Category Archives: So Hot Right Now

Apr 09 2013
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By Joshua, So Hot Right Now

Joshua’s So Hot Right Now: April 2013

justin-timberlake-20-20-experience-album-title-details

So, I really hate fake applause to start a track, and also any talking or fucking around after the track is over. It’s why, as good as The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is, I can’t listen to it start to finish – the classroom scenes after each freaking track is insanely annoying. Can’t it just the music? Do we really need the fake context?

However, I have two tracks with this fake applause/bullshit after the song on my list this month. It’s part of a So Hot Right Now list that is filled with musical paradoxes – stuff I’ve always avoided I now like, stuff I wouldn’t put up with anywhere else but here, and bands I’ve always claimed to dislike I’ve found favor in. The big one of these is the inclusion of Justin Timberlake.

I’ve never been a huge fan of popular music, both the genre of pop and music that everybody liked (in fact, I used to be super hipster about it and figured if it had universal appeal, there was something wrong with it), but Justin Timberlake’s new album is surprisingly good.  And not just in the way pop music can happen to be good, but actually musically good, by basically staying in the lines. He doesn’t wow anyone with new sounds, just perfecting that great soul-meets-r&b-meets-dance music sound that modern pop music seems to be straying away from. I’ll never understand – that sound is what made Michael Jackson so good, why not do it again? The lead track on this list, “That Girl,” isn’t quite like a Michael Jackson sound, but it has that thick, deep soul sound that came around with the aforementioned Lauryn Hill and D’Angelo and Jill Scott (notice a pattern there that Timberlake isn’t a part of?) and has big horns. If we were ever to get a Real Funk Revival, it would have to be lead by Mr. Timberlake.

As much as a shock as liking JT’s album was, that’s the kind of feeling I got when I heard the opener to Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside’s new album, Untamed Beast, “They Told Me.” I had been drifting around in a fog for the past few weeks, not really happy or sad, just doing, and Spotify’s radio was playing the same crap it always does (has anyone noticed how bad that service is? It repeats songs all the damn time.) and then that big guitar, thick with reverb and echo, something like out of a nightclub in LA in the 50′s smashing into a nightclub in Seattle in the 90′s, shot through me like .50 caliber hollow-point. It’s a shocking track, even though the sound is fairly similar on their first album – similar, but nowhere near as good. This song shows the sound that band is meant to make, and the sound that could make them.

A few quick hits:

  • I have never liked much of The Rolling Stones’ stuff, but “Loving Cup” is fantastic, and more than likely showing up on a list later this week.
  • Yes, I stole both “Keep the Car Running” and “When U Love Somebody” from Claire’s So Hot Right Now list. Fucking sue me. Also, I got to see The Decemberists cover the latter song, on a tour where they had been touring with the Fruit Bats. And they performed their cover on the same nights as the Fruit Bats played! That’s a real kick in the nuts, if you ask me.
  • The Band’s cover of “Don’t Do It,” originally by Marvin Gaye, is exceedingly good. It may be the only time I prefer a white man’s vocals. RIP Mr. Helm.
  • The penultimate song, “Spanish Moon,” came on WTMD the other morning, and I had to Shazam it – I did not know that was Little Feat. That is some deep funk.
  • The new Dawes track sounds exactly like it could be playing over a “figuring-it-out” montage from an 80′s movie. It’s pretty good, I just can’t shake that image.
Apr 04 2013
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By Claire, So Hot Right Now

Claire’s So Hot Right Now: April 2013

My very wise & owl-y engagement ring

I am back on the first substances we ever embrace—caffeine and sugar. I have Easter egg foil on my bedroom floor and heaps of coffee grinds rotting in my compost bin. I devour a square of chocolate on the walk home from the grocery store, handfuls of dried chili rubbed mangoes (“They’re healthy?” I think, despondently scanning the label). Another black coffee, another, a third—I would like to sip it straight from the pot. I stopped drinking alcohol a month ago: out of nowhere, it started giving me vicious heart flutters. So now I embrace caffeine shivers and scrape together spare quarters for candy like a kid. The Cults sing ‘What I most want is bad for me, I know,” and I nod in agreement.

