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Divide & Kreate - Party Kisser

This was never the way I planned. It was not my intention to go strong for like two months then suddenly drop off the face of the Earth. I got so brave, thinking I could keep up with this completely arbitrary three-day-a-week schedule. It's not something I'm used to doing, I just wanted to try it on.

Maybe this song will wake this blog out of its accursed slumber! ROCK!

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Get this track free on Divide & Kreate's web site.

Quickie: making the noise - come back

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I've been totally tied up at work, and not in a weird way, just the busy one. The result is that while I've really, really wanted to keep my schedule, I haven't gotten back into that groove yet. I feel really weird about building up a buffer (why make people wait just for some facade of being organized?), so I suppose these weeks of woeful silence will happen every now and then.

At any rate, I just want to let you guys know about an album I just bought after streaming the whole thing from this interview with the artist. It's "you can do anything. except for some things" by "making the noise" and while I'm not sure how much I'll love it, the first impression was fantastic.

And just to be sure my YouTube code still works, here's a video I found while searching for the album title:

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Following the links from the interview will take you here, where you can buy it too.

Justice - Genesis

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My life is going to be exciting for the next three weeks. In fact, it started yesterday, which made it the perfect day for Genesis to make it to the top of my list: a great first track for a great first album.

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Due to the excitement, I'm taking a break from FM. My next post will be on Friday, September 10. Feel free to loop the music from previous FM posts until then. Seriously. Hosting this site has only cost me $0.03 so far. So go hit play a few thousand more times, on the house. ;p

Genesis is on Amazon MP3 and iTunes, though I honestly recommend getting the entire album, †. Every track on it is fantastic, but they transition smoothly from one to the next, so each track on its own has an abrupt and unsatisfying conclusion. Much like this post. See you September 10!

Akeboshi - Wind

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I didn't know this was the theme song for an anime before I started liking it, and certainly not an anime like Naruto, okay?? But since it is, it seems appropriate for me to write it as if I actually know something about the show.

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OMG this song is my FAVORITE NARUTO ENDING!none of the 1s that came after were ne good really so thats no surprise lol. n its sooo cute when he says "cuz u weer hate ursewf in de end!" its because hes japanese LOL! actually the whole korus is like this

dont try to look so wise
don't cry cuz ur so right!
don't dry wit fakes or fears
cuz you weer hate ursewf in de end

ok lol i no i i cant have that 3rd 1 rite becuz it duznt make any sense but i think the message he is trying 2 say is 2 tell naruto not 2 try 2 act all like hes grown up becuz hes not lol does that make sense??? sometimes when naruto has fot tuf enemies like kiba and he wants 2 cry he SHUDENT because he always tries 2 do the rite thing. he dusnt no most of the time but he is STRONG inside. n not just from a demon LOL

but seriously his accent does a lot 4 this song. the strange ways the english words come out of his mouth entrance me n i cant help but repeat after him, trying 2 set up my tongue and jaw so that the syllables tumble out in the same foreign way as in the recording. its HARD lol. i remember a bleach opening that was interesting 2 listen 2 4 the same reason..... i no it sounds vaguely offensive 4 some reason but its not really different from appreciating the way their accents make beatles music listenable LOL **ducks** lol

i also have 2 say that i appreciate singers who can take advantage of a interesting time signature (liek one that i have in mind but i havent ritten about yet!). this isnt the best example of that, but it is pleasant the way the lyrics bound from downbeat 2 downbeat, sometimes flutter-jumping like yoshi 2 get a little more distance like in "climbing the mountain… never-coming-down"

so i seem to be going on n on so ill stop but i got 2 say....... NARUTO AND SAKURA 4EVER <3<3!! (thats my favorite narutoXsakura fic lol)

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n i cudnt find a place 2 get the MP3 online..sorry!! i cant remember where i got my copy but i probably ripped it off youtube lol. i definetly didnt buy the $60 ost lol. ne way it is on last.fm. i wish there were a better wikipedia article on akeboshi but it kind of sucks. :(((

n I CANT RESIST!lol.. hinata is cute 2 :))

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The Chemical Brothers - Let Forever Be

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Let Forever Be is rich with sound. For me it conjures images of bright warm red and green, like being pulled through a garden choked with flowers and tall grass up past your head, or standing under a dozen hoses gushing red and green jello.

