Never tell me the odds

In writing this blog post, I am taking a short break from putting together my first Saying Story of 2009. This go-round, we're using song lyrics as our inspiration; my story (indeed, all of my stories this year) will concern, thusly, a fictitious totally real rock band. Look, here's the cover of their first album.


It won't be finished until tomorrow, but I thought I'd use this space to remind you that I actually used to write and publish things. No, really, I did. Here, as proof, is a list of my favorite things that I've written. If you think I'm forgetting something, I implore you to remind me.

• That's When I Reach for My Revolver. I like the entire series, and I'm in love with all of my characters, but the popular consensus seems to be that "Halloween" has been the best episode thus far. "The Long and Winding Road" and "Brand New Day" were the most fun to write. And a new episode is coming. No, really. The title (at this very second) is "Sugar, We're Goin' Down."
• "The Storyteller, the Dragon and the Great Decree" -- so far outside of my style that it feels like I'm making fun of someone. Also the story that took me longest to write out of anything I've done: concept to final draft took a couple of years. Some feel the wait was worth it. I know René does.
• "Owl-Stretching Time" -- from last year's Saying Stories. There's not much of a narrative to speak of (unless you count Monty's monologue), but I've never loved writing a story more. Looking back on it a year later, I still like the voice I managed to find to capture Stacy's attitude and worldview. And I said everything I need to say about friendship, I think.
• I used to write cool things on this blog, too. For instance, the guy who "created" Lost is a whiny tool. René and I saw the Tragically Hip at Scout Bar and were the only Americans in the room. Obnoxious pro-lifers kind of irritate me. Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte are fucking assholes (and the Pettitte thing was even before the steroids story broke). I can't stay quiet while watching the Feud. I certainly wasn't surprised when Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was canceled. Apparent apathy on the part of my paltry audience doomed the project after only one installment, but I'm still proud of my Guns N' Roses dissertation. Before I turned it into an entire writing project of its own, bitching about my pizza delivery job was fun. Stephen got married, and I got sentimental. My sister and I review Cloverfield.

Back to writing now. I need to finish. I will finish.

Anyone taking odds on my success? Not good, are they?

The internet is awesome

So, here's a cool meme. I did one like this once, where I used Wikipedia to name my band, first album and track listing. Here's another, which I stole from the Onion's A.V. Club:

• Go to Wikipedia. Hit "random article." The title of the article is the name of your band.
• Go to the Random Quotes page at the Quotations Page. The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is your album title.
• Finally, go to Flickr. Click on "Explore the last seven days," and the third picture -- no matter what it is -- is your album cover.

I followed said meme, leading to my creation of this masterpiece album cover (click to enlarge):


That's Operation Pipe Dream, with People on the Way Down. Too perfect, right?

Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone. Time to give it another try (click to enlarge again):

Yes, that's New England Nun, with Evil That You Can Change.

Clearly, this is too great to not try again (I'm sure you've caught up with the enlarging by now):


This one is Dagbladet, with Time to Start Your Day. That looks like an Elliot Smith singer-songwriter kind of album, doesn't it?

I could do this all night, and if I don't stop now, I might. So I'll stop.

You should try some of your own. I don't expect you to take the time I did and actually create the album art, but the results should still be interesting.

I know "Hey Jude"

I love it when my computer spits out a totally benign message that sounds awesome out of context.

This one just came up a few seconds ago: Paul McCartney has finished downloading.

I guess after I plug back into the construct and download John, George and Ringo, I'll be my own personal Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Which reminds me, did you hear the guy in the background of the Abbey Road cover died a few days ago? Did you even know there was a guy in the background of the Abbey Road cover?

I'm so there I'm already in the front row

O what providence! What divine intelligence!

The Decemberists have a new album due March 24. You'll excuse me if I geek out for a moment.


