MUSIC CENTRAL
Stacie Orrico in an Italian CD shop. It’s such a thrill to go into a CD shop and be amidst so much wonderful MUSIC! These days, going online to a music website has a similar thrill.
Name: J Lee Harshbarger
Age: 53
Location: Ypsilanti, Michigan
Favorite Types of Music:
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Dance, particularly melodic vocal trance and other electronic styles, such as Eurobeat, dubstep, techno, and synthpop -
Floating, fuzzed-out guitar alternative rock and shoegazer
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Pop punk
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Chill
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Industrial
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Gothic & darkwave
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World Beat, particularly with Middle Eastern and Indian sounds
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Rap
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Indie pop / Dream pop
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Reggaeton (not reggae)
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Modern rock if it’s interesting (too much of it is boring)
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Classical, particularly baroque
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Classical crossover
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Experimental
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Psychedelia
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Funk / r&b
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Zydeco
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...and more
Musicians I never get tired of:
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Bon Voyage
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Paradoxx
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Aleixa
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Broomtree
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Morella’s Forest
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Miss Angie
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Andy Hunter
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Michelle Tumes
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Viva Voce
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Cocteau Twins
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Regenerator
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Sarah Masen
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Shonen Knife
Musicians I’ve been listening to most in 2014:
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Audile
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Bananarama
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Beckah Shae
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Capital Kings
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David Thulin
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DJ Jireh
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Andy Hunter
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Rengerator
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Miss Angie
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Joanna Beasley
My DJ Experience
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Rick Juler Systems, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1989 & 1991: Live DJing at various locations, including dance clubs, a roller skating rink, a waterpark, and special events.
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United Skates Of America, Springfield, Ohio, 1979 & 1989.
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Various college and school dances
J Lee’s Annual Music Awards
Every year I list my favorite albums of that year, ranked in order. See what I think are the greatest albums of each year!
(Sorry, 2000-2006 were published on my blog, which was killed by Apple. I will put them up with my website rebuild, which will probably be done in 2015.)
Greatest Christian Albums Of The 1980s Lists
J Lee’s Soapbox is my “official” blog, where I post my latest thoughts on various topics. This includes my current thoughts on music.
I started a blog on Blogger to be specifically about music. I haven’t been active on it yet (only a few entries), but maybe someday...
Web Communities
At the web communities below, I have written about music. If you are a part of any of these communities, please let me know.
My Twitter ID is “songsequencer.” I only tweet about music, mostly what I’m listening to at the moment.
I have written reviews for over 100 CDs and books at Amazon. You can find these plus my Listmania lists and Wish Lists at this page.
I don’t writ
e any blog material on this site, but I have added some musicians and music-oriented Groups to my list of Friends.
A place for customer reviews of all kinds of products. I have some reviews of stereo equipment here.
This has been my major blogging community since October 2004. Most of my online-only friends are here.
Music: The Path To The Heart
Nothing affects me like music does. It goes to the heart in a way that words alone just cannot succeed. Music can enhance emotions, or alter them.
Because of this effect on me, and my love of writing, I have written on the web about music more than any other topic. I have written over 100 CD reviews at Amazon.com. I spend a ridiculous amount of time building my annual Music Awards lists (that’s why they’re always about a year and a half late). At Music Central, I want to create a place where all of my music writings can be accessed from one location. It will take awhile to complete this big project, but this is the place to come to see how it’s developing.
In the column to the left of this paragraph (and down a bit) are links to my Annual Music Awards. (Not all years are available yet.) I put lots of time into these lists, not only in carefully deciding which albums deserve to be called the best I experienced in a particular year--and their ranking--but also in finding pictures of the album covers and the artists, and links to their websites. As I always say as I sheepishly post each list about a year and a half late, Hey, these albums are the cream of the crop, so they’re still good, even though they’re not this year’s release anymore by the time the Annual Awards comes out. To learn about some great albums, read these lists.
Below that, note that I also made some lists long ago that rated the greatest Christian albums of the 1980s, divided by genre. Since nearly everything on those lists is out of print by now, I guess they’re only useful for the older people like me who remember those musicians, or for the younger ones who are CCM historians.
Something I’ve added new exclusively for this website is the Music Central Hall Of Fame. While there are a number of albums I find to be of great quality, there are only a select few artists whose albums I listen to year after year and never get tired of. So I decided to recognize these extraordinary artists by making my own Hall Of Fame page. For now, I’ve only listed them and briefly described why I’ve included them in the Hall Of Fame. Eventually I’d like to write a full page on each artist, along with pictures and discographies. Check back around the year 2014 for that.
My wife and I often joke that if you’ve lived an outstanding life as a human, in your next life you get to be a cat...just sleep and eat whenever you please. But if I came back as a cat, I think I’d still want to do music....
Enjoying the pleasure of music
Guide To Music Central
Other plans I have for the future of Music Central:
--A links page where you can easily find all my scattered album reviews
--A history of the development of my musical tastes
So yeah, I have big ideas, big plans, many of which will probably never get done. But in the meantime, I hope you find lots to read and I especially hope you learn about some new musician or even musical style that you haven’t known about but become interested in.
Music Central is a sub-website of J Lee Harshbarger’s personal website. To visit other sub-websites, click the links below.
Even zucchinis love music!
Web pages in this section:
This page was first posted in 2008 and last modified on March 30, 2014
