Music meme to waste some time
Apr 30, 2009 Uncategorized
Name your top 10 most played bands on iTunes (Or Last.FM):
This was hard to do because iTunes doesn’t show you most played artists — just songs. So I chose the artists whose songs showed up most often in the top of the most-played list and they’re not necessarily in the right order here.
- Elbow
- De Phazz
- Nitin Sawhney
- Beastie Boys
- Sufjan Stevens
- The Decemberists
- Alison Krauss
- Everything but the Girl
- India.Arie
- Kylie Minogue
What was the first song you ever heard by 6 (The Decemberists)?
I had a bunch of songs from The Crane Wife on iTunes from the mp3 blogs but didn’t really hear any of them. I listen to iTunes on shuffle and I tune in and out as I’m working. Well, I noticed that there was a song I kept stopping to listen to whenever it came on and that was “The Island” (it’s a trilogy of songs) because at first it was bugging me but then I was stopping to listen because I loved it.
What is your favorite album of 2 (De Phazz)?
Death by Chocolate.
What is your favorite lyric that 5 (Sufjan Stevens) has sung?
I don’t know that I have a favorite but this song stops me cold in part because of the last lines:
And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floorboards
For the secrets I have hid
This song (and the video I linked to above) is so disturbing and disconcertingly lovely.
How many times have you seen 4 (Beastie Boys) live?
Never, alas.
What is your favorite song by 7 (Alison Krauss)?
Well, a few years ago I kept hitting repeat on “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You” over and over again .
What is a good memory you have involving the music of 10 (Kylie Minogue)?
I listen to her while I work out — it’s why she’s on my most-played list — and I like to work out so I guess that’s a good memory, right?
Is there a song of 3 (Nitin Sawhney) that makes you sad?
Yes. This one. Not for the lyrics so much
What is your favorite lyric that 2 (De Phazz) has sung?
They are not so much about the lyrics, De Phazz.
How did you get into 3 (Nitin Sawhney)?
I can’t remember how I found him but it was this song (linked many times) that really got me hooked. I love this whole album — Beyond Skin. I think he’s absolutely brilliant.
What was the first song you heard by 1 (Elbow)?
Not sure but the first one I really heard was Mirrorball, which is my ringtone.
What is your favorite song by 4 (Beastie Boys)?
Ch-Check it Out.
How many times have you seen 9 (India.Arie) live?
Never.
What is a good memory you have involving 2 (De Phazz)?
Again, they’re good work-out music but also, just fun music. I mean, really — how fun is this?
Is there a song of 8 (Everything but the Girl) that makes you sad?
“Ugly Little Dreams”
There’s some ugly little dreams
For pretty girls to buy
It’s enough to make you mad
But it’s safer just to break down and cry
What is your favorite album of 5 (Sufjan Stevens)?
I’m still getting to know him but right now Illinois is the one rotating most often.
What is your favorite lyric that 3 (Nitin Sawhney) has sung?
And I dream of places far from here
And I call your name to the wind
And I wish the night would take me to another world
Where no one knows a face or has a name
What is your favorite song of 1 (Elbow)?
Mirrorball (natch) and One Day Like This, which is on some movie soundtrack so is probably going to hit radios if it hasn’t already and really is a wonderful, uplifting song (listen to it next time you’re feeling gloomy)
What is your favorite song of 10 (Kylie Minogue)?
Oh gosh, see the thing is she’s a great work-out songstress but I don’t really listen to her. But I guess (thinking) I like working out to Slow best (I have a different mix though) and I’ll admit that I get a total kick out of In Denial
How many times have you seen 8 (Everything but the Girl) live?
Never, which is just so so wrong.
What is your favorite album of 1 (Elbow)?
The Seldom Scene
What is a great memory you have considering 9 (India.Arie)?
Leaving the Obama rally and hearing “There’s Hope” piped through the stadium speakers. (Great bass!)
What was the first song you heard by 8 (Everything but the Girl)?
“Shoot Me Down” and it was love at first listen
What is your favorite cover by 2 (De Phazz)?
I’m not sure that they’ve done any covers.
