en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/ Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 60 http://www.audioscrobbler.net/data/webservices http://www.last.fm/user/laluneverte/journal The Last.fm journal for laluneverte. Last.fm journals are a place to talk about all things music. http://www.last.fm/user/laluneverte/journal/2007/02/13/53u2_another_volume_for_your_edification Tue, 13 Feb 2007 03:21:39 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/laluneverte/journal/2007/02/13/53u2_another_volume_for_your_edification Every now and then, I compile a playlist that's just too good to keep to myself. This is one of them. If you can pull together these songs, give them a listen. {Most are available on iTunes.} Hopefully you'll find them as infectious and eye-opening as I have. If not, well, at least maybe you heard something new.

1. Only Cream And Bastards Rise
“…Yeah, you can see it in their eyes.” Great kickoff song full of vim and vigor, and one of those songs I always catch myself yelling along to at the top of my lungs in my car. “And you know what that means. It means someone’s got to lose. It’s probably you.” Underdogs have an anthem.

2. Young Folks
“We could stick around and see this night through.” Any song with bongos. I’m serious. …This song is a slow burner. Give it a couple listens and let it soak. That chorus is infectious, and there’s something so calming about those easy, whatever-happens lyrics. “All we care about is talking, talking only me and you.” Recommended for: anyone who’s had someone they could just talk to.

3. Sunshine
“Someday, you will get the best of me.” Misleadingly uptempo acoustic number. Helps cleanse the palate without added sugar. Listen to the words and contemplate the quiet sadness of relenting or hear only the music and feel at one with the Jack Johnsonish vibe. Either way, it works.

4. Whoo! Alright Yeah... Uh Huh
“People don’t dance no more. They just stand there like this.” Say what you will. Dance music has its place. For me, there’s no better than this place right here, inside some percussive guitar/cow-bell beat beneath half-yelled lyrics bemoaning a stagnating scene. Ultimate fun rewards come to those who wait and give this groove a chance. If you’ve passed the 2:20 mark and have felt no urge whatsoever to move your body, you may be beyond help.

5. Police And The Private
“Never expect to be sure who you’re working for.” Delicately-crafted pop beauty with thoughtful lyrics and Emily Haines’ heartbreaking vocals. I don’t know what else to say. Within 3 days of acquiring this song, I’d listened to it 10 times. Fantastic.

6. Galaxies
“When we kiss, bears and boulders vibrate through the air.” Taking it a notch down further, Laura Veirs provides the soundtrack to some 2am drive or stolen moment. It feels almost like a love song for people who are above love songs. …Yeah, and possibly the hardest to describe of all the tracks on this playlist.

7. We’re From Barcelona
“Love is a feeling that we don’t understand, but we’re gonna give it to you.” My sister told me once that this song sounded a bit cultish. You know what, though? If your cult sings upbeat hand clappers with “la la” vocals, sign me up, because this just makes me smile.

8. Hey Lloyd!
“I can’t see further than my own nose at this moment.” Full of nostalgia and hard-to-place emotions. Quiet and demanding. Around 2:25, guitar gives way to horns backed by simple strings. And then you’re returned to that sweetly lilting voice asking for heartbreak. I love this song. Camera Obscura’s best work.

9. Extraordinary Machine
“Be kind to me, or treat me mean. I’ll make the most of it. I’m an extraordinary machine.” Like Fiona herself, you’ll either love this song or hate it. I happen to love every second of this oddly-instrumented proclamation of self-worth and individuality. “If there was a better way to go, then it would find me. I can’t help it. The road just rolls out behind me.”

10. Collarbone
“Got to get a new pair of shoes to kick it with her, not kick it with you…” I think when this song’s not out working as an anatomy professor's assistant, it spends its time in dimly lit, smoky clubs slow-bouncing with the ladies. Just relax and let it happen.

11. Love Like Semtex
“You’ve got a love like semtex. Bring it to me.” What is it with me and moving lately? It’s an affliction, and the only cure is groovy little tunes like this one. By the way, semtex is a highly malleable plastic explosive. Just thought I’d save you the time. Oh my God, is this chorus fun to sing along with. “You make the floor move in all of my hallways.”

12. WeExpected
“We expected great things from you, but you let us down.” Saturday morning love song to all those people who grew up, moved on, and left you sitting in the same place you've always been. An indie pop tribute to Catcher Holden’s lament that “certain things should just stay as they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.”

13. Love Will Come Through
“Don’t look da- da- da- down…” It’s midnight. Windows down. 28 degrees. This is the song you need with you in the car on some deserted street. Trust me. Now put your hand out that window and let it ride.

14. Burning Plastic Man
“…Don’t want nothin’ to do with you.” This is an odd duck of a duet. It creates and invites a certain indescribable mood. Not sad nor happy, loved nor scorned. Simmering, but not too slowly. Just electronic undercurrent with acoustic embellishment and slow-flowing vocals, thick as honey.

