welcome to {²⁰/₁₀}

a playlist to cleanse the palette: i’ve been pondering a blog ever since i confirmed Voldemort’s lack of loyalty in the fall of 2007. But “Anatomy of a Breakup, the blog” like the breakup itself, stalled out for an embarrassingly lengthy timespan. Then, this New Year’s Eve i was asked what two things i needed to get by in life. Without hesitating, “Music and moxie!” tumbled from my lips. So did a kiss for the stranger who lit a Eureaka! lightbulb above my skull, because it was midnight and that’s how NYE midnight works. I got started on this space the next day and itunes tells me these songs played the most during my web-building toils.

 

 

FRIGHTENED RABBIT – FOOT SHOOTER
This band is from Scotland and they are bitchin’ (bringing that word back as of five seconds ago). I’ve listened to them before, but never committed to an album of theirs like I have to their latest, The Winter of Mixed Drinks, which, wow, they named the whole album for me? #Blushing. Scott Hutchison’s voice is kind of tortured, which makes this song so, so, so, so, soooooo good, and me marginally sick in the head for admitting that I like anything that sounds “tortured”. Happy Friday! Brought to you by the following uplifting lyrics:

We can drown in pools of the thick dark words we threw,
And as my face turns white, I apologize, I’m sorry.
It’s not your fault, it’s mine.

HOT CHIP – I FEEL BETTER
Posting this song in anticipation of the weekend. Best when played at maxxximum volume. If you need your daily scare, check out the video (google it, won’t let me add the url for some reason). Things start to take a turn around the 50 second mark. I must say that the new MGMT video makes this look a bit tame, but it’s creepy in its own right. Maybe I should stop talking about the video since I am only posting the song. Digression WIN!

LOCAL NATIVES – SUN HANDS
Local Natives remind me of Fleet Foxes, only with a broader appeal. They’re a bit more fun and catchy, in my opinion. When I suggested them to my brother (whose musical opinion is generally aligned with me own) and mentioned the Fleet Foxes comparison, he said he needed more beat (don’t we all)? Anyway, Jeff, this is for you. If this song doesn’t make you want to become a cowboy, howl at something, slap your knee spastic-ly to the beat, or get extremely weird in some manner, then I don’t know what will. And please, as per my usual request, do NOT do this song a disservice by listening to it on your computer or at a respectable volume on your ipod at work (my mistake). Pump up the volume, son.

BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB – LONG WAY DOWN
Most of BRMC’s music makes me want to be a gunslinger, and believe me when I say I have no idea what that even means. That’s beside point. Anyway, leave it to me to find the only real emo-ish song on their new album to post for all of you good people. I like the rest of the album, but anyone who knows me knows I’ll go straight for the downer material, because I’m demonstrative, overemotional and embarrassing (IF ANYONE TELLS ME I’D BE SO PRETTY IF I’D SMILE…. SO HELP ME). What can I say…the plaintive tunes get me every time. I’m a total sucker for lyrics, too, and these are simple and effective, and I mean that in the sexiest way imaginable.

Don’t you cry to yourself just to feel like someone who’s hit bottom.
You can’t run away ‘cause the hole that remains will follow.

La-la-la-love it. Brb: writing dark poetry.

SPOON – I SAW THE LIGHT
This song is confusing. I like it, but I like it a whole lot more when singing stops and the piano jams take over. That happens about 2 minutes and 20 seconds in. Then things get real, my friends. It’s like a different song takes over. Fun fact courtesy of a little man named Cramer: the piano recordings for this album were done in a bathroom in Portland. Apparently Britt Daniel liked the way the piano sounded in there. We could question how that discovery was happened upon, but i say: whatever makes you happy, mang.

MASSIVE ATTACK – PARADISE CIRCUS (GUI BORATTO REMIX)
There is something nasty, evil and sexy brewing in this beat. This song needs to be on some scandalous teenage soap opera a la my 20-something life (oops). Plotting then a little bedroom dancing + this song = epic. 

Oh well the Devil makes us sin
But we like it when we’re spinning in his grip
Love is like a sin my love

Oh yeah, i <3 all comparisons to sin via love, art, whatever.

ELTON JOHN – ROCKET MAN
Oldie but goodie, anyone? Here’s a little Elton to get you through the day. One time, when nobody in my family was taking me seriously (not that they do now), I was driving over the bay in Pacific Beach. I happened to be on the phone with my mother and then this song came on and I wept to it, which would be really sad if it wasn’t so funny. There seems to be a fair amount of references to emotions these last few days. I am a woman with a plethora of feelings. If you don’t like it, step on up and out of my office!

ANGUS & JULIA STONE – BIG JET PLANE
‘Straya’s will-they-or-won’t-they brother/sister duo we love speculating on the latest incest-achievement-unlocked status of that has been SO sorely missing from the folk-rock music scene since the Carpenter’s untimely exit has me proselytizing an Aussie Invasion. The exponential increase of available fem drinking buddies able to handle more than a mild drink or two resulting from this invasion is purely incidental, swear! Oh, and they’re (Angus + Julia, not my future aus booze-buddies) also sibling-handedly putting the “raw” back in folk-rock? WIN!!

I debated posting this song vs. “And The Boys”, so please just go listen to that one as well. This band is awesome, and you need their noise in your ear holes. Just try not to think about the fact that Angus is totes sessioning on songs about his sister’s sex life, or you’ll miss all the intricacy they weave in their musical-lyrical tapestry.

BRAND NEW – AT THE BOTTOM
Cause I make little lies and then I pull them apart
Think something dark’s living down in my heart
‘Nuff said.

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE – ALL TO ALL
This song is getting me pumped for the new album, Forgiveness Rock Record (single tear drop over the fact that we have to wait till May). This song seems sort of neutral and ethereal to me and is a far cry from the regular melodramatic tunes that will likely dominate this blog without some form of divine intervention. I’m ridiculously in love with my own suffering. Brb: ugly-crying in front of a mirror real quick.

FLORENCE + THE MACHINE – DOG DAYS ARE OVER
So: this album came out last October + but this blog came out in March = this song is going up now. I love this song because it makes me want to put the cheesecake down and do something with my life. It just has this inspirational quality to it; it makes me want to run a marathon or something, which is silly because I don’t run unless something sizeable is after me and I’m just not that curious about what happens if i get caught.
*UPDATE 01/2011: i’m a runner now, daily + on purpose. WHAAA?

DELPHIC – COUNTERPOINT (DELPHIC’S EN ROUTE MIX)
I love this song because you can’t really take it at face value. Without hearing the words, it makes me want to put my hair up, let my hair down, shake my hair out, and dance around all violently and suggestively, secure in the beat’s promise of blissful hope or hopeful bliss. Then come the ostensibly out-of-place lyrics:

I keep holding my head up, holding it up.
Holding my head up, holding it up.
And you just don’t come back, around.
It seems to me that we will never be.

And aaah what? Now I feel like a heel for having a ‘SORRY, BUT EFF EM IF THEY CANT TAKE A JOKE’ rxn to someone else’s heartache. Right, I’M the bad guy (what sarcasm?).