“What a perfect love song,” I thought the first time I heard “Baby” by Devendra Banhardt. It’s a tall order, modern love songs—so easy to be cheesy or overly simple, so much easier as a listener to lean on the greats from a few decades ago when it comes to romantic music. But this song is silly, pure and joyful, fun to hum and play loudly. And my heart is silly, pure and joyful, it hums and plays loudly, because last month the person I love the most asked me to marry him and I said yes. You can see the happy, bejeweled owl that sits on my left ring finger and makes me smile.

It’s warm and there are little jasmine blossoms on the bushes when I take my walk, there’s a cherry tree that’s flushed and frilly. The sun is out at seven o’clock and I swear I was wrong, San Francisco does have seasons, you just have to live here for three years to feel them. It’s Spring, and the cheerful chorus of “Polaroid Song” is spot-on: “Feel like dancing on my own/ To a record that I do not own/In a place I’ve never seen before.”

It’s Spring, and Van Morrison is a man for all seasons. Every crunchy leaf or drift of snow, every soft pastel April day or first humid morning is best met with a Van Morrison song. I’m sending you glad tidings, from San Francisco.

“Strawberry Bubblegum” sounds like being a teenager in the summer, when you just started driving and there’s that one song that makes you feel sexy and alive, so you play it as much as you can, and the local station follows suit. I’m so tired of the eight minute song, a new favorite of intelligent popstars and rappers, but my weak attention span and jam band hangover didn’t stop me from loving the new Justin Timberlake album. I didn’t expect to, but how can you say no to something so fun and summer-perfect when soaring temperatures and swimming pools are around the corner?

And speaking of things I didn’t think I’d love, a lesson learned: Try the music you hate again. Just like every taste, your music tastes change without you even noticing. And speaking of songs that sound like being a teenager in the summer: “Keep the Car Running” by Arcade Fire fits the bill. Yes, I said I didn’t like them and believed it. Changing my mind was refreshing, and made me wonder what else I was missing. Could I enjoy other things I’ve disliked for years, like Twizzlers or horror movies? A Freon and fake butter scented movie theatre in Baltimore is surely the place to find out. I’ll keep you posted

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Mar 18 2013
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By Joshua, So Hot Right Now

Joshua’s So Hot Right Now, March 2013

Macklemore-Ryan-Lewis-The-Heist-Album-Artwork1

This list is a bit of a departure for me in a couple places. The opening song, “One Thing Leads to Another,” is a great example of this. I’m not usually into the 80′s glam rock, but I saw the movie The House of the Devil the other day, and the scene where the main character is jumping and dancing around this creepy house really stuck with me, and I couldn’t get the song out of my head.

I’ve had a renaissance with Towson University’s radio station, WTMD, in the past week or two. Usually when I go back and forth from work, I listen to sports radio for two reasons: I’m a huge Ravens and Orioles fan, and the speakers in my car are totally blown out. (This happened after a particularly bad day at work when I just had to listen to “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)” by Arcade Fire at 170182710 decibels.) One morning last week, I got disgusted listening to drunk idiots call into the sports station (only idiots call into sports radio stations, and only drunk idiots call into the sports station at 3 am on Saturday) and blindly stabbed at my radio presets, coming up with WTMD, and getting the wonderful track by an Irish band, Little Green Cars, playing “The John Wayne,” which I since have played for everyone and their mother because I think it’s so freaking cool.

Quickly following that song was “Saving Grace,” by Tom Petty. I’ve never really been a fan of Tom Petty – I’ve always found his music rather bland, and in some cases, downright bad. Yeah, I’m talking about “Free Fallin’.” Deal with it. But somehow that morning I connected with this song, and it had to go on the list.