The Hazards of Love is what the Decemberists have been on the verge of doing their entire career: a full-blown rock opera. It will bring us the story of "a woman named Margaret who is ravaged by a shape-shifting animal; her lover, Williams; a forest queen; and a cold-blooded, lascivious rake," says a press release. All we need are some pirates, some ghosts and some pirate ghosts, and it sounds pretty typical, really.

And then's the track listing -- oh, gods, the track listing:

1. Prelude
2. The Hazards of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won't Wrestle the Thistles Undone)
3. A Bower Scene
4. Won't Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga)
5. The Hazards of Love 2 (Wager All)
6. The Queen's Approach
7. Isn't It a Lovely Night?
8. The Wanting Comes in Waves / Repaid
9. An Interlude
10. The Rake's Song
11. The Abduction of Margaret
12. The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing
13. Annan Water
14. Margaret in Captivity
15. The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!)
16. The Wanting Comes in Waves (Reprise)
17. The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned)

Sweet Jesus. "The Prettiest Whistles Won't Wrestle the Thistles Undone"? I haven't heard a note of this, and it's already my favorite album ever.

On that note, here are the Decemberists, live in the studio, performing the greatest song ever: "The Mariner's Revenge Song" from Picaresque, one of the most spectacular records ever produced.

Gee, Chang not see that coming

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss just won Album of the Year at the Grammys. What a shock! I certainly didn't see that -- oh, wait, yes I did.

Radiohead is the other band the voters like to hose, so don't get too excited over the Album of the Year nod for In Rainbows. Even though it's the best record on that list. That doesn't matter. Not even a little bit. At all. The award will actually go to, as it always does, the oldest and/or deadest nominee -- in this case, Robert Plant, who's been dead since 1989.
--me, two months ago

Can I call 'em, or can I call 'em, folks?

Best live performance of the night? Neil Diamond, of all people, strolling his way through "Sweet Caroline." Runner-up: Radiohead and the USC Marching Band.

Aside from that: three and a half hours I want back.

So, typical Grammys.

Weekly iPod Shuffle: 2/7/09

1. "Alpha Beta Parking Lot," Cake
Alpha Beta, if memory serves, is a chain of grocery stores in California. I seem to remember them from my time living there, but just barely. Truth be told, I don't remember much from California. Some of that is because I was so young and it was so long ago; some of it has to be on purpose. Oh well. This song is a little slower than Cake usually goes for, but I'm down. (My rating: ****)

2. "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi," Radiohead
We're less than twenty-four hours away from Radiohead getting screwed out of the Album of the Year Grammy! Are you pumped! I know I am! Seriously, though, In Rainbows was phenomenal, but I can't see the Grammy voters approving weird, off-the-wall stuff like this, even if it is brilliant. (*****)

3. "Disgustipated," Tool
The strangest song Tool has yet to record. Yeah, just sit in that for a minute. It's barely a song, really -- Maynard howls an absurdist speech in the voice of a southern minister while farm animals bleat in the background, followed by a chanted chorus and shotgun blasts. It's actually really funny, but not something you'd want to listen to on a regular basis, you know? (***)

4. "Steady As We Go [live]," Dave Matthews Band
Even when Dave writes a mediocre song, as he did here, you can usually trust in a live performance to bring about mass improvements. Usually. (**)

5. "Battle with Magus," Chrono Trigger
Ah, there -- see? I told you I had more than just that one clip. Chrono Trigger has the greatest soundtrack of any video game ever. You may have missed it, but I also hold the game itself in high regard. (*****)

6. "A Beautiful Life," Everclear
Over the course of his storied, up-and-down career in the music business, Art Alexakis wrote and recorded many songs with his band, Everclear. This is one of them. (**)

7. "The Great Below," Nine Inch Nails
One of Trent's very best. This is the last song of his disc from his masterpiece, The Fragile. I don't know if that record really tells a story or anything, but this certainly ends the first half on a high note. Or, well, a low note, really. (*****)

8. "I Will Follow You into the Dark," Death Cab for Cutie
Spoiler alert: I have a lot to say about this song, but I'm saving for the next entry in my Musical Canon series. So I won't say it here. Instead -- you what's cool? YouTube covers. You know what's cooler? YouTube covers lit entirely by the fridge.

