Want to put your ultracool knowledge of the best below-the-radar music to good use? Impress your friends and family with it! After all, they're probably just as tired as you are of the same old Keys-Kanye-Fergie-Foo that dominates the Billboard charts month after month after year after year. So here's what to do:
Buy 'em some really really good indie CDs.
"But wait," you say, "aren't CDs passé? Yesterday's news? Out of fashion?"
Hardly. In fact, buying a CD is usually the only way you can get the highest quality music. Unlike most downloads, CD tracks are not compressed or compromised in any way. It's music exactly the way the musicians and producers wanted you to hear it. You can't get that from iTunes. I repeat: you can't get that from iTunes.
Here at the Indie Round-Up we cover many sorts of music - a lot of rock, pop, singer-songwriter and roots music, with occasional ventures into jazz and classical and in fact almost anything (except rap, which we are too pickled and white to understand).
So look below and you'll find a good choice for almost anyone on your list. Few gifts are more personal than an unexpected but perfectly calibrated music choice that you obviously spent some time thinking about.
For someone who likes...
EARLY MUSIC
We're talking way early, back before J. S. Bach ever busted a move on the church organ. Pair the grave and beautiful German Music for Viols and Harpsichord by Les Filles du Sainte-Colombe with the Six Sonatas for Flute and Violin - Opus 51 - Boimortier by the fleet-fingered Duo de Bois, and you've got early-music heaven. These two CDs, by the way, are also available as uncompressed downloads, thanks to Magnatune. Either way they should delight any fan of early music. Use the above links to purchase.
For someone who likes...
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Give the gift of Brahms. Here's a fine recent recording of the great composer's three violin and piano sonatas, and it's authentically indie. You can hear extended samples of the disc thisaway. Available for purchase at Amazon.
For someone who likes...
JAZZ
Michael Wolff, Jazz, Jazz, Jazz and Christmas Moods
Jazz is like wine - so many vineyards and vintages, so little time. This holiday season, I'm going with Michael Wolff. The latest disc from the outstanding jazz pianist and former Arsenio Hall Show bandleader is a lovely set recorded in one day by Wolff, honey-toned bassist John B. Williams, and drummer Victor Jones, who always makes it sound easy. The disc sneaks up on you with a long, slow take on "Autumn Leaves." Throughout the selections, which are mostly standards, the trio creates a range of distinctive soundscapes sprinkled with many excellent moments. Wolff's solo introduction to Dizzy Gillespie's "Con Alma" sparkles, for one. Pair this disc with Wolff's Christmas album, easygoing and tasty but with very different sounds and types of arrangements. The dying Warren Zevon appears as a guest vocalist; Kenny Rankin sings too and Mark Isham trumpets on songs like "Let It Snow," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and a lot more. Purchase at Amazon here and here.
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