h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In the (deliberate) absence of specific personal information in my space, I thought I'd show the music I like, which is probably the best indicator of my character anyway. Here is a random, whimsical selection of my 'albums of the moment':

Beth Gibbons + Rustin Man - out of season
"Lord knows how I adore life..."
Queens of the Stone Age - songs for the deaf
"Close your eyes and see the skies are falling..."
Van Morisson - astral weeks
"You breathe in, you breathe out, you breathe in you breathe out youbreatheinyoubreatheout..."
Sparklehorse - vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot
"A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse..."
The Flaming Lips - yoshimi battles the pink robots
"As the dawn began to break, I had to surrender..."
Mercury Rev - all is dream
"When they lived they loved complete, but in their tombs I hear them scream, spiders and flies live and die..."

get the soft bulletin by the lips. phwoar!

I've got it already. Yeah, it's excellent, but I prefer Yoshimi just for its greater refinement. If you like the Flaming Lips, you should like the others on my list too, except maybe Queens of the Stone Age. Beth Gibbons and Van Morisson aren't quite the same style, but you'd have to be dead not to be touched by them.

ha! got them already

heard of the beta band?

Yes I have. I heard some of their albums weren't that good, so I have only got 'The 3 EPs' and 'Hot Shots part2' but I like those two very much. I guess it's a while since I've listed to them actually, thanks for the reminder!
Ok, now what about Grandaddy? - I've really come to like The Sophtware slump. And Love, yes, they're excellent if you like Van Morisson's kind of thing.

the other album is self titled and i really like it as a matter of fact. and yes, i like grandaddy very much too. good live

heard of the coral?

Yeah, I got their album in the summer too. I've gone off it a tiny bit; I'm rarely in the mood, but maybe that's cos it's suited to the summer. If you like Mercury Rev and Sparklehorse, you might like Lambchop too. It's a bit like a mix of Sparklehorse with brass and maybe Spiritualised.

i havent heard enough sparklehorse really to judge whether i like them or not, and cos theres so many CDs i really want, theyre way down the putative list...

Oh you really should get Vivadixie... it is definitely a great album.

like so many other albums i really have to get... im a student i have no cash!

Ah well...
Hey, as I now have a fellow Flaming Lips appreciator, I can get some other perspective on Yoshimi part one and two. It seems to me that the first half is deliberately ridiculous (eg. she's taking lots of vitamins), especially after the "unit 3021" song shows so much humanity in the robots, to show how being aggressive and fighting is often foolish. Maybe it's just to continue the contemplations on fighting started by the first track, but it seems a bit like it's also about the cold war to me. Like the "pink robots" seem to be a metaphor for the red army and the very capitalist-sounding democratic "city" Yoshimi works for is the capitalist world. Also, the second part sounds deliberately shocking as if it's meant to show the horrors of war and conflict. So anyway, whaddya think of my speculations?