617. A Romance Soundtracks Sampler

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 617 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, with me is Amanda, and we have a little something special for you this week. Typically, every other week we’ve been doing Romantic Times Rewind, but because there are so many extra Fridays in May, we’re going to start our next Romantic Times Rewind episodes in June. This week, instead of Romantic Times Rewind we have romance soundtracks. If you remember back in episode 611, we talked about the ads and features from the April 2005 issue of Romantic Times, and the whole back cover was an ad for romance soundtracks. Now, we tried to find them, but we, we were not able to. Malaraa, however, Malaraa found a veritable treasure trove. We’ve got samples, we’ve got music that you’re meant to read with, and Amanda’s going to try to identify which genre/album the music samples were from. This is a, this is a journey. It’s so much fun. We’ve got music samples; I cannot wait to share this episode. Thank you, Malaraa, for making this possible. This is going to be so much fun.

Hello and thank you to our Patreon community – [laughs] – which is where Malaraa posted these original links. Thank you, thank you, thank you! A special hello to Krystal J., who is one of the newest members of our Patreon. If you’ve supported the show, thank you. You’re keeping me going, you’re making sure every episode has a transcript from garlicknitter, who’s going to rock out doing this transcript – hi, garlicknitter! – [Hi! This is going to be amazing! – gk] – and you’re making sure that the work we do here is, well, continuing. Thank you. If you would like to join our Patreon, please have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

Support for this episode comes from First Base by Ally Wiegand. Batter up, sports fans! I have a new audiobook to tell you about that I think you will love. Author Ally Wiegand has published a new sports romance called First Base. First Base is a super cute baseball romance with some epic fake dating between a major league sports photographer named Maggie and Tommy, a new member of the team, equipped with a somewhat outrageous reputation. Tommy wants to clean up his public image and save his career, while Maggie, recently heartbroken, wants to stay in the stands watching from behind her camera lens. But then a team outing leads to a compromising photo between Maggie and Tommy that goes very, very viral, and the two of them agree to a fake relationship to save both their reputations and their jobs. The PR department is all in favor of their hot new celebrity faux-mance, but behind the act real feelings start to emerge, and Maggie and Tommy have to face their own pasts before they think about a real future. Maggie has already loved and lost, and Tommy’s never learned to commit to anything beyond baseball. Can the two of them make it past first base? Fans online are raving about this book, saying it’s super swoony, emotional, and lighthearted. Ally Wiegand’s writing is intimate and really fun, and I could not stop listening. First Base by Ally Wiegand is available everywhere you buy eBooks and audiobooks: Kindle, Nook, Audible, Apple Books, etc., and did you know that if you are a premium Spotify subscriber, you can now listen to First Base on Spotify for free! Give it a listen. Just go to books.8thnotepress.com/firstbase. That’s books.8thnotepress.com/firstbase. 

All right, are you ready to sample some romance soundtracks? Let’s do this. On with the podcast.

[music]

Sarah: So on the back of the issue of Romantic Times in April 2005 – so this was episode 611 – we talked about romance soundtracks, which was a whole co-, there’s a big full-color ad, and we did a very cursory search while we were recording.

Amanda: Couldn’t find anything.

Sarah: Could not find anything. And part of the problem is that while we are recording, I don’t want to be, like, making everyone listen to us google shit? Like, when I’m editing –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – I take out a lot of, like, I take out a lot of typing and noise, and I, like, be like, We found the result; here it is. We are not actually that fast in real life? I just take it out of the –

Amanda: No.

Sarah: – out of the file? But we don’t want to spend a lot of time googling stuff when we’re actually trying to, you know, have a conversation. Well then there’s Malaraa.

Amanda: Bless you, Malaraa.

Sarah: Malaraa –

Amanda: Thank you so much.

Sarah: – is amazing. Malaraa, it turns out, saw the post about romance soundtracks and me saying, like, Has you, have you heard of these? Do you know where they are? Can we find them? Hadn’t even listened to the episode, and found some samples. This is a wild ride, and Malaraa, we cannot thank you enough for making this possible.

Amanda: This is like internet archaeology is what Malaraa did.

