Post 3: Music to Win to

   Sometimes, you just need to feel victorious. Maybe you aced a test, or got a new job. Maybe you successfully slept for 20 straight hours. Maybe you’re real proud of all those puppies you just kicked; I don’t know, and I’m not here to judge, but I can hook you up with some good tunes to listen to while you bask in your own glory. Before I get into the meat of this playlist though, I should mention that I’m going to be pretty much ignoring all the inspirational songs of the eighties, because that particular rabbit hole goes deeper than I dare to walk. As far as I can tell, music in the eighties consisted of only three categories: Hair metal, tangibly homoerotic pop, and arena rock that was meant to cheer everyone up about impending nuclear annihilation. In hindsight, all music from the 80’s might be considered a subset of the last grouping, but be that as it may, the 80's produced an enormous number of songs that I can only describe as “training montage-esque”.

   But anyway, music to win to! I wanted to start off with some classical, because nothing motivates an artist to create uplifting music like having your patron be the king of England, or the Russian czar, or whoever else your patron was. Point is, directly reporting to the face of a world power made a great recipe for songs with lots of major chords, particularly as regards what I personally think of as the “winning trifecta”: in order of potency, the William Tell overture, the 1812 Overture, and the biggest of all bug guns, Ride of the Valkyries. There’s a reason that everyone only remembers one scene from Apocalypse Now, and that reason is Ride of the Valkyries.

   In a considerably less epic vein (and I do mean epic in the dictionary sense, by the way) another good song, but rather more recent, is Can’t keep Johnny Down by They Might Be Giants. I have loved TMBG for pretty much as long as I've been conscious of music, but I have to say that most of their best stuff was done in their early years (specifically, it was done on the album Flood, which is fantastic and should be listened to by everyone). However, they are a terrifyingly prolific band, and while I don’t like as high a ratio of songs on the later stuff as I do on the early pieces, they still know how to make some solid stuff. Can’t Keep Johnny Down is from either their second or third most recent album (they seriously make a TON of music), and it’s an incredibly fun song to feel like resisting oppression to.

   As far as the next song goes, I’m not sure if I would say that it shows its best foot when you listen to it as a post-celebration victory sort of song. The title theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is one of those songs I use a soundtrack for my life, and I highly recommend it for everyone else ever. It should be used when you’re going into a confrontation, not coming out of one, but I’m putting it here because if you do use it, whatever victory you achieve will be AT LEAST ten times sweeter. There is seriously no feeling quite as satisfying as timing your entrance into a building with the crescendo at 1:59, except possibly getting it with any of the other equally great crescendos that pop up throughout the song. In all honesty, using this song will enrich your life enormously.

   And lastly, I just wanted to drop a plug for what may be the most visceral, primitive ‘winning’ sound I know of: the Victory Fanfare from Final Fantasy 6. Even if you didn't grow playing FF6, as soon as you hear it you’ll start congratulating yourself for the great achievement you just made. Doesn't matter whether or not you actually did something; this song completely bypasses the prefrontal cortex, and it’s GREAT.

   P.S. Even more lastly, here’s a bonus song! It’s not victorious at all. Although I feel slightly ashamed to admit it, I've never listened to all that much Radiohead and it wasn't until this month that I heard Paranoid Android for, as far as I can tell, the first time in my life. It seems obvious in hindsight that this was a mistake, because Paranoid Android is a pretty amazing song. It’s filled to the gills with existential dread and loathing, so it really pairs up nicely with this posts theme… I guess?