A couple of years ago, this was one of the first songs I listened to in the new year. Today, by coincidence, it came on my iPod, now at the beginning of 2009. Well done, shuffle!
Here's a brilliant (though sadly shortened) live performance from 1989. (But wait, really: this was 20 years ago? Oh, dear.)
I've been thinking about my favorite things in 2008, and while I'm not 100% there yet, I think Britta Persson's Kill Hollywood Me may be my favorite album of 2008. And "Cliffhanger," the first track, is fantastic seventies pop-rock.
(I also love the title track.)
I like the Raveonettes best in small doses, and--oddly enough, or not--I have a real fondness for their Christmas-themed songs.
There's just something about the nostalgia in their sound that, for me, works really well with songs about the holidays, the end of the year, Christmas, &c.
Anyway, all of which is to say that I'm enjoying their Wishing You a Rave Christmas EP, and, in particular, the ambiguously-punctuated "Come on Santa", which you can hear here.
Last week's New Yorker had a brief & strange article about Prince in Talk of the Town. My favorite part was this bit about his Jehovah's Witness faith:
He attends meetings at a local Kingdom Hall, and, like his fellow-witnesses, he leaves his gated community from time to time to knock on doors and proselytize. "Sometimes people act surprised, but mostly they're really cool about it," he said.
Il Divo's performance of "Hallelujah" is the most sincere thing, ever (via Idolator):
I've no idea why, but I'm feeling some serious fifth-grade, Hysteria-era Def Leppard nostalgia tonight, and the video for "Animal" is just the ticket. [1]
[1] Oh, and: Hysteria is on neither Amazon MP3 or iTunes? That seems like a bad decision, somewhere in the whole music business chain.
This is pretty incredible: Edwyn Collins (of Orange Juice), who had a stroke back in 2005, drew illustrations of birds as part of his recovery process:
Then I drew my first bird, a widgeon. It's quite crude, but I was pleased with the result. Each day I drew at least one bird. I was tired back then, but my stamina has grown. I could see my progress with each bird. Up, up, up. It's encouraging. The thing is, it's not just about switching to my left hand; my brain isn't the same as it was. Until recently, I only liked to use cheap notebook paper. Pencil drawings only. Everyone is telling me to use colour, but all in good time. I need to perfect my technique. I'm a creature of habit. But I'm now using posher cartridge paper. It changes your style.
Three years after his stroke, Orange Juice will be reuniting for a show, and Collins will perform on stage. (via Idolator)
New Beyoncé! That's always good news, and "If I Were a Boy" is my favorite type of Beyoncé, in the vein of "Irreplaceable": spare instrumentation, lots of private drama and emoting, and a video full of very intense and meaningful looks. There's also "Single Ladies" [1], but I'm just a total sucker for ballads, so "If I Were a Boy" hits the spot:
[1] "Single Ladies" really isn't doing it for me, yet: listening to it makes me feel like I'm losing at a video game, over and over and over.
What with the singing whilst riding a white horse, and the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" cover, &c., I really kinda wish I'd seen the Of Montreal show chronicled so faithfully by pretty much every music blogger in New York, by now.
From Robin Thicke's Something Else--which I actually like quite a bit, overall--comes this contender for most unintentionally funny line of the year, one that, every time I hear it, I can't help but think, "really?". [1]
It's from "Dreamworld", which, I guess, is Thicke's updated version of "Imagine", i.e., it's full of very earnest wishes for what would make our world a little better. And it's this specific line, which you should read as if it's prefixed with, "wouldn't it be great if...":
Energy would just fall down right from the sky, yeah
Which, the first time I heard it, I was like, "hmm?" And then, the second time, I was like, "but... it does!"
And then I started second-guessing myself, sure that Thicke must mean something more profound, like: wouldn't it be great if we used all of the energy coming from the sun rather than being depressingly dependent upon foreign oil?
And that was when I realized that I'd spent far too much time thinking about Robin Thicke and his lack of knowledge about how things work.
[1] And thanks to Anil for reminding me of this yesterday.
