04 Ryan Adams – 04 – Desire

Apologies to all those who care, but due to lala.com’s impending closure and the lack of suitable playlist embedding, I’m going to go on a sabbatical of sorts until I can figure out a way to embed listenable playlists on this blog.  Until then…

I’ve done these before–night time playlists–but I think the topic deserves revisiting.  After all, more than 20-30 songs match a night-time feel.  Stars, tranquility, blackness, bleak.  Doesn’t have to be depressing, just has to feel like it fits best at night.  When the day’s ending, when the daily deliberations and responsibilities are resolved, when retrospection takes hold.

Most of the time, I used to fill these hours with TV or movies or video games.  That’s less and less now.  More, I feel the need to escape.  Completely and totally.  Those aforementioned activities and mediums used to do the trick.   I could play video games for hours and wholly lose track of time (I had music simultaneously playing, coincidentally.   Didn’t focus on it exclusively, however).

Now what works best is music.  Can’t tell you why because I really don’t understand.  Maybe because music forces me to concentrate, much like a book.

Anyway, here’re some more night songs.

Sorry, the lala plugin is no longer available, so you have to go here: http://lala.com/ziGcI

Artists Within: rage against against the machine, manchester orchestra, rogue wave, 2pac, florence and the machine, gomez, bone thugs-n-harmony, outkast, hot chip, m. ward, yeasayer, wolf parade, the dodos, dirty projectors, michael franti & spearhead, office, passion pit, peter bjorn and john

For the most part, this list has to do with rhythm and flow. So, there’s rap on here. Yes, that’s rare for me, but it absolutely shouldn’t be. Rap just doesn’t fit as many situations I find myself in because the content revolves around having shitloads of money, banging women, and being God’s greatest gift to humanity (oh no, I’m not biased).

But then there are rappers with a conscience, ones who actually rap about something that matters. For example, Michael Franti (“We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can’t bomb it into peace.”) and occasionally Jay-Z (“It gets worse, baby momma water burst / Baby came out stillborn, still I gotta move on / Though my heart still torn, life gone from her womb / Don’t worry, if it was meant to be, it’ll be — soon.”) So I know rappers have it in them to get some depth in their songs; everybody feels pain and happiness, and they don’t exclusively get it from money and “bitches” (although those things help).

Then again, plenty of people say many rock songs don’t make sense (see: all Radiohead albums), but at least the music behind the words has a point and emotional undertones. Take away the words from a rap song, and it’s just a hard beat. It doesn’t tell too much of a story.

Handclaps will not escape this list, because handclaps are EVERYWHERE in basketball. High-fives, fans, coaches, and teammates clapping, people slapping a shooter’s hand.

Of course, some atmospheric, slowdown, ethereal qualities would help when players like LeBron James soar through air, seemingly in slow motion.

Most of all, the songs have quick stops and starts, a strange or smooth rhythm, adrenaline-infusing energy, or triumphant overtones that relate to one team trying to win over another.

But flow and rhythm (whether in the music or in the words) carries the playlist, much the same way flow and rhythm carries basketball.

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Artists Within: blind pilot, frightened rabbit, the besnard lakes, mumford & sons, the antlers, beck, beth orton, bishop allen, bon iver, sea wolf, shout out louds, sigur ros, shane nicholson, shearwater, tindersticks, train, travis, yo la tengo, vampire weekend, sea of is, ryan adams, rogue wave, the reindeer section, the perishers, ray lamontagne, the national, midlake, matchbox twenty, feist, david gray

Work can be tedious.

What an incredibly astute statement that was.

But when most of people don’t get a sufficient amount of sleep and they’re repeating the same tasks for nine hours or more, their eyelids quickly become heavier and heavier until there’s absolutely no way they can keep those lids up if they keep sitting in silence. Finally, the bosses see them sitting straight up–but with their eyes closed, and they’re snoring Ya never know.

Apart from physical energy, work can also sap emotional and mental energy. Having to deal with obnoxious coworkers or intensely focus on tasks for long spans of time is never good for maintaining a cheery attitude. Not really good for anything, really, except making money.

By the end of the day, people are completely worn out. Or completely wound up. Anger, frustration, irritability have all been building up throughout the day, and somehow that has to dissipate.

That’s where music comes in.

Even if it’s playing at an extremely low volume out of one headphone while the other dangles uselessly, it’s refreshing. Just to relax. The following songs work the best on a solitary commute home after work, possibly at night, trying to destress and not think for a while. The moon seems to trail and watch over the car (someone explained to me a long time ago how that works, but I can’t remember, so I still get kind of freaked out or comforted by it–one or the other).

