(Well, I don't have a specific playlist, per se. I don't have an I-pod or something with music on it. When I'm sitting here at my computer, I'm listening to whatever my be on the radio at the time, so it's a variety. But, I can put it into some general categories, and tell you why. And this applies equally IC or OOC.)
I've always liked anything that is a movie-musical, as far back as I can remember. The Sound of Music, The Music Man, Oklahoma, Mary Poppins, Annie, have always been favorites.
I like classical music/opera. This is for 2 reasons. 1) I would be (next door) at my grandparents (mom's parents) and while grandma was upstairs, watching the Cleveland Browns (our NFL {American, of course} football team) lose (that happened a lot back then. Only recently have the started winning again. Lol.) I would be downstairs, in the den, with my grandfather listening to music. His favorites then were opera -- anything by Puccini; especially Madame Butterfly; anything by Mozart, and some Vivaldi, especially the Four Seasons. One of my favorites at the time was (and I'm being totally serious and 100% truthful!!) was the opera Carmen by Bizet. Of course, part of this was because of all the figure skaters that skated to it. I remember well the "Battle of the Carmens" between (East) German skater Katerina Witt and American skater Debi Thomas in 1984. (Of course, Witt won; and Debi Thomas went on to become a doctor. ) I know I still have a CD with the highlights of that opera, with a little lyric booklet with lyrics in English and French; but I don't know if it's here, in the house, in the barn, or in my mother's truck. Lol. The appeal of opera/classical music is the added drama, plus if you watch/listen from the beginning, it isn't really necessary to understand the language to understand the story. (9 times out of 10, it's a love story, isn't it? !! Lol.) "Bolero" by Ravel was also a favorite back then, too, when English ice dancers (Jayne) Torvil and (Christopher) Dean beat the Russians that year.
When my grandfather learned that majority of our Celts were from Scotland and Ireland, he decided he wanted to learn how to play the Scottish bagpipes. So he did. He found out that he needed to learn to read music, and grandma know how, from her days of playing the cello in high school (that was one of first times he saw her). He found a group, and they gave him a "practice chanter" (one of the "drones" without the "bag") and learned to play all the classis you hear at parades, like "Scotland the Brave" etc. They wore tartans, and kilts, and everything and traveled all over our area; and they even went to Canada a few times I think. Grandpa's pipes were absolutely beautiful, the ivory was real; and he had to travel with a special certificate that said that his (bag)pipes were made before the ban on ivory, or he would have been arrested.
When I was back at home, my father's favorites were anything and everything Motown (although he was very good at hockey, so he had plenty of exposure to opera/classical music, sharing rink time/practice ice with skaters). For mom it, was anything/everything by the Beatles, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Queen, and a few other groups.
When I got older, as a teen, there were a lot groups I liked, most of them are pretty typical. Culture Club, Bananarama, Wham, the Police, Eurythmics; my stepsister liked Duran Duran a lot back then (I don't know if she still does. I actually like them more NOW then I did back THEN. Lol.) Prince, etc. There were also a lot of "one-hit wonders" that were good but now that I'm listening to something else, and trying to type, and I can't think of any; I'll have to look some of those up. Lol.
And on a one-day road trip one time with my grandfather, we listened to the album "Stardust" by Natalie Cole, on cassette tape, with all those old standard pop songs from the 1940s. I like her versions and her father Nat "King" Cole's the best.
The ironic thing is, it all kinda came full circle, because one of our cousins was over next door, interviewing my grandfather, so that he could put some of our family history on CD; and I was the only one that had a radio with a CD player (I think my grandparents had one in their car; but not in the house yet) so my mom asked if she could borrow my radio, which had a CD player. At that time, I had "Diva" (the first solo album of Annie Lennox; which is also the first CD I ever got) and it forgot and left it in there. And (later, I was told that) when he went to put his CD in, he accidentally pressed "Play" and he liked that first song "Why?" so much, that he sat there, and actually listened to the rest of the CD, and when I talked to him later that night, and asked him, if he had listened to his CD yet, he asked me if I had any more music by her, cuz she's really great. I said, yeah, she is and, of course I do. And I put it them on cassette tapes for him. (This was long before I had my first computer, or any kind of recordable CDs, in 2000.) So, I had this old guy in his 70s, listening to her. And after he heard the song "Rocket Man" played during half-time of some basketball game grandma was watching on TV, I also got him liking Elton John's Greatest Hits, too. I even played a little Queen for him too, and he liked that, because a lot of their music has a great operatic quality to it. Although grandma didn't like it very much when he played his "new" favorites. Lol. In the years since he's passed sometimes it makes me a little sad to hear some of these songs, but not too much.
There's are a few songs and groups from the 1990s-2000s that I do like, but like I said, I'm having a hard time thinking of some of them while listening to something else, and trying to type. I do have to say, I do like Lady Gaga; but, I liked the songs she did with Tony Bennet better and that "Sound of Music" medley she did at the Academy Awards a few years ago (it was so sweet, how Julie Andrews really had to hug her, cuz she was really shaking and crying, after. I said, "Awwwwww." Lol.) and that made me go back, and like her original songs more than I had before. So right now, I really love that song "Shallow" that she got the Academy Award for.
