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5.26.2006

Hope/Despair in 3D SOUND


As mentioned in the previous post, here is the playlist meant to tug at heart strings and throw the emotions through the ringer. At first I was going to try and alternate between the Hope songs and Despair ditties, until I realized that depending on my mood one would elicit the other and so on.

I expect the list to change as new songs are discovered and old ones discarded. If you only grab two make it both Aqualung covers.

So download, rip, or slip in the iTrip, take a midnight drive, smoke some cigarettes, drink some coffee, and stare out the window (if someone else is driving). Roll down the windows and taste some salty night air. If you're lucky enough to be with the one you love hold them close. Fold them a paper crane. Play a game of two person Solitaire (in this version, you try and kill each other's rows). We're all just chemicals bumping around and sometimes we join together and make a different substance. And the tearing apart at the atomic level...she's a bitch.

1. Aqualung - Somebody to Love

2. Louis Armstrong - A Kiss To Build a Dream On

3. Magnet w/ Gemma Hayes - Lay Lady Lay

4. The Be Good Tanyas - The Littlest Birds

5. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - When You Were Mine

6. Alexi Murdoch - Song For You

7. Regina Spektor - Fidelity

8. Take That - Back for Good

9. The Autumn Defense - The World (Will Soon Turn Our Way)

10. The Beatles - If I Fell

11. Beck - Do You Realize

12. Buried Beds - Forever in You

13. Cat Stevens - The Wind

14. Charles Aznavour - For Me...Formidable

15. Coldplay - Green Eyes

16. Colin Hay - I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You

17. Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter

18. David Gray - Nightblindness

19. Death Cab for Cutie - Title and Registration

20. Dirty Vegas - Days Go By (Acoustic)

21. Eels - I'm Going to Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart

22. Elbow - Station Approach

23. Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong - They Can't Take That Away from Me

24. Elliot Smith - Everything Reminds Me of Her

25. Feist - Let it Die

26. Frankel - Don't Leave

27. Guillemots - Made Up Lovesong #43

28. Hawksley Workman - Safe and Sound

29. Hotel Lights - Let Me Be the One

30. Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye

31. Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats

32. The Lucksmiths - A Hiccup in Your Happiness

33. Aqualung - God Only Knows

34. M. Ward - Here Comes the Sun Again

35. Michael Gunn - Lovefool

36. The Paper Cranes - I'll Love You Till My Veins Explode

37. The Thrills - Not For All the Love in the World

38. Ted Leo - Since U Been Gone

39. The Smiths - Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want

40. Rufus Wainwright - Harvest

41. Ryan Adams - Now That You're Gone

42. Blur - No Distance Left to Run

5.25.2006

God Only Knows


Made a playlist today called Hope/Despair, which is the kind of grade 10 title that's been appealing to me a lot lately. And as advertised it's filled with songs designed to elicit hope and despair - interestingly, the sad songs often fill me with hope, whereas the ones full of sunshine and balloons plunge the ol' despair needle in.

Added to this playlist will be God Only Knows, one of the best Beach Boys songs ever. And thanks to Stereogum I found this incredible post by MOKB of God Only Knows covers. I cannot stress enough how good the Aqualung version is - if you liked their cover of Somebody to Love you need to grab this song. Also fairly solid is David Bowie's torch song rendition.

5.21.2006

10 Things I Hate About Commandments

5.05.2006

Best Thing Ever

I call a lot of things the Best Thing Ever (BTE). So after awhile I'm sure the phrase loses some of its punch, and it would be easy to dismiss the Rappers Delight Club as just one more thing Thomas is going on about.

But you do so to your detriment.

The Rappers Delight Club is the project of a man who works with elementary school children. Sean at Said the Gramaphone describes it so much better than I can. Basically it's kids rapping. And rapping really well. They sample Wes Anderson dammit.

"I'll be sizzlin' / like the chicken noodle soup / I sold more cookies / than your whole girlscout troop."

Oh hells yes.

So that I don't kill STG's bandwidth I'm hosting the song here. Listen, and get served.

Rappers Delight Club - Hum