The tempos saunter along, and they’re usually not overloaded with electric guitars or loud bass drums. Granted, after having all your energy stricken away, these songs could put you to sleep. Seriously; they’re sort of the same type of songs you’d listen to while lying your head against a pillow. Surreal at times. Especially The Besnard Lakes and Sea Wolf. Even those names feel like they would pop up in a dream–the former, a safe haven, the latter, the name of some mystic Indian who concocts a potion that allows you to breathe under water (taking it too far? Sounds like a good dream to me. Wait, until you get eaten by a shark. That wouldn’t be fun at all).

(If the songs have a tendency to induce sleep, feel free to visit some of the other playlists that have ties to energy–like New Year or Daylight Savings.)

But the proceeding songs will also work while at work. Once your stress level hits unmatched degrees, hopefully you’ll turn this playlist on and feel those muscles in your shoulders slip away from each other, back to their original positions, not so damn tight anymore. Hopefully.

Of course, sometimes there’s nothing you can do. Some situations cannot be fixed by music. I hate those.

If you hate every aspect of your job, a playlist won’t save you. Music as a whole probably won’t save you (unless you become a rock star and quit the position). But in case all you need to do is relax a bit and feel like everything isn’t so overwhelming, this list might help a bit.

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Artists Within: annuals, augustana, athlete, the break and repair method, bishop allen, the cave singers, delta spirit, the explorers club, florence and the machine, the frames, the fratellis, gomez, the hours, jet, the long winters, matt & kim, matchbox twenty, okkervil river, passion pit, pete yorn, razorlight, shout out louds, snow patrol, stereophonics, the stills, train, bright eyes

tree and blue sky

As much as I detest the removal of daylight savings, I enjoy its reinstatement to the same degree.

Just last Saturday, I was cleaning up my room (quite the rare occurrence) and from the living room TV, heard a CNN anchor say, “Get ready to push your clocks forward an hour for daylight savings.”

I started yelling like a six-year-old who just got a puppy for Christmas. Or an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. Or a million fucking dollars. I screamed and at the top of my lungs, “YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! DAYLIGHT SAAAVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINGS! DAAAAAAAAAAYLIIIIIIIGHT SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVIIIIIIIIIIIINGS! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!.

This is not in any way an exaggeration. You know how the New Orleans Saints’ fans felt when they won the Super Bowl–literally jumping for joy, crying, regaining their faith in God (true story)–that’s how I felt when I heard CNN make that announcement. Maybe not quite to that extent (still not sure about God, and I wasn’t crying), but damn was I filled with joy. From room to room I went, bouncing on the soles of my feet. I hopped in circles around my black lab, then hopped in circles around the cat. It was the first time in a very long time that, and this is crucial, I lost control of myself without the influence of a substance. Just learning about daylight savings’ return made me lose control of myself. Interesting.

Nothing else has that impact on me. Sports don’t evoke that kind of response; politics don’t; movies don’t; music does, but in a different way (more uplifting emotionally as opposed to physically. Don’t think I’ve ever literally jumped for joy at the announcement of a new release from a favorite artist (though when I heard about The National’s new album being released on May 11th, I came pretty damn close from leaving my chair. I think I gave a little “woo” anyway.)) Music will get me to dance, sway, move, bounce strangely while driving a car, but I won’t “jump for joy”. Unless I’m at a concert. Then all rules pretty much go out the window, because I’m either

• (a) so excited that I don’t care how stupid I look
• (b) intoxicated
• (c) both a and b
• (d) purposely moving like a drunken idiot to try to accidentally bump into a cute girl and start a conversation
• (e) who am I kidding, everybody knows it’s only (a) and (b) because (d) sure as hell never works

I think I like parentheses too much.

Back to the point at hand: I have seasonal affective disorder, which I’ve mentioned in previous posts. The condition results in patients having an abnormally sensitive reaction to weather. If it’s sunny, my mood is automatically improved, no matter what else is going on. Even making a trip to the doctor’s office or Walmart feels more like a relaxing excursion than a frustrating and time-consuming obligation. Therefore, I absolutely love daylight savings. The more the sun’s around, the happier I am. Period.

So when daylight savings goes away, and we’re all stuck in this overwhelming darkness for about 80 percent of the day, well that just sucks. The whole time. It sucks the Whole. Damn. Time. And when it returns, everything feels a little brighter (pardon the pun).

