Post 15 Part 2: Music To Welcome Rain

    Before I show you guys this post, I want to explain a little bit about my feelings toward summer. I'm pretty vocal on the subject, especially during the actual season, but I'm not a huge fan of summer. I like many of the things that occur as a result of it, and I appreciate symmetry and beauty that the seasons impress upon the world, but during the actual, physical phenomena of summer I tend to exist in a sort of miserable, haunted ghost state. The heat absolutely ruins my capacity for thought and activity, and in particularly hot muggy weather I'll often have a sort of cascade shutdown, where my inability to handle the heat causes me to lose sleep, which makes me irritable and then I have a harder time dealing with the heat. Typically, this cycle ends with me sobbing like a small hungry child at some point in the middle of August, and then things start to cool down and I can become bitter about how cold it is.

   Anyway, when I'm in the middle of my annual breakdown, one of my favorite aspects of summer is the experience of watching a storm come in. I have loved the rain for as long as I can remember;  it is hands down my favorite type of weather, and when I get the chance to watch a storm front come in over a hot, sunny, sticky day in June it always helps me remember that there's a reason I haven't tried to move to Nova Scotia yet (well, a reason in addition to not really wanting to live there).

The Storm

  My favorite place to watch it is the backyard of my parent's home. It's a sprawling open spot lined with trees and hemmed in by other old houses that are slowly sinking into themselves and falling apart, that I've been exploring since I was two years old. I know and love every tree and most of the rocks back there, and when the storm starts to announce itself they all begin to sing. 

  

   It starts with the wind, and a slight shifting of the sun. The winds start losing heat and gaining speed, making a light susurrus, and as that starts up the light changes subtly, from glaring, angry goldens to a slightly cooler white, edged with just a hint of blue. The leaves, which have been baking the scent of chlorophyll and dust into the air since 10 this morning go from blinding, shifting emeralds to a green so deep it almost seems black in the shadows, and finally you can look up into the sky and back at the ground without going blind. 

   At this point the sky is still largely blue, but there have been puffy, pure white cumulus clouds drifting across it all morning, and it becomes increasingly evident that they were simply precursors to a gathering mass of belligerent cumulonimbus. Generally, this front has been hovering on the edge of vision for most of the day, a dark grey smudge spread across the bottom of western horizon, but as the winds pick up the front edge can be clearly seen over the crowns of the trees. The noise of the wind picks up from a susurrus to something more akin to a conversation at a country club: clearly audible, with crisp vowels skipping from branch to branch, but contained nonetheless, and far to polite to raise a voice louder than would be acceptable. The light goes darker still, and the sky shifts to a murky grey that spreads out in every direction. In the shadows that play through the crowns of the trees, you can almost see infinity, fading out to a calm blue-grey at the edges, and promising as sublime an escape as anyone could wish for.

   The stage is set, and the only piece missing now is the moisture. The air becomes dense with anticipation, and the trees start rattling branches impatiently. A single fat drop appears on the sidewalk, and disappears almost immediately; sucked away by heat, dry air, and thirsty concrete. Somewhere between eternity and two minutes pass, and nothing at all seems to happen. A few more drops scatter contemptuously across across the sidewalk and parking lot, but disappear within seconds. The air becomes suffused with a smell of wet baked dirt and hot rocks being rapidly cooled. A heady, indescribably vital feeling fills both the air and the soul, and the drops start coming down more rapidly.

  The first drops are unbelievably fat, each a full swallow that somehow managed to keep itself together until finally slipping its bonds in a headlong suicidal rush to the earth. They land with a sound like snare drum underwater, not just tapping into the ground, but beating into it repeatedly as peripheral beads rise up from the impact and get pulled down again almost immediately, giving a small back-beat to the main rhythm. They come quicker and quicker, until finally the trigger releases and the sky collapses in on itself like a cracked aquarium, spewing out water so fast that even the parts of you that are already wet become fully submerged. It's a frothy mix of water and air, and for the first fifteen minutes it seems to be leaning more towards water than air; looking up, you get the impression that if you could just figure out the right angle to dive in, there's enough water up there for you to swim up into the cloud.