Sarah: Yes, it is exactly that! It is precisely –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – that. Okay. So I have here four clips –

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: – from the romance soundtracks. They’re samples. Malaraa found the website for Romance Soundtracks on the Wayback Machine –

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: – and on the Wayback Machine capture, there are four samples. But then, because Malaraa is a seriously good internet archaeologist, found the music elsewhere and found most of the – one of them was Emerald Passions – she found – excuse me, it is just one passion; it is not a plural passion; it is just a singular passion: Emerald Passion.

Amanda: Just get the one.

Sarah: Malaraa found pretty much that whole album, so if you want to listen to it, I’ve got a link. It’s under a different title –

Amanda: Wow.

Sarah: – but I will share it with you. So I thought that what we would do today, I have the four samples; I have downloaded them for safekeeping. That’s the other thing about doing these, these, these issues, these episodes? The minute I find a good image of one of the old covers, I grab it and save it because it’s going to disappear! [Laughs]

Amanda: It’s going to disappear. Like, some of these old issues that we do, it’s like Amazon barely has any record – [laughs] – that some of these books –

Sarah: Of these books, yeah! Some of these books –

Amanda: – existed.

Sarah: – don’t have any, don’t have any internet footprint at all, so.

Amanda: No.

Sarah: I’m, I’m loving saving these little bits. My, my, my computer hard drive is going to be some kind of weird internet museum of romance history.

But we have samples from two albums. Now, I am going to send you a link.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: It’s Internet Archive, so it might take a second to render – I just put it in the podcast channel. So I’m going to send you a link. We have two clips from Bliss: Contemporary Romance, and two clips from Edge of Midnight: Romantic Suspense.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: So your idea was that we would play them, and you would try to guess which one they were from.

Amanda: But you just told me!

Sarah: Well, there’s two from each, so you have to guess which one is which!

Amanda: Ohhh! Okay, okay. So contemporary and romantic suspense –

Sarah: Right.

Amanda: – were the two, right?

Sarah: So if you have loaded the Internet Archive page, the Wayback Machine page –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – would you read the summary for Bliss: Contemporary Romance? I also want to know if these are actual romance covers, because some of these are pretty great.

Amanda: Yeah. [Laughs] Okay. So, first of all, Bliss is like the, the image that goes along with it is a man and woman, like, kissing on what I’m assuming is like a small town, like, main street. There’s, like, a little, like, fenced walk way and flowers.

Sarah: And some wrought iron; it’s very city.

Amanda: Yeah. So the, the description for Bliss:

>> Bliss stirs your senses with a symphony of today’s sounds that capture and match the mood of the moment. Love and lust, pleasure and pain –

Sarah: Eh?

Amanda: >> – struggle and surrender. As you read, you’ll become immersed far more deeply into these emotions than your imagine alone –

Sarah: It’s a typo!

Amanda: >> – has ever taken you.

Yeah. Than your imagine alone has ever taken you. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah. So basically, you’re supposed to listen to these soundtracks while you read this genre, and the music is going to help you have a more immersive experience?

Amanda: I guess.

Sarah: Okay.

Amanda: And then do we read Edge of Midnight?

Sarah: Please read Edge of Midnight.

Amanda: Okay. Edge of Midnight is romantic suspense, and –

Sarah: [Laughs] Hold on, is he naked?! Oh my God!

Amanda: He looks nude, for sure. He looks nude, but maybe he’s wearing pants that blend into his body?

Sarah: You know how you see people who are white, and they are wearing beige leggings, and you –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – glance away, and you think they don’t have pants on for a minute? This guy looks like he is full-on naked.

Amanda: It looks like, also, I’m, like –

Sarah: [Laughs] I just, I just need you guys to know where, we record on Zoom, and the both of us have our noses like five inches away from the camera –

Amanda: We’re –

Sarah: – trying to see if this guy is naked.

Amanda: We’re squinting and, like, getting very close. Are, they look like they’re in a, an abandoned mine shaft of a sort?

Sarah: There’s some kind of ghostly smoke coming out, like somebody farted –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – and it’s taking off?

Amanda: There’s, like, scaffolding, and they’re just, like, looking, they’re, like, embracing but looking in the same direction. And then the description for Edge of Midnight:

>> With each turn of the page, Edge of Midnight causes your imagination to run wild in the uncertainty of that which is, or perhaps is not, about to happen. The melodic pendulum of mood can swing from dark and desperate to strongly sensual. Edge of Midnight is the perfect accompaniment when suspicion runs rampant and adventure abounds.

