Regina Spektor, I've been discovering her stuff over the last few months and I've reached the point where I know roughly all of it. As I think is expected in this thread, all I can really offer here is possibility that blog-reading choices vaguely correlate with musical preferences. Her lyrics are pretty non-inane, especially upon repeated listening. Her variance of musical style is pleasing to me, makes it fun to play and listen to. Nothing especially Less Wrong-y, but I might be forgetting something. Though I don't think I know any composer at all who's (consistently) Less Wrong-y. She has a wild imagination and has written songs about being robots. She's one of those artists whose discography is a tapestry of varied and wonderful worlds that I can never really appreciate unless I'm in the process of listening to it, always a process of both rediscovery and familiarity. (She often writes in the first-person as non-Regina people, from fiction, the bible, or anonymous people; more than half of her songs are probably from the perspective of a different person). There are also lots of moments in her various songs that strike me in the right way, that capture some complex emotion I had never put into words, which gives her songs a sense of salience and intelligence. Some especially enjoyable songs: Us very uplifting, makes you think; Call Them Brothers the man singing is her husband, I like the eeriness; The Party, uplifting, pretty; All the Rowboats, she makes cute noises, quite fast. Back of a Truck, from her unusually jazzy first album.

Disclosure: I play and especially like piano so appear to be skewed towards liking such artists.

I have never been into classical music (my impression having been that it all sounds same-y, with the exception of Wagner, who is totally BOSS). But today I stumbled upon Shostakovich's 8th Symphony (1943) and a commentary to it by a French scholar of music. So sublime and stirring! Look at some videos or pictures of the Battle of Stalingrad while listening.

Recommended related reading: Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor, and A Writer at War by Vasily Grossman, with Beevor's excellent translation. I've read both - damn good, with an uncommon understanding of Russia and what the War meant and still means for us. As a Russian patriot (well... of a sort), I must say that Beevor deserves a medal from our government, not its slander.

Bob Dylan's new album ("Tempest") is perfect. At the time of posting, you can listen to it free on the itunes store. I suggest you do so.

On another note, I'm currently listening to all the Miles Davis studio recordings and assembling my own best-of list. It'll probably be complete by next month, and I'll be happy to share the playlist with anyone who's interested.

I’m excited about two things in September.

1. Animal Collective’s “Centipede Hz.” Years of sampling all kinds of indie rock have left me with only a handful of bands I still check on, and this act is one of them. I haven’t heard the record yet (waiting for my vinyl copy) but have passed the time lolling at this: The new album may not cohere like MPP, but we need to accept the possibility of a record so excellent we don’t understand it yet

2. T-ara’s Sexy Love. My favorite Kpop band. This guy talks about them better than I can. I don’t like it as much as their last two singles, Day by Day and Lovey Dovey but I hope it does well in the charts. They have been having a rough time lately.