Hey, out there in the blogosphere! What are your favorite music blogs? What do you look for in a site devoted to music? Is it good written content, visual design, free downloads or links to purchase new music? What sites do you visit all the time? Where do you get your heads-up for what bands to follow? Do you like hobby blogs like this one, or slick pro blogs with lots of commercial appeal?
Leave a comment with your hot tips right here!
Down In It
I dunno, two months ago or so, this song was featured in the music round at The Castle Quiz, and Carl, the Quizmaster, wrongly attributed it to Rage Against the Machine. Our team, the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers, knew better.
Artist: Nine Inch Nails
Year: 1989
Rating: Lukewarm
Big Boys
Some of my favorite lyrics ever:
So you take her to the pictures/Trying to become a fixture
Inch by inch trying to reach her/All the way through the second feature
Worrying about your physical fitness/Tell me how you got this sickness
So many double -- and triple! -- entendres in this song. Fucking love him. As to why it's in my head today: the perpetual vicissitudes of love, man.
Artist: Elvis Costello
Year: 1979
Rating: Hot!
The Addams Family Theme
Maybe this is in my head 'cause I'm identifying with Thing at the moment. Or maybe it's random.
Artist: Written and composed by Vic Mizzy
Year:1964
Rating: Luke Hot
Note: Mizzy also wrote the theme to Green Acres. Classic!
do ya think i'm sexy?
this is a supremely awesome theme song for today. today is a day i'm clammy, unshowered, and healing from a major dog bite wound. "do ya think i'm sexy?" ain't the first logical question that springs to mind...
...but it is the first song.artist: rod stewart
year: 1978
rating: hottt!
note: excuse the no-caps and typos; typing is a bit of a chore at the moment. on the bright side, i'll probably be blogging more freqently the next week or two, since i've got a lot of time on my hand (sic).
Just the Way You Are
When I was a surly teenager, I thought Billy Joel was crazy not to want "clever conversation." Now that I'm an adult, and have absorbed a fair share of snark in my life, I have more appreciation for the simplicity and comfort of "just want(ing) someone I can talk to."
Artist: Billy Joel
Year: 1977
Rating: Warm
Note: For the last several days, I thought the only song that would EVER be in my head again was White Winter Hymnal (the song I blogged about on 8/31). I really like the song, but it was getting violently overpowering in my head.
White Winter Hymnal
This live performance just brought tears to my eyes. I've never even understood what the song is about, but the imagery is so arresting, and the harmonies so emotionally evocative. Here are a few suggestions as to the song's meaning.
Artist: Fleet Foxes
Year: 2008
Rating: Hot!
Sax Rohmer 1, Redux
Last in my head on June 13, 2011.
The lyric resounding in my head this morning:
Every moment leads toward its own sad end...yeah.
Artist: The Mountain Goats
Year: 2008
Rating: Hot!
The lyric resounding in my head this morning:
Every moment leads toward its own sad end...yeah.
Artist: The Mountain Goats
Year: 2008
Rating: Hot!
August Wrap-Up
I've had a lot of songs in my head over the last few weeks, but haven't had time or sufficient mental focus to post them. A quick inventory of the backlog for August follows, with notes where I'm moved to write them:
Stacy's Mom by Fountains of Wayne arrived on my brain after hearing a review of the band's new album on NPR's Fresh Air. Aside from the inanity of this 2003 radio hit (a band's gotta have one to make the collective radar) I kind of dig them, and it occurs to me that this band is totally the American version of Sloan (not that that would mean anything to more than, like, two people reading this blog). Sadly, Sloan has no analogous annoying radio hit of their own (in the States).
David Duchovny by Bree Sharp (A rerun, last blogged on 8/31/09).
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, popularized by the Platters, came to me in a most ethereal way, a familiar tune I couldn't identify until looking up the fragments of lyrics I woke with one day. It seemed significant to me when I learned that the song originally appeared in an operetta called Roberta, which was my mom's name. When a lovely flame dies/Smoke gets in your eyes. The synchronistic throat lump supplied by the song's lyric shouldn't be lost on anyone reading who knows me. My mom died last year of complications of lung cancer. Smoke, indeed, gets in my eyes.
Stop Draggin' My Heart Around by Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty. Pretty typical sooze-fare, nothing noteworthy about this one.
Give Me Back My Man by the B-52s. I'm relating to Kate Pierson's plaintive wail, I'll give you fish/I'll give you candy/I'll give you everything I have in my hand!
And then there was a song snippet that entered my consciousness somewhere between dream state and waking that was a bit peculiar. At first, I thought it was the theme from the film Ordinary People, but when I looked for the music for the film on YouTube and heard Pachelbel's Canon in D major I had to probe a different area of my memory banks. Then it just hit me: this is the theme from The Incredible Hulk TV show, which I'm sure I hadn't seen in more than 25 years. The memory is indeed mysterious, and I wonder how I was able to make the leap between a classical composition from the 17th Century and a spare piano riff from 70's TV. The song may bear some similarity to the melancholy musical themes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I'm currently re-watching.
Song: Stacy's Mom
Artist: Fountains of Wayne
Year: 2003
Rating: Lukewarm
Song: David Duchovny
Artist: Bree Sharp
Year: 1999
Rating: Luke Hot
Song: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Artist: The Platters
Year: 1958 (originally recorded by Gertrude Niesen for the Operetta Roberta in 1933)
Rating: Warm
Song: Stop Draggin' My Heart Around
Artist: Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty
Year: 1981
Rating: Luke Hot
Song: Give Me Back My Man
Artist: The B-52s
Year: 1980
Rating: Hot!
Song: The Lonely Man Theme (from The Incredible Hulk television series)
Artist: Joe Harnell
Year: 1977
Rating: n/a
Border Song
An odd song - not one that immediately springs to mind, or one I'd think I'd have spontaneous recall of. Nevertheless, the lines "Holy Moses, I have been deceived/Now the wind has changed direction, and I'll have to leave" have some painful resonance for me. I don't feel I've been deceived, though; rather, my own perception or expectation of a situation has been uprooted, forcing me to change direction. In the vast scheme of things, in which I want to live authentically, the pain seems necessary to endure.
Artist: Elton John
Year:1970
Rating: Warm
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