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.
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.
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]
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]
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.
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 )
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…
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
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.)
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)
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.
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)
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.
**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.
-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”
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