Playlist Week 4: Fire In The Disco, Fire In The Taco Bell

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.

Again a week with no posts between the shuffle entries. I’m writing posts in my head all the time. I probably have a dozen at least that are mostly formed but not typed out. Getting the thoughts from my brain to WordPress seems to be an issue for me. There’s all this ‘cloud computing’ now that is so awesome (love you, Dropbox!) yet totally incomprehensible to me. Maybe someone could get on enhancing cloud computing by linking directly to my brain so my posts could be published as soon as I’m done thinking about them. Two real (like typed out and shit) posts are just in need of some Tracy-style (we’ll say meticulous because that seems more positive than anal) editing. Until those are done, here’s another shuffle summary.

This week I became convinced (during the song ‘Lover (Cantata)’) that Lords of Acid was being played well over proportion given the number of songs of theirs on my iPod. Being an evidence-based kind of girl, I gathered the relevant data and I was about 17 percent through the shuffle at the point of ‘Lover (Cantata),’ while that song represented song 10 out of the 34 Lords of Acid songs in the shuffle (29 percent). So yes, a little over-represented to this point, but not wildly. I think their songs are just very, uh, noticeable.  And holy shit, I still have 24 songs left.

The title of the post this week comes from:  Electric Six ‘Danger! High Voltage’  My favorite song of theirs is ‘Gay Bar,’ but this one’s a close second, in large part due to the inclusion of the Taco Bell line. Just so ridiculous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a4gyJsY0mc

* Songs listened to this week:  127
* Completed:  20%
* Number of double shots:  4

The Police * 2 (the horrible De Do Do Do remake, see below, was followed by live ‘Deathwish,’ which kind of made up for it), Sting, Ween (toyed with using “Give me that Z-o-l-o-f-t, no longer pissed, you don’t bother me” as this week’s title, but that seemed too long)

* Percentage of songs that came up during running that were so totally not helpful in motivating my running:  55% (an improvement!)

While a much better percentage than last week overall, one of my workouts was almost completely dominated by Genesis’ 16 minute ‘It/Watcher of the Skies’ medley from ‘Three Sides Live.’ No problem with these songs or this particular version, but I like more variety while running. That same workout included The Beatles ‘Across the Universe,’ which was an interesting choice. I don’t find meditation songs to be very effective exercise music.

* Number of new to me songs:  possibly as many as 4

Mew ‘Silas the Magic Car’ (a little boring), Mew ‘Beach’ (don’t remember my impression of this one), Deerhoof ‘Milk Man’ (Dave loves them and insists on putting them on mixes for me, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten through this one before, although it’s not totally new to me), Ladytron ‘Black Cat’ (same explanation as the Deerhoof)

* Number of songs that I’m so totally deleting:  possibly 3

Stereolab ‘Anonymous Collective’ (very droning with singing that sounds a little off) and Dada ‘Star You Are’ (time to accept that I only like one song off their ‘El Subliminoso’ CD and this ain’t it), October Project ‘Something More Than This’ (this song’s OK, if it were 3 minutes I’d probably let it live, but it’s pushing 6 minutes and it’s just not going to hold my attention for that long when I’m not doing this challenge)

* Most wanted to skip: see above as well as Portishead ‘Wandering Star’

I really liked this CD when it came out and I’m surprised at how little patience I have for their songs now. Not ready to delete, but hmm….

* Song I’ll be saddest not to hear again until this is over: The Police ‘Synchronicity I’

Luckily I have several bootlegs and ‘Off the Record’ type radio downloads that hopefully mean this song will be sprinkled throughout the shuffle, but this was the original release. I hesitate to commit to this, but I think this is my favorite Police song. I’m always excited to hear this song. Also, given my line of work, the line “causally connectable” always cracks me up too. I defy you to tell me another popular song that uses the word “causal” or a variant of it. The picture that comes on at about the 0:10 mark in the linked video is the quintessential Police photo for me. It’s the one that makes my heart tense up in the same way as when I hear their music. This was my favorite band in my formative years, and I don’t think there’s any getting over that. But I still love their music just as much now as I did then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8wBuU_OhIA

* Song that made me dance around during the dog walk: The Police ‘Walking on the Moon’ live Buffalo Synchronicity Tour (whenever Sting says Buffalo in this bootleg I get all giddy, this is the show I could have seen…let’s face it though, if Mom had actually let me go to this show at 10 years old, I would totally have shit my pants, I know that now from listening to the bootleg. They were that good. Having to wait until they were old and slow, or at least Sting was old and slow, was good for me. I’m not sure I would’ve lived through the excitement of seeing them at their peak.)

