Music Question Challenge 2025

Another blog meme! This one I found through Elena’s post, and honestly, I debated diving into this one, as it’s primarily made up of questions that I really don’t like — not because of anything wrong with the questions themselves, but because they’re so difficult for me to answer. :) But what the heck, let’s give this a shot.

One major disclaimer, though: Most of these answers could change at any moment depending on any number of reasons. This is a snapshot of a very brief moment in time.

What are 5 of your favourite albums?

Props to the original author for making this “five of your favorite”, and not “your five favorite”. That makes it easier (though not easy) to answer.

What are five of your favourite songs?

Albums was bad enough, but songs? This is where things really get difficult. Again, I appreciate that this isn’t supposed to be my five favorite songs, just five of my favorites.

Favourite instrument(s)

Cello, probably. I played violin (never terribly well) as a kid, and I’ve long wondered if I’d stuck with it more if I’d picked cello. As it was, my brother, who started with cello, went on to bass (both standup bass and electric bass guitar, depending on whether he was playing in an orchestra, a bluegrass band, or a punk band, any of which have been and still might be possibilities), while I started with violin and went on to DJing.

What song or album are you currently listening to?

Right at this moment, nothing. This week, it’s mostly been the six-disc 40th anniversary re-release of Soft Cell’s Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret that I picked up last week.

Do you listen to the radio? If so, how often?

Not unless I happen to be somewhere where someone else has it on. What with the annoyance of commercials, the lack of stations that reliably play what I want to hear, and my extensive music collection, there’s just no reason to bother.

How often do you listen to music?

As often as possible. I used to have a near constant soundtrack going, but these days it’s primarily when I’m working or puttering around on my own.

How often and how do you discover music?

“How often” is a hard one to answer, as it just kind of happens when it happens. As far as “how” goes, sometimes it’s hearing something good when I’m out clubbing, sometimes friends introduce me to new stuff, and sometimes some other way.

I’m a big fan of compilation albums, and have a few labels on Bandcamp that I’ll regularly pick up annual or themed compilations when they appear. These days, those labels are Re:Mission Entertainment, Alfa Matrix, Artoffact Records, Infacted Recordings, and Sideline Magazine.

I also enjoy a lot of mashups and get a lot of those from Bootie Mashup. Since I don’t listen to the radio or much pop, mashups have introduced me to a lot of pop that I’d otherwise not have heard (and I’m often amused when I hear a song that I recognize but it sounds weird, and realize that I’m hearing the original when I’d only heard bits and pieces as used in mashups).

What’s a song or album that you enjoy that you wish had more recognition?

Many years ago, when I visited Germany in 1990 or ’91 (I can’t remember which trip this was), I discovered the band Poems for Laila and picked up their first two albums, Another Poem for the 20th Century and La Fillette Triste (which doesn’t appear to be available as a YouTube playlist). I think both are extremely good, and have often recommended them to people, as they never got much play here in the United States (I’ve rarely found anyone else who’d heard of them).

What’s your favourite song of all time?

There is absolutely no possible way to answer this question. Too many possibilities, too many variables.

Has your taste in music evolved over the years?

Oh, absolutely.

Growing up, dad contributed a lot of rock, folk, and classic country, and mom contributed a lot of classical. Our family was very involved with the music in our churches. I spent many years in a local children’s choir (first the Anchorage Boys Choir, then the Anchorage Girls and Boys Choir when the two choirs (run by the same people) merged, and then as they changed their name to the Alaska Children’s Choir), which exposed me to a wide range of choral music.

As I grew, while I was certainly exposed to a lot of pop, I soon found myself being drawn to what was then termed “alternative” music. I started going to my high school dances, and though I was at first a definite wallflower, with regular “they’ll all laugh at me” thoughts keeping me off the dance floor, eventually I started heading out to the floor, and discovered a love for dancing.

High school dances encouraged my appreciation for pop, and after high school, I started exploring the local all-ages club, eventually finding Sharkey’s, which had pop upstairs and alternative down in the basement. Sharkey’s and the DJs there exposed me to both dance/electronica and goth/industrial, and I found my home.

Since then, I’ve mostly considered the goth/industrial and electronica/techno/dance genres to be my favorites, though I still have a love for, well, just about everything. While I used to profess a disdain for hip-hop and rap, there were always “acceptable” groups, and I’ve come to realize that there was a lot of unconscious and unexplored systemic racism and classism wrapped up in that, and I’ve been gaining more of an appreciation for both classic and modern rap and hip hop.

Eventually I found my way into DJing, and spent about ten years spinning at all-ages clubs in Anchorage as my alter-ego DJ Wüdi. Finding music for the clubs and picking up songs from requests exposed me to a lot more stuff I might not have found otherwise.

