Your five most mutually-dissimilar iPod or MP3 tunes

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

I have some pretty varied musical tastes, but sometimes the Shuffle function reminds me of just how incongruous and mixed-up they actually are! Out of the 535 songs now on my iPod, here are five with virtually nothing in common:

“California Love” by 2Pac and Dr. Dre - I’m not a big rap fan, but something about this tune grabbed me when I first heard it on the radio. A great beat and vaguely menacing lyrics.

“Tubthumping” by Chumbawumba - Infectious Brit tune. I’ve always loved it.

“Think” by Aretha Franklin - My all-time favorite Aretha tune. Sheer perfection.

“Mr. Blue Sky” by the Electric Light Orchestra - Always reminds me of childhood summers on the beach. Funny, bouncy, a bit silly, but a sentimental favorite.

“Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode - Darkly humorous, great hook. Heard this for the first time about a year ago, but it quickly got inside my head and I just had to have it on my iPod. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t listen to it.

What are your five?

#2

Pills of White Mercury by The Starkravens, a regional celtic band

I Think I Love You by the Partridge Family

Enter Sandman by Metallica

Walking In Memphis by Marc Cohen

The Metro by Berlin

#3

Hm. Itunes indicates I have just over 1,000 selections to choose from.

I have:
[ul]
[li]Allan Sherman’s “Hello Mother, Hello Father” (comedy)[/li][li] an acapella version of The Who’s “Pinball Wizard,” (from the 70s rock opera “Tommy”)[/li][li]Benjamin Britten’s “Ceremony of Carols,” (classical, choral Christmas music)[/li][li]Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Down Home Girl” (bluegrassy)[/li][li]The Presidents of the United States of America’s “Peaches” (pop/rock?)[/ul][/li]
Tough decisions. I have a lot of random acapella covers, more showtunes, more classical, a little of everything.

#4

These all tend to shuffle through a lot, since they’re among my favorites:

[ul][li]“It’s All Right To Cry” by Rosie Grier (from Free To Be You And Me, which has a lot of great songs on it)[/li][li]“Girlfriend” by Daniel Bedingfield (bright, poppy and fun)[/li][li]“Gravity” by Allison Kraus and Union Station (country/bluegrass, although more country than bluegrass)[/li][li]“Hernando’s Hideaway” by Enoch Light (space age bachelor pad music)[/li][li]“This Is Such A Pity” by Weezer (it gets stuck in my head all the time)[/li][/ul]

#5

I tried to limit this to diverse songs that I actually listen to fairly often.

  1. Tool - “Prison Sex” : A prog metal song about … well, prison sex.
  2. Vienna Teng - “Shasta (Carrie’s Song)” : Chamber pop song about abortion.
  3. Rasputina - “Wicked Dickie” : As the opening lyrics state, “this is a song about a man. He had a cow”. I really don’t know how else to describe it.
  4. K’s Choice - “Paradise in Me” : An alt-pop song about rampant consumerism by my favorite band.
  5. Dwight Yoakam - “Things Change” : Neo-traditionalist country song about losing love and coming to terms with it.
#6

Warren Zevon’s Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner and Nina Simone’s version of Cotton Eyed Joe.

Actually, that particular flash memory has also got:

John Prine, Angel from Montgomery
NYPO: 1812 Overture
Bob Marley and the Wailers Let’s get Together
Leadbelly, Midnight Special

Well, about 80 others, from various genre.

Tris

#7

hm, lets see.
Wolgemut “Tummel Dich” [medieval german drinking song]
Rammstein “Du Hast”
BeeGees “Massachusets”
Antonio Banderas “Living la Vida Loca” [shrek version]
audiobook Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone
[or if it has to be music, all of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, in german]

#8

Just a few…

Crazy Train - Ozzy Osbourne
Fruit Salad - The Wiggles
Jackson - Johnny & June Cash
Masquerade - The Carpenters
You’re So Vain - Carly Simon
Train in Vain - The Clash
One Hundred Years - Five for Fighting
Oops, too many. Perhaps I should just post my playlist. Sorry.

#9

I don’t normally use the shuffle function, but it was fun to see what came up:

Kanye West - Through the Wire
Binchois - Je me recommande (15th century chanson)
Aphex Twin - boring ambient drivel off Drukqs
Cage - one of the prepared piano sonatas
A live Aphex Twin track - definitely not ambient!
Schoenberg - Variations for Orchestra
Jimi Hendrix - Room Full of Mirrors
Lachenmann - Dal niente for clarinet (squeaky-gate music :slight_smile: )
Orbital, remixed by Moby

More Aphex Twin and Hendrix (huh, I seem to have a lot of tracks from these two!)