See: cooler. Get it? (*****)


9. "Going Mobile," The Who
One of the coolest things I've ever seen: the VH1 Classic Albums episode about Who's Next, where the producer picks apart the master track for his song and shows off all the little pieces. The Who were truly one of the greatest bands ever. "Going Mobile" sounds so effortless, but there's a lot going on under there...and they recorded almost all of it live off the floor, just three guys playing in a room. Incredible. (*****)

10. "Ghost Train," Counting Crows
Fun fact: heavy metal band Between the Buried and Me took their name from a line in this classic early Crows song. Fun fact: Between the Buried and Me are absolutely, jaw-droppingly awful. (*****)

Song of the week

Offered without commentary, here is Neutral Milk Hotel, with "Holland, 1945," from 1998's In the Aeroplane over the Sea.

The jwalkernet Musical Canon: Part Two (#94-97)

97. Fastball, All the Pain Money Can Buy
A peculiar brand of rock dominated my local radio station from the mid- to late-nineties. Let's call it alterna-pop: big guitars, lots of distortion, massive choruses and ready-for-radio hooks. Some of these bands you may remember, others not, but they were all I could find on my FM dial through most of my years in high school. Marcy Playground, Tonic, Better Than Ezra, Semisonic, Eve 6, Lit, etc. They were all huge. Some had multiple hits; most had but one.

The winner of this bizarre battle royale? An Austin trio called Fastball, whose hit single "The Way" ruled the airwaves for a few months, gave way to a few less-successful hits, and then pretty much vanished from the face of the mainstream. A follow-up album sold about a tenth as many copies, and Fastball disappeared. And that's too bad, because All the Pain Money Can Buy shows a depth you wouldn't expect from a one-hit wonder. There are the big alterna-pop numbers you'd expect, sure -- "Warm Fuzzy Feeling" and "Fire Escape" are probably the best -- but also a distinct country twinge to be found on the slower tracks, like "Nowhere Road" and the beautiful "Out of My Head."

96. Modest Mouse, The Moon & Antarctica
It's jangly, self-indulgent and overlong. The vocals are shaking, the guitars hovering in and out of key. It's a mess. It's also one of the most achingly beautiful records ever produced, a shimmering suite that feels as lonely and as cold as the locations in its title. Issac Brock's musical meditation on death and its aftermath have an effect so few albums do -- it crawls in your head through your ears and stays there, long after it's finished.

Earlier Modest Mouse albums piled on the noise and the quirk until they were practically unlistenable, but Moon finds them finally hitting all their marks. A large part of that is Brian Deck's spacey production; another is Brock's dogged focus. His songs are wounded tirades, seeking out answers and relief when surrounded by pain. He doesn't find much -- the closer, "What People Are Made Of," slams the door with a bang, coming to the conclusion that they're not made of much more than "water and shit."

95. Jonathan Coulton, Smoking Monkey
This might be a tad ironic, because Smoking Monkey isn't close to being JoCo's best release. The Thing a Week series is stunning merely because of its achievement, let alone the quality of some of those songs; the Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow EP is an essential that everyone should have in their collection. But again, this is my 100 favorite albums, and Smoking remains his only full-length LP. (Unless you count each part of the Thing a Week series as an individual LP, which I don't. And none of those are consistent enough on their own, anyway.)

Not to give you the impression this is a bad record -- gods, no. Smoking Monkey is a funny, catchy minor miracle, a smart collection of songs that shows a wonderfully geeky sensibility. Old holiday stories get tossed into a cuisinart on "Christmas Is Interesting," and "First of May" strips people-get-together sing-alongs of their innocence. My favorite: "Kenesaw Mountain Landis," an hilarious retelling of the 1919 Black Sox scandal, which manages to get just about every fact as wrong as possible in just over three and a half minutes -- "Kenesaw Mountain Landis was a bad motherfucker / He was seventeen feet tall, he had a hundred fifty wives" -- before ending it with a pun on Shoeless Joe Jackson vs. singer Joe Jackson.