   But it's neither a steady nor sustainable mix, and it ends almost before it registers. There's a slight slacking, the winds die, and then it drops from a downpour, to a shower, to a sprinkle, and then into a memory. The sun jumps out treacherously, and somehow manages to start steaming the life out of you even as the last drops are landing. Even before the flash-flood in the driveway has time to die down, summer has started again and cut away any hints of cool breath before they have time to settle. A few stray maple leafs stir on the ground, knocked down by the watery avalanche. Mosquitoes start buzzing around hesitantly, then gain confidence and begin circling with a speculative whine that darts around the edge of hearing.

   In the spite of the twilight that encompassed the whole world minutes ago, the sun is still a few hours away from setting, and continues its leisurely slide into oblivion, slicing through the dripping branches to poke a few orange rays into whatever spots it can find. As the clouds continue slipping away, it becomes clear that tomorrow will be even hotter than today was, and muggy to boot. Certainly, it's going to be a punishing experience, and you're already regretting wishing for the rainstorm.

   BUT. For fifteen minutes, you were absolutely free. As the wet seeps in between your toes, and your feet start sloshing back into the house, you can't really regret it. After all, supposedly it's better to have have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. And even if it didn't stay you can know, with absolute clarity, that while it was there the rain loved you back.

Playlist:

Like the dawn, the songs that remind me of rain tends to be both optimistic and melancholy. It's a time of both celebration and loss for me, and that's what these songs mean to me

Summer Song, by Chad and Jeremy. Like New Slang and the dawn, this is kind of the seminal song for my idea of rain; the two are inextricably connected. Also as a side note, this song inspired one of the only poems I've written that I feel legitimately proud of, so that's a thing.

Love Always Remains, by MGMT

Pieces of What, also by MGMT

Click Click Click Click, by Bishop Allen (I know I mentioned this one like two weeks ago, but it captures the feeling of being just out of the storm perfectly, and it has one of my favorite stories told in musical form, so y'all can just go listen to it twice)

Manchester, by Kishi Bashi (this one's for the moment of clarity after the rain, just as the sun's coming out)

Once again, I don't have a bonus song for this, but I will be putting up one last piece in the same vein as this one and yesterdays on Monday. I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty pumped about putting it up, I think it's going to be good. Hope you all enjoy it to!

Post 15: Music To Greet The Dawn With

   Today's post is going to be a bit different, mostly because I didn't feel like writing another list. This is actually the result of an idea I've had poking around in my head for a month or so, which was catalyzed in a conversation with my brother earlier today. Instead of my usual format, I'm going to be putting up three different short... writings,  vignettes if you will, about summer, along with a playlist of songs that, in my opinion, capture the mood I'm trying to pin down. I have no idea how this will turn out when it's finished, but I can guarantee this much: I probably won't be sleeping as much as I'd like to this weekend.

Dawn

  Generally speaking, I am not a morning person. Specifically speaking, I'm also not a morning person. In my experience, mornings are frustrating, headache-inducing events that leave me with a sense of lingering disappointment and a desire to go back to bed. Given my preference, my sleeping habits tend to drift slowly forward until I start going to bed as the birds begin suggesting I wake up, and waking up as polite society gets ready for lunch. Frankly, it's not great for my health or wellness, but that's a problem for tomorrow me. He seems much more qualified to handle my problems than me, overall.

  Anyway, one happy side-effect of these sleeping patterns is that since I feel into my current rut, I don't often have lingering contact with the rising sun. Typically I get ready to eat breakfast as the shadows are getting ready to disappear under the light of noon, which means that if I do see a sunset, it's liable to mean that I'm approaching it from wrong direction, giving it a polite nod before I prepare to pass into a near-coma state. I like it this way; the sun seems much more endearing when it's simply nodding a polite "hello, good-bye" than when it's screaming at me to get up, and suggesting that I need to stop sleeping in until 6 am. Admittedly, this may be because I seem to be physically incapable of either happiness or intelligent thought when I wake up before 8, but my assertion still stands.