Sarah: So I just did a cursory image search to see if I could find –

Amanda: Yeah. Did you find it?

Sarah: No, I just found all of my own files on smartbitchestrashybooks.com –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – ‘cause apparently I am now the repository for romance soundtracks!

Amanda: Yep.

Sarah: Oh man. Wow!

So we have four clips, two from Bliss –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – and two from Edge of Midnight, and what I’m going to do is, I think they’re, mmm, minute and a half maybe, at the most?

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: We’re going to play them. You’re going to try to guess which one – it’s, you’ve got a fifty/fifty shot.

Amanda: Oh boy.

Sarah: So we’re going to try to guess which one goes with which.

Amanda: Have you listened to these already?

Sarah: I have listened to a very small amount of them as I downloaded them –

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: – to make sure that the quality was, was, was worth it.

Amanda: Okay. I don’t know what to expect in terms of, like, quality.

Sarah: So one of the things that Malaraa found was that these are by Trammell Starks and the Taliesin or Taliesin Orchestra, and, you know, I won’t spoil it. I’ll tell you this part after, because this will give away some of the genre. I’m going to send it to you in the Slack, and then we will press Play.

Amanda: [Laughs] Together.

Sarah: Okay, one, two, three, go, okay? So I’m going to send you clip number one.

Amanda: It’s like when you and your friend would watch movies long distance –

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: – and you’d have to be like, Okay, on the count of three we’re both going to hit Play.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: Okay, I ha-, I have received it?

Sarah: Okay. Are you ready?

Amanda: Okay. Yes.

Sarah: One, two, three, go.

[music]

Amanda: [Laughs] I have tears.

[Laughter]

Sarah: We got to the, we got to the tinkling bells; I lost it! I need a tissue; I’m cry-laughing. Oh my God!

Amanda: What in the Enya was that?

Sarah: That was like “Chariots of Fire” and Enya had a baby.

Amanda: That’s exactly what I thought! I’m like, Someone is –

Sarah: We’re both getting tissues ‘cause we’re –

Amanda: – on a horse, someone is riding a horse on a beach?

Sarah: [Laughs] God, we’re both crying. You know, Clay told me, Clay told me in the, in the Discord that sometimes they listen while their sixteen-year-old is in the car, and the sixteen-year-old would, like, look up the authors and the books and be like, What is this? I imagine them in the car just frigging howling at this music. Oh my goodness! Hello, Clay’s child.

Amanda: Well, I have some, like –

Sarah: [Laughs] Welcome!

Amanda: [Laughs] Lot’s, lots of, like, breathy woman sounds.

Sarah: Ahhoo-oooo!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: There’s a lot of mouth yodeling, and then they got to the chimes. [Laughs] Oh my God!

Amanda: That’s got to be contemporary.

Sarah: That is correct. That is Bliss.

Amanda: Oh.

Sarah: That is “Whispers.” But that wasn’t any whispering; that was just moaning. That was like when Fabio wanted to croon to you. There’s more crooning!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Why is there crooning? [Laughs]

Amanda: Yeah, it’s crooning –

Sarah: It’s crooning.

Amanda: – and, like, cooing, but it’s very “Chariots of Fire.” Like –

Sarah: It’s a –

Amanda: – I was imagining a beautiful horse on a beach, just running down –

Sarah: Oh my God, I’m dying.

Amanda: That’s what I pictured.

Sarah: I’m going to have to clean my glasses now. Okay.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Wow. All right, this is amazing.

Amanda: It reminds me of that commercial, that ‘90s infomercial of Pure Moods?

Sarah: I fucking loved that CD! There was that, there was the, the indigenous American chant? [Chants]

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: And then there was that one where they were, like, making noises about the Marquis de Sade? [Sings] Yeah, oh yeah, I loved the Pure Moods CD. That, I, I listened –

Amanda: This is, this gives me Pure Moods vibes, for sure.

Sarah: Were you, were you aware of music at the time when everyone was super into, like, Gregorian chant? That was a whole thing.