94. Van Morrison, St. Dominic's Preview
So, in my first post, when I hinted that the artists with three entries wouldn't be who you'd expect -- exactly who was I trying to kid?

I could go on for days and days about Van's voice (and don't think I won't in his later appearances on our countdown), but this time around I'll focus on the songs, which are among the brightest he's recorded. "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)" practically bounces with glee; "Redwood Tree" glows like the sunset. The title track, one of his very best compositions, feels like a reassuring arm slung over your shoulder. Elsewhere, "Almost Independence Day" harkens back to his first album, the flawless Astral Weeks, and features an acoustic guitar melody strikingly similar to one Pink Floyd would use on "Wish You Were Here" three years later.

If you don't have any Van Morrison (for shame!), St. Dominic's may be the best place to start. Not as spiritual as Astral Weeks, but it's the perfect feel-good record. Listening to Van here, I can't help but smile. You won't be able to, either.

Watchmen watch

Weekly iPod Shuffle: 1/31/09

1. "Like Suicide," Soundgarden
Sometimes success just isn't fair. Soundgarden toiled in the indie scene for nearly a decade, honing their craft and churning out several solid releases for Sub Pop Records (who would later introduce Nirvana to the world, changing the face of popular music forever). But by the time they released the album that would explode them into mainstream superstardom, Superunknown, they were largely spent and tired. "Like Suicide" closes Superunknown, and its slow burn and eventual full-throttle rock-out is an archetypal example of Soundgarden at their best. After this, they'd only release one more album, the uneven Down on the Upside, and then disband. Too bad. (My rating: *****)

2. "Misery Whip," Everclear
From the bleh second half of their two-part concept album, Songs from an American Movie. I say bleh like every Everclear record isn't bleh, but Songs from an American Movie, Volume 2: Good Time for a Bad Attitude is especially so. In fact, I'd forgotten I even had it until just this very moment. (***)

3. "As I Rise," The Decemberists
Ah ha! The Decemberists return! You know, I'd describe this song at length, but even I can feel how sick you are of hearing me talking about the goddamn Decemberists. The rating here should not surprise you. (*****)

4. "Huh?!" Chrono Trigger
This is a five-second sound clip from the video game. Why I have it on my iPod, I have no idea. (no rating)

5. "Cool James," Harvey Danger
One of my favorite songs from an album that you'll be seeing on my 100 albums list...but not for a very long time. The clever lyrics here abound, and Sean Nelson's delivery of the line "Devil's advocates/And nasty bits/Of fits of desperation" is one of my favorite moments in all of music. In the end, he shakes his head and sighs in resignation at the object of his ire: "That's why ladies love cool James," he says, "'cause the bastard changes." (*****)

6. "Thunder Road," Bruce Springsteen
Hey, the Boss. Think he'll play this one at the Super Bowl tomorrow? He better -- it's easily his best song, and one of the best songs ever written, period. "There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away / They haunt this dusty beach road / In the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets / They scream your name at night in the streets / Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet / And in the lonely cool before dawn / You hear their engines roaring on / But when you get to the porch, they're gone on the wind." Bruce wrote an awful lot of songs about escaping small-town hell, but they never got better than "Thunder Road." (*****)

7. "Do You Know What I'm Seeing?" Panic at the Disco
Good lord, here they are again. Look, I like them, okay? I don't give a damn what you think. Not in the slightest. That's right, fuck you. (****)

8. "The Lonely End of the Rink," The Tragically Hip
This is a bootleg from the concert René and I saw at Scout Bar in March of 2007. I can still Gordie so clearly, bouncing around that stage like a sprite. He owned that fucking building that night. They need to tour again. Like, now. (*****)