   Summer sunrises, in particular, have a personality of sorts that makes them endearing when you're watching them after not sleeping for at least the last 16 hours. In winter, the sunrise creeps into your room, shines furtively around your window, and then settles over your shoulders, leaving you hunched over with a unique, bone deep chill that promises nothing more or less than the final, crushing embrace of mortality. Summer sun, however, being a rather thoughtless, carefree sort of sunlight, simply teases you for a half hour or so with the prospect of dawn, and then tosses a coat of buttery yellows and and salmon halftones on everything, then launches straight into the business of daylight.

   The thing that makes the sunrise so lovely is the coolness of it. You know full well that before you can possibly hope to be prepared for it that sun will be directly overhead, scorching you with the kind of punishing heat one would normally associate with a sadistic 10 year old, a magnifying glass and an anthill. But  at dawn, there's a brief window where you can simply see the beauty of the thing without having to worry about the consequences of the daytime. Is it any wonder that it's at its best when you can simply watch it, smile, and run away to a bed that offers another few hours of cool sleep before you have to actually face the day?

Playlist:

The dawn, when seen from behind, is a time for optimism and resignation. It strikes a fine balance between the feeling that everything will eventually be okay, and the acceptance that maybe they won't, and that's all right too.
In my mind, the absolute to ring in the dawn to is New Slang (by  The Shins, of course), which captures the mood of things more perfectly than I suspect I'll ever be able to write down. For me, New Slang is the dawn and vice versa. If I run into one without the other nearby, things feel twisted and off-kilter.
Also worth listening to:
America, by Simon and Garfunkel
El Condor Pasa, also by Simon and Garfunkel (really, most of their stuff is perfect for this kind of mood)
Road Trippin, by the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Manchester, by Kishi Bashi

And lastly, I don't have a bonus song for today, but I will be posting a companion piece to this tomorrow, so whoever's reading this should come back again for seconds. Hopefully they will be delicious.

Post 14: Songs To Watch Your Mutually Doomed Romance Fall Apart To!

  After the last post I wrote, it occurred to me that it's been quite a while since I wrote a post based on a idea, as opposed to talking about genres. Well, it turns out that genres are boring and I don't like talking about them, as is clearly evident in my records, so instead I wanted to write about how terrible love is, and how we should all flee from it. That is a lie; what I really want to write about is how great music about twisted and destructive relationships is. To aid in this endeavor, I have therefore created a playlist of music to listen to when your love life is in a tail dive. As a quick side note, I haven't even gone on any dates in the last several months, so following my advice is probably a terrible idea. Let me know how your journey goes!

  So, first things first, here are some warning signs. If anyone ever shows any interest in you, and then  proceeds to make you a mixtape with Every Breath You Take on it, you might want to take stock of the situation. Is it offered in the spirit of irony? If so, congratulate them on their mastery of the form/excellent taste in music. If not, consider researching restraining orders. If they offer you a Barry Manilow tape, the odds that they're a stalker are much lower, but you should still avoid dating them. The only thing that came close to being a good song he wrote was Mandy, and it barely places at a high mediocre when it's covered well. And it's almost never covered well.

  So anyway, let's assume that you're already in the relationship, and things aren't working. Maybe your man is obsessed with trivial matters, or constantly sings infuriatingly catchy disco singles. Maybe your lady (incorrectly, by the way) doesn't think Fields of Gold is fantastic, and you therefore have difficulty respecting her opinion in other things that actually matter, because you are a fundamentally bad person. Maybe you're a filthy, sniveling coward trying to escape commitment, but you don't know how to do it. I'm not here to judge, I'm here to help (but incidentally, I will be judging you pretty viciously). If you want to break it off with class, I would personally recommend Forget You by Cee-Lo Green. If you're looking for a bit less class, the uncensored version of Forget You is even more effective at getting the message across, but I try to keep this blog relatively clean, so you'll have to find it on your own. Sorry.

  On the flipside, maybe you got beaten to the punch. Maybe you got dumped hard, and you're trying to figure out what song you send the dumper to properly convey just how over them you are. If they're richer than you, consider either Common People (I'm personally very fond of the William Shatner cover, which is actually really good, amazingly enough) or Like a Rolling Stone, because it's the best song. If you're richer than them, what are you doing reading my blog? I didn't realize I had rich friends (also, would it be OK if I borrowed some money). However, if you're not feeling either of those, the absolute best possible option is No Children by The Mountain Goats. No Children is the single most bitter breakup song I have ever heard, and I love it. In the scenario, it's roughly equivalent to bringing an orbital cannon to a knife fight, except when you get to the fight it turns out everyone's already dead, your parents never really loved you, and Santa isn't real.