Because I’ve already done a playlist dedicated to daylight (sunny sunday), this one will be a little more like a return, comeback, resuscitation, reappearance, retribution, long-time-coming, whatever.

 

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Artists Within: arcade fire, beck, cake, counting crows, the dodos, the famous, jason collett, matchbox twenty, matt pond pa, pete yorn, phoenix, ryan adams, train, u2, vampire weekend, wolf parade

Jason Collett

I left on Tuesday to see a friend in Orlando; Google maps gave me an rough estimate of five-and-a-half hours. That’s a long, long fucking time to be sitting in a car by myself. Actually, that’s a long time to be doing anything by myself, let alone being cramped inside a tiny maroon sedan with only my Zune (yep, Zune, I’m not one of the Apple People. But I have legit reasons for having it, mainly that I can convert any file I download to a podcast and actually have the player recognize it as a podcast–unlike iTunes. I bought an iPod once, found out I couldn’t do that, and immediately returned it. Plus I hate navigating the interface with that damn wheel. Just gimme the good ol’ up, down, left, right).

Most of the tracks I chose have some relation to cars or driving (How could I not put incubus’ “Drive” on here?), but some are just fitting for long road trips, regardless of their subject matter.

On the way back, the rain started and didn’t stop ’till about halfway back (so three hours of driving in a downpour). That made me alter the track choices a bit to fit rainy driving.

For some reason, I find folk and americana are the most fitting genres for driving. Something about open highways, meadows, farms, rows and rows of blue and white and weird green houses that all blur as they pass by. Driving feels somewhat minimalist. Most of the time, I’m not concentrating on driving; that activity takes up about 10% of my brain, while daydreaming and listening and thinking and visualizing and contemplating takes up the other 90%.

 

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Artists Within: rogue wave, local natives, citay, nneka, the whigs, rocky votolato

Paste Magazine Sampler 61

Paste Magazine has long been essential to upgrading and improving my music collection. Their tastes are basically spot-on with mine, with a heavy emphasis on indie artists and songwriters with actual talent—not mainstream artists who have the privilege of hiring songwriters with actual talent (e.g. Britney Spears). Those songwriters compose the hits that last for months at the top of the charts, and the creators receive no credit apart from some fine print somewhere in the back of the album pamphlet.

 

Artists like Britney Spears take credit for the song while they sing behind Auto-Tune and have choreographers plot out every move they’ll make on stage (and then they still look terrible). Plus, they’re all extremely good-looking, which seems to be the higher priority for record companies (not to mention the world). Sometimes they’re not even of legal age (e.g. Miley Cyrus), so all the songs cater towards the lowest of the low: “tweeners” with no real concept of what makes “good” music. Anything with a decent beat sounds fine to them, and they have no concept or realization of what Auto-Tune does. For crying out loud, I bet a large percentage of kids under the age of ten don’t understand that when Lil’ Wayne “sings” into a microphone, and the resulting sound seems fake and electronic, that sound is a result of machinery altering his voice so it hits precise notes, removing the need for actual skill. Kids just think that’s his natural voice. I bet a lot of them ask their parents how to sing like that. Parents then get excited because their child is showing an interest in music. The mother then schedules singing lessons. A few days later, the kid shows up and becomes inconsolably disappointed when he realizes singing like Lil’ Wayne requires no talent, just a piece of software. Wow, okay, tangent over. Oh well.

Back to Paste: Because they place such importance on people with true talent and songs with real depth, the music they suggest is almost always in the upper echelon of current indie music. (Each issues comes with a “Sampler” CD full of around 20-30 songs from artists highlighted within the magazine). The latest issue, featuring Martin Scorcese on the cover, spotlighted a few bands/artists with whom I wasn’t familiar. After reading the “Best of What’s Next” articles (a section calling attention to bands operating behind the spotlight but possessing the potential to become pretty famous), I was struck by Local Natives and Citay. A helpful feature of the section is a little sidebox containing small facts about the artist. The sidebox also contains a list entitled “For fans of…” list that presents artists similar to the band featured in the article. Those “Fans of” bands are good barometers for determining whether readers will enjoy the featured artist.

The proceeding list contains songs from the artists I enjoy the most from the sampler CD as well as those who were reviewed in the magazine.

