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| Re: Not Surprising by Ray of Light 06/10/2007, 4:08am PDT | ||||
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You like everything the dopey self-conscious indie slags five years younger than you like.It surprises me to hear you say that! First, I'll present the same list, arranged autobiographically. Teen: - They Might Be Giants (K) - The Beautiful South (K) - The Lowest of the Low (K) - Nine Inch Nails (K) - Radiohead (K) 20-25: - Dropkick Murphys (K) 25-30: - The Blow (L) - Tegan and Sara (L) - Neutral Milk Hotel (S) - Modest Mouse (S) - Jimmy Buffett (knew of him way before that but shared JW's opinion) (F) Later: - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (F) - Townes Van Zandt (F) - Spoon (D) - Dogwood (D) Legend: K - I was a Kid myself, too soon to be copycatting the kids of today D - Don't even like F - Folk singers who will never be popular with the young people S - Smash hit, discovered by me after they were too popular to be worth any cred L - Lesbians So ... you're wrong. More generally, emulating the kids' musical tastes is a strategic dead end. Too elusive! In over a year of daily conversation with Sassy, I got her to admit to liking:
For another thing, if the girl is in the right frame of mind you should be able to play whatever and make her claim to love it. After making beverage come out the nose of a drunken girl with my stock answer to "what animal would you be?" we went for a ride in my truck and Manu Chao's one good song came on. MC is the worldbeat answer to Dexy's Midnight Runners, but that didn't stop her from exclaiming "MANNNNNU CHAOO!!! SOO COOOOL" and barfing on my passenger side airbag. I did my best to hold her hair. You DO raise a fair point about the presentability of the artist list over the tracklist. Here is my top 20 along with some cherry-picked undercards. I'm aware of your anti-cherry-picking stance, but then you aren't the first to try dictating terms to Ray. 1. Ben Lee - Gamble Everything for Love (plays: 55)  Not my favorite Ben Lee track (that would be 'My Guitar'), but some songs have one resonant line that makes me listen ten times in a row.
2. Jimmy Buffett - Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (plays: 43) Uncomplicated happiness, borne of low expectations, rhymed just a little awkwardly and delivered sloppily. Archetypical Jimmy Buffett.
3. The Beautiful South - A Little Time (plays: 41) A rake sings to his exasperated mate. Twist ending!
3. Spoon - Take the Fifth (plays: 41) I listened to this a lot, a last-ditch effort to like Spoon. As with their other work, the lustre of catchiness fades when you realize the lyrics are two notches above total nonsense (which, in many ways, is worse than total nonsense). I think it's about a girl who has VD but is attractive anyway.
5. Spoon - This Book Is a Movie (plays: 38) Reflected glory (comes after 'Take the Fifth' in my playlist).
5. The Beautiful South - Old Red Eyes is Back (plays: 38) Probably their most famous track. Kenny-esque infusion of dignity to an otherwise pathetic character.
7. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Cabron (plays: 37) This is the kind of band that will still be touring when I'm old and I will go to see them.
8. Modest Mouse - The Good Times Are Killing Me (plays: 36) Unsure why this is ranked so highly. I think it's a subaverage MM effort and comes off as insincere. Elliot Smith's 'Between the Bars' -- sung by a bottle to its captive -- is a better song about the price of excess.
9. The Beautiful South - My Book (plays: 35) This is my life and this is how it reads A documentary that nobody believesSee, you the listener are entitled to miss a reference here and there and still know wtf is going on. Nerd bands get this wrong. 10. The Beautiful South - You Keep It All In (plays: 34) Heaton lost his first female singer in a row over the lyrics on Welcome to the Beautiful South. While Woman in the Wall is an obvious and oft-cited example, 'You Keep it All In' deserves an honorable mention for tampon-popping misogyny that fades under close inspection. This is a weak track: it's hard to imagine the South's stock male protagonist as mewling excuse-maker. See 'Just a Few Things That I Ain't' for a better song about all the things that he ain't.
11. The Beautiful South - Let Love Speak Up Itself (plays: 33) Nothing special. I had to look up the lyrics to remember what it was about. Popular on songmeanings.net.
11. The Beautiful South - Rotterdam (Or Anywhere) (plays: 33) If you're going to hate everyone, why not start with the Dutch?