15. Maybe You’re Right
“It was often talked about. It was often raised. But nothing was ever done about it.” My favorite number on their newest album. Dripping with regret and building with every line, until it finally crescendos and leaves you thinking of every moment that you could have done differently, every word you would have taken back. “Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re right, maybe you’re right but I don’t think so.”

16. Sam’s Town
“Have you ever seen the lights?” Living a quarter of a mile from frankenau at age seven made me feel that no other town in the world could feel more like home. Then I grew up and realized that many, many places were infinitely better, more creatively-embracing, and happier than there. …Our hometown boys, though, they make me wish I had never peeked over that wall. With every thing that Vegas isn’t… it’s still home. “Nobody ever had a dream ‘round here, but I don’t really mind that it’s starting to get to me.”]]> http://www.last.fm/user/laluneverte/journal/2006/11/18/53u1_a_soundtrack_for_this_space_in_time Sat, 18 Nov 2006 02:43:29 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/laluneverte/journal/2006/11/18/53u1_a_soundtrack_for_this_space_in_time Every year around this time, when the trills of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra have launched a successful assault on radio airwaves, the hollier and jollier amongst us incessantly hum Mannheim Steamroller, and Holiday Mariah has permeated the ambient music selections of retail establishments, I become overwhelmed by the urge to stick a fork into my eye. This, however, would likely have the ironic effect of landing me in an emergency room also infected by the jingle-belled bubonic plague that is holiday music.


Rather than inflict physical violence upon myself, I've instituted an annual November tradition of pulling together a playlist consisting of the songs most emblematic of the past year. Although also useful as a time capsule, I view this creation primarily as a defense mechanism. Once burnt into CD format and downloaded onto the iPod, I'm immunized against involuntary exposure to "Santa Baby."

The following is not so much a "best of" list as a compilation of songs that will bring back this year even when I'm an old bat in a nursing home, unable to remember the names of my children and screeching at any and all passersby for espresso and Percocet, in that order. Here, for your listening pleasure, is the 2006 edition.


You Are a Runner and I Am My Father's Son
Soul Meets Body
Where Does The Good Go
Smile
Poison Oak
Portions For Foxes
So Begins Our Alabee
Comfortably Numb
Ageless Beauty
Felt Tip
Forever Young]]> http://www.last.fm/user/laluneverte/journal/2006/11/07/53u0_keep_your_caring_creepy Tue, 7 Nov 2006 16:27:57 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/laluneverte/journal/2006/11/07/53u0_keep_your_caring_creepy Pitchfork reports that my beloved Shins are in the process of making their third album.

All right, Shins. I'm going to go ahead and be optimistic about this project's prospects. Cautiously optimistic. Step gingerly, darling Shins, because the potential for quagmire abounds. Consider: you are big time rock stars. (Ok, let's be honest: medium-time rock stars.) You've headlined in a movie starring Natalie Portman. You've contributed a song to the SpongeBob SquarePants movie soundtrack. And, perhaps most importantly, your singer/songwriter/raison d'etre James Mercer is engaged and planning a springtime wedding.

Please, Shins, don't get happy. Your second album? Chutes Too Narrow? Yes. Yes, I loved it. Of course I did. But it carried a terrifying aura of...peppiness. I have been burned before, Shins, and I don't want to prance down that primrose path with you. Not only was that prancing painful, and not only did it carry the potential for ankle spains and public ridicule, but it led each time to a sort of retroactive diminishing of the offending band's previous albums.

It's not as though I expect you to be miserable all the time. But nothing makes an indie record come together better than an undertone of existential Nameless Dread. The rawness, the roughness, the exposed nerves and the naked emotion of Oh, Inverted World were the elements which made it such a hauntingly beautiful and unforgettable album. Oh, Inverted World was weird and quirky and not even a little bit trendy. You seemed to diverge from what made that album such a prodigious accomplishment on the more polished, studio-ed, and chipper Chutes Too Narrow.

Just be careful, Shins, that's all I'm saying. Because if I sense you cheering up to the point where you're going to be be-bopping around the room, blissfully crooning about the love and joy exhibited by an allegedly lovable and endearing ogre whose name curiously rhymes with "dreck," I will be watching. I will move to your city. I will slash your tires on a daily basis. I will tell telemarketers the world over that you are interested in hearing detailed descriptions of their products and services during the dinner hour. I will sew shrimp into the hems of your curtains and stuff your magazines full of those annoying subscription cards. I will put sugar in your salt shakers and baking soda in your flour canisters.

In short, I will do anything I can to make your lives so desolate and tormented that you'll have no choice but to sing about it.]]>