I love the way it cleverly layers samples played both forwards and backwards. Reversing samples morphs their exponentially decaying tails into devious entrances, causing them to creep into your awareness instead of announcing their arrival. You get the sense of hearing something you didn't hear before, like when a noisy air conditioner suddenly turns off. The whole song is designed to confuse and it's easy to get lost in it.

To top it all off, the music video is incredible. Have I ever seen one this good?

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To quote a comment on the song's Last.fm page, "This is the song i want playing when I awaken from a drug induced coma".

I'm pleased that Amazon has the MP3 and so does iTunes.

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

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I'm a lazy musician. Interested, but not devoted. The only "instrument" I put any appreciable practice into is Rock Band drums, because the game is good at tricking me into thinking I'm way better than I actually am. >:)

But in spite of my problem, the one song I never get bored of practicing on guitar (real guitar) is Wish You Were Here. I don't know what it is about the song, but every time I learn a new section it's like discovering Pink Floyd all over again. It's immensely satisfying.

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For your listening pleasure, I'm going to give you the same assignment I was given a few years ago: listen to this song—with headphones—and try to keep track of everything you hear. My assignment was to map the full five minutes out on paper, but since you're auditing, I don't care how far you go. ;p

The song is way more complex than I noticed in my first casual listen. I loved this song before getting that homework assignment, but it wasn't until after repeated careful listening that I came to appreciate how carefully crafted it is. (You won't pick up on a lot of it in the YouTube mix, though.)

Neither Amazon nor iTunes seem to have the MP3 for this one, which if true is understandable given how the album was definitely meant to be listened front to back. In that spirit, I'll also link to the album on Last.fm.

The Postal Service - This Place is a Prison

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Stop! Before you play any of the music on this page, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Think about the ocean at night, a cloudy sky, an empty beach. Filter out all the noises around you and feel the breeze.

Now think of something you regret and sigh.

Okay, now you can hit play and close your eyes.

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As I write this post, I'm sitting on on the second floor of a late night train into the city. There's a man in the aisle below doing simple exercises and stretches using the seat backs and handles for support. At the same time he's reviewing papers from folders he's splayed out on two of the seats. Watching unseen from above as I am, I can't help but make up a back story.

A single lawyer in a rough period, he's taken membership at a gym ninety minutes from home, finding the ambient noise of an emptying train good for following lines of reasoning to their conclusions. He doesn't mind that the clipboards of documents sharing a bag with his gym shorts contaminates them both with their inks and odors, but sometimes he wishes he could take a suitcase on the train instead and leave the shorts to ride home without him.

Instead he'll get off three stops before downtown, grab a case at the liquor store on the corner, and think about how many business hours there are until Friday. Inspiration will hit at 9:47pm and he'll be asleep by midnight.

What do people think when they see you on a train?

Probably about where they can get this song. It's on Amazon and iTunes. More info on Last.fm.

Prodigy - Invaders Must Die

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Scott Pilgrim vs. the World comes to theaters August 13th and I can't wait.

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Despite how much I love the visual style of that trailer, a lot of the effect has worn off for me. I must have watched the trailers dozens of times by now. But the music permeating the second half of the preview still rocks me to the core. The song is "Invaders Must Die" from The Prodigy's latest album of the same name.

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If you ask me, this song is rock solid. I sing it in the shower, which, uh, doesn't work that well, but works well enough! At 3:23 I lose control of my body it's so good. (That's the part at the beginning of the preview and at 2:28 in the YouTube version.)

I got my copy on Amazon MP3, but of course iTunes has it as well. Find out more on its Last.fm page.

Aside from "Thunder," with its ridiculous overuse of the "I hear thunder" sample, I can recommend the rest of the album as well.

Quickie: Nobody Beats The Drum - Grindin'

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I was recently linked this "Visual Music" Tumblr, which has a couple of interesting videos, but this one really stood out to me:

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The whole time I was wondering how they animated it to get that stop motion effect … then when the final shot zooms out to reveal that it actually was stop motion, I had to watch it again to figure out how they did it! Very cool, and fits very well with the music.