Amanda: No, but one of my very favorite Tumblr posts that I think I have bookmarked is, like, the, it’s, like, monks singing or like Gregorian chants –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – that plays, and all it is is a, a collection, a collage of photos of whale sharks with their mouth open.

[Laughter]

Amanda: Let me see if I can find it. I feel like I have it bookmarked so I can always revisit it?

Sarah: Oh my God, I have to wipe my eyes. That was only the first clip, and I’m a mess! Okay.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: This is really fun; I hope you’re all enjoying this. I’m going to have to edit out so much sniffling and nose, nose noises?

All right, are you ready for clip two? This is forty-two seconds.

Amanda: Yes, I’m ready.

Sarah: All right. All right, I sent it to you. Ready: one, two, three, go.

[music (bunch of chords slowly changing)]

Sarah: I’m bored.

[music continues, but adds a little piano melody]

Sarah: Ooh!

Amanda: This gives, this gives me X-Files soundtrack vibes.

[music]

Sarah: [Laughs] So do you want to –

Amanda: There’s, like –

Sarah: Tinkling, tinkling piano.

Amanda: – rising tension there.

Sarah: Yep. Clink, clink, tinkly piano.

Amanda: Yeah. I would say suspense. Like I said, it gave me, like, the transition music you’d hear in The X-Files.

Sarah: Ooh! I am sorry to report that was Bliss, which I’ve, which means I’ve given away the other two, so now you know what they’re from.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Should have thought that out in advance; my bad! But, yeah, that was “Intimate Interlude.” That was boring! I much prefer the, the, the mouth noises.

Amanda: I know!

Sarah: All right, are you ready to hear from Edge of Midnight?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I spoiled my own surprise. Good job, Sarah. Working real hard over here.

Amanda: I can’t imagine what – like, I don’t know what to expect now.

Sarah: I don’t know what to expect from these either, but you could try to guess which one is “Mysterial Magic” and which one is “Shadows of Desire.” So I have information about after, about this whole thing, and then I have more music –

Amanda: Oh boy. Okay.

Sarah: – so don’t worry, there’s more. But I have just sent – well, I forgot to hit Send, but now I’ve just sent –

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: – clip three. You ready?

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: One, two, three, go!

[music]

Sarah: Nothing about this says suspense to me. That was very violin –

Amanda: That’s sad!

Sarah: That was very mopey!

Amanda: This is very sad!

Sarah: That was like somebody just died, and there’s, like, little motes floating in the sun.

Amanda: Boo.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: Didn’t like that one.

Sarah: That was not very suspenseful. It was very violin-y. I should, I should make my, my older child, who is a student of music, listen to these. He’d be like, Oh, Mom, what is this?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I’m kind of bummed that there are no samples of Somewhere in Venice: Exotic Local?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: I guess that’s supposed to be Locale? But there’s no, there’s no Somewhere in Venice. Like, what is it going to be, like, water sounds? And some, like, bird noises?

Amanda: I don’t know!

Sarah: Like, water hitting the hull? Okay.

So here’s our last clip. This is clip four. All right, here we go, sending it. One, two, three, let’s see what happens!

[music]

Amanda: There was also some, like, water noises in there.

Sarah: That was swimming music! That was like we’re underwater and our hair is floating around.

Amanda: Yeah! Neither of these was suspenseful!

Sarah: No, there wasn’t even, like, a drum! Like, I was expecting like – [drum noises]. No! It’s weird!

Amanda: No!

Sarah: Like, how is this supposed to accentuate my reading experience? I don’t know.

Amanda: These are bad.

Sarah: Yeah. These were –

Amanda: I didn’t like these.

Sarah: So Malaraa also found that Emerald Passion:

>> As the author paints each page with descriptions of the lush landscapes of the Highlands –

By the way, are there Highlands in Ireland? I thought they were in Scotland.

>> – Emerald Passion frames these tapestries of romantic tale and tradition with a myriad of faint melodies in the distance.

So maybe this is supposed to be – I don’t know; people usually describe Ireland as Emerald Isle? But Highlands is in Scotland, so it’s just, you know, it’s up there. It’s, it’s up north where it’s cold and there’s midges.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: This entire –

Amanda: Squish them all together, I guess.

