Phil Ford at Dial M for Musicology issued an Ipod Random Challenge a while back that has resulted in several interesting posts. The lists are supposed to be annotated. I'm going to stick to one observation per song, which may have very little to do with the actual song. A few of these are songs I'll be writing about eventually in the Song Project.
Here are the first twelve songs my ipod (a Zen microphoto, actually, but i hate the name Zen) served up:
- Ultravox, "All Stood Still"
Ultravox polarize me: I love their robo-synth uptempo stuff like this and "Sleepwalk", which are like Gary Numan songs with more active menace. I hate their languorous stuff, because I think they still sound robotic, but with overemotive Bryan Ferry-type music the effect to me is like an obscene parody of passion.
- Self, "Meg Ryan"
Self is probably best known for recording a version of "What a Fool Believes" -- and an album of originals -- entirely with toy instruments. "Meg Ryan" is not from that album.
- George Harrison, "Wah Wah"
Recommended listening in a footnote in the great Donald Barthelme story that consists of a letter from a man to a psychiatrist explaining why he's agreeing with his girlfriend's decision to end her therapy and buy a piano.
- Quasi, "Our Happiness Is Guaranteed"
My favorite science fiction song ever.
top five science fiction songs:
5. Devo, "Jocko Homo"
4. Gary Numan, "Are 'Friends' Electric?"
3. the Pixies, "The Happening"
2. the Dismemberment Plan, "Memory Machine"
1. Quasi, "Our Happiness Is Guaranteed"
- Soft Boys, "Strange"
My favorite Robyn Hitchcock song. I'm a sucker for this kind of eerie sound.
- Tin Huey, "New York's Finest Dining Experience"
From their great and underdiscussed new wave or whatever -- art pop? goofy post-punk? -- album Contents Dislodged During Shipment.
- Undertones, "It's Going to Happen!"
Oh, these guys are another entry for the Best Album Is Not The One Everybody Says It Is list. Both their second and third albums are better than their nearly unanimously preferred debut.
- X, "Nausea"
Does their great slow menacing thing. I saw them live more often than any band in my life.
- Dead Kennedys, "Nazi Punks Fuck Off"
And this is the band I saw second-most often. Wow. (I use the past tense because it's really unlikely I'll see anyone more often than this. Well, maybe Joel Forrester.) What a great punk song this is, fierce and smart and no-bullshit, a barrage.
- Charles Mingus, "Pussy Cat Dues"
One of the half dozen songs I'm most likely to whistle idly.
- Lambchop, "Let's Go Bowling"
A vividly sad song.
- "You Must Meet My Wife", from A Little Night Music
I really want to learn this with Velma to sing in piano bars. It is hilarious, and while the man gets most of the singing the woman gets most of the best moments, with "yes that much seems clear" and "no I'd strike her first" two of my favorite line deliveries in all of Sondheim.
My player is heavily weighted to the pop song side of my taste; I do most of my listening while commuting, and I enjoy having (mostly) songs I've known long and well.
That was fun.
I went and did it too.
http://kip-w.livejournal.com/187627.html
(Also posted at Dial "M")