My favorite moments were 1:06-1:16, where it actually becomes difficult to tell the difference between box and shadow, and 1:40-1:46, where I just love the visual composition.

Here's the making-of video on YouTube (well worth watching):

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Also, the music artist's site, and the visual artist's site.

Air - Dead Bodies

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If I had to pick a song to run through a house full of corpses to, it would be "Dead Bodies". Just the first few seconds get my blood pumping and my legs moving. When the drums drop out a minute in, it would be just as I reached a balcony overlooking a wide hallway, and as the ghastly chorus kicked in, I would leap off the balcony to the floor below, falling in slow motion, legs still pumping, shards of glass inexplicably grazing my cheek, which would bleed one drop onto the already bloodstained floor as I landed. But I'd hit the ground running just as the drums returned in full force.

Bounding over chairs and severed limbs, gasping at the stinking air with each step, I would have little time to concentrate on the grotesqueries around me. I would reach the front door at 2:49, throw it open, slip around and slam it shut, then, exhausted, lean back against it to catch my breath, sliding down into a crouch, then sit, legs sprawling. A few moments later I'd touch my cheek, finally noticing the wounds I'd sustained on my way out.

And that's pretty much what goes through my head when I listen to this song while jogging. It's 3 minutes of adrenaline, a meditation on escape, meticulously produced.

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Grab the MP3 on Amazon or iTunes! Check it out on Last.fm.

And since I under-estimated the number of periods I would need in the second paragraph, I'll leave the rest here: ..........

Nina Simone - Feeling Good

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I don't have very much jazz music. It's a problem I don't like to talk about with other people, but given the focus of this blog, I ought to come clean sooner than later. It's a problem I've just never gotten around to correcting.

A lot of what I do have is from the album Jazz After Dark [Last.fm], a compilation that's hard to keep from getting lost in as I try to focus on finishing this article. (I recommend it.)

One of the tracks that always catches my attention is Nina Simone's "Feeling Good".

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I've actually become so in love with this song that my library has two additional versions of it that I created with Capo, slowed to 0.75x and 0.5x so that I could practice singing along, though it turns out I can't. ;) It's incredible how much is going on in her voice in every single phrase, a lot of which was impossible for me to pick up except at half speed.

When I finally got to visiting NinaSimone.com, she had long since passed away and a short biography was published on the front page. It explains how, "also known as The High Priestess of Soul, she paid great attention to the musical expression of emotions," and while I usually think a phrase like that doesn't mean much, her rendition of Feeling Good is good enough evidence for me that she took it very seriously. Her portrayal on Wikipedia helped convinced me of that.

I couldn't find an MP3 on Amazon for this one, but iTunes has it.

And just for hilarity, here's Michael Buble's version of "Feeling Good" I don't recommend buying this, I'm only linking because after listening to Nina Simone's version several times today, this one had me in fits.

The Long Division - Ability

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I heard about this band when the David Gonzalez half of The Long Division spammed my Last.fm wall in April 2008. I tentatively listened to the link and was very pleasantly surprised, buying the album soon after. Well, I tried at least. I'll get to that later.

The point is, now I'm spamming you about it! The song "Ability" is a little intense, but don some goggles and check out this painfully vivid music video to hear the full version:

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I have a feeling you're either digging it or puking at this point. Combined with the video, the electronic chainsaw noises throughout are hardly easy on the ears, but I admit I'm a sucker for buzzy synthesized bass lines, which get stuck in my head just as easily as the vocals, in Ability's case.

The band has one album on iTunes, but this particular track isn't on iTunes or Amazon, so no dice there.

I'd recommend buying through the The Long Division site, except when I tried to do that more than a year ago, something mysterious happened and I think they payment went somewhere random, and the blog post that linked to the payment page no longer exists. Honestly, until I went to publish this post I couldn't find a single legitimate way to get a copy. But just now they replied to my e-mail with great news!

The album is available for free on their web site! Woot!

And for your convenience, Here's the Last.fm page for the song.