A few other standouts:

  • I’ve had “Midnight Train to Georgia” stuck in my head ever since I re-watched that episode of 30 Rock where Kenneth misses the above train.
  • How fucking good is “Lost In My Mind?!?” Like, right?
  • I almost never listen to whole rap albums (at least, not since NWA’s Straight Outta Compton and A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory) but Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ album The Heist is damn good, and “Can’t Hold Us” has the best hook I’ve heard in years.
Feb 06 2013
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By Claire, So Hot Right Now

So Hot Right Now, February 2013 (by Claire)

My hair icon for February, Cyndi Lauper

Here’s the truth: So Hot Right Now posts are always hard for me to write. I play those 15 songs obsessively, plucking many of them out of thin air and promptly devouring them over the course of the last week of the month. That’s supposed to quell my wandering attention span, that batch of new songs. I line them up and play them on repeat, I pledge my endless listening devotion to them, for the next month at least. I slide one in next to the other, drag it down, rearrange tracks 7 and 15, then 12 and 3, then think about transitions. What sounds delicious? What bridge between two songs is so luscious and unexpected that it has to be honored? A few months ago Joshua slipped “Flowers in Your Hair” by The Lumineers right behind “Summer Breeze” by the Isley Brothers and that movement from one song to the next plucked an emotional chord. It sounded like the first buttery sunshine filled day of summer or the rosy cheeked heat of a new crush. It was perfect. It was the ideal transition. I wanted every transition on my lists to sound as good.

I am obsessive. There are all kinds of corners and knick knacks in my apartment that get fondly pinged by my passing fingertips several times a day. I often listen to a song more than ten times in a row. And that obsessiveness is sometimes fun, but when it comes to making mixes, it’s easy for it to get exhausting. One of my favorite songs last year was “Closer” by Tegan and Sarah. It’s almost unbearable to listen to now because I listened to it so many times. At this point it sounds like construction or a loud clock—that low level jarring kind of noise that pinches your nerves. I wear out so many great songs, I have to shelve them and come back to them months later, if ever (Seriously, after waiting for the new Tegan and Sara album for months, it’s disappointing to have to skip the excellent kick off that is “Closer” every time I listen to it). So Hot Right Now mixes are lists of songs I’ve worn down to the bone. I post them here, and I run as far away from them as I can.

The past week of this brand new month has been full of big emotions, good and bad. I kept meaning to post my original list, but it seemed like it expired on February 1st. I didn’t want to hear all the stuff I’d listened to last month. I wanted the comfort of songs that I loved, songs I could never get tired of. I wanted Tom Petty and Etta James and Liz Phair. I wanted slightly less familiar songs from albums I play often, songs like “Where I’m Waking” by Slow Club and “Again Today” by The Feelies.  I wanted the relief of new songs that I’m still charmed with, like “Young Adult Friction” by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and “Golden Haze” by Wild Nothing. I didn’t want to sort them out because they sounded so perfect and right just where they were, all in a row, where I wanted them to be when I needed to find them.

In case you were curious, and because it was a very good mix, that mix I made and couldn’t listen to for another second, here’s my original So Hot Right Now for February. I hope you enjoy them both—let me know what you’re listening to this month in the comments.

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Feb 01 2013
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By Joshua, So Hot Right Now

So Hot Right Now, February 2013 (By Joshua)

reservoirThe past few days’ weather in Baltimore have been ridiculous. Wednesday was overcast but 65 degrees, while today’s morning greeted us Baltimoreans with a fair dusting of snow, enough to at least make the morning commute a super pain in the ass. Traditionally, February is the month we get all our snow, and I have a feeling we’re in for a terribly cold month.

And yet it’s super hot on my So Hot Right Now list. It’s steamy. It’s Superfly T.N.T., it’s the Guns of the Navarone. The whole list is at least partially inspired by Tarantino, as there is no director on earth better at creating a soundtrack for a movie. The lead track on the list, “Little Green Bag,” is from the memorable title sequence from Reservoir Dogs, a film I always thought was the worst of the Tarantino films until I recently re-watched it. I still think it’s not the best, but it’s much better than I remember, which may not be tough – I first watched it alone in a basement of a host family I didn’t know for a youth group event I hated being at.

Right now, the hottest track on the whole list is “Million Dollar Bill,” by Middle Brother, a folk supergroup made up from the guys from Deer Tick, Dawes, and Delta Spirit. It’s a beautiful track about the spiteful side of heartbreak, with each singer taking a different verse, each verse prettier than the last. I haven’t been able to stop singing it to myself, at all, for a week and a half. If you haven’t listened to their eponymous album yet, do it as soon as possible.

