I don’t have an iPod, so I just started playing my entire library in Media Player and hit randomize.
“Amanda” – Nat Stuckey – Forever Country: Oh, god, embarassment from the beginning. I took a line dancing class (be quiet, it was fun) and I bought an enormous compilation of little known country songs for $10 so I’d have something to practice to. I really need to take them off my computer.
“Black Balloon” – Goo Goo Dolls – from a mix CD a friend made me: I was in high school in the late '90s. I still like sappy songs like this one. My other staple? “Brick,” Ben Fold Five.
“Good King Wenceslas” – Various Artists – album unknown: Apparently Christmas now comes twice a year. I love this song. With this and “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” my Christmas is complete.
“Just for Now” – Imogen Heap – Speak for Yourself: This is one of my favorite songs off this album. Much more representative of most of my music library than Nat Stuckey and the Goo Goo Dolls.
“My Style” – Black Eyed Peas – Monkey Business: Dammit. Why couldn’t it have been The Dropkick Murphys or Cloud Cult or anything but the Black Eyed Peas?
Really, really bewildering at the things that didn’t pop up. I have four or five cast albums of Broadway shows, a lot of “Celtic” music, and a lot of Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos, etc. What showed up is really the minority in my music collection.
No ipod here, just a 1gig flash player that wouldn’t offer much variety. Shuffling from my entire Foobar2000 library (11,980 tracks):[ul][li] Seguidilla from George Bizet’s opera Carmen - I’d forgotten I had ripped this. Unfortunately, I don’t know any of the performers and I’ve lost the original CD. Not one of my favourite performances, either.[/li]
[li]Bird Of Paradise by Charlie Parker from The Best of the Dial Years - Love this track, love the whole CD. Miles Davis has a cool muted trumpet solo on this piece. Hints of modal jazz to come.[/li]
[li]Speaking of Miles Davis, My Man’s Gone Now from his recording of Porgy and Bess - One of many versions of the opera that I have in my collection and one of my favourites.[/li]
[li]Blue by VAST from Music for People - A relatively subdued song from a fascinating alt. rocker. Has a bit of a retro-psychedelic feeling.[/li] Let’s Shake by Teenage Head from Frantic City - A Canadian punk rock classic. It’s a tragedy they were never really able to capitalize on their early fame and notoriety to hit the big time.[/ul]
“Up the Lazy River” - Peggy Lee
“Major Tom” (German version) - Tom Schilling
“Boombastic” - Shaggy
“Dead” - They Might Be Giants
“We Are the Champions” - Queen
“Big Mama’s Door/Boogie Chile” – L.B. Walker. Walker is a local act who does a nice mix of blues and old songs and is reminiscent of Leon Redbone.
“Fishin’ Blues” – Taj Mahal. More blues. Taj is just a great perfomer.
“Yesterday’s Gone” – Flash and the Pan. A great group (descended from The Easybeats and siblings of AC/DC) who put out two very good albums in the late 70s. This song is one of the “bonus tracks” for the CD. You usually discover the is a good reason why bonus tracks were left off originally – it’s OK, but not one of their best.
“Buzz Me” – B. B. King. This is from his “Let the Good Times Roll” album, a collection of Louis Jordan songs. King is featured as a singer more than a guitarist, but the album is a lot of fun. This is not one of the top songs, but has a nice shuffle feel and King’s singing is soulful.
“America” from West Side Story. Just a great song.
“The Bleeding Heart Show” by the New Pornographers
“Freebird” (covered by) Ben Folds Five
“Love You Madly” by Cake
“Hex” by Neko Case
“Someday” by The Strokes
[ol][li]Tristan - Patrick Wolf[/li][li]Farewell to All These Rotten Teeth - Carissa’s Wierd[/li][li]Us - She Wants Revenge[/li][li]Is This Desire - PJ Harvey[/li][li]Poor Impulse Control - Jack Off Jill[/ol][/li]
I’m actually only really familiar with two of the songs, though I like four of the artists. The last three titles taken as a whole kind of amuse me, though.
