I wasn’t kidding about making this a weekly – I have a million of these. Give me any ideas you have

GEORGIA

Gladys Knight & The Pips ‘Midnight Train to Georgia’

Iron & Wine ‘Sodom, South GA’

Ray Charles ‘Georgia on My Mind’

The Charlie Daniels Band ‘Devil Went Down to Georgia’

and here’s another I love, which mentions Georgia in the lyrics

Otis Redding ‘Sittin on the Dock of the Bay’

One of my favorite little brain games to play when I am alone in my car is to take whatever song is currently playing on the radio, and try to think of three other songs that have a common theme. I listen to a lot of music so I can usually come up with plenty.

Today’s topic is RAIN.

Blind Melon – No Rain

Garbage – Only Happy When it Rains

Missy Elliott – The Rain

Eurythmics – Here Comes the Rain Again

I think I’ll make this a weekly post on my blog…

You might remember me gushing about Haim after the Gentlemen of the Road tour…one hopes you took my excellent music advice and downloaded their EP faster than you can say ‘jupiter julep’, which I just made up and will shortly turning into a best selling cocktail at my local bar. I guess.

Anyway, if you haven’t, here’s some more incentive: they’ve released two more singles! Get thee to iTunes and download the ‘Forever’ EP and their new singles ‘Send Me Down’ and ‘Don’t Save Me’. DO IT NOW.

‘Forever’ by Haim (Official music video)

‘Go Slow’ by Haim

However you feel, whatever you stand for, just make sure to get out there and vote today.

My soundtrack, lately…

Mayer Hawthorne ‘The Walk’

The Beatles ‘A Day in the Life’

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros ‘Man on Fire’

Jimmy Eat World ‘Invented’

Johnny Cash ‘Hurt’ (cover of the Nine Inch Nails song)

Who’s excited that The Pierces latest album will FINALLY be available stateside (march 26th)?! ME!

Am i right!? So sad, however, that they make it to the US to tour for the first time in 4 years, and it’s with Coldplay – meaning, Coldplay ticket prices, and in a gigantic arena. PHOOEY.

This is kind of a weird music rant. Stick around if you’ve got some thoughts to share. I have a tendency to ramble; try to overlook

A few weeks ago, I was shown the clip of Lana Del Rey’s truly terrible performance on SNL. What the heck was that!? I know that she supposedly has stage fright, but…wow. Pretty bad.

I’d heard from a few people whose musical opinions I respect, that I shouldn’t decide based on this poor performance. I gave Lana a fair shake, and tried the recorded version instead. I thought Hmmm…not so bad. Actually, I kind of like it. Okay – so I do like the song.

In the interest of musical experiments and fairness, I gave the entire album a listen. Mehhhh.  ’Born to Die’ and ‘Diet Mountain Dew’ are ok tracks, along with the aforementioned ‘Video Games’.  She doesn’t sing well in the low, throaty, speak-sing voice she’s trying to use to appear sexy. When she’s actually singing in her natural voice, it’s not bad, but it isn’t exciting. Tim and I have agreed that if someone else were to sing these songs, they’d be really good; with Lizzie/Lana behind them, nothing really hits you hard enough to evoke a pure response. So…I guess I would say that there’s great song-writing and producing talent evident, but she might want to pass these off to someone else. I don’t need a perfect voice (I like a bit of grit sometimes), but here it’s like all the moaning is supposed to mean something…but it doesn’t.  It’s just not thrilling. I don’t hate it.

Live performances are a big part of the music experience, at least for me, so I know that I would never spend money a ticket to see her perform; it still says something when you can’t sing in front of your fans. The good news is, with time and practice, she’ll probably get the hang of it.

