I’m challenging myself to get through a whole shuffle of my music collection on my iPod without skipping. Then I write about what I heard each week (or so!).

Here is the playlist summary:

* Songs listened to in weeks 19 and 20:  168

* Completed:  77%

* Number of double shots:  3 (The Beatles, The Police, Sting)

* Number of triple shots:  1 (Genesis)

With 77% complete, I’m beginning to see the end of this thing. Good thing too, because while I’m still enjoying the actual listening, my original thought about this being an “easy way to get a weekly post” was a load of crap. These playlist summary posts take just as long to compose as my other posts, usually longer.

I’m taking a day trip to NYC next week so I’m hopeful I’ll get a lot of listening done given the nine hours I will be trapped on a bus. I’ve never done this DC to NYC bus thing before, and it’ll be a long (18 hour?) day, so please pray for me.

The past two weeks didn’t produce a ton of noteworthy songs, and some of those didn’t have You Tube videos available, so I only have six songs to highlight this time. I know there’s some sentiment that the 90s sucked for music, but five of the six are from the 90s. Thank god for the Interpol song, otherwise I’d look even more nostalgic than usual.

Toy Matinee “The Ballad of Jenny Ledge” This came out in 1990 when I was still in high school. Like a lot of the music I listened to then, I think I heard it on the Canadian radio station that I could sometimes tune in, particularly during the summer. I’ve mentioned Kevin Gilbert before, and this is one of my favorite songs from the one album he recorded with Patrick Leonard as Toy Matinee. Kevin’s hair in this video is so frightening, please try to look past it. Also, check out Rosanna Arquette in the video.

School of Fish “3 Strange Days” This came out my last semester of high school and this CD helped me bridge the transition from high school to college. I am having a lot of trouble these days finding bands with more than a couple of songs I like, or who I don’t get sick of after a little while (see Franz Ferdinand). But I’ve been shocked at how much I enjoy School of Fish songs when they come up on the shuffle. This whole CD is really good.

The Pursuit of Happiness “Cigarette Dangles” This is a song that Dave and I used to dig the first year we were together, although I absolutely do NOT share the cigarette fetish. I just love the sound of the backing vocals, which incidentally is where the title of the post comes from this week.

October Project “Bury My Lovely” This song is haunting. I imagine it’s about child abuse and while I feel my childhood experience doesn’t reach the level of that label, this song brings to mind growing up in that house with my Dad. I put this song on a mix for my brother and he thought the singer was a man, baby. I have no such confusion, but Mary Fahl’s voice is something else, eh?

“Something that was left behind
Something in a child’s mind”

Ivy “The Best Thing” This is from the late 90s, after I moved to D.C. to become a gainfully employed adult. I never paid any attention to the lyrics to this until today, and I think they might be sort of depressing, but I’ll just continue to ignore that because the song is catchy.

Interpol “Not Even Jail” And here we have our lone entry from the last decade. NOTE TO SELF: find some new music after this shuffle challenge is over.

This is my favorite Interpol song, which I didn’t even discover until I was preparing for the Interpol concert Dave and I went to see last November. Just go listen to this bad boy. Not sure what to say other than I can’t wrap my brain around how this whole song manages to be both anticipation as well as climax.

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iPod shuffle challenge, music