A close second on hotness level has to be a track included on the simply amazing birthday playlist Claire made for me. I must’ve listened to the playlist 30 times since she put it up, and my favorite track (though it’s hard to choose) is “If We’re Still Alive” by Slow Club. I think I played the song to everyone I knew and to everyone in a 50 foot radius of me the week after I heard it. Even my mom liked it, and she usually isn’t down with music made after 1982 or that’s not Top 40 pop. (Though, in true hater fashion, she actively and crazily disliked the bird and the bee’s album of Hall & Oates covers. Yes, she is insane. I mean, their cover of “Rich Girl” alone makes the album worth listening to!)

The last track is one of my all-time favorite songs ever recorded. The Band may be one of the most important acts of the latter half of last century, and The Last Waltz is, without a doubt, the finest concert movie ever made, capturing a show the likes of which we may never see again. I might kill a man for the ability to have been there for it. “I Shall Be Released” was the last song played before the encore break, and featured every star you could possibly imagine at the time singing together, from Eric Clapton to Van Morrison to Joni Mitchell. Hell, they even had fucking Ringo Starr playing the drums! It’s a superbly magical moment in a film with dozens of magical moments. And it’s a pretty goddamn good song as well.

Jan 07 2013
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By Claire, So Hot Right Now

So Hot Right Now: January 2013 (by Claire)

I spent the last few months of 2012 on a well documented hunt for new music; now, I’m embracing the new/old. Friends (read: people I don’t know at all and follow on Twitter) who are already drafting posts on the best albums and songs of 2013, I salute you.  But I need a break. In lieu of the newest of the new, here’s my not new at all discovery: Little Ann. I’m obsessed, and “Going Down A One Way Street” will show you why.

“I don’t like Sonic Youth; it’s all noise.” I’m ashamed to admit it, but I spent so many years parroting that sound bite that I never gave Sonic Youth a fair shake. Then I listened to Sister and I retired that chestnut in favor of endless relistening. “Cotton Crown” gives me chills; I feel deep down better about everything I could feel better about when “You’re gonna manifest the mystery” is on the tip of my tongue.

The holidays always put me on a brief Regina Spector kick.  I have bleary, champagne infused memories of dancing to “Dance Anthem of the 80s” on New Years Eve with a bunch of girls in pretty dresses. Same goes for “I’m Gonna Be Your Elevator,” which I think is my ideal dance party song right now. It reminds me of this scene in The Wild Wild World of Jayne Mansfield where she dances at an underground lesbian nightclub. She has this perfect fitted dress and ridiculous Betty-Draper-in-Italy hair, but best of all and most importantly, she does this adorable swishy twitchy little dance. I model basically all of my dance moves off of it and probably look terrible. Champagne helps. Watch that movie if you haven’t, it’s really bizarre and the whole thing is on YouTube.

The Dum Dum Girls’ cover of “There’s a Light That Never Goes Out” always makes me feel like I’m going to own a leather jacket soon. Songs like that are important, especially with my New Years resolutions, which include “Stay out late,” “See more concerts,” and “Find a leather jacket.” “Anything Could Happen” by Ellie Goulding has the same catchy sense of promise, like the world is your glittery dive bar oyster. I also spent part of the holidays devouring the first season of Girls, and caught this song like a musical flu after watching the trailer for Season 2.

Light and sweet sounds nice for summer music, but sounds pretty fantastic for January music when the weather is not terribly interested in sunshine.  “You’re Too Weird” by Fruit Bats and “Heavy metal drummer” by Wilco will make you smile and consider some lime tinged, tonic filled drink.  The sun came out today after three foggy, rain soaked days spent lying on the couch nursing a cold. Walking to the store in the sunshine with “Baby Be” by The Pharmacy in my ears was just what the doctor ordered.

Now stop worrying about losing five pounds or running a marathon—you’ll do it, I swear, you can do it without worry or incessant social media updates. Take some time and enjoy the new year. Listen to something you love, or finding something new to love on this list. And let me know what you’re listening to this month in the comments.

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Jan 07 2013
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By Joshua, So Hot Right Now

So Hot Right Now, January 2013 (by Joshua)

happy fucking new years

The first So Hot Right Now of the new year! I wish I could say this list will set the tone for the whole year. So, I will. This list will set the musical tone for my whole year. Yeah, I know. Bold. I know, Gerald. I’m a bold kid. (Ok, so, that was supposed to be a link to a video, but apparently there are no videos of Gerald telling Arnold he’s a bold kid. Get on it, interwebs, for I am far to lazy to do it.)

