So, the rest of the posts in what was intended to be a series will most likely have to wait until next week since this week seems bound and determined to take me out to the back alley, kick my ass and leave me blind. But that's okay. I'll have more time, nothing to grade, and hopefully a whole lot less English dept. drama then. And did I mention more time? Soooo much beautiful time?! *yip!*
But here's the music one anyway, fifteen of my favorite songs of '07, and first let's start with two 2006 releases that I’d be remiss not to mention. Yes, let's...
#15: My Brightest Diamond - "Gone Away" (2006)
Like Joanna Newsom and Beirut, I'm fully aware that My Brightest Diamond is me at my most musically annoying. You don't understand how I can possibly like this. You're baffled, you roll your eyes, you secretly wonder if I might not be lying. But I'm a complicated lady who can't be defined or pigeon-holed, and, secretly, you find this irresistible. You maybe just don't realize it yet.
#14: Cold War Kids - "Saint John" (2006)
Although Robbers and Cowards was released in 2006 I never bothered to listen to it until ’07, and since this song has been in heavy, heavy rotation for the first six months of the year, I can’t in good conscious exclude it. And *whew!* doesn’t it end well - I say goddamn!
#13: Modest Mouse - "People as Places as People"
I suspect there are better songs on this album but this is the one where I hear Johnny Marr's influence the most - and just in case we haven’t met – I kinda have a red-hot thing for my Mr. Marr. Woof.
#12: The Shins - "Turn on Me"
You gotta hear this song! It’ll change your life, I swear! (And then we both find ourselves in a film homage to The Graduate that we find equal parts annoying and endearing. Or something like that.)
#11: Arcade Fire - "The Well and the Lighthouse"
You thought I’d say “Intervention” or “My Body is a Cage,” didn’t you? Well, nope, I choose this one. And I do so like to surprise.
#10: !!! - "Myth Takes"
There’s this surf-rock quality to this song that is irresistible to me. I like the album plenty but I love this track, and the fact that it, sounding nothing like rest of the album, was how these guys chose to kick it all off is kind of genius. (And yes, I realize I'm tossing that word around rather loosely.)
#9: Voxtrot - "Brothers in Conflict"
Perhaps because it's in the shadow of their eps, all of which I have a mad crush on, but Voxtrot's self-titled first full album release was a tiny bit of a disappointment to me. However, there are some solid, solid songs on it and this is one of them. Maybe more than any other, Voxtrot is one of those bands where I will go and see them as often as they come to me and I will unashamedly dance like an absolute fool the entire time, much to the embarrassement of all of those with me not named Carrie.
#8: Menomena - "Weird"
Normally, I hate a baritone saxophone - to be incredibly crass, it sounds like farts to me – but for some reason it’s the barry, along with the harpsicord effect on the keyboard, that makes “Weird” for me. And by the way, the entire album is ridiculously good so you should just do yourself a favor and listen to it already.
#7: Of Montreal - "Gronlandic Edit"
This song has long, sinewy fingers that have wrapped themselves tightly around my brain, burrowed into my grey matter and grown roots. In other words, it's absurdly infectious. I want to take it out behind the middle school and, well, you know…
#6: The National - "Slow Show"
"I wanna hurry home to you put on a slow, dumb show for you and crack you up....You know I dreamed about you for twenty-nine years before I saw you. I missed you for twenty-nine years." Beautiful.
#5: Andrew Bird - "Imitosis"
So lyrically clever. So musically catchy. So scientifically romantic. So very, very me.
#4: The Rosebuds - "Silja Line"
I freely admit that Night of the Furies is no Birds Make Good Neighbors. While one of the previous album’s strengths was its diversity of sound, seamlessly transitioning between folk to blues to synth-pop, this new one tends to focus solely on the latter. But since synth-pop is how I tend to prefer to rock it, that’s alright with me. And this song…this song, this song, this song…*sigh!*
#3: Tori Amos - "Big Wheel"
Hey, Tori. Sorry I’ve ignored you for the past, oh, eight years or so. To be honest, you pissed me off when you decided to make Alanis Morissette your BFF and released the ho-hum To Venus and Back. But to be frank, although your multiple-personality angle with this new album is a bit weird and annoying, I’ll admit that it’s a brilliant way to bleed all those die-hard Tori-philes dry. (In concert she’ll appearing as one of five alter-egos, insuring that hard-core fans will travel to see her multiple times in the hopes of seeing Clyde and Pip and Santa in concert, as dumb as that all sounds.) But, whatever. You and I both know that your eccentricities are a large part of why I love you, and this album, although bloated with 12 unnecessary songs, is still one of your best. I just fear that the absurdity of its concept will ensure that it gets ignored like your previous seven have been. Not that you care.
P.S. Nice wig.
#2: Feist - "One, Two, Three, Four"
I challenge you to name a cuter song that’s been released this year. Godspeed.
#1:Andrew Bird - "Armchairs"
I love the construction of this song. It's a tease, starting slow, pretty and unassuming while taking seemingly forever to build to this perfect, beautiful, satisfying peak. And if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm sort of a get-weak-in-the-knees kind of sucker for four things: ice cream, shoes, puppies and musical swells. Feel free to do what you will with that information...
But here's the music one anyway, fifteen of my favorite songs of '07, and first let's start with two 2006 releases that I’d be remiss not to mention. Yes, let's...
#15: My Brightest Diamond - "Gone Away" (2006)
Like Joanna Newsom and Beirut, I'm fully aware that My Brightest Diamond is me at my most musically annoying. You don't understand how I can possibly like this. You're baffled, you roll your eyes, you secretly wonder if I might not be lying. But I'm a complicated lady who can't be defined or pigeon-holed, and, secretly, you find this irresistible. You maybe just don't realize it yet.
