Okay, ladies and gents, I have a fun game to play today. All you have to do is comment here with the first 25 songs that show up on your iTunes when you press shuffle! (And no editing, you have to admit them no matter how embarrassing….this is me planning ahead since I haven’t done the activity myself!) Ready? Set? Go!
“Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)” - Billy Joel
“High & Dry” - Jamie Cullum (a Radiohead cover, I might add)
“Alma” - Teddybears
“Sorrow” - Flyleaf
“Red Hot” - Robert Gordon with Link Wray (I flippin’ looove this song, and was very excited to see it pop up!)
“Demon Days” - Gorillaz
“Save Me” - Queen
“The Real Slim Shady” - Eminem
“Black Belt” - Teddybears
“Under Pressure” - Queen & David Bowie (the remix, I might add….not as good as the original)
“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” - Across the Universe soundtrack (if you haven’t seen this movie, don’t let anything stop you from renting it today!)
“Poor Jackie” - Man Man
“Bells and Whistle” - Danny Elfman from the album Serenada Schizophrana
“It’s Alright” - The Redwalls
“Feel Good Inc.” - Gorillaz
“You Can’t Stop the Beat” - Hairspray soundtrack
“Hard Luck Built New England” - The Mae Shi
“You Only Live Once” - The Strokes (one of my favorite opening tracks to a CD ever)
“Better Things” - The Kinks
“Park Song” - The Dodos
“I Love My Duck” - Veggie Tales (see, embarrassing!)
“Someone Like You” - Van Morrison
“Okay, This is the End, Eh?” - Bob and Doug Mackenzie (not technically a song, more like a comedy track, but I kept it on because I think it’s funny!)
“The Lake” - Aqualung
“Death on the Stairs” - The Libertines
So, that’s my eclectic taste in a nutshell. Feel free to comment up to August 14th with your comments, that’s when I go bye-bye!!
Alright, so, here’s a free-flowing list, ordered according to whatever comes into my head first, of what I can’t stop listening to recently, no matter how hard I try, or how much my parents and friends beg me to stop the incessant repetitive nature of my song-watching. Phew, that was a long sentence!
“Heart Throb” - Be Your own Pet
”Jenny, Don’t Be Hasty” - Paolo Nutini
“One Man Guy” - Rufus Wainwright
“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” - Amy Winehouse
“Dreaming of You” - The Coral
“G Up” - Albert Hammond, Jr.
“Radar” - Britney Spears (I know what you’re thinking, but it’s addictive as hell, I swear!)
“Oceans” - The Format
“Don’t You Evah” - Spoon
“Song For The Dumped” - Ben Folds Five
“The Futile” - Say Anything
“F*** Her Gently” - Tenacious D
And with that last title, I end my list…Coming up next, a closer look at my iTunes collection!
(a pic of me…note the Steve Martin shrine in the background…I’m too awesome!)
Okay, so, I’m not gonna be here too much longer, folks, so let’s enjoy this while we can, hey?
It’s my second-to-last day blogging, and I’d just like to say how happy I’ve been writing about bands for as long as I have on here, and how awesome b5media is! I’m glad they gave me a chance to have a platform for over a year, but now it’s time for me to retire and find a new home, I guess?
If there’s any blogging companies reading this in need of a snarky, passionate, no-holds-barred blogger, I’m interested! If not, I guess I’ll be focusing on school and work and all that good stuff for a while.
You can always find out what’s going on by clicking on my MySpace, which I’ll be updating a lot more frequently after August 1st. I’ll write about new things I like, my old favorites, top 5’s, whatever. Please give it a look every once and a while!
I’ll write a few more posts between now and tomorrow and then it’s byebye 52 B ands! I’m still not sure if I get to keep the content or if I’ll be able to buy this site, if either of those happen, I’ll probably stay on and write for as long as I can afford. Donations are accepted???
“Hey, let’s kick it/Stop, just lick it/Let you start it, ’cause ’cause it’s so easy/She like it my way and I know it/So let’s do it/Do it do it real good/Hah, it’s sweaty/Now I’m ready/Just take it off, ’cause ’cause you tease me/I like it that way and you know it/So let’s do it/Do it do it real good.”
Due to the opening of this track, I can’t help but feel insanely sexy. Everywhere turns into a catwalk. I could not wear clothes that are skimpy enough. Of course, once the song ends and I find myself doing all kinds of crazy things, I feel very uncomfortable, but hey, that’s the fun of a song that can manipulate your emotions in a certain way.
