I-Tunes Shuffle

(For some reason, the above image from the remake of Gone in Sixty Seconds came up when I typed "Music Stuff" in a Google image search. Angelina needs to go back to those dreads, don't you think? No, I'm being serious.)

The Onion Audio-Visual Club has a regular feature in which they ask musicians or other random celebrities to put their MP3 players on random, then talk about the first five songs that come up. I don't know why, but I find this strikingly interesting.

I'm not going to check out any albums just because Seth Rogen is listening to them, but it is a nice little insight into the day-to-day lives of people who - like it or not - are part of our cultural identity. They're people too... they're just famous people whose sex lives frequently seem more important than our own.

And since the goal of this blog is to eventually reach more readers than those who already know me personally (stifle that laughter, guys), I thought it would be an amusing way to do the same, as well as a fairly low-intensity means of adding a post today when I don't have terribly much to say about anything else at the moment.

So, a brief insight into who I am begins in 3... 2... 1...

"Artists Only" by The Talking Heads

(Awwwwwwww... Look at how young they were!)

I was introduced to Talking Heads via Stop Making Sense, a film I initially watched only because Jonathan "Silence of the Lambs" Demme directed it. Then I realized how many of the songs I've always loved were all from the same group, and that they were talented and dynamic as hell. It's still my favorite concert film of all time, and during the unfortunately common periods of my life in which I have worked at video stores, it's one of the most common DVD's that I am likely to put on the background. (Dark Star and Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas are probably the two others.)

Like most Talking Heads songs, "Artists Only" is about something other than big messages or that girl the lead singer loved who dumped his ass. I admire any artist or group of artists with something to say that doesn't end up just being whiny. David Byrne did note, however, that he wrote one love song for The Talking Heads, but added pointedly that in Stop Making Sense he sings it to a lamp.

"You Belong to Me," sung by Rose McGowan on the soundtrack to Planet Terror

(I have no idea what to make of this photo. Sexy? Silly? Disconcerting? Probably all three.)

Surprisingly, she has a pretty good singing voice. Soft, raspy, with just enough of a "Marilyn Monroe" lilt to keep it sexy in a song that always comes across a little sad. I didn't buy the soundtrack for this track, actually, and for the life of me can't remember it actually appearing in the film. It might just be there as a love note from Robert Rodriguez to his star (or vice-versa), with whom he started a relationship during the course of the film.

The rest of the soundtrack is a predominantly John Carpenter-esque affair, which is fitting since Carpenter was supposedly supposed to do the soundtrack himself. This didn't pan out, but it's still a solid listen with a number of memorable tracks, particularly "Cherry's Dance of Death," which has an almost record number of listens on my I-Tunes.

"Dropkick Me Jesus" by Bobby Bare

(No, I don't own a signed picture of Bobby Bare, but I did get my albums a signed Eddie & The Cruisers record for Christmas once. Five bucks - I don't even think Rhino Records knew that it was signed. Sweeeeeeeeeeet.)

I don't like country music, but I love Bobby Bare. He's a brilliant lyricist and storyteller. I have a wide variety of memories of listening to Bobby Bare in the back yard or car with my father, who has a wonderful tendencies of repeating the lyrics he finds particularly clever or amusing after he hears them.

This song in particular is a great song about football and Jesus, a pair of subjects I don't spend terribly much time thinking about. Here are some lyrics:

"Dropkick me Jesus, through the goalposts of life.
End over end, neither left nor to right.
Straight through the heart of those righteous uprights.
Dropkick me Jesus through the goalposts of life.

Make me, Oh make Lord more than I am.
Make me a piece in your master game plan.
Free from the earthly tempestion below,
I've got the will, Lord, if you've got the toe."

I don't think "tempestion" is a word, but it should be.

"Heart-Shaped Box" by Nirvana

(No idea. Google image search strikes again. But hey, it's got Christopher Lambert in it. It's gotta be pretty good, right? Right?)

I had literally no idea what most of the words were to this song until I played the vastly inferior cover in Guitar Hero 2. The song doesn't make any more sense to me, but at least I know what's supposedly going on behind Kurt Cobain's scratchy screaming.

Yeah, I love Nirvana. Most people love Nirvana. We romanticize the band because Kurt died so tragically and so young, but even so I'm a little surprised that there hasn't been more of a backlash. It's very rare, in my experience, to hear anyone talk about them being over-rated. That's pretty special in the ever-so-fickle popular culture in which we are currently embroiled.

One final note: My mother did and still does have a huge crush on Kurt Cobain, and genuinely likes his music, which, when I was younger, almost killed the band for me. Your parents aren't supposed to like the music of your generation - that's practically the whole point of rock and roll. I've listened to a great number of stories about my grandparents bitching about the Beatles, but my parents? "Oh, he's just dreamy." Not cool, Mom. Not cool.

"Smack That (Dirty)" by Akon featuring Eminem

(More adventures in Google image search. This one? "Smack That." Link's all about the smack down, so I'll cut this one some slack, but...)

No, I'm not embarrassed. Shut up. I went through a period of a few months earlier this year in which I listened to more Hip-Hop/rap/whatever than I ever had before, and I do in fact like it as a musical style/genre. But I am endlessly amused by how simplistic a lot of subject matter can be. Contrast that with my Talking Heads conversation above, and you can see just how confused I am deep in my brain parts. Apparently, the writers of these songs enjoy sex and dancing... a LOT.

But hey, when I'm having sex or dancing (neither of which happens very often lately - *single manly tear*), this is my soundtrack.

I hope that was illuminating.