Day 208: Dances I

BeethovenCD13There’s not much I can say about today’s CD.

It’s 55 tracks of short dance pieces, all of which sound like something one would hear in ornate rooms filled with well-dressed people in powdered wigs.

I’m not going to list all 55 tracks here.

If you really want to know, I’ll bet you could find them on the Brilliant Classics web site.

I wonder if this music was considered the Pop music of Beethoven’s day. Like, would these dance tunes have been heard a lot on the radio? Would the German equivalent of Dick Clark (on, I presume, German Bandstand) have told people they had a groovy beat?

And how does one know if these are good or not? They all sound pretty much the same to me. Do some become favorites by virtue of…what?

Was dance music in Beethoven’s day highly regarded?

I dunno.

I suppose it’s possible.

Sort of like how the Bee Gees were in 1977.

And then were not by 1978.

But that’s another story for another time and place.

Day 19: I’m Into Something Good

HaydnCD19 At my favorite breakfast spot (Mr. Burger) this morning, eating my favorite meal (the Protein Breakfast — three eggs, scrambled, two sausage patties, two sausage links, coffee), the Herman’s Hermits song “I’m Into Something Good” caught my attention as it played over the restaurant’s Muzak system.

Despite it being a mere Pop song — one nearly half a century old at that — it’s an ear worm of a tune, absolutely infectious.

Almost against my will, I found myself tapping my fingers on the table top and nodding my head along with it.

It made me smile and think of simpler times.

It was then that I noticed the elderly customers were doing the same – smiling and bobbing their heads. I overhead one white-haired gent say to his companion, “That’s when music was good.”

Admittedly, the years 1964-1965 were banner ones for the British Invasion. UK bands like The Who, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Animals, Hermans Hermits and Continue reading