9. "Lady Picture Show," Stone Temple Pilots
If you listen to Tiny Music... very carefully, you can actually hear the exact moment when Scott Weiland was completely lost to his heroin addiction. It's not in this boring, bred-for-radio song, though. Don't listen to this. (**)

10. "Somebody's Watching Me," Rockwell
Ha! I've been unable to get this song out of my head recently, thanks to its use in the newest round of Geico commercials. Now you can have it in your head, too. You're welcome. (****)

Song of the week

Offered without commentary, here is Franz Ferdinand, with "Ulysses."

The jwalkernet Musical Canon: Part One

I've seen a few other bloggers doing this over the course of the last several months, and I'm nothing if not a bandwagon jumper who loves to impress upon others his own musical tastes, so it's time to implement my newest long-term writing project: an in-depth look at my 100 favorite albums, three to five at a time. I'm shooting for one post added to the list a week, maybe more. My ultimate goal is to have posted my write-up for #1 by my birthday at the end of June. We shall see.

The rules aren't really rules as such, but guidelines I did consider while assembling the list. They are as follows:

1. Albums only. You may not have noticed this, but I'm kind of an anal-rententive dork. Hence, when I construct a list of albums, that's what you're going to see: albums. No greatest hits compilations, no live albums, no remix collections, no EPs, no box sets. Van Morrison's It's Too Late to Stop Now is one of the most astonishing pieces of music I've ever heard, but it's a live set, so it's not here. Now, one of these titles does feature quite a lot of live material, but it's mixed with studio-recorded music and...well, that's a prickly one that we'll get to when we get to it.
2. My current listening habits are more important than nostalgia. This is a list of my 100 favorite albums today. If it were a list of albums that were most important to me on the grand scale of life, Metallica's black album would be #1, no question. But I don't listen to it much anymore, and haven't listened to it at all in probably four years, so it's not. This also means that the titles here are fairly fluid, especially in the top half -- another day, and it would be a different list entirely. Oh well.
3. There was no limit on the number of titles per artist. Not intentionally, anyway. I thought about imposing a three-album-per-artist limit, but found I didn't need to. Only two artists have more than two albums here...and they're probably not who you think they are. (Okay, one probably is.)

I invite any and all commentary you wish to provide. Like I said, the list will be an ongoing project. If a few weeks go by and I don't mention it, feel free to take me to task.

With that, let us begin.

100. Toadies, Hell Below/Stars Above
If there's anything you'll notice glancing through my music library, it's this: I am an obsessive completist. If I hear one song by a band I like, I'm going to track down everything they've ever recorded. Case in point: Toadies, who had a few hits on their debut, Rubberneck, and then faded away. That album is wildly inconsistent and pretty mediocre overall, but their follow-up showed a far more solid and compelling approach. I've read everyone compare them to the Pixies, which is ironic, because I can't stand the Pixies (edit: Okay the Pixies have started to grow on me. But I still like the Toadies better). But the style is pretty much the same -- low-fi grungy guitars and strained vocals competing with one another for attention amidst the noise. Toadies, I suppose, put a little less emphasis on the noise half of the equation, remembering to actually write some good songs.

My favorite aspect of Toadies, and this album in particular, is Todd Lewis's voice, which is again ironic because Lewis can't really sing. But his strained warble works perfectly here, especially on the raucous opener "Plane Crash."

It's a little weird to see this one as the benchmark record, but there you go. I apologize to the great albums that didn't get past it. (Axl Rose, particularly, is probably sobbing somewhere, wondering why Use Your Illusion II is absent. Sorry, buddy.)