  If you decide you don't want to alienate everyone you know without your breakup, however, there are somewhat less abrasive options. By which, of course, I mean more Bob Dylan. I'm sorry, I swear I try really hard to talk about music that Bob Dylan didn't write, but he's insidious. Also, he wrote really great sad breakup songs, and I'd feel remiss if I didn't mention Don't Think Twice, It's Alright. It's basically tailor made for these situations. However, if you feel that listening to Bob's whining rasp would not be good for a sense of closure, there is OF COURSE a Peter Paul & Mary cover, and it is of course great.

  Lastly, if you're past the breakup stage and just feel like remembering the bad old days, I've got just the thing! The Old Apartment by Bare Naked Ladies is both a great song and a perfect description for the joys of post-breakup woes. Listen to it when you're in the kind of mood where calling your ex to blame them seems like a good decision (pro-tip: no, it's not, don't do it).

  And most lastly of all, here's a bonus song! We all need more psychedelic in our lives, right? Yeah, that's right.

Post 13: Soulful Indie Bands Singing Quietly About the Trials of Being White And Middle-Class, Part 1 of 264

   Hello people! Before I get into the meat of my post, I just want to mention that I finally got around to getting Spotify, and I'm planning to start compiling playlists for posts as I go along, so that people can listen to all the songs without having to chase down all the links I so dearly love to pepper throughout these posts. I have no idea how people who read this like to listen to music (or even if you guys actually listen to the songs I talk about at all, or just read  the posts), so I'd appreciate it if y'all could let me know your preferred listening method, so I can tailor delivery to meet demand. Here's the link for today's playlist.

  Anyway, today I wanted to talk about something near and dear to my heart: indie music. Once again, like apparently everything else I talk about, it's an ill-defined genre. Technically (to switch out my pretentious snob hat for my pretentious pedantic snob hat), it's not even a genre at all; 'indie' just means that it's independently produced music. But come on, we all know what I'm talking about. If the band you're listening to has four guys all playing instruments, the lead singer is doing anything that could come close to being described as crooning, and more than half the guys have beards/stubble and enormous horn rims. We all know where I'm going with this.

  And naturally, to start things off I'm going to talk about the Shins. I mentioned them once before, but they're one of my favorite bands, and I won't be shutting up about them anytime soon. They've got several really good albums out, all of which are worth listening to, and other than that there's not much to say. They make good music with solid harmonies and nice, shimmery guitar noises, and you should listen to it. Personally, I'm particularly fond of the songs Saint Simon, For a Fool, Phantom Limb, and Simple Song. They released a new album last year, Port of Morrow, and while it's not as good as some of their earlier stuff, it's worth a listen. Both Simple Song and For a Fool came off of it, and they're two of my favorites Shins tracks.

   After The Shins comes Bishop Allen. Bishop Allen is one of those bands that make me feel both smoothly urbane and mildly dickish when I talk about them. This is the type of band you mention when you want to prove you 1) have musical taste; 2) have more of it than the person you're talking to; 3) found these guys back when they were underground, and 4) are a fundamentally better person than every other person you talk too (incidentally, talking about them like this guarantees the amount of people you talk to will get much smaller very quickly). That being said, they do make good music, and I like them a lot. They make (or possibly made, I think they may have broken up) light, fluffy songs that are about love and missed connections and how things are gonna pretty alright, probably (and also sometimes civil war ironclads). It's good stuff to hear when you need optimism and guilelessness. I think my favorite song by them is Shanghaied, which literally has a chorus that goes "La, la la, la la la la la la shanghaied", and is just as delightful as it sounds. Also worth checking out: Dimmer, Like Castanets, and Click, Click Click Click. And yes, the chorus of Click, Click, Click, Click does involve the word 'click' being repeated four times. They really like their repeated chorus lines.

