Under Pressure.

Since moving across town and across the street from a small shoping center (complete with a grocery store, a hamburger place, a Chinese place, a Mexican place, a dry cleaners and a Honey Baked Ham store!) I have found myself finding excuses to walk over there simply because I love being able to walk over there. I will be sitting around the apartment bored out of my mind and thinking, “You know, I would really like some peanuts, I should walk over to the store and get some peanuts.” And then, you know what happens? Yeah, I walk over to the store and get some peanuts.

On a recent weekend day which I had dedicated to doing absolutely nothing but reading (I actually ended up reading and also drinking wine and hanging things up around the apartment, which I’m sure pleased my roommates to no end) I ended up walking over to the store like 5 times. Just to get stuff that I kept thinking of. Luckily I refuse to let myself buy truly frivolous things, so I’m basically always walking over there for cat food or canned green beans or some such banality.

So now you’re asking yourself, ”Why do I care?”

Well listen, jerk, no one is forcing you to read this blog!

But if you stop now you will miss out on the super awesome playlist I was about to tell you about … yeah, see, now you care.

Well when I walk over there I put my iPod on and since I am normally walking over there shortly after I get back from work, I am still all super stressed out. I realized the necessity of having a de-stressing mix for after work. So I made one and it is awesome. Here it is, enjoy:

Under Pressure – David Bowie and Queen
(Just classic and never wrong)

Crazy in Love – Snow Patrol
(Yeah, Snow Patrol covering Beyonce. It is the coolest/creepiest thing since The Flaming Lips covered Kyle Minogue)

Hey Ya – Michael Schulte
(A slow, sweet, acoustic cover of OutKast’s “Hey Ya!”. Hilarious and also, somehow, very good and touchingly sad)

We Are Young – We Are Young
(I WISH I could claim to have heard this song before it was used in that Super Bowl ad with the cars doing stunts, but I cannot. Anyway, this is one of those songs that’s so good that you have to forgive it for being so pop-tacular)

Alphabet Pony – The Kills
(The Kills are an aggressively weird band and this is an aggressively weird song. Kinda sexy, kinda mean, kinda occasionally spastically arrhythmic)

After Hours – We Are Scientists
(If you do not know "We Are Scientists" just think of a really cute man who is also talented and funny and genuine and just an all around awesome guy who you would totally hate except that he’s so fucking cool. Well this is what his life sounds like. [His slightly less cool younger brother sounds like Vampire Weekend, BTW])

Kiss With a Fist – Florence & The Machine
(Everybody knows and loves Florence by now, but this is, I thought, the most wickedly catchy song on her first album. I have had relationships that this song might as well be about)

Out of the Races – The Rapture
(Oh, The Rapture, they were one of those 90s bands that was always on the cusp of becoming the next big thing, sadly though they never quite made it. That fact aside, they are consistently one of my favorite bands in the world and this is kind of their flagship song. I structured a whole novel around this song once!)

Blah Blah Blah – Ke$ha
(Yes. Ke$ha. Deal with it. This is the dirrty song on her first album)

Sweet Disposition – The Temper Trap
(Hey! Remember when “500 Days of Summer” came out and this song sort of changed your life for a second? Then remember how it was used in a Diet Coke commercial that tried to make drinking Diet Coke seem cool? Side note: I have become pretty certain that “500 Days of Summer” is about me and I just never realized it)

Boom Boom – The Animals
(A charming and delightful friend of mine recently turned me on to The Animals. Of course I had heard of them, but had never really paid any attention. Well they are old - school, kinda dirty and all around undeniable)

London Bridge – Fergie
(Chuckle all you want, but this song makes me happy! Side note: I actually happened to be in London when this album first came out and was walking across the actual London Bridge and guess what had been put up just at one end of it? Yeah, a giant billboard for this single. The perfect symmetry of place and shameless marketing)

This Fire – Franz Ferdinand
(Does it get cooler than Franz Ferdinand? No, no it does not. In my imaginary life I go out at night to dark LA ultra-lounges and wear a trim-ly tailored pinstriped gray suit and somehow emit the sound of Franz Ferdinand)

Senorita – Justin Timberlake
(Look, at this point if you still scoff at Justin Timberlake’s talent, then you’re basically the same as a Holocaust denier. You and the nation of Iran should have a good time hanging out, because I will be busy listening to this song with a giant grin on my face.)


And then, when this playlist is over, I do not feel stressed out anymore.

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Speaking of Unicorns!

Special thanks to Comfortably Recovering Annette for knowing how much joy this would bring me.

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Ke$ha, Still Better than Metallica.

So if you happen to actually know me, which most of you do (except for the one guy in Denmark who stumbled across this blog looking for naked pictures of Jessica Alba, sucker!), then you probably know that I have been on a regrettable Ke$ha bender the last few months. I am not simply a Ke$ha apologist, no I’m an advocate, an apostle if you will.

With the notable exception of the Black Eyed Peas, I try not to proselytize about my Pop music predilections (yes, I am purposefully trying to use large words so that I sound less lame. Is it working?), however sometimes Pop music comes along that is just the right mix of engineered and yet somehow invigoratingly not sterile. Also, I have been going through some difficult times and Ke$ha’s music is both fun and completely lacking any emotional resonance, so it works for me in that way too.

Anyway, why bring this up other than to embarrass myself on the internet? Because I came across this article: The Anti-Gaga, in a recent NEWSWEEK and I found it to be sort of interesting and humanizing. I mean, yes, she is still kind of just a dumb pop star girl, but I think that the idea of this music as a sort of anti-glam self-expression-for-the-poor is interesting, especially in an era when all of the symbols and sounds of punk have been appropriated by the marketing machine, maybe there is something to the idea of getting the marketing machine to propagate the anti- (‘anti-‘ whatever, it doesn’t really make any difference).

Or am I just intellectualizing?

That might be possible too.

Anyway, while you’re scoffing, I should tell you that my taste in music is just as good as yours, only I remember that Elvis was Pop once, so were your precious Beatles, so were the Stones. I argue that Metallica always was, so too Rancid, Nine Inch Nails, The Smiths, The Stranglers. Shit, Nirvana was somebody’s Pop music too.

Anyway, read the article, or don’t. It is an exercise in freedom.

Here is Ke$ha’s “TiK-ToK” video. The video is both low-budget and low-concept, but I challenge you to play it and not get this song stuck in your head.



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