Friday, October 07, 2005

Another 10* Songs o' Crap**

Yes, I’m going to do this ridiculous thing again. In spite of the fact that I’ve been blogging pretty regularly lately, and in spite of the fact that there’s terrible, terrible embarrassment waiting for me somewhere down this path, I’m going to do this again. What can I say, I’m a glutton for punishment.

However, I’m going to make a minor switch, and actually cover 11 songs, and I’ll tell you why (even though I’m quite certain none of you care).

The easiest way I have of loading up my entire MP3 playlist is to just double-click a song in my Winamp Media List. It loads that one song, plus every other song in the media list, and continues on its merry way.

So, song #0 is the song that I actually chose – it was not a random pick – to start this whole thing off.

Rules will remain the same in the weeks to come.

  1. They Might Be Giants – Hopeless Bleak Despair – I’ve been in kind of a They Might Be Giants mode lately, and this is off one of their more recent albums that it took me forever to actually get around to listening to. Now that I have, this is one of my favourite songs, period. Near as I can tell, it’s a bit of a satirical poke at the angsty-whiner-type, and I swear it’s laugh-out-loud funny the first time you hear it.

  2. Howard Jones – No One Is to Blame – Some unashamed 80s tunage here. One of my favourites at the time, it manages to come across as not painfully dated. And thank Christ it’s not a “power ballad” – I never cared much for those. For specifics sake, this is the original version, and not the later version that included another staple of the 80s – Phil Collins – on the drums.

  3. Pink Floyd – A Pillow of Winds – A soft, pleasant piece – and something that sounds quite unlike their later work – from the album “Meddle”. This album is a favourite of mine for their 23-minute “Echoes” which took up Side B of the cassette, but I often forget how good the songs on the first half of the album are.

  4. Howard Jones – Is There A Difference – Wow, we’re already hitting the same album again. This song hasn’t held up quite so well over time, and comes across with a feel that belongs very solidly to the 80s. Which is fun, in a weird, painful, nostalgic way. Have I mentioned before that I’d love to direct a play set in the 80s? And not just set in the 80s, but very visibly set in the 80s, where I could drag out all sorts of crappy music and crappy fashions, etc. etc. It has occurred to me that “American Psycho” could, potentially, be adapted for theatre, but that’s based on the film, and not on having read the book, which I haven’t. Anyone have any idea of a theatrical version of the novel has already been attempted?

  5. Ani DiFranco – Untouchable Face – It was through the journals of Javina that I first stumbled upon the name Ani DiFranco. Bored one night, and with a copy of Kazaa installed on my machine, I decided to hunt down some material and find out who this singer was who I’d read so much about. I fell in love with her work immediately. A lot of her stuff is, clearly, written to speak to women, but that doesn’t mean I can’t find a little something in it as well, even if I *am* a man.

  6. Grim Fandango – High Roller – And now some game music. This was one of the best games I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing, but sadly one that was missed by much of the gaming public. The music helped to set such a memorable atmosphere that, not long after completing the game, I set out to track down the official soundtrack by any means possible. I won’t share exactly what means were necessary, but suffice it say, the MP3s are happily stored on my hard drive.

  7. Kingston Trio – Where Have All The Flowers Gone – This is another bored Kazaa search, on a night when I tried to track down some tunes that I had listened to as a child thanks to my parents records. I could only remember a handful of Kingston Trio songs, and only dug out a half dozen or so that I remembered. I know this is a Dylon song, originally, but this is the version I’m more familiar with, however right or wrong that might be…

  8. Alexander Brandon – The Illuminati – From the Deus Ex soundtrack – and this week it’s from the *good* Deus Ex, the original. Nice use of some of the musical themes that recur throughout the game in this piece.

  9. Calas Went Away – Enigma – I went through kind of an Enigma phase not long after they (he?) released their first album. I think this is off the first album, but it’s brutally difficult to say for sure, as they do all kind of sound the same, unfortunately.

  10. Pink Floyd – Big Theme – This is, I think, off my massive, 18-CD ROIO “A Tree Full of Secrets” which is a fantastic collection of PF rarities. It’s also a lot to listen to, and I don’t actually think I’ve ever actually listened to all 18 CDs, because this song sounds completely unfamiliar to me, though it does seem like it might have come from either a late, post-Waters Floyd album, or a David Gilmour solo project. Oh, wait, some dialogue has come in near the end that seems to imply that this is from the ridiculous vanity “Gilmour and Mason Racing Project” that came out in the late 90s, I think. Bleargh. Thought it seemed like crappy, diluted Floyd.

  11. Pink Floyd – Apples and Oranges – And still *more* Floyd! I think is goes in the opposite direction, back to the earliest stuff, when Syd Barrett was still around. But I might be wrong about that. I’m pretty sure this is also from the Tree Full of Secrets collection.

And that’s for this week. Two weeks, and nothing embarrassing to speak of. I’m the luckiest man in the world! Well, except maybe for whoever it is that’s currently sleeping with Nicole Kidman. He’s probably pretty lucky too.

Thank you! Good night!

*11 songs, actually, but I already explained that, and I won’t be explaining it again.
** This, and all future uses of the word “Crap” are used in honour of the coolest flash animated guy in a funny Mexican wrestling mask ever, STRONGBAD!

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