  BUT, moving away from groups of twenty-something guys singing about love and stuff and playing their guitars together, my next pick is Matt Costa, a twenty-something guy who sings about love and stuff and plays his guitar BY HIMSELF (not counting his backup band). Frankly, he's pretty much a slightly less mellow Jack Johnson with a higher voice and a small infusion of surf rock. Fortunately, I like Jack Johnson and I love surf rock, so I'm a pretty big fan of his stuff. My favorite song of his definitely Sunshine, because it's simply wonderful. It's probably a metaphor for how he has a furious drug addiction or something, but I couldn't care less. It's great, and I won't let you spoil it for me. Most of his stuff does tend to blend together somewhat, especially if you listen to it all at once, but I still like it. My favorites are Mr. Pitiful, Acting Like a Fool, and Witchcraft. Witchcraft is particularly interesting; it's not my favorite song by him, but it's an almost perfect reproduction of the kind of song you'd hear on a mid 60's surf compilation, and I have to give him kudos for making such a flawless tribute.

  And lastly, I would feel ashamed if I failed to mention Death Cab for Cutie. I'm not a huge fan of them, but they're one of the icons of indie music, and they do have some great songs. The only two that I've really gotten into are Soul Meets Body and Crooked Teeth, but man. Those two are rock solid. Well worth taking a listen.

  And of course, last but not least, here's a bonus song! Apparently, before Jack White married Meg and they became the White Stripes, he apprenticed as an upholsterer and had a band with his boss. They made an album, which includes the track Pain (Gimme Sympathy), and I love it. It's loud, and kind of terrible, and not technically good at all, but it pulses with pure, unadulterated Jack White, and as a consequence is somehow very enjoyable in spite of that.

Post 12: WUBWUBWUB or: A Gentleman's Guide To Dirty Synth Bass

   So I was looking back at some of my earlier posts, and noticed that other than a few brief mentions of Daft Punk, I've almost completely ignored electronic music. That's not exactly earth shattering, I've ignored a lot a of different genres (I'm as aware as anyone that I've made a glaring omission of Mongolian throat singing, and I fully intend to rectify that at some point), but I do tend to listen to a lot of electronic music, and so I wanted to spend some time this week and talk about this stuff, because it interests me.

  One reason that I haven't spent a lot of time talking about this stuff is that electronic is just... just a freaking huge subject, you guys. It's a genre like "oldies" is a genre, but somehow even more vaguely defined. ...HOW. I mean, I know I complained about how genres tend to be very vaguely defined in my post on New Wave, but 'electronic music' is one of the single worst offenders, because all that word means is that it's made using electronic tools. So, technically at this point a hefty majority of music that's professionally produced, not to mention almost all pop music since the mid 90's has, at the very least, electronic elements even if it would not be considered electronic per se. It's a mess.

   Conveniently, however, there are a ton of sub-genres (and sub-sub genres, yea, even unto the seventh generations), so if you like this kind of thing you can get a fairly solid grasp on the electronic scene with relative ease.

-FAIR WARNING- I both find this stuff really interesting, and have only a moderate grasp of the underlying principles, so the next paragraph or so may be excessively obtuse for many readers, and might also be wildly inaccurate for all readers. You know the risks.

   What I'm mostly going to be talking about in this post is the stuff that's referred to overall as "Electronic  Dance Music", or EDM. This is, again, a pretty catch all term, but it refers to stuff that most people think of a electronic: entirely synthetic instrumentation, big, repetitive, driving bass and drum loops, and typically not a lot of vocalizing, if any. EDM breaks down into a lot of other things, but I'm going to ignore most of them and focus in on the two types of electronic that I tend to listen to most often: house and dubstep. Both of these are frequently reviled, and there's a very good reason for that; namely a lot of the music produced under those umbrellas sucks hard.

  I personally believe that's one of the reasons why stuff like dubstep is so constantly and ferociously reviled; it's not just because only a small segment of humanity finds that kind of music at all appealing (although that's definitely a factor), but also because bad EDM composes a huge quantity of EDM as a whole, even more so than you'll see in most genres, and crappy EDM is even more annoying than crappy music in general.   When you hear a crappy pop song, it's typically boring, asinine, and/or forgettable (generally: and). When you hear a crappy EDM song, it tends to be all of those, but also horrendously unpleasant, and a lot of the time they're also ferocious earworms that get stuck in your head and are impossible to dislodge. I won't be linking to any examples, for reasons that should be obvious. You are all welcome.

