starexplorer wrote:

Felicitous Sk8er wrote:

We're departing for the UK in 2.5 weeks.  Thus, the only reading I've done recently has centered around travel guidebooks and Beatles-centered biographies. 

I loved Maximum Volume: the life of the life of Beatles producer George Martin, the early years 1926-2016.

I've almost finished the sequel: 
Sound Pictures: the life of Beatles producer George Martin, the later years 1966-2016
both by Kenneth Womack.

Excellent books if you are interested in learning how the music we're still talking about and playing 60+ years later was produced.  Both books drive home how creative and groundbreaking the Beatles -- and George Martin -- were.  I've always loved the Beatles -- but now truly appreciate them.    

On a related but slightly different note, I can recommend the podcast “A History of Rock and Roll in 500 Songs” with Andrew Hickey. Very good and extensive historical presentation starting in the 1930s.

The older I get, the more I appreciate The Beach Boys! And the Beatles, of course.

That sounds intriguing, Star.  I will definitely check it out - it's already hooked into my podcast platform of choice.  If I were to recommend another such podcast in return it would be The Album Years by Steven Wilson and Tim Bowness.  They pick a calendar year and discuss the more significant album releases of that year.  It's always entertaining and informative but can be a pain in the hip pocket - for example, how did I not know that Massive Attack's second album, from 1994,featured the vocals of Tracey Thorn from Everything But The Girl?  Now I have to find a copy, so off to the online record store I go. Sigh.

My own musical listening as I too get older also goes back to what I was listening to in my student days.  In my case it was not so much contemporary top 40 or whatever, but a lot further afield and fringe by Hobart standards in those days.  Lots of European artists: Hawkwind,Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Neu!, Can, Tasavalen Presidentti, Klaus Schulze and so on were in that mix.