So I've decided to put the commercial mix tape thing on hold. I know, I know, this is hard for me too, but together we'll get through this. I'll probably come back to it at some point, but it was becoming annoying to me, and I thought that I would instead post songs that I've been obsessing over, and invite you, the reader, to talk about the tracks that have you feeling a bit abnormal because you're listening to them non-stop.
Thanks to iTunes, I can accurately record just how nearly autistic I'm becoming about a new song I've stumbled across. I've found play counts to be just searing indictments of compulsive listening, and are even more startling when you plug your iPod into sync and it reveals you listened to that Spoon song 40 times in the last two days. So this happy mish-mash of shame and compulsion is the context for the songs I'll be posting for a while.
I've set myself some rules for this series. They are as follows:
- I have to have listened to the song at least 20 times
- I have to have listened to it at least 3 times in a row on repeat
- It has to be from 2007. (This may change)
- I have to have tried to push the song on people
- I have to feel at least a twinge of shame when I listen to it
- I have to have turned off my last.fm tracking widget so that I don't display to anyone on this blog how obsessed I am about the song because I've played it over and over at work
The first song up is "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem from back in March. So first up, it definitely qualifies on rule #5. Plenty of assholes love this guy, and it is more or less dance music, which is kind of retarded for me to listen to because I fucking hate to dance. But I can tap my foot along with this song all day long. Great spiky piano line to start, and then a slow build through the verses and the shout-sung chorus. And not awful lyrics either at times -- the song has the sort of lines that are comforting/relatable after you've just turned like 30 or something (not that I'd know or anything, really) without being sappy.LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends
I'm interested to see what songs you guys have had these same kind of 'crushes' on - the thing where you know it's not healthy or normal to play this same song over and over again, but it's just too satisfying. So what ya got?
5 comments:
Weirdly I have a lot to say about this all. First of all I should say I choose 'pretty lame' since I think the new look is pretty.
Secondly, I obsess over songs in two ways. One - it just hits me, from the first note, that I have to listen to a song 40K times. Two - it's a normal song, but a line, or note, or hook, will hit me as genius, causing me to slowly love every other part too. This LCD song seems like #2 for me at least. At first I thought, 'really' and now I'm like, 'oh yah, really'.
Thirdly, there's a line that goes 'We set controls for the heart of the sun.One of the ways that we show our age'. 'Set the controls for the heart of the sun' is a classic Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd song.
Lastly, 'All My Friends' is a song title from
- Counting Crows
- Our Lady Piece
- Say Anything
- Amos Lee
As well as LCDS. Interesting.
"happy mish-mash of shame and compulsion" is the context for my life.
wicked lame. but understandable. but don't worry: when you say autistic, i say AUTASTIC!
dan - that is a great lyric in the song. the one that got me when i heard is probably the sappiest line in the track - 'you spend the first five years' part.
crystal - good to hear that a "happy mish-mash of parliament lights and unwritten third novels" has not yet become the context for your life. but give it time i suppose.
mike - genius line.
everyone - i want to know the songs you've been obsessing over! are you guys that ridden with shame that you can't tell me?!
well as i mentioned to you earlier, i had an instant infatuation w/ tv on the radio's "wolf like me"...even though it's so friggin dancy.
i too hate the dance tunes. it's the devil's foxtrot it is!!
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