Basically, while there are certainly bad songs (though even many of those can be enjoyable at the right place and time), and lots of quite unfortunate artists (even when they produce tracks I like), there’s no such thing as universally bad genres.

Except for smooth jazz. The exception that proves the rule, right? ;)

Tag, you’re it

I’m not one for tagging people in these sorts of things, but if you come across this and want to play along, jump in!

Difficult Listening Hour 2021.02.13: Snow Day!

The Seattle area was getting inundated with snow, so every song in this mix was pulled from a playlist of tracks with titles that included the word “snow”, “winter”, “cold”, “froze”, or “ice”. Otherwise unrehearsed and unplanned, all done on the fly.

Read more

Difficult Listening Hour 2020.07.04: America 2020 Edition

To celebrate All Countries Matter day, a (somewhat cynical) genre-spanning selection of songs for the Fourth of July.

If you’re American and will be 18 or older in November: Make sure you’re registered to vote, and vote this November. We could be so much better than we are right now.

Read more

I need to follow up on this…

Mostly, I’m tossing this up here to remind myself to do something about it, and soon

djwudi: I need to go back someday — partly to visit, and partly to track down some CDs from a band I discovered while I was there :)
sillium: :)
sillium: what’s the name of that band you mentioned?
djwudi: Poems for Laila
djwudi: based out of Berlin, I think
sillium: i think so to
sillium: ttoo
sillium: too
djwudi: I picked up two of their albums while I was there, but the tapes died years ago
sillium: damn
djwudi: managed to find a bunch of their stuff online a while ago, but I’d rather have the actual CDs
djwudi: and there’s only a couple that I can get through Amazon
sillium: and you can’t buy’em online these days?
djwudi: not all of the ones I want, sillium
djwudi: they’ve got five (?) albums and a few EPs out…I can only track down two, maybe three online so far
sillium: write me a flickr-message with the album names you can’t get and I’ll see what I can do for you if you want
djwudi: oooh – that would so rock, sillium :D
djwudi: i’ll get back to you on that soon – thanks!
sillium: yeah, do that.

Yay!

iTunesHold On (Love to a Razorblade)” by Poems for Laila from the album Katamandu (1992, 4:16).

Poems for Laila

I wanted to do two things with this post — test a new feature for the site, and promote one of my favorite bands, Poems for Laila.

I discovered PfL when I was in Germany in the summer of 1991. I saw a display stand advertising the release of their second album, and gave it a listen. What I heard was enough to peak my interest, so I bought their first two albums — ‘Another Poem for the 20th Century’ and ‘La Fillete Triste’ — on the spot.

Unfortunately, I bought them on cassette tape, and over the next few years, I listened to them enough to wear them out. Thanks to the magic of the ‘net, though, a few months ago I was lucky enough to track down not just the two albums I used to own, but three more. Eventually I’ll order as many as their albums as I can, but as they’re not available here in the states, for now I’ll just have to live with the .mp3s I downloaded (one of the very few times I’ve actively searched music out on the file trading networks).

In the meantime, though, you can browse through my PfL catalog, and listen to just what has captured my interest for so long. It’s a little difficult to narrow down just a few ‘recommended tracks’, but here’s a few good ones from the two albums I know the best:

  • From ‘Another Poem for the 20th Century’:
    • Intro to the Morning After
    • The Morning After
    • Lewd
  • From ‘La Fillete Triste’:
    • Round Round Round (The Gentleman’s Fear)
    • Willy Poor Boy
    • I Hold A Prince

Enjoy!

Music, books and other real-world fun

Back in the summer of 1991, right after I graduated high school, I took a trip to Germany with the Bartlett High School German Club. While there, I was browsing through a music store and stumbled across a band that sounded interesting — Poems for Laila. I picked up two of their albums, Another Poem for the 20th Century and La Fillette Triste.

Unfortunately, over the years, tapes die — especially well-listened to tapes, as these definitely were. I’d never been able to track down any PfL albums over here in the states, and the times I’d looked into trying to get them as imports, it had either been more expensive than I’d wanted to try, or I hadn’t had a credit card available. This week, however, I stumbled across AudioGalaxy (one of the modern Napster alternatives), and have spent the past day downloading PfL .mp3’s like a madman. Not only have I been able to regain both of the albums I used to own, but I’ve also got the entirety of two more albums (Katamandu and I Shot the Moon), plus much of a few other albums that they’ve released since then. It’s great to finally be able to hear this band again — wonderful, beautiful music. So I’ve been cheezing over that.

I also picked up my next book to read — a compendium of the entire Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis. I haven’t read these in ages, and am greatly looking forward to diving back into them again. Should be quite cool.

That’s really about it for now, I suppose. Tomorrow starts the work week again — what fun!

Woohoo?