Sarah: Yeah. This entire album is available as Scenic Soundscapes: Ireland. Now there are, all of the tracks are here. I will include a link in the description so that you can see. I will send you a link to the music on YouTube. Let us select two to play. Now, one of them has four point two thousand plays, and one of them has one point one three thousand, and the rest have between six fifty and, oh, one of them only has two hundred and forty-seven plays; no one likes that one.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Mostly between like two, six, and nine hundred plays, and then a couple of them are over a thousand. Which do you think we should sample?

Amanda: I feel like we should do the highest one and the lowest one.

Sarah: Yes, okay.

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: Okay, one, two, three, play.

[music]

Sarah: [Laughs]

[music]

Sarah: All right, I’m going to stop there. That was – whoever had to audition had to answer the question, So how is your wuh sound?

Amanda: This one – so the actual instrumental part, lovely, fine.

Sarah: Great.

Amanda: This singing would distract me from my reading too much.

Sarah: Oh, I don’t –

Amanda: Like, the second –

Sarah: Mm-mm. I don’t listen to anything –

Amanda: – the second it came in –

Sarah: – with lyrics or voice noises. Nope.

Amanda: – I would be like, Nope! Now I can’t read. There goes my reading.

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: I’m done.

Sarah: Someone’s making wuh-wuh noises.

So that’s the most popular to, now –

Amanda: …the most popular one.

Sarah: – that was really tickling my brain, because I felt like it was a mix of “Greensleeves” and an old song by Nickel Creek that is just on the edge of my consciousness – ah, “Sabra Girl.”

Amanda: Thought you were saying Nickelback for a second. What?

Sarah: No, miss, it reminds me of Nickelback. No, there’s a song from Nickel Creek called “Sabra Girl” and also “Greensleeves.” It’s like those two songs, every, every, like, four sets of notes I’d be like, Oh, this is, no, it’s not that song. Oh, this is, no, it’s not that song. It reminds me of a whole bunch of other songs. Which is not a knock against it. It’s just, like, really, I would not be able to read through that because I would be trying to identify which song it was because it sounded familiar for a second.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Yep. All right, so what’s the other one that we’re going to play?

Amanda: So the other one, the, the one that has the least amount of plays –

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: – two hundred and forty-seven –

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: – it’s called “A Rival of Love.”

Sarah: Ooh! All right. Shall we hit Play?

Amanda: I know! Yes!

Sarah: All right, one, two, three, go!

[thunder, music]

Amanda: Oh, there we go.

[music]

Amanda: Okay, this one is good so far.

Sarah: I’m, I’m liking this.

Amanda: I don’t know what these people are even talking about.

[music]

Amanda: I liked that one. I –

Sarah: I like that one a lot! I feel bad that it’s not popular on this album, because that was way more –

Amanda: I know!

Sarah: – interesting than the other one!

Amanda: I was also expecting, with that build up, for it to have, like, throat singing.

Sarah: Ohhh!

Amanda: Like, that buzzy, like, throat singing. Yeah! But no, we still got another lady doing woos.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: But that was cooler –

Sarah: That was cooler.

Amanda: – than the others!

Sarah: That was cooler.

Okay, so here’s the cool thing that Malaraa found. There’s an artist named Trammell Starks, who is one of the artists who did a lot of this music, according to what Malaraa found. Trammell Starks did all the music for The Weather Channel in 1995.

Amanda: Shut up!

Sarah: And they used Trammel Starks’ music till about 2000. Although they, you know, they did mix in other artists. There is a whole channel of Trammel Starks’ music from The Weather Channel, and I have a link for you on Last.fm.

Amanda: It’s so funny –

Sarah: Music –

Amanda: – that you –

Sarah: – for the Local Forecast.

Amanda: It’s so weird that you brought this up, ‘cause you said the, one of the first ones we listened to felt like sort of this amalgamation of tunes that you already –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – know?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: And when I was little and my mom was getting ready for work and she would have The Weather Channel on, they would play that music, I would swear up and down that they were, like, instrumentals of popular songs?

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: Even though they weren’t. So I wonder if this person just has like a really good ear – [laughs] – for having music that sounds very similar to popular note.

