Dan Zanes - "Sweet Rosyanne"
Magnetic Fields - "Drive On, Driver"
Frank Black - "Kiss My Ring"
Karen Dalton - "In My Own Dreams"
The Flatlanders - "All You Are Love"
Destroyer - "Queen Of Languages"
Paul Westerberg - "Strike Down The Band"
Calexico - "Bisbee Blue"
Husker Du - "Something I Learned Today"
Taj Mahal - "Linin'"
Wilco - "What Light"
Track Star - "The End"
When you have 10,184 songs on your iPod it's hard to remember how they all got there. Track Star is an example of a band that I've been listening to exclusively on the Pod (yes, I called it "the Pod") for a while and yet I have no clue when I uploaded them and from where. In fact, I don't know anything about the band outside of the fact that I think they're pretty great. Their sound is so simple it borders on elegant. A guy sings emotive lyrics over stripped down electric guitars (you know, that electric guitar sound that sounds, well, strummed?), drum and bass that usually start soft and slow and build into an emotional crescendo. I guess some people might now call this Emo - - but that makes me ill. (Emo is a genre that somehow I missed altogether and to be honest still don't understand. Faster than you can say Fall Out What?, it appeared and every band that is tagged with the name, as far as I can tell, sucks.) So what's Track Star's deal? I really don't know and even allmusic.com is not that illuminating. This much is revealed: It was started in the 90s in San Francisco by guitarists Wyatt Cusic and Matthew Troy. (Yet the receive such little respect that even the allmusic bio has a typo: "...the band continued to rehearse and perform before addiing [sic] a drummer.") And that's about it. They put out 2 records (1997's Communication Breaks and 2002's Lion Destroyed The Whole World) - - the latter of which, according to allmusic, "was described as sublime pop rock by many and earned critical acclaim." Really? Anyone else out there know anything about Track Star?
Fruit Bats - "Lazy Eye"
Seu Jorge - "Life On Mars?"
Sufjan Stevens - "One Last 'Woo-Hoo!' For The Pullman"
Today's Song With The Most Previous Plays is a bit of anomaly: It's only 6 seconds and it's not really a song. It's a smattering of applause that segues "Decatur, Or, Round Of Applause For Your Stepmother!" into the great "Chicago" on Sufjan's Come On Feel The Illinoise! record. Now this is all fine and good when you're listening to the record as a whole, but it's a a bit odd and kinda annoying when you're listening to songs on shuffle. Plus, it makes me feel guilty about listening to music exclusively on shuffle in the morning. While I like the spontaneity and the ability to be exposed to songs I might not immediately play, I was always a fan of the records as a whole entity, as opposed to singles. (Just the fact that I'm calling them records is probably making some of you think I'm headed for an old age home any day now.) Anyway, I like to hear songs in context, as part of the artists complete body of work, aka the record. And as if this 6 second interlude wasn't irritating enough this morning, it was followed by another one of those little bits that Outkast has on their records. It's nonsense... but thankfully just 34 seconds.
Outkast - "Bowtie (Postlude)"
Mojave 3 - "Most Days"
And then I got to work.
Today's Stats
Total songs listened to: 17
Total minutes of music (approx.): 51
Song with the most previous plays: "One Last 'Woo-Hoo!' For The Pullman" - 14
Miscellaneous factoid about my trip to work today: I don't have a seasonal photo to share, but it was 58 degrees and sunny in Brooklyn this morning. And that's all good.
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1 comment:
I'm not trying to be the first to comment, it just happens I usually have time in the middle of the day...
I don't think emo was all bad in the beginning. I remember when every band on Jade Tree was labeled 'emo'. Emo was the grunge of the mid-to-late-90's. It was just co-opted and copied before the original bands could develop...or before the mainstream could catch up. Now, the genre is a caricature of itself with their silly haircuts and whiny songs. It's too bad, b/c I liked where it was going in 1994 but despised it by the turn of the century. I don't think you've missed anything.
BTW-Noticed another Destroyer tune. I picked up his latest yesterday and have enjoyed it so far. It's darker and weirder than New Pornos, which is good.
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