   Anyway, I have a lot more to say about this, but if I let myself get really truly started on the topic I may never get around to actually mentioning specific song, so I'm going to save that frankly enormous tangent for an addendum post that I will eventually write whether or not people care, because this stuff's fun to talk about. So without further ado, let's start off with some deadmaus! This is pretty much classic house, which is to say it's a 4/4 beat at right around 140 bpm, with a structure that starts out relatively simplistic but builds with increasing complexity throughout the song until tapering off and fading out on the drum loop. I promised myself I wouldn't talk about the mechanical aspects of this stuff but it turns out I'm bad at it.

  In case that description of house music was as incoherent as I suspect it may have been, tough. I don't have  have the technical understanding to describe it in a more user friendly way, so here's a Wikipedia article on it, and best of luck to those who are interesting in finding out more regarding the mechanics. For any remaining readers, here's another house song. Like most of the house I like, I know basically nothing about the music or musician, and found it by the recommendation of a friend. If you feel dubious about the genre, just listen until you at least hit the 45 second mark, because it has a fantastic break.

   And on the subject of fantastic breaks, I'm going to use this as an opportunity to segue into dubstep. Yes, I like dubstep; haters to the left. I feel like I have to spend just a little bit more time talking about the musical protocols of dubstep, because it seems like most people have no idea what dubstep is, including those who make it. It's a rather contested genre; different people want to describe it in different ways, but as a general rule dubstep has about the same beats per minute range as house and most types of EDM (135-142 BPM, generally speaking), but is distinguished by not having the drums hit on every measure, which creates the very hollow, nervous feeling that makes dubstep so distinctive. I'm not sure how to properly explain this idea, so let me give an example: Gizmo by the artist Datsik. This is actually just as fast as both the house songs I linked to earlier, but the drums don't hit on every beat and it has much more distorted bass, which makes a very visceral effect on the listener. Listening to dubstep makes you want to flail violently and headbutt things. In case that description didn't make it obvious, it also tends to be very polarizing. People either love it or hate it, but they rarely feel ambivalent.

   Frankly, I'll be a bit surprised if many of the people reading this ending liking a lot of the music that I recommend today, as it has a considerably narrower appeal than most of the stuff I talk about, but I like it and want to share some of this stuff with people who would generally skip it, even if I don't end up converting anyone to it. Therefore, let me share just a couple more songs.

  Obviously I have to mention Skrillex, if only because he's the only dubstep artist that many people have heard of. I personally like quite a lot of his stuff, but I've found that he tends to be rather hit-or-miss. When I like his stuff I like it a lot, but when I don't it's just incredibly annoying. That being said, my favorite tracks by him are definitely Slats Slats Slats, Reptile's Theme, and Scatta. His stuff is much more melodic and in some ways more easily listenable than a lot of 'classic' dubstep, which means he gets a lot of hate, but honestly the songs are good. They're fun and silly, and would be good to headbang to, except trying to headbang to these songs is a great way to get whiplash really fast. Keeping time with breaks is not conducive to vertebral health.

   And lastly, here are two of my all time favorite electronic songs: first, Winter Winds by Fytch, who's some random guy in the Netherlands who makes music that I really like. This is my favorite song of his, mostly because it's awesome. Second, this one is technically more of a mashup than a song, and also it's a seven 1/2 minute dance routine. WATCH IT. WATCH ALL OF IT. I promise it is well worth the time spent. The song(s) is(are?) fantastic, and the choreography and execution are both perfect. You will not regret it, unless possibly you have brain problems.

And most lastly of all, here's a bonus song. I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but I have a very soft spot in my heart for classic surf rock, and by far my favorite surf group is the Ventures, because they were great and had fantastic steel guitar riffs. Walk Don't Run has been a favorite of mine for as long as I can remember (literally. I learned about them because my dad had one of the records and he played it constantly when I was growing up).

Post 11:Covers Are Great. Aren't Covers Great? (Yes, Yes They Are)

Hey. You know what I love? Music. And I love when the artists that I love, love the music of other artists, and therefore proceed to produce covers of said beloved music, and then let me listen to it. It's lovely! Therefore, I wanted to talk a bit about covers, specifically rad covers that are great.