More 15th century polyphony…Shostakovich…White Stripes…Nina Simone…Ferneyhough…Bill Hicks…

#10

Oops, I also went past five…

#11

Dancing In Berlin – Berlin
December – Collective Soul
Sugar Sugar – Mary Lou Ford w/Semisonic (from the Saturday Morning Cartoons’ Greatest Hits album)
Take Me Out – Franz Ferdinand
Honey Honey (Swedish version) – ABBA

#12

In the Hall of the Moutain King- Grieg
Simple Man-Lynyrd Skynyrd
(Night time) Is the Right Time-Ray Charles
Blinded- Whippersnapper
Rollout-Ludacris

#13

My iTunes library has 6921 tracks at the moment. A representative sampling…

Prokofiev - Piano Sonata no. 9 in C major (20th-century classical)
Mecano - Barco a Venus (Spanish 80s pop)
VeggieTales - The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything (Christian CGI talking/singing vegetables–I have a little sister, okay?)
Mercedes Lackey - Sun and Shadow (filk based on her books)
Sophie’s World - A World of Wonders (yes, they made a musical out of that book. It’s pretty awful.)

#14

Here are five by Ulver:

Ulvsblakk (melancholy acoustic music)
Wolf & Passion (true black metal)
Silence Teaches You To Sing (ambient industrial)
Of Wolves And Vibrancy (techno)
For The Love Of God (doom metal/pop)

#15

A bunch by Metallica, my favorite being “Unforgiven” (Hard Rock/Heavy Metal)

Garth Brooks, “The Thunder Rolls” (Country)

Falco, “Rock Me Amadeus” (80’s Europop)

Coolio, “Gangsta’s Paradise” (rap)

A bunch by Wierd Al Yankovic, including all his polka medleys (comedy)

#16

Hmm. I’m not incredibly diverse, but there are some pretty dissimilar tracks on mine right now (to pick a few mutually dissimilar tracks at random, since I usually load full albums at a stretch):

  • Antiloop - Let Your Body Free (trance)
  • Belouis Some - Some People (Dance Cheek to Cheek) (mid-80s synthpop)
  • Digital Underground - The Humpty Dance (80s rap)
  • Icicle Works - Whisper to a Scream (Birds Fly) (80s pop-rock)
  • Rock & Hyde - Talk to Me (80s rock)

Okay, not a massive variety, but very dissimilar sounds at any rate.

#17

Cats on Mars- Cowboy Bebop (very weird)
Habibi- Amr Diab (Arabic pop)
Ascent of Stan- Ben Folds Five
The Girl with the Flaxen Hair- Debussy (Classical Impressionist)
Anarchy- KMFDM (goth industrial)

#18

Entombed, “Wolverine Blues”

  • Straight up death metal from the crabby Swedes.

The Beach Boys, “God Only Knows”

  • I love the whole Pet Sounds album. The stereo remaster is fun to listen to on headphones.

Kenny Loggins, “Danger Zone”

  • I found the Top Gun soundtrack at a pawn shop for $1.00 and couldn’t resist. It’s lovably bad.

Sonic Youth, “Providence”

  • Anti-music. It’s 2 1/2 minutes of static crackle from a broken amplifier, layered with a distant-sounding piano and a couple of answering machine soundbites from Mike Watt. It also captures the feeling of being REALLY stoned like no othe song I’ve heard.

“William Tell Overture” by Giancarlo Rossini

  • It’s amazing how many memorable and well-known melodies are in this 15 minutes of music. Anyone who grew up on Looney Tunes can whistle along to the whole damned thing.
#19

**The Battle Hymn of the Republic ** - you’d be amazed at how often people come looking for a dash of patriotic music
Wells Fargo Wagon - The Music Man
**Blue ** - believe it was used in Basic Instinct. Sometime you just need some early 80’s dance tracks.
O Fortuna from Carmina Burana
Riviera Paradise - From Sacred Sources, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s final performace.

#20

-A complete recording of an Orthodox Easter morning service, recorded live at an unidentified monastery on Mt. Athos
-Anal Cunt, “The Only Reason Men Talk to You is because They Want to Get Laid, You Stupid Fucking Cunt”
-Elvis Presley, “An American Trilogy”
-Tiny Tim, “Strawberry Tea”
-Teletubbies, “Teletubbies Say Hello”