Introduction

I thought I'd take a second to talk about what exactly I'm trying to accomplish here, since there hasn't been much in the way of explanation so far. Basically, I want to get a song stuck in your head, three days a week, by any means necessary. I'm hoping that featuring my very favorite music will do that, but I'm prepared to come to your home with headphones and a roll of duct tape, if that is what it takes.

The idea for this blog came from putting myself in my own shoes, thinking about how I collect music. I listen to it, read a little about it, then go find it available electronically. That's what I want you to be able to do here.

I only write about my favorite music. When I'm listening to my library on shuffle and a song comes on that makes me stop what I'm doing and block out everything else to enjoy it, it qualifies. I pick each week's songs from that list.

So in a nutshell: great music, consistent schedule, good times for all. I am really looking forward to this!

Placebo - Running Up That Hill

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After blasting P-Funk and Tunak Tunak Tun for the past week, you probably need a break from dancing. It happens to the best of us. Let's slow things down and get a little meditative with Placebo's cover of "Running Up That Hill" and see how that goes.

And if I only could
Make a deal with God
And get him to swap our places…

The trouble with this song is that whenever I least suspect it, those words, or their haunting melody, sneak their way into my head and I'm stuck humming it under my breath for the rest of the day. Not that I'm complaining, it just makes it hard to stop myself from looping it over and over.

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I think "meditative" is definitely the right way to put it. There are a few other songs I'll be posting soon about which I feel the same. When I'm in the right mood for it, it's great to just relax and get lost in the repetition.

If you like the song, thankfully both Amazon and iTunes have you covered for the Placebo version, so you can take your pick! And the Last.fm fan page is here.

Just for comparison, here's the original Kate Bush version of "Running Up That Hill." Personally, I can't stand it, but perhaps it's just a sound you have to grow up with to appreciate:

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I don't know what it is, but those… noises… that come in at 0:06 make me want to toss my laptop out the window. And the thumbnail of the YouTube clip, with all those purple floating heads, doesn't help. At all. >_<

Daler Mehndi - Tunak Tunak Tun

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As far as I'm concerned, the fan-made music video that introduced me to Daler Mehndi is as old as the Internet. It's still hosted on Dannel Gomiller's site, LordOfDance.com … and as of somewhat recently, YouTube as well:

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When I originally saw that video, it was in a file named daler1.asf, which I still have, but can't play. It was almost too blurry and compressed to make out, which I guess is what qualifies the YouTube version above as "HD."

(If you have the time, check out his other videos as well, especially My Puppy Bobby. I've been a huge fan for forever.)

Anyway, ridiculous video, right? What I didn't know until I went to find the original video to write this post was that his dance moves were ripped straight from the original! Here's Daler's version:

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The Lord of Dance ripped off his moves! ;p

So if you want to get the full version of this song, iTunes has has it. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't have the MP3, but there are a few CDs for sale, including this one with Tunak Tunak Tun on it. Check Last.fm for related music, and Wikipedia for a little history! Phew!

DJ Riko - P-Funk is Playing at My House

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With FavMusic launching, it's time to get this party started, and I haven't heard any track better for getting people on their feet recently than this mash-up from the Best of Bootie 2005 album. I can't play it just once, and I can't help singing along. I'm sure I bugged the crap out of my cousin today, interjecting, "You got to set 'em up, ooh, ooh, yeah!" into conversations just because I had this song stuck in my head.

A 30-second preview's up top! You can also find out more about the track on Last.fm. (Last.fm is usually my first stop when I'm looking for information about a song or artist, so I'll probably link there every time.)

I have to admit that a lot of the greatness of this track comes from LCD Soundsystem's "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House," which is fantastic on its own. Though comparatively bare, it dominates the Bootie mix. It's a great idea that DJ Riko took to one wonderful extreme. So which one I'm more into changes with my mood, but for what it's worth, I've been digging the Bootie version for several days now.

Here's "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" for comparison (and because I love the video):

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Anyway, I'm excited to have the site live on the web, so I'm posting a little early. I'm going to try to stick to the schedule from now on.

And if this kind of music isn't your thing, don't worry, because even though that's what I've been listening to recently, I've got plenty of stuff in my backlog that's completely different. :)