99. The Donnas, Gold Medal
Again: I'm an obsessive completist. The Donnas contributed "Take It Off" to the first Guitar Hero game, and I followed that song to their next album, Gold Medal. The Donnas are an all-girl rock group (and I firmly believe that there aren't nearly enough girl rock bands) that are, essentially, what KISS would sound like if they weren't guys. Or didn't, ya know, suck. They sing a lot of power-chord anthems about parties, drinking, fucking, and pretty much being the coolest people in the room. Gold Medal actually finds them branching out a bit, both lyrically and musically -- their best song is probably the title track, which brings in an acoustic guitar and a piano solo to accentuate a surprisingly somber lyric.

This album probably doesn't work as well without its predecessor, Spend the Night, for comparison. You'd probably do well to track them both down, tell the truth.

98. Jethro Tull, Thick as a Brick
Ian Anderson didn't really appreciate that everyone interpreted Aqualung as a concept album. So he responded by pulling a rather elaborate practical joke on the media, his fans and the entire progressive rock genre: Thick as a Brick, the concept album to end all concept albums. It purports to be a musical interpretation of an epic poem by an eight-year-old boy, and features only one multifaceted 43-minute song. (So long, in fact, that it had to be split in two to meet the limits of vinyl LPs.) The music itself stretches all genres, from hard rock to classical to jazz to folk, and features an impressive array of instruments -- an astonishing number of them played by Anderson himself, who also produced the album. (And, of course, it was he who wrote the "epic poem," not the little boy featured in the gloriously clever newspaper that served as cover art.)

Riding low in my chair, she won't know that I'm there/If I can hand it in tomorrow, it'll be all right

Sometimes, someone out there writes something so full of awesome I can do nothing but slowly clap and provide a link.

Hence: Scenes from an Alternate Universe Where Saved by the Bell, Rather Than Law and Order, Became the Dominant Television Franchise for a Generation.

*slow clap*

What is it with our generation and our fixation on Saved by the Bell? Any theories? I was flipping through channels a couple of weeks ago and came across an episode on TBS. It was the episode in the mall -- not the Christmas episode, where Zack falls for the homeless girl; no, the one where they're trying to get U2 tickets and Lisa comes across the shopping bag full of money and hijinks ensue. Don't insult me by pretending you don't know what I'm talking about, either.

I used to wonder, even while I still watched the show regularly without irony, why its depiction of high school life was so blatantly inaccurate. I mean, could it not have been possible to tell some of the same stories without asking us to accept as plausible a southern California high school with about fourteen students, maybe four teachers, and a laughably incompetent principal?

I realized then that accuracy wasn't the point. Because, after all, the show wasn't for high school kids -- it was for kids much younger than that. They believed the Bayside fantasy, because they just didn't know any better.

Is that we're really nostalgic for? An age when we could believe a place like Bayside existed, an age before we realized high school was not a brightly-lit, responsibility-free spaces where we could indulge in elaborate pranks and schemes with our friends -- who would be in every single one of our classes with us -- and face, at most, a half-hearted talking to from Principal Goober?

I don't know. Maybe it is for me.

What's your favorite Saved by the Bell episode? I bet you can guess what mine is. It's probably yours, too.

Weekly iPod Shuffle: 1/24/09

1. "Too Much Paranoias," Devo
Yes, the shuffles are back, partly because I liked doing them, and partly to force me to start writing here again on a more regular basis. We start off as you'd expect: a thoroughly obscure track from a cult band. This is from Devo's debut album, the hideously titled Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, and it's not bad. Not exactly great, either. (My rating: ****)

2. "Yes Sir, No Sir," The Kinks
I got into the Kinks through, of all things, "Weird Al" Yankovic's Dare to Be Stupid album, on which he parodied "Lola" with "Yoda." Follow it backwards through the years, and I end up with the Kinks' masterful takedown of post-World War II Britain, Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), which features several harsh criticisms of British rule. Having been written in late '60s England, it doesn't always translate well to 21st century America, but the music still succeeds, thanks to Ray Davies's sharp ear as both songwriter and producer. (****)