#14: Cold War Kids - "Saint John" (2006)
Although Robbers and Cowards was released in 2006 I never bothered to listen to it until ’07, and since this song has been in heavy, heavy rotation for the first six months of the year, I can’t in good conscious exclude it. And *whew!* doesn’t it end well - I say goddamn!
#13: Modest Mouse - "People as Places as People"
I suspect there are better songs on this album but this is the one where I hear Johnny Marr's influence the most - and just in case we haven’t met – I kinda have a red-hot thing for my Mr. Marr. Woof.
#12: The Shins - "Turn on Me"
You gotta hear this song! It’ll change your life, I swear! (And then we both find ourselves in a film homage to The Graduate that we find equal parts annoying and endearing. Or something like that.)
#11: Arcade Fire - "The Well and the Lighthouse"
You thought I’d say “Intervention” or “My Body is a Cage,” didn’t you? Well, nope, I choose this one. And I do so like to surprise.
#10: !!! - "Myth Takes"
There’s this surf-rock quality to this song that is irresistible to me. I like the album plenty but I love this track, and the fact that it, sounding nothing like rest of the album, was how these guys chose to kick it all off is kind of genius. (And yes, I realize I'm tossing that word around rather loosely.)
#9: Voxtrot - "Brothers in Conflict"
Perhaps because it's in the shadow of their eps, all of which I have a mad crush on, but Voxtrot's self-titled first full album release was a tiny bit of a disappointment to me. However, there are some solid, solid songs on it and this is one of them. Maybe more than any other, Voxtrot is one of those bands where I will go and see them as often as they come to me and I will unashamedly dance like an absolute fool the entire time, much to the embarrassement of all of those with me not named Carrie.
#8: Menomena - "Weird"
Normally, I hate a baritone saxophone - to be incredibly crass, it sounds like farts to me – but for some reason it’s the barry, along with the harpsicord effect on the keyboard, that makes “Weird” for me. And by the way, the entire album is ridiculously good so you should just do yourself a favor and listen to it already.
#7: Of Montreal - "Gronlandic Edit"
This song has long, sinewy fingers that have wrapped themselves tightly around my brain, burrowed into my grey matter and grown roots. In other words, it's absurdly infectious. I want to take it out behind the middle school and, well, you know…
#6: The National - "Slow Show"
"I wanna hurry home to you put on a slow, dumb show for you and crack you up....You know I dreamed about you for twenty-nine years before I saw you. I missed you for twenty-nine years." Beautiful.
#5: Andrew Bird - "Imitosis"
So lyrically clever. So musically catchy. So scientifically romantic. So very, very me.
#4: The Rosebuds - "Silja Line"
I freely admit that Night of the Furies is no Birds Make Good Neighbors. While one of the previous album’s strengths was its diversity of sound, seamlessly transitioning between folk to blues to synth-pop, this new one tends to focus solely on the latter. But since synth-pop is how I tend to prefer to rock it, that’s alright with me. And this song…this song, this song, this song…*sigh!*
#3: Tori Amos - "Big Wheel"
Hey, Tori. Sorry I’ve ignored you for the past, oh, eight years or so. To be honest, you pissed me off when you decided to make Alanis Morissette your BFF and released the ho-hum To Venus and Back. But to be frank, although your multiple-personality angle with this new album is a bit weird and annoying, I’ll admit that it’s a brilliant way to bleed all those die-hard Tori-philes dry. (In concert she’ll appearing as one of five alter-egos, insuring that hard-core fans will travel to see her multiple times in the hopes of seeing Clyde and Pip and Santa in concert, as dumb as that all sounds.) But, whatever. You and I both know that your eccentricities are a large part of why I love you, and this album, although bloated with 12 unnecessary songs, is still one of your best. I just fear that the absurdity of its concept will ensure that it gets ignored like your previous seven have been. Not that you care.
P.S. Nice wig.
#2: Feist - "One, Two, Three, Four"
I challenge you to name a cuter song that’s been released this year. Godspeed.
#1:Andrew Bird - "Armchairs"
I love the construction of this song. It's a tease, starting slow, pretty and unassuming while taking seemingly forever to build to this perfect, beautiful, satisfying peak. And if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm sort of a get-weak-in-the-knees kind of sucker for four things: ice cream, shoes, puppies and musical swells. Feel free to do what you will with that information...
Labels: european kissing andrew bird, lists, music
4 Comments:
when we first talked about the shins album you said "split needles" and i thought "idiot . . . didnt she listen to "australia" or "turn on me"?"
then we talked about the arcade fire album and you said "intervention" and i thought "god damn shes an idiot . . ."the well and the lighthouse" "THE WELL AND THE LIGHTHOUSE"!!!!!"
and now . . .modest mouse. and this one really just forces me to pose a question. . . have you ever seen a man dressed for work riding alone on the subway trying NOT to dance but doing a horrible job of it? well thats what the song "dashboard" does. and goddammit im pretty sure people were looking. . . there was pole dancing and A LOT of robot. no joke.
p.s. im not afraid to admit it, the killers "read my mind" was even more embarassing.
This was highly enjoyable (and enlightening). Looking forward to the rest of the lists!
That girl was my sister!
Matt, I love the idea of you struggling not to pole-dance on the subway. (Especially when the song is one by The Killers.) I say struggle no more and give yourself over to the beast already.
Post a Comment
<< Home