My dare to you: Watch this song and have the same amount of clothing after the song as you did before. I assure you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
This song reminds me of Be Your Own Pet’s “The Kelly Affair,” and when I searched for this music video it was the first time I realized it. I guess it’s because they both have a pretty upbeat feel to them, and also because they talk about their band in a way, be it a “fifty-million dollar concert,” or the fact that they’re “really going places.” In a way, I’m also reminded of Art Brut’s “Formed a Band.” There’s something about when a band talks about how their band is doing in a song that really interests me, don’t ask me why. Anyway, here’s the video for “Song With A Mission.”
This was the first song I heard by The Sounds, and then I saw it, I wanna say, a couple months later on Letterman. Insanely fun and oh-so-catchy, “Seven Days a Week”’s video is set in a small airtight club with scads of loyal listeners lining the walls. It’s got that energy that “Hit Me” attained, but at least in this you get to see that they have a following. Or, at least, they could pay enough people or con enough friends into getting into their video. (I kid, I kid!) I love the lyrics in this one as well: “We’ve been talking on the phone for hours and hours/You can give me a call whenever you like to/Yeah, if you would fall, you know I would catch you/Yeah, I’ll stick around, I’ll be right beside you.” Nothing has been so uplifting and cornball while still being cool since Queen’s “You’re My Best Friend.”
Everything about this video is baller, no lie. First of all, they did it on an extremely tight budget. I wanna say 200 bucks, but don’t quote me on that. Secondly, they did it in a friend’s emptied-out pool (thus the blue background, hehe) It’s got that kind of raw energy I just appreciate, love, all those good bananas. They do that cheesy “Introduce the band” thing in it, too. I mean, come on, you can’t go wrong with a band that Dave Grohl personally endorses in his videos. (He wore their band shirt wayyyy back in the day when their first album, Living in America, came out!) Anyway, enjoy, it’s one of my favorite videos to watch and re-watch, and also is the best band shirt I ever got. The song was so popular with The Sounds’ fans that they made a beater-style tank top with a fist that said “Hit Me” under it, and I wear it all the time. Enjoy!
Mansard Roof: When I first heard “Mansard Roof,” I was in my car, and I took my roof (my moonroof, that is), and opened it all the way. I knew right away it was going to be a great track. Now all I ever think about when I hear “Mansard Roof” is that first time, when I was driving to Noodles, my favorite place to eat, and listening to what was going to be my favorite new CD. First impressions mean everything, and Vampire Weekend was making one hell of a dent in my impressed side….er…something like that.
Oxford Comma: Um, wow, can you tell that these guys are Ivy Leaguers? Anyway, I love the interval leaps right in the beginning of the song, where they go into a bit of a falsetto on “too” and “cruel.” That’s what got me first hooked on the song. Plus, the lyrics are great: “Why would you speak to me that way, especially when I always said that I/Haven’t got the words for you, all your diction dripping with disdain/Through the pain, I always tell the truth.” In case you were wondering what an Oxford comma is, it’s also called a serial comma. I use it all the time, although it’s usually seen as a personal and optional choice. Below I have an example…
No serial (Oxford) comma: At the store I bought eggs, bread and butter.
With serial (Oxford) comma: At the store I bought eggs, bread, and butter.
You’ve now officially learned something. You can thank me by buying me the second season of Extras.
A-Punk: This was the first Vampire Weekend song I ever heard, as it’s gotten substantial radio play, and it was one of those songs that I felt like I had heard before. You know those songs that you hear and you are amazed nobody’s come up with until then? That was “A-Punk” for me. It’s a pretty simple song, but it’s catchy as hell and I can’t even think of what it reminds me of, but for some reason, I know it’s something in my childhood. Watching the music video with the finger puppets only reinforced this memory. Lord knows I’d rather let my future children listen to Vampire Weekend than crap like Teletubbies, so maybe this is just a reminder for me that I need to be a cool mom in the future. Okay, now I’m just pulling stuff out of my you-know-what, but it’s a great song.
Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa: Now, I can place this song as sounding a lot like Paul Simon, who was an artist I listened to a lot growing up. It’s a lot like his partnerships with Ladysmith Black Mumbazo without the Zulu singers in the background. Apparently, that’s what Ezra was going for, since this tune was based on a short story he wrote contrasting the cultures between native Africa/India and that of modern, “preppy” culture. I just recently started to get into this song, it took a little bit more time for me to warm up to it, but now I appreciate it for what it is.
M79: The beginning of “M79″ reminds me of Amadeus, with the synth-piano noises and the classical hintings on an indie track. This is another track that I’m still warming up to, so I’m not sure what to say about it yet. It seems lovely, but it’s just not on my list of favorites. It’s nowhere near “Campus,” the next track.