The list starts out rather subdued with “Vivrant Thing” by Q-Tip, as it’s the one track I like by him solo, and it came on the radio the other day and it was stuck in my head. This is not the only song that’s been stuck in head from Spotify radio stations recently, though it’s certainly much less embarrassing than the one that’s not on this list: “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips. I know I must be to blame for getting this to play on a radio station I created and edited, but I genuinely have no idea how it happened. The radio station spawned all of the songs on this list. How did the algorithm come up with Wilson Phillips based on these songs? I’ll never understand math.

A quick note on “Jolene”: I think this may be my favorite song right now, and possibly ever. I have tried, time and time again, to play it too often, and I can’t get myself to hate it. My co-workers certainly hate hearing it; they’ve heard it almost every day for years now. Well, tough shit, co-workers. I control the music.

This month I plan to get through the music catalogues of the vast majority of the artists on this list, as I really only know these songs by these artists. I’m really hoping that these songs aren’t the best they got, because that would be seriously disappointing and waste of my non-valuable time. I will say that I have listened to most of the album Ode to Sunshine by Delta Spirit and it is quite good. Quite good.

Dec 24 2012
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Best of 2012, By Claire, So Hot Right Now

What I Listened to in 2012: Part 3 (by Claire)

The Replacements: A rediscovered love

Here it is: the final page from my musical scrapbook this year. These are the songs I was obsessed with as the seasons changed, as I flew across the world and back, and as I criss crossed the country for the holidays. For the full lists for each month, click on the month/song title below.

September: “First Week/Last Week…Carefree” by Talking Heads

We rented an apartment in Melbourne, from a man who left his dirty t-shirts in the hamper and a scummy bar of soap on the shower ledge. My boyfriend worked all day and I worked all night; we met somewhere in the middle to cook kangaroo steaks and drink bottles of clear skin wine for an hour. The rented apartment was mine—I spent my days there, alone, I stayed up all night working at it’s dining room table, sipping endless espressos and battling the WiFi. I shared it, but not really with my boyfriend, who only came home to sleep and make steaks. And I ignored the owner’s visual claims on the place; his half empty chutneys in the fridge and unopened mail only meant it wouldn’t be mine later, which I knew.

I shared it with Talking Heads 77. I played “First Week/Last Week…Carefree” at 2:00am to wake myself up, sharpen my focus. I played it when I got out of bed, usually far too early, and I played it when I got ready to go out. It was a friend when I was alone, a fun and thoughtful companion for long walks and long nights and a trip that felt….well, long in every way it could. When I listen to it now, I feel like I’m in that little living room in Melbourne, and everything is going to be okay, even if it isn’t.

*Featured in “Top 5 Intros”

October: “Violet” by Hole

I returned from a six week “trip” to Melbourne on October 1st. Very few things went right when I was there; the exciting adventure I embarked on in August soured almost immediately. I arrived in San Francisco with the feeling that I wasted a lot of time and money and health that I couldn’t get back.  I was jet lagged, I was exhausted, but more than anything, I was angry.

I’ve always had a hard time with anger. Anxiety, depression, general nervousness—that whole host of unpleasant emotions I can deal with and accept. But anger is terrifying, strange and unacceptable. It morphs into a million things and it’s rare that I just sit down and deal with it.  “Violet” helped me get in touch with my anger—-it helped me stomp and cry and get it out. Most importantly, it helped me feel better, and not so poisoned by the cloud of frustration that I brought home as a souvenir. Courtney Love became my anger coach and spirit animal. If you ever want to have a beer and a weirdly long talk about her music and food habits, call me.

*Featured in “Album of the Week: Live Through This”

November: “Swingin Party” by The Replacements

Every time I listen to this song, I wonder how I would have interacted with it if I were still in high school.  “Bring your own lampshade/Somewhere there’s a party” would’ve surely been scribbled on the white trim of my knock-off Converses.  “If being strong’s your kind/ then I need help here with this feather/ If being afraid is a crime/ We hang side by side” would’ve appeared in margin doodles, or maybe I would’ve written it in exaggerated script and hung it on my door. And what heartbreak or angst couldn’t have been summer up in an away message with a quick “At the swingin’ party down the line”?