I talked about covers a little bit quite a while ago; in my post on folk music, I may have implied that basically every folk song from the 60's was originally by Bob Dylan. I'm going to go ahead and stand on that, and back it up with a couple of fantastic covers of his stuff. Specifically, Gun's N' Roses Knockin' On Heaven'sDoor (here's the original), and Hendrix's version of All Along The Watchtower (ditto). I mean, I don't even like GnR, and I still love Knockin' On Heaven's Door. And as far as All Along The Watchtower goes, I don't even know what to say. I realize not everyone likes listening to long jamming solos being played virtuoso-style, but I don't see how anyone can hate on this song. It's just... so good at being what it is, even if you don't like it you still have to appreciate it. Personally I'd recommend loving it instead of appreciating it, but I'm not your mom. You should listen to it, though. (also, as a side note: while I was looking up links I found a live cover Jimi did of Like a Rolling Stone, and it's awesome. It's very long and meandering, and overall I prefer the original, but this is still a really good version, well worth listening to).

Next up is something newer and not by Dylan, for once. I'm pretty fond of Mumford and Sons (particularly Winter Winds, which is a fantastic song in every way), and it turns out they've done some rock solid covers! My personal favorite is actually from Disney's Robin Hood; they did a version of Not In Nottingham (original here), and gosh dang son. It is just ridankulous. They have also done a cover of The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel, also fantastic, although I wouldn't exactly describe it as ridankulous. To be fair, that's mostly because The Boxer is a really depressing, beautiful song, and that would just enormously inappropriate.

Moving on, here are two covers from bands that became famous through viral hits on Youtube, both of which I'm very fond of. Pomplamoose and Walk Off The Earth have both done a TON of fantastic covers, but I just wanted to highlight a favorite from each of them. I think Pomplamoose' cover of Aerosmith's Don't Wanna Miss A Thing (original) was the first song of theirs I heard, and it's still one of my favorites. Who knew wall of sound vocals sung in a minor key could be so appealing? As far as Walk Off The Earth goes, they've made a silly number of great covers, but one of my favorites is Ice Cream, which was apparently originally by Sarah Maclachlan. I have no idea who she is, but I really like at least one of her songs, when it's covered by a different band in a different style. Still, she has good lyrics.

I would also feel remiss if I failed to mention Cee-Lo Green's cover of No One's Gonna Love You, originally by Band of Horses. I like the original, but comparing it with the cover is like comparing skim milk with heavy whipping cream. Literally, the experience is very similar; one is watery and almost translucent, one is so thick that drinking it straight is almost a physical impossibility, not to mention kind of disgusting. The one you should listen to depends on your mood. If you're feeling slightly strung out and don't really want to gin up the energy to string yourself back together, consider the original. If you want to get keyed up with a love ballad that may actually have more hair on it's chest than Band of Horses does on all its combined chins (for the record, that's quite a lot), go with Cee-Lo. You won't regret it.

Lastly, I have recently discovered that apparently there's a thing where modern bands do shimmery, super synth heavy covers of 80's pop, and I LOVE IT. In particular, I'm thinking of two songs: a version of the Jackson Five's I Want You Back (original) by Discovery, and a version of Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (original) by a band called STRFKR (fun fact: their original name was way less socially acceptable, but they changed it last year when they kept mysteriously not getting any popular notice. I'll let you figure out what it was on your own; it will not be difficult). I love both of these songs, and I really like shimmery synth, and both of these covers are great. Seriously, listen to them and be enriched.

  And even more lastly, here's a bonus song (with an awesome music video to accompany it, no less)! Goldfishes song We Come Together is... I'm not sure, exactly. It's possible to swing to, albeit it very aggressively,  and it might be considered electro-swing (a genre that holds a very soft spot in my heart, which will have to wait for another day), but I don't think it is exactly. Regardless, it is a great song, and it has a music video where an animated band rescues a princess by fighting a group of evil cats through an 8-bit world. If you can't love that, we need to talk.