 

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Artists Within: animal collective, aesop rock, arcade fire string quartet, battles, beck, cut copy, discovery, empire of the sun, freelance whales, friendly fires, gomez, great northern, the helio sequence, hot chip, imogen heap, matt & kim, miike snow, the postal service, regina spektor, the rapture

Light Hearts

I’ve spent a lot of time in Photoshop over the last few months, far more than I had previously. Every once in a while, I used to open it and fool around. Now, though, to expand my skills, I spend some time every day with features I don’t normally use, which is definitely a necessity for improvement. This also calls for using tutorials that explain how to achieve certain effects I wouldn’t otherwise be able to conjure.

Thankfully, tutorials are great for shutting off the brain and concentrating on music. All I do is follow directions, so there isn’t a ton of analyzing or concentration involved. Granted, I must stay aware of what I’m doing, but it doesn’t need to be full concentration; my mind is free to wander a bit.

Using tutorials also gives the leeway to do whatever I want to the image because, well, no one’s watching me, and nobody really cares what I’m doing. This is where music has the most influence. A specific step may tell me to do something with a certain color, but the song can spark a little creative flare that causes me to see another possibility, one that I will enjoy much more.

For the most part, any type of music works well in this situation; however, more experimental artists seem to lead me in directions I wouldn’t go otherwise, specifically electronically-heavy artists. Don’t ask me why. Maybe because I’m working with electronics, so it’s only fitting? I dunno.

At times, it also helps to listen to songs without major emphasis on lyrics, which can distract me or literally cause me to think about what the singer is saying, not what I’m doing.

If it’s not electronic-centric, if a strong sense of emotion lingers within the song that can be transferred to the imagery, that helps as well. So I guess my point is, anything plain doesn’t work very well. Unless you’re going for a traditional or dull concept, of course.

Anyway, here’s a playlist I just put together for a Photoshop/Illustrator session.

 

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Artists Within: all saints, benji hughes, beth orton, birdmonster, break and repair method, deerhunter, elbow, fireflies, florence and the machine, matt nathanson, passion pit, pela, pete yorn, ryan adams, the avett brothers, the cloud room, the morning benders, the temper trap, train, vampire weekend, wild light

All Saints

Thanks to The Basketball Jones podcast (those involved have wonderful taste in music, which is rather unexpected from a basketball podcast. Although that’s just a false assumption, and we all know what assuming does…), I came across “Never Ever” by All Saints. It’s one of those songs with upbeat music and sad lyrics–my favorite kind of song. Love that duality: happy music, sad lyrics. Sad music, happy lyrics. It just makes me feel better, like it’s okay that I’m sad. Everybody gets sad.

I don’t know what’s behind this phenomenon: sorrowful lyrics mixed with upbeat music provides an even more uplifting feeling than a simple happy song. I guess because I feel more connected to it. Rarely do I ever feel genuinely happy; there’s always something lingering below the surface that’s causing some discontent, some unease.

Or maybe such songs convey a sense of hope. When I hear sad lyrics and upbeat music, I realize things right now suck (lyrics), but they’ll get better (music). Again, the duality, which parallels human nature. Life has beautiful and sorrowful aspects to it; and I believe the best songs reflect that. The sun improves my mood, but I always have that sneaking suspicion that a rainstorm is coming, or clouds are coming, or night is coming, and that influences my mood. I never allow myself to get too happy because I know something sad will come along. Some of these songs have that sense of lingering doom,

Come to think of it, there are far fewer songs with negative music and positive lyrics. Far, far fewer. At least in my experience. The one two I can think of is “Ooh Child” by Beth Orton. It is an absolutely beautiful song, and it haunted me for days after I first heard it; I wasn’t even aware it’s a cover. I can’t remember who the original artist is, but I did hear the original once, and it didn’t even come close to Orton’s version. Not even close. Orton even breaks down during the recording, which is pretty exemplary of how impactful the song is.

I wish I could find my Frou Frou (who’s actually Imogen Heap) CD so I can add it to my collection. The song “Beauty in the Breakdown” is perfect for this playlist; it’s equal parts depressing and hopeful. For crying out loud, the refrain says “So let go. Let go. Jump in. Whatcha waiting for? It’s alright. There’s beauty in the breakdown.”

If you can think of any more, feel free to add them to the comments, and I’ll incorporating them into next version of this category of playlist.

So I’m creating another playlist with those elements: either happy music with sad lyrics or vice-versa. Some selections may stray a bit from that formula, but still contain those elements somehow. For example, the music and lyrics might both be sad, but there can be an underlying hopeful tone (Train‘s “Mississippi River” achieves this). A bunch of repeated artists will probably be in here, but not a lot of people visit this blog, so chances are you haven’t heard the songs.

 

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