* Worst remake:  Before I make you sick (if I haven’t already) with my outpouring of love for the Police, I thought I’d throw in a complaint to let you know that I can be objective about them. Their remake of ‘De Do Do Do De Da Da Da’ from 1986 is fucked up bad. I have no idea what they (read Sting) were thinking with that bullshit version. I guess they weren’t as happy with the ‘Zenyatta Mondatta’ album as their other albums. I don’t know, it sounds pretty good to me.

* Weirdest coincidence:  I mentioned a memory sparked by a Lords of Acid song last week and then one of the first songs this week was the actual Lords of Acid song I had been thinking of (‘Do What You Wanna Do’). No idea how I managed to screw that up, but it was nice I got to correct myself so quickly.

* Song I could’ve sworn I’d heard already:  The Police ‘In the Studio’ radio show–this is because I actually did hear some of the same songs and interview snippets before. I apparently downloaded the ‘Zenyatta Mondatta’ AND the joint ‘Zenyatta/’Ghost in the Machine’ shows). Lots of Police this week. I also actually did hear Paul McCartney’s ‘Back Seat of My Car’ a second time this week, I apparently ripped it twice (off ‘Ram’ and the Wings hits CD). Look at me being PRESENT (my favorite actor speak from “Inside the Actors Studio’) and attention-paying this week!

* Only Komeda song I like: ‘Flabbergast’

This song was on a CD sampler my brother got me for Christmas years ago and I really like it and so did Dave. Unfortunately for me, Dave bought several of their albums and decided he really like them generally and I just did not. Shit, I just lied, there’s another song of theirs I like too. When that one comes up, I’ll try to remember to link to it too. The song doesn’t start in the linked video until about 2:20 (they were having technical difficulties).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNWgqUVbhvE

* Song of someone I sort of know:  The Grand Candy ‘I Need Liftoff! (Tight Middle Mix)’

This is Dave’s guitar teacher’s song. Go check them out.

* Guilty Pleasure: PM ‘Say it Again’ (out of print but you can hear a snippet at the artist’s website, click on audio discography and select PM)

Growing up, sometimes I could tune in a Canadian radio station and that’s how I got introduced to Frozen Ghost and to PM. Their song ‘Piece of Paradise’ was a moderate hit I think. Vanessa Williams also apparently remade one of their other songs ‘Moonlight Over Paris,’ but I’ve never heard it. This album is out of print and I only had it on tape. I recently found the CD for sale on Amazon Marketplace and I was so happy. I realize that the music is pretty cheesy (Dave was certainly horrified by it when I introduced it), but I like it anyway. Most of the songs are ridiculously catchy and if you like to sing like I do, the songs are very fun to sing.  Speaking of singing, I have this aversion to Sheryl Crow that I’m not going to get into now, but suffice it to say I really dislike her (oh fuck it, if you want to know the full explanation of my distaste, go here). I’ll probably spout off more when one of my favorite Kevin Gilbert songs comes up. Anyway, at the time I got this PM tape, I had no idea who Sheryl Crow was (she wasn’t famous yet). Years later I rediscovered the PM tape during a move and noticed in the liner notes that Sheryl Crow was one of the back up singers. One of my dreams is to get to meet her someday so I can say “I loved your work with PM.”

* Song that Dave practiced on Guitar Hero so much I thought I might kill him:  Lush ‘De-Luxe’

Before taking up real guitar, Dave played Guitar Hero. Dave played this song over and over and over again trying to get it right. When this song came up this week I realized I still don’t want to hear it ever again. I’m good on this one, have totally heard it enough to last my whole life.

* Most random memory: The Police ‘Driven to Tears’

A live version of this song came up this week and reminded me about Mark Goodman’s stupidity during MTV’s coverage of Live Aid. After Sting played ‘Driven to Tears,’ Goodman said that Sting had “changed the words” for the event, referring to the line “too many cameras and not enough food.” Um, those were always the words. I could never figure out what he was smoking…did he think the line was too many cameras and not enough film?

* Genesis song with cursing:  ‘Pigeons’

Just a fun bonus this week. This song is included on one of their box sets and I wasn’t super familiar with it, so I was shocked to hear Phil saying shit in the first line. I can’t think of any other Genesis songs with curse words. Let me know if I’m missing any.

* Non-musical selection:  Bill Cosby ‘Brain Damage’

“And the reason why we have five children is because we do not want six.”

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