A friend and I got into a discussion about Ms Lana aka Lizzie Grant before I’d heard the music – and at the end of it, I felt like I’d mostly been a girl. By that I mean that maybe I was treating her like a bitchy girl would treat a ‘rival’; in a different way than I’d discuss a male musician. Look, it’s not to say that I would’ve been a huge David Bowie fan back in the 70s, and he did basically the same thing, performing as his alter ego Ziggy Stardust, in order to create a different sound. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not compairing the two musically. I like David Bowie now, but back then, it might not have really worked for me. I guess I just feel like I might not have said the same thing if we were talking about him.

Does my inital dislike really all come down to how I feel about women in general? How much of a feminist can I be if I dismissed a female artist for doing what is, in actuality, the same thing I admire in a male musician? But then…I get to thinking even MORE about it. Why does all of it bother me? If I REALLY step back and take a look, isn’t EVERY very successful musician’s persona a part of their mystique? Bob Dylan has created himself as so many different characters in his career that they made a movie about it. It’s a fool’s game to try and decipher which musicians are ‘real’ and which aren’t. Every artist has started as one sound and ended as another – it’s part of the evolution of music, a critical step in the careers of every intelligent artist.

I might be over-thinking it (I usually do), but this seemingly simple subject turned my thoughts to something more serious. Weird how that happens.

What’s funny is, I am fully aware that by writing this post, and subsequently publishing it on my blog, I am adding to the hype I’m trying to avoid. I’ve somehow become a part of a mass-media objective to propel her into the stars, even with my very small readership; I’ve contributed to the words written about her. In the end, her album has done what it was seemingly meant to do, which is to get people talking. Mission accomplished.

I have three random things to post. I hope it’s okay?

First is this song that I’ve been listening to quite often the past week:

Gotye feat Kimbra ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’

Agenda item #2

I feel pretty in these pictures, so I wanted to share them with you.

When you need a good photo of yourself for Christmas cards and it’s too windy for the tripod, the only thing to do is set your camera to the correct f-stop, figure out the spot your husband needs to stand in (and the amount of squat to get the right angle), and tell him exactly when to click the shutter and hope that he doesn’t screw up the focus.  It works pretty well, as long as your hubby takes direction and won’t mess with the white balance.

Thanks, darling!

And the third item…

I recently purchased this book for Marco:

It’s a counting board book with characters and themes from Romeo & Juliet! LOVE.

And there, folks, is a random post for Thursday.

Here’s my playlist for the week…it’s been a really crappy one, and I’ve been hitting the music hard (might need a DD, lol).

Forewarned is forearmed – my list is a little schizo? I’m all over the place.

Weeks with this song on repeat, and I still can’t turn it off.

The Head and the Heart – Lost in my Mind

Evidently I’m the last person in the world, but I just found this song last month:

The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow

I can’t decide if I actually like this song, or if I like it because it reminds me so much of the Kinks (‘Lola’, anyone?). Maybe both?

Noah and the Whale – L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N

This one reminds me of early Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys (thanks to Adrian for the rec!)

The Naked and the Famous – Young Blood

And this song always makes me want to dance.  Why can’t he stick to singing!?

Timbaland feat Justin Timberlake – Carry Out

Heard this on Stephen Colbert last week and almost peed my pants. It’s THAT good.

Yo-Yo Ma/Stuart Duncan/Edgar Meyer/Chris Thile – Attaboy

What are you listening to?

BTW, music recommendations are always welcome

Tonight is the Jimmy Eat World concert, and I am SO PSYCHED! They’ll be playing all ‘Bleed American’ tracks, plus a few more songs to round out the show. ‘Bleed American’ is not my favorite album, and purists will tell you it’s their most commercial (yeah, it is, but it still has good songs, and I’m going to rock out to it with a full heart and a one, two, shimmy-shimmy-shake).

For those of you unable to attend tonight, here’s a few tracks from the album:

Bleed American

Sweetness

I’m hoping they’ll play this version of  ’Your House’:

Cautioners

Whee!! This will be my 11th Jimmy Eat World concert, which is super awesome.

Just occurred to me: I can grab more merch for Marco!