Post 10: On Gum, Bubbles, and their application Re: Pop music

   Ok, I have a confession to make. Sometimes (more often than I am entirely comfortable with admitting in a public space, to be honest), I like to listen to really stupid pop. Let me be clear here; I'm not just talking about classic 80's schlock like Wham!, at least not exclusively (although who doesn't love Wake Me Up, am I right? ...Please tell me I'm right). I'm talking Venga Boys and Aqua. Yes, that Aqua. I'm talking about bubblegum pop in the purest, most literal sense of the word: the type of music that is not only absurdly sweet and leaves a faintly nauseating aftertaste, but that miraculously manages, somehow, to actually SOUND neon pink. I remember once seeing a an aphorism that said something along the lines of "there should be no such thing as guilty pleasure music. If you like something enjoy it and don't feel bad." Frankly, I disagree. I honestly and unironically enjoy the songs I'm about to share with you, but I am not proud of that fact. Just because a jelly doughnut with ice cream on it sounds DELICIOUS does not mean that if I saw you eating in public, I would not judge you. I would absolutely give you the judgement you so richly deserved, and then I would ask for one, because I'm really hungry and that sounds kind of amazing.

-Fair warning, this is mostly going to made of objectively terrible 90's pop, because these are my most deeply buried guilty pleasures. I do like some more recent stuff, but I don't feel like there's any real value in introducing people to Lady Gaga. Either you've heard of her, or you have somehow managed to steer clear of all popular culture for the last five years, and have more pressing concerns.-

   I would feel frankly remiss if I didn't start the list off with, naturally, Aqua. Aqua is as central to my perception of bubblegum pop as hideous bleached tips and choreographed dancing (both which Aqua had in spades, not coincidentally). Their most iconic piece is Barbie Girl, of course, but they actually have a couple of others that I really like. Most notably, Dr. Jones and Candyman. Looking back at these with the jaded glasses of maturity, it's depressingly obvious that every song I'm talking about was made as absolutely filthy innuendo, but that's all part of the joy. If you don't feel like you need to rinse out both your mind and your ears after coming off an Aqua binge, you're doing it wrong.

   Next up is Ace of Base. Also 90's, also featuring lots of promo shots of bleach haired dudes singing with their razor sharp cheek bones, but with twice as many female vocalists (for a total of two) and switching out the neon music videos for artful bloom effects and atrocious green screening, the other favorite staple of 90's music videos. I listened to a ton of their stuff growing up, but my favorite song was always Beautiful Life, because who doesn't love three chords, a keyboard and a drum set? I've also always loved Cruel Summer and All That She Wants.

   This next one is slightly less well known and a bit more recent, but he's also one of the most ridiculously fun listens I know of. Mika is very much a spiritual successor of Freddy Mercury, basically a more androgynous, higher pitched and glam-oriented version. I think we can all agree that this is awesome, and the music backs it up. The first Mika song I heard was Grace Kelly, and it's still one of my favorites, but he's got several singles worth checking out, like Lollipop (which, now that I think about it, feels kind of like a spiritual successor to Aqua, complete with an over the top music video and some innuendo that has all the grace and subtlety of a root canal from Andre the Giant). Another particular favorite of mine is Big Girl (You Are Beautiful), which is a delightful tribute to the classic Queen song Fat Bottom Girls, basically just Fat Bottom Girls 2: Fatter & Friskier.

   And last of all, this may be the greatest song ever made to sing along with. I Believe In A Thing Called Love is awesome, it will always be awesome, and this is one song that I will never feel guilty about loving, because it's FANTASTIC. I mentioned it in a previous post, wherein I also mentioned my love of leaping falsettos, and this song may be the root cause of that obsession. It's the best. THE BEST. If you get nothing else from this post, get this: Never feel bad about loving I Believe In A Thing Called Love, because if you can't love it, you'll have a hard time finding any joy in your life.

   Also, here's a bonus song! I've been a bit of an oldies kick recently, and rediscovered the Hollies. They were  an interesting band; they had an unusual ability to make lots of good songs that range all over the soundboard, so they end up being easy confuse with basically everyone else. I thought Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress In A Black Dress was a Rolling Stones song until I was like 18. Nonetheless, Carrie Anne is probably my favorite of their songs. It's got good harmonies and a simple sweetness that'shard to pull off without being cloying and saccharine, but I think it manages nicely.