On this site I will rant incoherently about songs that have utterly consumed me for extended periods of time. There will be an embedded Youtube video at the bottom of each post where you can easily check out the song. This is not a review site, and I am not a musician, so let's set the bar really low, shall we? If you would like to weather the extended rationale for this wholly irrational site, it’s in the first post.
PJ Harvey has charisma oozing from every pore. Not charisma like a game-show host or a presidential candidate, but she's just so damn interesting. Her lyrics are completely unique: both dominant and submissive, both empowered and vulnerable.
"Gonna wash that man right out of my hair Gonna take my hips to a man who cares"
"Must be a way that I can dress to please him It's hard to walk and the dress is not easy I'm swinging over like a heavy loaded fruit tree"
I'm bummed that I've never seen her live, but I hope to get the chance to someday. Watch a video like "Man-Size," and you'll see what an amazing performer she is. Just watch her! So freaking awesome. "Down By The Water" is also a fabulous video, but the only one posted on Youtube freezes constantly. Love the menacing fuzz-bass on "Down By The Water." Fits the lyrics and overall mood of the song perfectly.
It's great to go see a group or performer I've loved for a long time, but a lot of times that also means that the artist isn't currently releasing anything of note. So the concert might be great, but there isn't that added excitement and anticipation of hearing new material, and feeling like I might even hear a new song that hasn't been released yet.
I'm going to see Big Boi Thursday night, and I'm really excited. It's kinda scary when an classic group starts making solo albums, but his "debut" is really great. The fact that Outkast has been releasing amazing music (EVERY one of their albums is great) since I was a junior in high school is kinda mind-boggling. That's sixteen years. SIXTEEN YEARS. God I'm old. I hurt my neck the other day PUTTING ESSAYS IN WRITING FOLDERS. Well, it might have initially occurred on the tennis court, but that's when I started to feel it. I felt like my old English teacher who wore a pacemaker, had a sign on her wall that said "TIME PASSES. WILL YOU?" and said "burp your bottom" when a kid would fart in class.
I'm posting these out of chronological order, cause Spottieottiedopaliscious is the greatest Outkast song ever. In fact, it's simply one of the greatest songs ever. So funky, so smooth, so everything. Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik is the title track from their first album, and has a laid-back vibe and great flow from Andre and Big Boi. Ghetto Musick is from Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, which is when Outkast TOTALLY blew up and won a bunch of Grammy's. The huge singles like Hey Ya and The Way You Move got more attention, but this is my favorite song on the album. I LOVE how the beat is fast throughout the song, then at 1:15 slows down and smooths out with the female vocals and those tink-a-tink percussion sounds. Rhyming Georgia with foyer is one of of the greatest things ever, too.
Finally, we come to Big Boi's solo album, and the song Follow Us. It's got a great beat, and I love that little synthy sound that starts following the beat around at :30. It took a couple of listens to get used to Vonnegut's vocals, but now I dig them. I like that there's so much going on in the song, and the more I hear it the more they all seem to be pulling in the same direction. GREATNESS.
There's this really stupid game on my iPhone that I can't stop playing. It's called Bejeweled Blitz, and it involves lining up these jewels in rows or columns of at least three. Four causes a huge explosion, and five (really exciting) creates this whirling dervish that shoots out lightning and eviscerates every jewel of a chosen color. Sounds like a genocide, now that I think about it. Anyway, as incredible as this game may sound, it gets really monotonous after a while. BUT STILL I PLAY.
Yesterday I didn't bring my laptop to the cafe, so that I wouldn't get distracted from grading. The thing is, grading essays gets so mind-crushingly tedious after a short while, I need something to do for a break. And so I turn to Bejeweled. I think I just need to erase the application and move on with my life.
Grading essays. I love so much about teaching, but I sometimes fear they will be the death of me. As I stare down the barrel of more essays on this beautiful Sunday morning, I need music to take me to a happy place. Ok, so this first Belle and Sebastian song isn't really happy, but I worship it. I love how the instruments come in one by one, and Stuart Murdoch is such a great songwriter. At 2:14, when the organ comes in and he sings, "Can I write a requiem for you when you're dead?" So great.
Ok, so that wasn't a happy song at all. Act of the Apostle is slightly happier, and so beautiful. It's from their most recent album, which is really poppy and really good. Finally, there's Lazy Line Painter Jane. Mr. Murdoch often writes from the point of view of women, but he seems to pull it off. All the girls I know who know Belle and Sebastian love them.
Oh, man, I gotta break my rule again and post a fourth Youtube. I forgot to write about another interesting tidbit about this group. This twee band of pasty Scotts is obsessed with the New York Mets, just like I am! Somehow they continue to write happy songs despite following this team. They go to spring training and watch games, and they even wrote a song about the Mets. There was a rumor that Mets catcher Mike Piazza was gay, and for some reason the media became obsessed with it. The song is partially about that, and partially about a baseball game in San Francisco. It even mentions Chinatown, where I used to live. Creepy! I think I'm being stalked by Belle and Sebastian. Hmmm. That's kinda cool, now that I think about it. (NOTE: I didn't even post one song from Tigermilk, which is an amazing album, but this band has about a million great songs, so ya know).
I don't really feel like I have anything to write this week. In fact, I've already posted about these two bands. That's ok, though, because I love these bands so much that I would do this for them. This post is a symbol of my undying affection. LOVE YOU GUYS.
I feel like pulling a John Lennon and copying this post from a circus poster or a corn flakes commercial. Though I suppose I'd have to write about thirty classic songs before I could get away with that.
Lorelei is amazing the whole way through, but 2:50 is the knockout punch. Cocteau Twins is musical heroin. I've never done heroin, but I've seen people do it on TV, and they totally look like they're listening to the Cocteau Twins. Until they die miserable deaths, which is the listening-to-Creed part of doing heroin, I suppose.
Game of Pricks shows that GBV could have been absolutely huge, but they decided to take a chainsaw to all their recording equipment in order to prevent that from happening. Still, they are an incredible group, and they make me very, very happy. Try depositing that in your bank account, Robert Pollard!
PJ Harvey has charisma oozing from every pore. Not charisma like a game-show host or a presidential candidate, but she's just so damn interesting. Her lyrics are completely unique: both dominant and submissive, both empowered and vulnerable. 