Sarah: Yep! You’re right; there are pieces of other songs that I think I identify, and then it switches to something else.

So on Last.fm there is an entire album. So according to what Malaraa found, this Trammell Starks composed a lot of The Weather Channel music, and people started asking for it to be on CD, so they were limited edition music of The Weather Channel, CD 1, 2, 3, and 4, and there are YouTube playlists where if you look – I’ll send you the link – if you look at the playlists it’s all, like, The Weather Channel music, Local Forecast music.

Amanda: Oh my God.

Sarah: Yeah! For example, if you go to the Last.fm page and play “Smooth Sailing,” number seven:

[music]

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: Oh my God.

[music]

Sarah: It feels like time travel!

Amanda: It does!

[music]

Sarah: [Hums] Yeah!

[music]

Sarah: Wow, right? That –

Amanda: What is this person doing these days?

Sarah: I don’t know, but I kind of love that we went from romance soundtracks to music from the Local on the –

Amanda: Weather Channel!

Sarah: – Local on the 8s, baby! Like, I, when I was sick, I would listen to The Weather Channel. Like, if I had a really bad migraine, I would listen to The Weather Channel because it was always about the same – and this was old Weather Channel, before they were like, We’re going to chase a tornado, and we’re going to –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – spank it! And – like, before they got, like, super reality TV, like, The worst waves ever! And then you see like one piece of footage of a wave like twelve times –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – before The Weather Channel got all loud and shouty about the weather, I used to listen to them when they had a, when, when I had a migraine because it was like, Hey, the weather’s going to be 82, and here’s Local on the 8s. [Hums] Super chill music. It would, like, almost hypnotize me.

Amanda: So! I was curious about what Trammell Starks is up to now. So this is of last May, May 2023.

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Amanda: >> Renowned recording artist, composer, and producer Trammell Starks of Atlanta –

Sarah: Oh!

Amanda: >> – has been named the Auburn University Department of Music’s first full-time audio recording engineer, tasked with managing its million-dollar world-class recording studio.

Sarah: That’s fricking awesome!

Amanda: So yeah, apparently he’s at Auburn University!

Sarah: Ohhh, that’s awesome! I hope that’s a job with great benefits, my guy. That is amazing.

Amanda: I have to imagine, though, the students coming into that studio if, like, he drops his credentials of, like, I was The Weather Channel music man. [Laughs]

Sarah: I was, I was the Local on the 8s guy, my man.

Amanda: They’re going to be like, What?

Sarah: Let me see if I can get this one to play. I was going to play “Sweet Meadow Dream,” the one point three thousand from Scenic Soundscapes: Ireland.

[music]

Sarah: That sounds like all of those recordings you’ve ever sent me of medieval madrigal versions of pop songs?

Amanda: Bardcore!

Sarah: Bardcore! Thank you! I was like –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – there’s a, there’s a word for this; I can’t remember! Bardcore. This is very –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – bardcore.

Amanda: Yes! Yeah. It’s got, like, the plucky little strings –

Sarah: Yep, a little bit of –

Amanda: – a little flute.

Sarah: Yeah, that’s definitely lute-y. It’s very lute-ular. I cannot believe that we found an ad on the back of RT magazine, and – [laughs] – and it led in the –

Amanda: What a journey, huh? [Laughs]

Sarah: – and Malaraa led us to the Local on the 8s guy. Is there any other Weather Channel music on this Last.fm page that you want to play? [Laughs] “Jamaican Jam”

Amanda: Some of these titles are awful. But, like, I feel like this is going to be some long-lost trivia question of, like, Who was the famous composer who wrote The Weather Channel music between 1995 and whatever? Like, make sure you tell Adam about this –

Sarah: Oh!

Amanda: – considering Adam loves a, loves a bar trivia. He’s got to have this in his back pocket for something.

Sarah: I told you that Adam is in a trivia podcast, a podcast trivia tournament, right?

Amanda: No!

Sarah: Okay, he is part of a podcast trivia tournament, and I don’t remember the name of the show. I will get him, I will get the name. Actually, you know what, he’s still at his desk. What is the name of the podcast tourney you’re in? So basically they have – and he gets ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, and 2000s, and then like six categories, so you pick a category and then they roll a die to tell you which decade the question’ll be from? So if you’re in their Patreon you get to be in the tournament, and he was a new entry, ‘cause he’d just joined, and they put him up against the number one seed, and he was the sixteen seed, and he won. So he made it to the next round. Throwback Trivia Takedown is the name of the podcast. If you listen –

Amanda: Oh!

