20 posts tagged “pop music”
This week is the 100th week of Out of 5 posts, and to mark the occasion, we all have our own themes, with our own 10 songs. So there's 10X as much musical goodness over there, for a week. Go over and get some!
My theme is: The 80's Didn't Really Suck. I uploaded a song from every year and here's the playlist, from 1980 to 1989:
X - Your Phone's off the Hook (But You're Not)
AC/DC - For Those about to Rock
Men At Work - Down Under
Tom Waits - 16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six
Van Halen - 1984 (...what?)
Mekons - Chivalry
Beastie Boys - Hold it Now, Hit It
Straitjacket Fits - She Speeds
Pixies - Gigantic
Fugazi - Margin Walker
I think it's a pretty sweet list, and I was trying to get a variety of genres in there. Well, I kind of achieved that.
Because I started running regularly again, I decided that I need a good running mix for my ipod. Now, my running mixes are sometimes a little odd (I've been known to do sprint intervals while listening to Bridge over Troubled Water) because I don't really need a beat to keep me going. That said, the vast majority of the music I like is good to run to. I like pop music is why. But the main quality the music has to have is that I have to be able to sing along to it (in my head! don't worry, I'm not inflicting my voice on the world) because then I get distracted. The sing along aspect means that I don't listen to much techno, unlike other friends of mine who run.
Anyway, here are the artists that are on my running mix at the moment. I personally think that Garbage is the absolute best band to run to; I used to just rock out a few miles to Version 2.0.
The Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, Barenaked Ladies, Be Your Own Pet, Betchadupa, Bloc Party, Blur, Candy Machine, The Chemical Brothers, The Clash, The Crystal Method, The Cure, Dead Kennedys, The Decemberists, The Exponents, The Feelers, Garageland, Garbage, Gas Huffer, Green Day, Guns N' Roses, Interpol, INXS, Joy Division, The Killers, Metallica, Modest Mouse, Neutral Milk Hotel, The New Pornographers, New Radicals, Nirvana, Oasis, of Montreal, Orbital, Paul Simon, The Pogues, The Prodigy, The Raconteurs, Radiohead, The Ramones, The Rolling Stones, Split Enz, Stellar, Steriogram, Straitjacket Fits, Supergrass, Supergroove, The Thermals, Uncle Tupelo, Veruca Salt, Violent Femmes, Weezer, The White Stripes.
The theme for *next* week's out of 5 is "Summer". I haven't decided on a song to submit yet, but here are two that I'm not sending in, although I like them. Not Regina Spektor, because it's already been submitted by someone else for another theme on that site, and not The Sundays - Summertime, because I think it's pretty likely that someone will send in that fantastic song.
Anyway, I haven't listened to this album for many years, so it's been a fun morning at work!
I think they released Good News for People who love Bad News about 6 months after that, and all of a sudden MM were everywhere. And good on them.
Anyway, we had a friend staying with us on Monday night, and he was really keen to go see 'em. It was at the same place we saw The Stooges a few weeks back. I went along (they are not screamy or angry enough for mr. g) and it was actually a really good show. They started off a little low key, but really found their energy about half way through. I'm now enjoying listening to their music way more than I had previously because I'm thinking of the show now. They didn't play Neverending Math Equation though, which is my favourite MM song, so that was a little sad.
So why am I posting this song, seeing as it's probably MM's second most well known song (I think? I dunno really; I'm just pulling that claim out of my ass). Well, they played it as an encore on Monday. Also, it fits the gaspode requirements for an excellent pop song: jangly guitars and poppy sound with kind of depressing lyrics (see: Belle and Sebastian as well as Of Montreal). Also, I always thought it would be kind of appropriate (if not very nice) for my funeral -- You wasted life why wouldn't you waste the afterlife.
Indeed.
Yessss, I remember the famous Pulp album debacle. This is Hardcore was released in 1998? Thereabouts? I didn't listen to it until the last year of my PhD, which was 2001. Then, of course, I listened to it constantly.
ANYWAY. I can't really give my opinion on Neon Bible just yet, but I really like this, the opening song of the album. Maybe I'll report back in in a month or two.
Let me tell you how pathetic I am though: I've had general anaesthesia before, and was all gung-ho about it and it was fine. Now, with someone I love in my life, I get all sad about leaving him, and really had gotten semi-convinced that the surgery was going to go badly. So I walked into the surgery room (it still freaks me out, doing that, going in there under your own steam) and lay down on the table, and as the surgery team were getting sorted out, I burst into tears. And just lay there crying on the table, because I'd convinced myself that I was never going to see mr. g again. Because I'm irrational. My (new) gynecologist is awesome though, and stopped what she was doing and came over and held my hand.
Anyway, here's a song that pretty much sums up what I won't be doing for a while.