11. The Beautiful South - Prettiest Eyes (plays: 33) Old people's clear eyes serve as metaphor for love surviving the ravages of time. Most girls immediately dislike it. Heaton reuses the metaphor in "Perfect 10" (#118 on the Ray Chart), a song about fat chicks.
14. Wreckless Eric - Whole Wide World (plays: 32) The best part of Stranger than Fiction. Will Ferrell sings it better than Eric.
14. The Beautiful South - Song For Whoever (plays: 32) I wish they'd had the cheek to name it "Song for Whomever".
14. Carla Bruni - Quelqu'un m'a dit (plays: 32) French, from a foreign telecom commercial that I saw at a screening of "Best Ads of 2006". It's emotionally unsophisticated and relies on the inherent beauty of the language to carry it (a failing shared by many romantic-language songs).
14. Spoon - Everything Hits at Once (plays: 32) Probably the catchiest song on Girls Can Tell.
18. Spoon - Believing Is Art ( (plays: 31) Things Everybody Would Say Believing Is HardThis looks promising on paper. Song somehow fails to grab me. 18. Townes Van Zandt - To Live Is to Fly (plays: 31) A man with frontiersman's spirit and grit makes a sincere but inexpert romantic proposition, like Clint in Unforgiven but (I imagine) without the woman being all scarred up.
18. Tegan and Sara - Living Room (plays: 31) People who question the function of lesbian duos, here is a song to answer you. What would sound obsessive and creepy sung by a man to a woman, becomes upbeat-charming when you know the protagonist is a harmless woman. Tegan and Sara have a solid record--upheld here--of avoiding the gender of their songs' subjects, so you can pretend it's not gay if you want.
21. Tom Waits - Cold Cold Ground (plays: 30) One of my favorite songs of all time. I can't even say what it's about.
21. Townes Van Zandt - Lungs (plays: 30) Many similarities to 'Cold Cold Ground,' namely that I think it's great and can't make head or tail of the lyrics.
24. José González - Heartbeats (plays: 29) Sony commercial.
31. Blues Traveler - Canadian Rose (plays: 27) I am a total sucka for foreign artists singing about Canada. The song probably isn't even very good.
38. Nine Inch Nails - Ringfinger (plays: 26) Pretty Hate Machine is famous for 'Head Like a Hole' but I've always been partial to track ten. It starts with these fucktempo drums, repeats until you're desensitized, and then (at "You just leave me nailed here") transitions to fucktempo with afterburner.
38. Death Cab for Cutie - I Will Follow You Into the Dark (plays: 26) Got stuck in my head the last time I rented a car and listened to its radio.
38. Brian Eno - Golden Hours (plays: 26) A good song for people suspicious of Eno's ambient affiliations. For the EXTRA-suspicious, Ida covered it on Ten Small Paces.
41. The Beautiful South - Get Here (plays: 25) How do you maintain a faraway love while respecting the value of money? You can start, Heaton shows us, by being a good talker.
41. Adam Green - Novotel (plays: 25) In 'Novotel', Adam turns the English language into a saucy instrument. When Caltrops poster "Tony" bought my portrait, he got more than he bargained for (a download of this song and a request to comment on it).
Tony: Even given that he meant his song to make no sense, it bothers me that he's chosen his imagery to fit his rhyming needs. I know it shouldn't. 41. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Another Day Full of Dread (plays: 25) Despair meets babytalk in a song about pretending to not hate the world.
45. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Little Boy Blue II (plays: 24) I think the genius of Will Oldham is his ability to sing the part of a whiny, wet-blanket pussy and make it sound familiar and affecting. Most singers would not make this song sound good.
45. Kimya Dawson - Being Cool (slow) (plays: 24) It's debatable whether we are better off with Kimya Dawson not working with Adam Green anymore: certainly many of their individual efforts are hurting for the artistic tension they showcased as the Moldy Peaches. But sometimes it's just nice to hear a song that has no mentions of taking a shit.
45. They Might Be Giants - Kiss Me, Son of God (plays: 24) A freaky, geniusy jewish kid who was crazy about TMBG once told me this is his favorite song of theirs.
51. The Four Tops - I Can't Help Myself (plays: 23) I sure can't.
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