Campus: One of my favorite repeating lines ever in a song appears on “Campus.” Right now the frontrunner is probably Albert Hammond Jr. on his second track of Como te Llama, which is “I miss you already.” That’s just because one of my best friends is a bajillion miles away, though. Anyway, back to “Campus,” the line is “How am I supposed to pretend/I never want to see you again?” I have felt this way so many times, especially with bad break-ups. Things can get so mean that the good times get ignored, and while I’m trying to be the stubborn one and act like everything’s okay, I find it really hard to fake that I don’t ever want to see someone again just because the relationship ended and they really upset me. I might be a good actor on stage, but in real life, nu-uh. No way. I’m see-through.
Bryn: I sing the beginning guitar riff to this every time I hear it, and yeah, it sounds kinda stupid, but I don’t care. It’s really catchy. Then they follow it up with that awesome rim-tapping drum beat, which I tap out on my steering wheel, of course. It’s pretty, they’re singing about a girl, it’s starting to become a new favorite of mine, although it’s pretty short. “Oh, Bryn you see through the dark/Right past the fireflies that sleep in my heart/You know it’s easy to see/Wait for the season to come back to me.” That is a sweet line, makes me wish my name was Bryn, yadda yadda yadda.
One (Blake’s Got a New Face): There’s one line, right at the end of this song, that makes me laugh, just because it makes me think about being at school and how everyone kind of lets themselves go. I’m not sure if that’s what they meant by it, but for me, it’s remembering all the scrubby folk around my campus that start not to give a care after about a month of school under their belt: “Oh your collegiate grief has left you/Dowdy in sweatshirts/
Absolute horror!” That’s all I really have to say about this song.
I Stand Corrected: I’m not overly fond of the way the verses sound on this track, but what redeems the song for me is the chorus, which is just “I stand corrected” repeated over and over, but there’s something about the beat over it and the rhythm in which Ezra says the line that makes me really like it, I’m not sure why. Sometimes I’ll just fast-forward the track to get to this part because it’s so appealing to me. However, it’s hard to sit through this song all the time since my favorite track on the album is right after this one.
Walcott: “Walcott, don’t you know that it’s insane/Don’t you wanna get out of Cape Cod, out of Cape Cod tonight.” Everyone dreams about running away, breaking free of their current situation, and any time I’m feeling frustrated with something, I’ll listen to this song full-blast and imagine just being spontaneous some day and driving somewhere far away just to get away from everything. Come to think of it, I did listen to this song quite a few times on a road trip I took a couple months back to get away from a bad situation, and it was very motivating. So yeah, if you’re planning on moving, or you just need to get away for a while, listen to this song and let the cogs move around in your head. Your heart will tell you where to go. (Wow, that sounded like a Disney movie or a Hallmark card or something. Sorry!)
The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance: It’s killing me that I can’t think of what this brings to mind specifically, but it’s a little Paul Simon-y Peter Gabriel-y once again. It’s really sparse, but with a clear and beautiful voice, and then a neat little guitar dealio comes in, and I sound like a rambling idiot trying to explain this track, because I know there were songs and artists that came to mind when I first heard this song, but they’re long gone in the recesses of my memory. Damn my sleep-deprived mind. Once again, it’s not a stand-out track to me like some other songs, but it’s still pretty good. The whole album is really good, which is why I decided to do a track-by-track. I don’t feel that there was any song that was a total failure or shouldn’t have been on the album. I just haven’t gotten around to appreciating all of them equally yet. All in good time.
The last time I looked at Vampire Weekend’s videos, they did not have one for “Oxford Comma,” so I believe it’s safe to say that this video is relatively-brand-spanking-new-ish.
White and black suits, chapter-by-chapter narration, as our narrator takes us through a scene that happens on a farm. Near the end of Chapter 2, Ezra catches up with the band in time for a mini instrumental break. At first maybe I thought he was telling a story about his rise to fame, and then in Chapter 3, cowboys appear, so I have no clue what to make of it all.
It runs along the same veins as the other Vampire Weekend videos, “A Punk” and “Mansard Roof,” in its fun-loving nature, but the others were a bit easier to understand. This one is pretty out there. That’s all I’m gonna say.
So, I’m pretty sure I didn’t have this video up already. I did a quick check through my posts and I didn’t see it, which is a shame, because it’s one of the most adorable vids I’ve ever seen. This is for the song “A Punk,” and if you can resist the cuteness of little fishie finger puppets, well, my friend, you have no soul.
Okay, ladies and gents, I have a fun game to play today. All you have to do is comment here with the first 25 songs that show up on your iTunes when you press shuffle! (And no editing, you have to admit them no matter how embarrassing….this is me planning ahead since I haven’t done the activity myself!) Ready? Set? Go!
Sammi Dittloff -- 3 comments
Alright, so, here’s a free-flowing list, ordered according to whatever comes into my head first, of what I can’t stop listening to recently, no matter how hard I try, or how much my parents and friends beg me to stop the incessant repetitive nature of my song-watching. Phew, that was a long sentence!
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