Tags: meme, mp3, Music, working out
I have not always been honest
Apr 16, 2009 The Story of My Life
I’m pretty sure this is the last of these posts for now.
I’ve not always been honest with myself about Joaquin. It took me a long time to get over him — well, not him so much as the relationship. I get into these funks where I’m thinking on it hard (I’m in one now, obviously) and I used to think it was about him but now I know it’s me trying to figure out me. Why did I love him? Why couldn’t I stay away? What part of me was hurting then and is it still present now? And this time around I’m also wondering, how was I complicit?
In one version of the story of our relationsip’s demise (this is the version I worked over for years), Joaquin throws me over several times. First with someone who went to high school with us, then with a woman with my exact same first name thereby obliterating me. (Even now I occasionally meet someone who can’t quite place me and then it ends up they have me mixed up with her.) In this version of events, I am the victim. Sure, I’m jealous and clingy but he’s the one ripping me apart into teensie-weenie little pieces and then using my attachment (addiction) to him to keep me in his back pocket as a just-in-case. This is all true.
But the other version of the story is also true and it’s one I hadn’t thought on much that has to do with my culpability. So I was thinking about how he used to say that I loved him but I didn’t like him and thinking about how it took me a few years (full of slammed locker doors, hysterical phone calls on either side and heady reunions) to realize he was right. I thought then that he probably didn’t care but maybe he did. It’s probably not a whole lot of fun to realize your girlfriend doesn’t like you all that much.
I disapproved of a lot of his choices and I disagreed with a lot of his values but I was so insecure and so defensive that I couldn’t own this and instead I would try to tear him down the same way he tried to tear me down. Because I saw him as invincible, I never thought that I could really hurt him even though I wanted him to hurt because he hurt me. But while I’m the type of gal whose feelings get hurt if the wind blows too hard, Joaquin was made of tougher stuff and so I had to work a lot harder and I could get pretty freakin’ mean. I’ve forgiven him for being a jerk but (I realize as I type this) I need to forgive myself for my own jerkiness so that I won’t be so desperate to pretend it was all on him.
(There was a lot of unkindness in me during the five years between 15 and 20; I took all of my essential hurt and tried to spread it around.)
I tried to control him as much as he tried to control me (again, with far less success since he had oodles more self-confidence than I did). I remember once in particular that I tried to get him to quit his band and focus more on his painting and I couched it in concern about his art but the truth was I was just tired of his groupies. I mean, if you really love someone you don’t try to make them give up something that they love.
I don’t really know when we stopped loving each other but I always think that if I’d just gotten over it when he dumped me for the girl in our class, we could have remained fond of each other. But I couldn’t let him go. And I guess he couldn’t let me go because he didn’t for a long time.
I used to feel invisible with him but what did I want him to do to prove that he saw me? I felt hemmed in by my girlhood — it was certainly easier for him to be a boy in a band than it was for me to be a girl who wrote poetry — but that wasn’t his fault. I was jealous of his autonomy and the room the world gave him to step out of bounds. I’d get mad when he’d declaim on feminism and ignore what I was going through right in front of him. I had sex with him and it freed him; I guess I can’t really hold him responsible for not seeing how it locked me down. He was 16! Then 17! (The last time we slept together I want to say that I was 19 and he was 21 but honestly I’m just not sure.) We were young and dumb and locked in a pattern that wasn’t kind to either of us.
If we’d just let each other go earlier! If only we hadn’t raked each other over hot coals and trampled over any good feelings we might have had for each other!
THAT is my big Joaquin regret — that I wouldn’t let it go and instead helped throttle my first love into a wilted broken thing.
Ahh well. Youth. Ignorance.
(sigh)
And this really is the last of these posts for now. (I got off subject anyway.)
Thoughts on Spring Awakening
Feb 8, 2009 Read/heard/seen
Pretty much I cry anytime I see a live musical. I cried when I saw Annie both when I was 12 (because finally! my dream was coming true and I was seeing it!) and again when I was 30 (and took Noah to see it because finally! my dream was coming true and I was sharing Annie with my off-spring!). I cry during obvious musicals like West Side Story but I even cry during lame ones like Cats even though I think the soundtrack sucks (because the cats! They jump so high!) and during Mama Mia (because I grew up listening to Abba and it reminded me of my mom who was sitting right there next to me probably crying, too).