Sarah: – you will hear my fine husband Adam. But he’s recording again, so I’m going to have to be like, Okay, you need to be prepared; I’ve got Weather Channel trivia for you.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, this is their Patreon, their annual Patreon tournament, so he’s, he’s in the, I, I think he’s, he’s won two rounds, so he’s in the quarterfinals I guess that would be? I forget how tournaments work. I used to run a tournament! Do I remember? No, I do not. But yeah!

Amanda: Speaking of tournaments –

Sarah: Tell me.

Amanda: – someone at the office mentioned this thing called Music League?

Sarah: Ooh!

Amanda: And it sounds really cool. I can send you a link when I’m at my other desk. But, what, like, you pick how many rounds, and you come up with categories, like cover songs or, you know, like, saxophone or whatever.

Sarah: Right.

Amanda: And so during the, the beginning round, everyone submits a song for this theme, and then once the submissions are done, everybody gets this playlist that’s generated from all of the songs that people submitted, but you don’t know who submitted what.

Sarah: Ohhh!

Amanda: And so you all listen to the playlist, you can make comments on the playlist, but you vote at which song matches the theme the best –

Sarah: Oh!

Amanda: – and then afterwards it’s revealed of who picked what, who voted for what –

Sarah: Ah!

Amanda: – like, comments made, and then it, like, goes on for however many rounds you determine until, like, there’s a winner of, like, who has picked the best songs that match with the, the themes that you’ve –

Sarah: Oooh!

Amanda: – written.

Sarah: That’s cool!

Amanda: It seems very cool.

Sarah: If we were going to Music League this music, I would say that the Emerald Passion: Celtic Romance, which is now on YouTube as “Scenic Soundscapes: Ireland” is probably best fitting the brief, because –

Amanda: Yep.

Sarah: – really, the, the two songs from Bliss: Contemporary and Edge of Midnight: Romantic Suspense were, I mean, one of them sounded like “Chariots of Fire” and running on the beach, and neither of the other two –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – sounded particularly, you know, suspenseful. Or whether or not you’re standing –

Amanda: I’d expect more, like –

Sarah: – naked in a pipe factory.

Amanda: Yeah! I expected, like, more like tension or something from the romantic suspense ones, but they were pretty lackluster.

Sarah: Do you listen to music when you read?

Amanda: No. I’m a crazy person in that –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – when I do work and when I read, I need background noise, but it has to be people talking. I put a YouTube video on or something, like some random YouTube video. I don’t listen to music; I don’t do silence. It has to be, like, innocuous talking, like a videogame player that I follow, like, doing a Let’s Play, or like a commentary channel reviewing some TV show that they watch, or whatever. But no, I, I have voices.

Sarah: Oh, that’s so funny, because I’m the exact opposite? I want none voices. The thing that I listen to most when I’m reading or I want to relax, I notice that it soothes what I call the sort of distracted Jack Russell Terrier part of my brain? No words, no talking, certainly no, no, no vocals, not even the woo-woo-woo-woo sounds; like, I can’t even do that. I listen to a lot of lo-fi hip-hop, because the scratchy lo-fi noise and then the, the beat is very soothing to me, but the thing that I’ve discovered is this bald guy named Malte Marten who does handpan music? Have you ever heard this?

Amanda: I know what handpan is.

Sarah: I’m going to hit play. Can you hear this?

[music]

Amanda: Yeah.

[music]

Sarah: This is perfect for me for reading. Like, if I was going to be immersed in a soundtrack, it would be something like this, with this sort of continued low note tone. Also, I could read the weather over this.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: The weather today is going to be hot, sunny, humid, high of 87. We’ll have showers tonight. [Laughs] Tomorrow’s a chance –

Amanda: I need –

Sarah: – of thunderstorm.

Amanda: I need talking ‘cause I can’t be alone with my thoughts. 

Sarah: Ahhh.

