Project 2010: Day 90 - Firsts

Wow. 90 days of listening to my iPod in order of song title, yet I'm only on the F's. Oh well. Here are some comments on some things that I've listened to today, which brought me deep into the "Firsts".

I'll spare you the R.E.M. "Finest Worksong," but that doesn't mean I didn't love listening to it.

"Fire and Rain" is one of those songs that I thought I liked more than I actually like. It's always longer than I think it is, and slower than I think it's going to be. See for yourself:



On the other hand "Fire Island, AK" by The Long Winters gets better every time. Also the lead singer of The Long Winters has been hanging with John Hodgeman, which makes him even cooler in my nerdy mind.



Fireworks is one of my favorite Animal Collective songs that isn't on Merriweather.



I have posted this video before because it is maybe my favorite video in the history of the world to go with a song that I am in love with. Hooray for Bright Eyes!



And yet another song I love came up today- again, I know I've posted about Noah and the Whale before, but today was actually "First Days of Spring" day, which it totally is. Apt. Although I'm not going through a horrifying break up at the moment. Here's hoping!

Project 2010: zooming through the F's

So I've been going through the F's at a pretty decent clip. I'm at 1,766 of 6,870. Yesterday I spent the entire day listening to 90 Dashboard Confessional songs in preparation for a show I'm going to in a couple of weeks.

I really enjoyed Fields Of Coal by And You Will Know Us... I couldn't find anything decent to embed so follow the link.

Classic Beastie Boys always makes me feel like I'm back in middle school again- in the best possible way.



Honestly, they won't change your life:



Is it just me or does Yeasayer sound a bit like Rusted Root?



probably just me.

Project 2010

So today I ended the E's and moved into the F's and mad it to 1,708 of 6,854. Here a selection of what I listened to today:

I have an unnatural love of Straylight Run. When we get to the S's I'll do an entire post on the Straylight Run / Brand New / Taking Back Sunday nexus. I'll also talk more about them when I get to a song off of "Prepare to be Wrong" which is an album that I love for both its music and its politics, but for now I'll just give you "Existentialism On Prom Night."



The answer to the question is yes:



And I love this song. I love this video. Very angry. Very cool.



More REM. Cause I love them. And you do too.



I find I have no idea what this song means, but I'm still positive that it is as relevant today as it was in 1986.

Here's another of my top 5 Phish songs:

Project 2010: A lot of Everything

Dog's Eye View. Did anyone even know that they existed even in 1995? Well, I did. For some reason I really liked "Everything Falls Apart," and now that I'm listening to it I realize it. It's catchy. It's true. Maybe the tempo should be a little quicker, but who am I to judge. In fact, I'm hitting repeat.



By the way, now that I'm watching this video I realize why all of my clothes from high school are still too big for me.

While everything is falling apart for Dog's Eye View, Motion City Soundtrack thinks that everything is alright. Bad play on words, but it is my favorite Motion City song.



Let me extol the virtues of Lilly Allen. She's great. There it is. "everything's wonderful" is a wonderful rant about the way the world works today.





and just to restore some of my terribly damaged indie cred here is Interpol's Evil.

Project 2010

OK, so things have been busy. Not sure how great my updating will be for the next week or three. Here goes nothing:

One of the really interesting things about this project is that some bands just sound a little bit better when you're not listening to an entire 50 minutes of them at a stretch. I Can Make A Mess Like Nobody's Business / The Early November totally fits into this category for me. Every time one of their songs pop up I really like it, yet I seem to be loath to just listen to one of their albums straight though, and as much as I really love The Decembrists, I think I like them more when they just pop up randomly for 3-6 minutes and then go away for a little bit. Today I heard "The Engine Driver" from The Decembrists.



One of the really great things about this project is finding songs that I may have overlooked. For example some songs might be on a Say Anything double album that at some times might be a little bit grating. On the other hand, apparently "Every Man Has A Molly" is somewhere in there. and yes, we all do.

Project 2010: Day 7X

Today I listened to two different versions of 10,000 Maniacs "Eat For Two." One was the original album version and the other was the MTV Unplugged version. (Sidenote- the Unplugged shows were really great, and it's a shame that MTV decided that music wasn't a really interesting thing to have on TV. Oh well. Not an original thought by any means, but there it is).

The two versions could not be more different. Sure, same words, same band, same singer, but the album version is much faster and practically uptempo, where the Unplugged version is mournful. The Unplugged version seems much more faithful to the feeling of the lyrics of the song, but the album version also has its merits (by the way, it's off of Blind Man's Zoo).

Project 201: Day 76 - The E's!

Sodastream is a guitar player and cello player from Australia. I have their album "The Hill For Company." I saw them opening for Saturday Looks Good to Me in an Ann Arbor, Michigan basement several years ago. Today I listened to "A Drum" and it is just an incredibly beautiful song. The vocals for this duo are just really wonderful. I couldn't find anything good to embed, but the link above sends you to their discography page and has lots of tracks that you can listen to.

In the same vein of kinda mellow songs, I got to Dashboard Confessional's "Dusk and Summer." I have a pretty strong love for Dashboard. His "So Impossible" EP's is one of my favorite song cycles.



Started the "E's" today with R.E.M.'s "E-Bow The Letter." I think I talked about R.E.M. yesterday, so I'll give it a rest for a minute.

Apparently bands were really into E songs with hyphens, because I also heard Beck's E-Pro. Who doesn't love a little bit of Beck on a Thursday?



Finally, I heard Iron and Wine's "Each Coming Night." Samuel Beam makes some really beautiful music, and this is a really good example of what he does. I think a lot of people would recognize he cover of "Such Great Heights" that was on the Garden State soundtrack.