"Pure Morning" - Placebo - Don’t know if I’ve ever heard this song. "Even Flow" - Pearl Jam -Yeah, so *10 *is the best album ever made. "Symphony #40 in G Minor" - Mozart - Easy listening gets it done sometimes. "Army of Me" - Bjork - This was one of Dave Navarros music picks in a Maxim Magazine so I downloaded it. He was right, it’s badass.
**“Aqualung” - Jetro Tull **- I don’t listen to this ever, but I’m glad it’s here.
Ah, here we go. I totally forgot about that Bjork song, and shall get it now. Aqualung has been a guilty pleasure for years and I always forget to download it. Neat.
So, I will have another go…obviously I will skip anything that popped up last time.
Come on Eileen- (Dexy’s Midnight Runners) -Argh. Look it’s a good song, dammit. You know it is…Dammit.
Sunshine Superman- (Donovan) -eh. It’s no Epistle to Dippy, but it’ll do. Actually I don’t know why I still have this on here. I much prefer Husker Du’s version (don’t feel like finding umlauts. Sorry.)
Respectable Street- (XTC)- Love this song, and the album it’s on. Great silly video.
I Don’t Like Mondays- (Boomtown Rats)- I mainly like this song for the piano part. Is it still banned from being played on the radio?
Johnny Thunder- (Kinks)- Ah, one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite albums. You know, this was gonna be my username when I first signed up…decided against it because everyone would obviously think that I was a guy.
Hmmm. A slight bit of iffyness, but again nothing too mortifying. I think I kind of *want * something embarrassing to play.
Oh, and I do have females on this thing…dunno why they aren’t coming up.
Wait for You by Nelly Furtado
Youth of a Nation by P.O.D.
Times They Are A Changing by Nina Simone
All The Way to Reno by REM
Crush(1980 me) by Darren Hayes
The only one of those I would listen to on a regular basis is the Darren Hayes song
Dancin’ - Olivia Newton John. Oh, jeepers. How did this even got on here? I want to blame my Xanadu-loving (But still 100% heterosexual!) boyfriend for this. And not the cheesy catchiness of it all.
Fairtale of New York - The Pogues. This is more like it. For me, this is one of the great love songs. A couple who’s been together long enough to truly adore and revile each other, but know that they’re going to be tied up in each other for the rest of their lives.
Shut Me Up - Mindless Self Indulgence. I love these guys. They’re ridiculous.
Click Click Click Camera - Bishop Allen. My favorite musical discovery of the last five years. They have a gift for mixing emotionally dead-on lyrics with simplisticlly catchy melodies. This song is my second favorite of the group’s.
Lost in Time - Stellastarr*. I haven’t figured out what it is about this track that makes me a little weepy every time I hear it, but it always happens.
Only - Nine Inch Nails
Exit Music (For a Film) - Radiohead
Brain Damage - Pink Floyd
Maybe I’ll Come Down - Soul Coughing
Communication Breakdown - Led Zeppelin
This is on a 1G Nano with 219 songs. I always play it on full random. Might as well have a shuffle.
"672" – The Dresden Dolls – This song’s about a minute and a half with very quiet vocals (though interspersed with a great primal wail), so I don’t have a super-strong opinion about it, but the album it’s off of is great.
"This Side" – Nickel Creek – Nice song, one of Nickel Creek’s very solid ones. Just sweet, feelgood, and tight. A pleasure to listen to.
"Let’s Be Friends (Skin to Skin)" – Bruce Springsteen – Off his notedly post-9/11 album The Rising. Very spotty song: it has a nice pre-chorus hook but overall its production and lyrics make the song feel like an embarassment-- second-rate John Mellencamp (who is himself a poor man’s Springsteen).
"Fade Into You" – Mazzy Star – Damn, what a good song. I don’t know a thing about Mazzy Star-- I think this song was a one-hit wonder (and for good reason)-- but this song is just such a gem. Murky, gothic, bittersweet, and makes you nostalgic for fuzzy memories you never had.
"Top Of The World" – Patty Griffin – Good, emotional story song by a very, very good singer/songwriter. Sad and soaring (though the version on Griffin’s unreleased album Silver Bell is even better).