Amanda: …I can’t be alone with my thoughts, and music doesn’t distract me enough. Music usually triggers, like, boredom for me?

Sarah: Ohhh, that’s interesting.

Amanda: And the music that I listen to, like, personally is, like, heavy metal music, lots of screaming –

Sarah: I didn’t know that!

Amanda: – and heavy drum. Yeah, I’m going to, like, a German heavy metal concert in, like, two weeks.

Sarah: You have ear buds, or ear plugs, right?

Amanda: No.

Sarah: Please wear ear plugs and protect your hearing.

Amanda: [Laughs] But I have a concert this Sunday for a band that has, like, the twentieth anniversary of their first CD, which makes me feel old, and then a German heavy metal concert afterwards. But my music is usually very loud, lots of drums, lots of screaming. Not conducive to, like, just relaxing. But Brian is the opposite; Brian loves, like, a soft female vocalist and a little jangly guitar.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: So Brian is not going to the heavy metal concert with me; one of my friends at work is going. But yeah, so even if I chose my own music –

Sarah: It would not be this. I have a lot of instrumentals that I listen to. There was one YouTube playlist that I’ll have to go find, and the, I think you might have been the person who helped me find it. I was an image of like a medieval magical market, but the person in the stall is a cat and there’s crystals all over the place?

Amanda: It sounds familiar.

Sarah: But it’s like medieval market or something like that, and it’s, it’s fantasy market music. But, like – oh yeah, I found it! “Medieval Fantasy Music”

[music]

Sarah: It’s very bardcore.

Amanda: Yeah!

[music]

Sarah: I just sent you the link, though, so you can see the illustration. There’s like this cat selling crystals and shit. It’s very romantasy without the Roma… Yeah, I will listen to that type of thing when I want to relax or when I’m reading or whatever.

But when I’m doing a task, like if I’m cross-stitching or I’m sewing, I’m almost always listening to a podcast or an audiobook. That’s when I want someone to tell me a story because I’m doing a, a, a semi-monotonous task, and I have the brain to listen. Or when I’m driving, I love listening to an audiobook. I had to go to the airport yesterday to pick up Adam and my older child, and it, I was driving to Baltimore in rush hour, so that’s like forty-five minutes. I had just enough time for one of the Miss Marple stories from the Marple anthology I’m listening to?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: It finished and solved just as I hit Arrivals. I was like, Yes! I don’t have to wonder what happened!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I know exactly what happened! But otherwise, if I’m reading and I want to focus on that, it has to be instrumental. I can’t have any screaming or talking or woo-woo-woo-woo-woo noises.

But thank you, Malaraa.

Amanda: Thank you, Malaraa!

Sarah: Thank you, Malaraa! We, I can’t believe that you found these. It’s really incredible –

Amanda: I know.

Sarah: – and it led us to Local on the 8s music, which is just –

Amanda: I thought they were, like, lost to the sands of time, for sure.

[outro music]

Sarah: Nope! Well, now I have the samples, and I have this YouTube album of scenic scapes from Ireland. I wonder if we will, if, I, if I ever find like a used CD store, I’m going to seriously start looking for the romance soundtracks.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: If I find one – do I own a CD player? No, I do not. But will I look for these on CD? Oh yes. I bet they’re on cassette. I bet they’re so old they’re on cassette.

But thank you, Malaraa!

Amanda: Thank you!

Sarah: You’re amazing!

And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you again so much to Malaraa. I will have links to all of the places where we found the music. I will share pictures, and I will make sure you have all of the playlists, and, you know, I would love to know what you like to listen to when you read, and is it any of this? Are you listening to Emerald Passion, which is now online as Ireland Scenic Soundscapes? Tell me what – lutes, mouth noises, moaning? Does Fabio croon to you when you read? I need to know all about it. Please tell me in the comments; tell me on the Patreon page; yell at me on social media. I just want to know, what do you listen to when you read?

This was so much fun; I had the best time. [Laughs] Thank you so much, Malaraa!

As always, I end every episode with a terrible joke, and this week’s joke is from Bull. Thank you, Bull!

What is better than a battery?

What’s better than a battery?!

A goodery!

[Laughs] A goodery!

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. We hope it’s very goodery, as is your weekend, and we will see you back here next week.

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

[end of music]