MetaChat - Help me load up my grandmother's iPod...

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30 March 2009

Help me load up my grandmother's iPod... ...because she demands it be awesome.→[More:] Thursday is my grandmother's birthday, she'll be 78. For the past couple years, she has developed a new hobby, and that is working-out. She has a personal trainer and is overcoming a rebuilt knee and a life of being relatively apathetic toward cardiovascular and/or strength-building activities. So far it's been very productive!

Today, she gave me her iPod Shuffle (which is loaded with Josh Groban and Five Tenors and such). She is requesting more "bopping" and "excited" music to listen to when exercising. And she is serious.

So... Let's hear it. What should I put on this thing?

While it shouldn't be too aggressive or burn her ears out, I'm not necessarily looking for patronizing throwback stuff, but anything contemporary and maybe even some accessible indie music. Obviously if the project fails, I can always take the iPod back, wipe the thing clean, and try a new selection.

post by: pokermonk at: 19:59 | 10 comments

And when I said "Five Tenors", I apparently meant "Ten Tenors." That's a lot of tenors to overcome but I think it's possible.

posted by pokermonk 30 March | 20:06

What do you have access to?

posted by Ardiril 30 March | 20:18

Lots. Primarily rock in all its variations. But between my obsessive collecting and the collections of friends and other family members, I can cover many, many things.

And I'm not opposed to picking select tracks up on itunes or amazon if it seems just right.

posted by pokermonk 30 March | 20:25

This is too broad! Bopping and excitable? That could mean Shonen Knife or Tom Petty or even Orbital.

I'm no good here without more information.

posted by Lipstick Thespian 30 March | 20:56

Let's see, then, she was 19 in 1950 and if she started having kids by 25, she probably lost track of pop music just as rock 'n roll hit. You can choose from everything since Elvis, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry as well as Frank Sinatra's comeback albums in the late 50s and early 60s. You can also swing over to the jazz side and pick up some Coltrane and Miles Davis. For country, you could start with Chet Atkins and Johnny Cash and work your way up through Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire to Alan Jackson and other New Country. From the 60s, you can grab some Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell and the various versions of CSN&Y. To see if she likes disco, throw on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. 80s power ballads, maybe? Chris Isaak?

Probably your best bet is to just start dumping tracks on it from what you have, making sure everything is genre tagged properly with an approximate year or decade. That way she can see what she likes and give you some ideas later on how to improve the mix.

posted by Ardiril 30 March | 21:31

I really am throwing darts at a balloon board myself... (Is that even a workable metaphor?). I've been thinking of mid-tempo stuff and songs that might have an defined, energetic beat beneath a light and airy surface. I'm definitely no music critic...

As far as recent things, I'm looking at possibly including some Postal Service... I just discovered Annett Louisan and think it might make a good add. Shonen Knife's "Top of the World" would probably be a nice fit. Maybe Decemberists "Song for Myla Goldberg", Feist's "I Feel it All", Big Wu's "Kangaroo"? I'm not sure if I'm pushing too far beyond the familiar, but she's somewhat adventurous even if patently anti-intellectual (she was a heavy Facebook user long before I was).

The goal is really to just bring this out of Josh Groban territory into something more conducive to activity: but she's not going to be running laps to "Eye of the Tiger"... Maybe I'm wrong.

Sorry. Am working on my interactive fiction entry and left this response stuck on preview.

posted by pokermonk 30 March | 22:26

Aside from music, what about some podcasts? Depends what she's into, of course, but there is something out there for everyone.

posted by desjardins 30 March | 22:34

Do you have time to take around to relatives and have them add tracks that they pick? That would make it an extra special little gift.

posted by Ardiril 30 March | 23:33

Elvis Costello, take your pick. Tom Petty, likewise. Eurythmics, "Would I Lie To You" or "Doubleplusgood" from the 1984 soundtrack. Iggy Pop, "Lust For Life." Muddy Waters, "I Got My Mojo Working."

List goes on, but I gotta sleep.

posted by Hugh Janus 30 March | 23:53

As always, I'm going to suggest some Amadou & Mariam.

posted by mdonley 31 March | 02:16

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