Rediscovering Tim gave me such a visceral, adolescent pleasure that I missed those ways of obsessing over music. There’s a cut off where it stops making sense to pull out a Sharpie and scrawl the lyrics that make up your burgeoning personality on every surface you can find. I passed that cut-off long ago, so I did the grown up thing: I listened to this album a million times. I let the lyrics run through my head. I wondered if I could pull off a lampshade tattoo, and doodled it in the margins of my very polished, grownup person notes.

*Featured in “Album of the Week: Tim”

December:  “Don’t Save Me” by Haim

“You know how people want pop in the summer and dark slow stuff in the winter? I’m the opposite. I’m already happy in the summer—and who wants to be sadder in the winter?” – Zoe M., my wise sister

Here’s a sentiment that made no sense to me until this year.  It was winter in Melbourne when I was there. I came home exhausted and slid straight into working on the election. By the time November 2nd rolled around, there were new huge projects at work and two trips to the East Coast to plan. San Francisco decided it wanted to dress up as Seattle for a few months, so every day was grey and wet with looming rain. I didn’t want to huddle up and listen to something dark or thoughtful. When my serotonin dropped this year, my need for fluffy pop music grew. Enter Haim: a bright burst of straight-forward pop, complete with catchy choruses and a quasi 80s sound. “Don’t Save Me” is particularly great because of the video, which features adorable synchronized dance moments and some very 90s stylings (little twisty buns right on top of the head, come back to me).

When are girl groups going to be a thing again? Boy bands had a renaissance this year; fingers crossed that 2013 brings back the finger snapping, synchronized dancing, matching outfits awesomeness of girl groups.

Honorary Mention: “Young and Cold” by The Raveonettes

Do you disagree completely with everything I said about light-hearted poppy winter music? Then this is the song for you. “Young and Cold” is a classic, dark and foggy song for walking around in cold weather and watching the sun nod off at the crack of 4:00pm. And the chorus is particularly applicable to the winter—“I don’t want to be young and cold.” Agreed, dears.

Click here for “What I Listened to in 2012: Part 1″

Click here for “What I Listened to in 2012: Part 2″

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Dec 20 2012
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Best of 2012, By Claire, So Hot Right Now, Top 5 Lists

What I Listened to in 2012: Part 2 (by Claire)

 

World Party: A new favorite

Musical tastes change as the weather gets warmer. I seem to go back East every summer now for a wedding, so I get a seasonal split: a few weeks of pure steamy Baltimore summer, and a few months of blustery summer time San Francisco fog. When I lived on the East Coast, my summer soundtracks stayed uniformly poppy and light. Now they waiver between upbeat dance-worthy fare, and slightly darker songs.

This is page two from my musical scrapbook this year: the main song I was obsessed with each month, and one honorary mention for the season. For the full lists for each month, click the months/song titles below.


May: “Emmylou” by First Aid Kit

How did two girls from Sweden create the country-tinged folk song of the year? If Stockholm’s weather didn’t come up in the first verse, I would’ve pinned this gem’s geography elsewhere based solely on the sweet Americana feel, so clearly influenced by American folk music. Johanna and Klara Soderberg’s lovely, honeyed voices intertwine on a chorus that’s a music lover’s dream “I’ll be your Emmylou/I’ll be your June/I’ll be your Graham and your Johnny too.” I love songs that directly reference other music and musicians—it’s usually such a friendly hat tip, and a nice reminder that the people who make the music you love are music lovers themselves.

It’s also a deeply moving love song—wistful, full of straight forward declarations of love and regret. They admit to past mistakes and hope for a future where the lovers can reunite, and, even better, sing together. It sounds like something Emmylou Harris or June Carter Cash would sing, if they weren’t the focus of the chorus (Oh how I would love to hear Emmylou Harris cover this song. So, so much).

