjoying the breeze.

And heck, I listen to this stuff all the time, and there's some music I like that's year-'round, but some stuff goes better with different times of the year for me...maybe it's a sense-memory kinda thing, I dunno.

Anyone else all seasonal about their music?

Anxiety said:

Great thread Anxiety. I LOVE U2 in the early summer ~ all the windows down and just playin it loud and free. Dead Can Dance are very wintery for the most part (although I love Lisa Gerrard anytime). Emancipation is complete sping to me. This Mortal Coil (God, you've got good taste), Miles Davis, Nick Drake, David Sylvian Tori and the Cure can be especially great in the fall and winter. Then ,of course, there is Diamanda

Everything I listen to is year round for me, but at the same time I CAN see how some music lends itself to being a time of year type of thing, or a weekend type of thing. I always thought Van Morrison's Astral Weeks was a Sunday/summertime type of album because of its acousticness (yes, I'm making up words), its arrangement, the fact that the production reveals so many subtleties, and the overall mood Van instills in it.

Mine are:

- Sheila E's "Romance 1600" LP, to me this is the perfect Spring album...
- The Avalanches' "Since I Left You" LP (a pretty obvious summer album, I know) and Prince's "Parade" LP for the Summer days (great childhood memories...)
- Prince's "" LP for the Autumn (I have great memories from when it was released, especially "Sweet Baby"... Autumn 1992 and that song was just an amazing time for me...)
- Sheila E's "Glamorous Life" for the Winter days...

Neversin.

Anxiety said:

Just by seeing the title of this thread, this is what immediately popped into my head.



as for the other seasons.....

I usually bond with a few new CDs each summer, but that season always makes me pull out The Stone Roses. Also, like Anxiety, the DeeeLite/Daft Punk/Basement Jaxx trio gets lotsa play before heading out to long crazy days and nites of summer partying

Fall finds me listening to the Sundays on a very regular basis. Harriet Wheeler's voice just seems to mix so well as the days get colder and the nights get longer.

And, when the winter doldrums set in, I always end up in a very dangerous spiral of Radiohead, The Smiths and The Cure. Watch out!

endorphin74 said:

Me too. And that's not always a good thing.

One of my favorite bands, Cracker, is a summer thing cause I can feel the swelter-y southern humid heat from their slow stuff.

CarrieMpls said:

ooh, i know whatcha mean, only i'm that way with lambchop...they can swoon me into a delicious nap on a hot summer day like nobody can.

Winter:
Alana Davis - Fortune Cookies (2001) [Sounds so great when it's snowing outside.]

Anxiety said:

It's a curious bit of synchronicity that you'd mention Gavin Bryars - I put on Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet for the first time in years last night, but I couldn't make it all the way through it, and as I was changing records my very thought was "it's just not summertime music"




I spent a good part of last summer riding around with Nixon blasting out of my car - I was pretty obsessive about the track "Up With People" for a long time.

Overall I don't really think my music patterns change that much from season to season - though every summer I seem to go into a pretty deep kraut-rock phase. i've been playing the hell out of the first side of Neu! 2 lately.
[This message was edited Sat Jul 24 12:33:09 2004 by flipwilson]

flipwilson said:

I'm responding because I love your username! I caught the Flip Wilson marathon a few weeks ago and loved it!

Guess I should keep it relevant somehow.... Sly & the Family Stone's "Hot Fun in the Summertime" gets me to thinking about the seasons. They make me think about the summer in general, and the summer fun I had growing up in the 70s.

UptownDeb said:

I afraid I've sorta' taken Flip's name in vain...I really don't know a lot about him, other than he was a comedian who had a television show in the seventies. The reason I'm using him as a username is because that was my nickname back in my university days. There's a long and not-the-least-bit-interesting story behind that which I won't bore you with.

Sorry - I guess I had to come clean...