I did not cry during Spring Awakening. And Spring Awakening is sad! You’re supposed to cry! But I didn’t — not even a lump in my throat. I was surprised by this and disappointed seeing as how I like a good cry now and then and have even choked a bit listening to the soundtrack.
Thing is, I like the soundtrack, I do, but I wouldn’t put it anywhere near my top ten showtunes recordings. It’s more of a pop soundtrack even more so than Rent. (I cried buckets watching Rent but not as much as I cried during Lion King.) In ten years, will anyone still be listening to Spring Awakening? I’m not sure.
Things I liked:
- I liked the conceit of the modern music/dancing/slang placed in a late 19th century context more than I expected. I thought it’d get tired but it didn’t really; I thought it worked.
- I liked some of the choreography quite a bit.
- We thought the kid playing Moritz was terrific.
- I like the juxtaposition of the sexual drive of the boys against the emotional drive of the girls (which really is the culturally accepted way for girls to express their sexual drive). The staging/lyrics in “My Junk” were interesting and telling. Really, I’d like to see a musical more about that — about how girls have to hide their sexual drive while boys have to hide their need for emotional connection.
Things I wasn’t so crazy about:
- I thought the plot was pretty one-dimensional and they could have (in Julia’s words) bitched it up some. I know they’re limited by the original material but still — if you can stop the show with a song called “Totally Fucked” you can take some liberties to deepen the story. (Besides which they turned the rape in the story into consensual sex so they were already willing to play around.)
- I really didn’t like that the seduction of the vulnerable gay boy was played for laughs. It wasn’t funny.
- The most interesting characters (to me) were Moritz and Ilse and I wanted more of them. The leads bored the heck out of me.
Also the singers were competent but other than Moritz, none of them felt all that moving to me. I wasn’t sure if it was the sound tech (because some of the songs were supposed to be soft but some of the harder ones were pretty soft, too) or the singers, who were mostly not all that expert. Kinda like Rent (and the Broadway try-out version of West Side Story I saw), I know they mean to cast youngsters but still — teach ‘em how to ACT when they sing, ‘kay? Because I do think the soundtrack I have, which is dead, you know, because it’s a soundtrack from a studio — is more moving to listen to than to watch and I NEVER think that.
(Again Moritz was great. If I were sixteen, I’d have been crushing on him.)
The theme of sexual shame wasn’t all that surprising and the show is preaching to the choir. I mean, Sarah Palin isn’t going to take her kids to that show anyway. I wanted to be challenged more but as it was, it felt like an after-school special for grown-ups. Sexual shame is BAD! Hog-tying our children emotionally is NOT GOOD! Duh. But Brett and I did talk a bunch afterwards and that’s always good.
The lyricist Steven Slater said, “My determination was to touch the troubled hearts of young people around the world.” Oh is THAT all!!! I’m sure the troubled hearts of young people around the world thank you, Steven!
Still, I’d take Noah to see it at a certain age. No, I wouldn’t take him — he’d be too embarrased to watch it with his mother. I’m sure the masturbation scene would pretty much ruin the whole thing for him if I was sitting there next to him — but I’d send him. And I think it would make a great movie — there’s lot of room to make a terrific movie out of it. Just don’t cast a Jonas Brother or something (not that they would do it what with their purity rings and all).
Here are some videos:
- Heavily censored for the 2007 Tony’s (they won for best musical)
- On The View
- Regis & Kelly (this scene Brett and I both found the most moving of the show — we really liked the staging, too)
- David Letterman does “The Bitch of Living”, which is the song that the promoters very intelligently used in the video they posted on YouTube to push the show
I guess that’s enough to give you a taste of what the show is like. (It was nice being out alone with my husband but then we had to leave separately to pick up the kids seeing as how they were being cared for in two different places and the one I picked up was so tired that she cried the whole way home and then fell asleep just as I pulled into the driveway so that kinda killed any romantic feelings I was harboring for Brett.)
Tags: Broadway, Music, musicals, showtunes, spring awakening