*Featured in “Songs Named After Girls”


June: “Second Hand News” by Fleetwood Mac

Rumours stalked me last summer when I came back to the East Coast. Everywhere I went—every beach town movie theatre, every local Baltimore bar, every gas station on the way to Philly,  Rumours was playing. It was even firmly lodged in the CD player in my sister’s car, and we listened to it as we criss-crossed the city. It’s a great album at any time of year, but there’s something particularly thrilling about rolling down the windows and playing this on a balmy Baltimore summer evening, when the heat is thick and everything smells like honey suckles and car exhaust. I’d listened to enough bits and pieces of this album over the years that I knew almost all of it, except for “Secondhand News.” What a treat to find something new tucked away in an old favorite. It’s such a great song too, and really encapsulates that “blasting Fleetwood Mac in the summer” feeling—I love the line “Won’t you lay me down in the tall grass/and let me do my stuff.”

 

July: “A Minor Incident” by Badly Drawn Boy

Every time I hear “Reconsider Me” by Warren Zevon, I burst into tears. I tell people this and no one gets it. My sister played me a song by some local band a month ago, where the floppy haired singer asked a girl to come back to him. It was terrible, but overwhelmingly sincere, and at one point I covered my ears and winced, saying “Ahhh! Too earnest!”

Lugubrious songs full of weepy stories? Sure, those get to me. But thin skinned, wide eyed earnestness? That destroys me. “A Minor Incident” is a suicide letter from a mother to her preteen son, based on events in the book About a Boy. It’s sad and sweet and straightforward, and the guitar bits and wheezy harmonica sound like early Bob Dylan (but it’s not Dylan, a plus for all you Dylan haters). The plain spoken honesty is heartbreaking—the first lines are “There’s nothing I could say to make you try to feel okay/ And nothing you could do to stop me feeling the way I do.” Ugh. But the truth is I like songs that spur crying jags—I think they’re cathartic and really satisfying. Sitting around crying on purpose to songs that I like is my version of a bubble bath.

August: “Put the Message in the Box” by World Party

Do you ever hear the first few bars of something, sit back, release a voluminous sigh you didn’t know was stuck in your chest and feel like all is right in the world? That’s how I felt when I first heard “Put the Message in the Box” in August. It’s such a treat when a few notes of something spur an overwhelming feeling of wellbeing. World Party woke up my imagination, and made it colorful and happy as I walked around daydreaming and listening to this on repeat. I don’t know how it took this long for me to come across this band, but I’m thrilled that I did because they quickly became one of my favorites.

Honorary Mention: “Our Most Brilliant Friends” by Slow Club

Lets just admit that Yeah, So is a truly perfect album. If these posts were focused on “Top 12 Not Necessarily Current Albums of 2012,” Yeah, So would be at the top of the list. The first four minutes of “Our Most Brilliant Friends” are like a kick in the adrenal glands. It’s exciting and playful, it makes me want to run outside and find some tiny late night hub bursting with sweaty dancing masses. I would wear my hair wild and curly and some slip of a dress, and jump up and down at the “Your body looks GOOD tonight” part.  Then it segues into this beautiful breakup song with lovely insightful lyrics, with just Rebecca Taylor’s voice and guitar. Dancing and jumping, followed by something wistful and pretty? This is the musical equivalent of the total package for me.

Click here for What I Listened to in 2012: Part 1 by Claire

 

 

 

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Dec 18 2012
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Best of 2012, By Claire, So Hot Right Now, Top 5 Lists

What I Listened to in 2012: Part 1 (by Claire)

Etta James: My main 2012 musical obsession

One can’t subsist on a diet of new music alone. Okay, you could, but I don’t recommend it—imagine how many songs and albums you would miss if you firmly planted your playlists in the current year with no exceptions.  I love year end wrap up lists about music that came out this year—but what about the scads of other music you listened to?

Here’s page one from my musical scrapbook of 2012: These are the Top 5 songs I listened to in the beginning of the year, the ones that shaped my monthly soundtracks and that I couldn’t stop playing if I tried. For the full lists for each month, click the months/song titles below.

January: “I’ll Try Anything Once” by Julian Casablancas

I became really exhausted by insincerity and apathy this year. How embarrassing for me, right? What a gee shucks, fresh off the turnip truck sentiment (…why is it always turnips?). But there it is: I like sincere people who care about things. I want to be more like that, not less. And (oh, the cringe worthy vulnerability here guys, I can hardly bear it) I think I got really in touch with that sentiment when I heard this song.