3. "Scraped," Guns N' Roses
Ah, yes: Chinese Democracy. I made fun of Axl for years about the interminable construction of his fourth album, fully believing it would never be released in his lifetime. But here it is, sitting on my iPod, and I'd love to tell you about all of the good (and even great) songs it features, but the shuffle gives us "Scraped." And "Scraped" is...well, not one of the great ones. Or the good ones. Or the listenable ones. An overdubbed, overproduced, overwritten ungodly mess, this is exactly what I was afraid the album would sound like. Luckily, a lot of it doesn't, but, again -- we take what the shuffle gives us. Blech. (*)

4. "Six Blade Knife," Dire Straits
One of the joys of shuffling with an enormous library of music is the chance to hear something you haven't listened to in a while. According to iTunes, I haven't heard this since June 24th. Too damn long -- this is a quiet, haunting masterpiece. Most of the first Dire Straits record sounds an awful lot like it: beautiful guitar lines over a sparse rhythm section, Mark Knopfler whispering on top of it like he's just woken from his sleep. One of my favorite albums. (*****)

5. "Madame George," Van Morrison
Speaking of quiet, haunting and beautiful. Readers of That's When I Reach for My Revolver know in what high regard I hold Van the Man, and especially his album Astral Weeks. "Madame George" is one of the (many) highlights -- a soft, delicate piece that never stirs from its gentle pace; not going anywhere in particular and no hurry to get there. Van draws you in with his voice, of course -- there's never been another voice like that, and never will be. If you don't have Astral Weeks in your record collection (or iTunes library), I don't know what the hell you're doing with your life. (*****)

6. "Tangled up in Blue," Bob Dylan
I could say that about Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, for that matter, but I realize that his voice is something of an acquired taste. "Tangled" is one of his very best songs, and with a catalogue as deep as Dylan's, that certainly says something. I have to admit, though, that while I was delighted to hear it would be in Rock Band 2, it doesn't really work all that well. I mean, it's great for me as the singer, but everyone else has to just play the same lines over and over again. Oh well: their problem, yeah? (*****)

7. "Barry Bonds," Kanye West feat. Lil Wayne
From Graduation, Kanye's last album before losing his fucking mind and turning in a whiny Auto-Tune karaoke singer with a light show. Seriously, that new album is really quite bad. This song, though, was back when Ye still knew how to have a good time, and Lil Wayne's cameo fits in perfectly. (*****)

8. "Main Theme," Silent Hill
One of the best pieces of video game music ever composed. (*****)

9. "I Write Sins Not Tragedies," Panic! at the Disco
You know, I completely understand if you hate this song and this band. I do. So I hope you will understand if I don't. Deal? (*****)

10. "Consoler of the Lonely," The Raconteurs
I didn't give the newest Raconteurs record much of a chance, honestly, but it's surprisingly good upon further listens: unlike the debut, Jack White's side project feels for the first time like an actual band, instead of...well, Jack White's side project. Good on them. (*****)

I am filled with both anticipation and dread in equal amounts

It...it just can't be bad, right?



We'll find out just over a month, won't we?

There's dancing behind movie scenes

Six months, it's been. Six whole months.

You could see the changes coming, if you read carefully -- the posts about despair and angst slipped away, replaced by images of light. Happiness, sorta. In one piece, I made an off-hand mention of the fact that I was so happy I could barely stand myself; in another, I was coasting on joy to the degree that I didn't mind admitting that I liked Fall Out Boy. In two separate posts, no less.

Six months later. Still going. I still have a smile on my face.

I'm writing a year-in-review thing that's kinda required if you have a blog. I plan on publishing it in early in the new year, as a way of clearing the cobwebs and starting this thing anew. For reals, this time.

In the meantime, here's a song that's been playing over and over in my head for the last six months. If you want to know exactly how I've felt for most of that time, just have a listen. In particular, listen to the way the strings come in on the line "Seventy-seven thousand piece orchestra set." That's it.

Happy new year, everybody.



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Now playing: Cornershop - Brimful of Asha
via FoxyTunes