The Strokes, whose tour bus I once trailed after a show with fellow moonstruck girlfriends (all of us far too innocent and curfew abiding to go full out Pamela De Barres, we simply followed the bus as long as we could and then went home), were my late high school rock icons. They were loud and oddly sexy; I screamed and jumped through their show, finally understanding the squaking, convulsing crushes my middle school friends used to have for every boy band du jour. Almost a decade later, I heard this fragile, bare bones song—so soft and spare, with nothing but Julian Casablanca’s voice and a keyboard. The lyrics are mostly straightforward, sagacious (to a confused, slightly lost 20something) life advice: “10 decisions shape your life, you’ll be aware of 5 about” and “There is a time when we all fail/Some people take it pretty well/Some take it all out on themselves.”

I listened to this 100 times, at least. I liked the weariness, and how different it sounded from The Strokes I knew years ago. I too was feeling weary and changed. I was growing tired of writing borderline mean jokes that don’t mean much. I was tired of pretend opinions and sound bites. I started wondering who I actually want to be and if I’m becoming that. It was earnest and it was deeply uncool; but, most of all, it was a relief, the kind that warrants a million cheesy similes (my favorite is “like a breath of fresh air”).

It’s a year later, and I’m still wondering.

February: “My Dearest Darling” by Etta James

In Songbook, Nick Hornby says writing about how and where you heard a song is for the birds (my words, his bird-free sentiment), that if you really love a song it doesn’t matter how and where you heard it. I say Nick Hornby is a fool (*gasp*): when a love is new, you tell it’s story, and I fell in love with Etta James last winter. It took two distinct listens to become hooked on this song. The first time: at a smoky bar the size of my closet under the train tracks in Tokyo, where I sat spellbound under a chandelier. The second time: at a shoe store in San Francisco, delirious with the flu, buying very expensive high heels for a business trip I was too sick to go on. Both instances had wildly different levels of glamour and health, but shared one thing: They became moments frozen in my memory because I heard that song and had to hear it again, as soon as possible, as much as I could.

March: “Spooky” by Dusty Springfield

Dusty Springfield makes the word groovy sound seductive. That feat deserves it’s own accolades. “Spooky” is a luscious ridiculously sexy song that is very 60s without being dated, very slow and jazzy without veering into smooth jazz or lounge lizard territory. It’s an odd defiant miracle of a song, refusing to be any of the things it’s supposed to be, sort of like the spooky little boy Dusty is singing to.  I love the full stops and snaps, the echo-ey moment at the end, and most of all Dusty Springfield’s light, soulful voice.

In honor of year end wrap up season, one of my favorite TV moments of 2012 was Jane Krakowski playing Dusty Springfield in the live 30 Rock last season.

*Featured in “Top 5 Songs for a Foggy Day“

April: “Wagon Wheel” by Old Crowe Medicine Show

I missed this song when it had a moment a few years ago.  When I heard it this year, the timing was perfect: San Francisco was experiencing a handful of rare, summery days and all I wanted to do was lie around in the park with friends, drink wine, and listen to something cheerful with a fiddle.

I love those songs that get so tied into the weather that it’s impossible to untangle them. It’s brisk and drizzly outside as I write this; Christmas is around the corner and I head back East tomorrow. But as I listen to this song on repeat, I want to throw the windows open, slip into a sundress, invite everyone I adore over for dinner. I have an unquenchable craving for the green capped, seven dollar Vino Verde I swill from April through August.

Honorary Mention: “Day Dreaming” by Aretha Franklin

Love, travel, day dreaming, and Aretha Franklin? All my favorite things, all at once. “Day Dreaming” perfectly represents the swooning, butterflies in your stomach part of love. The theme of sitting around, daydreaming about someone you love who will sweep you off to some exciting elsewhere is charming and matched well by the dreamy flute and electric piano. Why don’t people ever use lines like this in their wedding vows: “I want to be what he wants, when he wants it, whenever he needs it/When he’s lonesome and feelin’ love starved, I’ll be there to feed him/ Lovin’ him a little bit more each day.” How great would wedding ceremonies be if everyone swapped Corinthians for some Aretha Franklin lyrics?

Fun fact: Rumor has it this song is about Dennis Edwards, from The Temptations.

*Featured in “Songs for When You Need to Get Away“

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