Settle the Fuck Down

Who wants to hire me as a reliable freelance writer; the kind who only summons the attention span and care to write once every three months on average?

Fair.

So, wutchu know about Kimbra?

She’s pretty fantastic and all of her music is to my liking and some of it is even to my sweet, sweet loving. Specifically, this (P)Diddy. And not just because it makes me feel like I could potentially make a living playing some pretty “advanced” drums while touring with this Kiwi babe of a songstress. Kimbra’s been rocking my foot underwear for some time now, and her recent feature on www.wearehunted.com prompted me to take a break from my super awesome, Celine Dion-heavy Christmas music. While ‘Somebody that I Used to Know’ is probably my favourite Kimbra-product, this song vies for first place pretty hard. Especially when I watch this video. It creeps me out in a way that I thought was reserved for Toddlers and Tiaras. In fact, most of Kimbra’s videos are completely amazing and totally add to the songs as wholes. I especially like her unapologetically white dancing and use of colour; two things I feel strongly about as a colourful white lass. I'm also a fan of the burning dolls, which is unique to this video - never liked those plastic, ringletted demons.

Kimbra looks a little like Katy Perry, which is a good thing. She even sounds a little like her, which I admit: I think is also a good thing; bitch can wail. Admittedly, her lyrics are much better than Katy Perry’s while still boasting a completely accessible and downright contagious beat. For this I demand that you pardon her lack of whipped-dairy product lactation and choose her for all of your uppity, chick pop needs.

Diet Mountain Dew, baby.

While the title of this song is random and therefore awesome, we can all agree that Diet Dr. Pepper is a far superior beverage. That being said, this song is awesome. It pretty much describes a day that I would like to see included in my life at some point, minus diet mountain dew, plus dr. pepper. Let it be known that the Dr. and I share initials. This is a pretty awesome coincidence since I often point this out in defence of people suggesting that my initials might also mean something inappropriate. How rude.

It’s also the song that plays in my head on the rare occasion that I find myself sitting shotty in a convertible doing that annoyingly cliché hand wave into the wind. You know the one. To make the aforementioned situation all the rarer, ideally it would transpire in the slowest of motion. “Let’s take Jesus off the dashboard/got enough on his mind”might be the greatest lyric of the song, but it is not the only good one, I assure you. The lyricism of this song sort of slipped through the slits of my listening bits because the hook and chorus are so perfectly catchy that I didn't even think to look further. I like a lot of this bird's songs, actually. This one in particular just has a memorable quality and is always the track I skip to first before listening to the rest of her arsenal straight through. Video Games, her single, is pretty good too, but rather more mellow as seems to be her custom, and by mellow I of course mean sombre since Diet Mountain Dew is mellow yellow, y'all.

But no, Lana, I don’t think you’ll be in love forever. I don’t believe in the validity of two words in that musing: love, and forever. Aren’t I just a treat? Then again, it seems as though she is rather attractive and talented. So, maybe people are into that sort of thing and she'll be fine. However, maybe she'll crumble under the weight of her own giftedness and the expectations that come with it. Maybe she'll get aspartame poisoning from consuming diet soft drinks en masses. Wouldn't that be a bad-ass way for a rock star to go?

I'm such a fucking chick.

But holy shit do I ever love this song. This song makes my heart hurt about being effectively unmarriageable more than any Matthew Mcconaughey romantic comedy, mostly because I wanna be the dudette who gets to sing a sweet duet with a gentleman with whom I am also in lurrve...or at least in prolonged mutual tolerance with. Speaking of Matthews…Ms. Channandler Bong is not the same Matthew Perry(man Jones) as is credited for the male vocals on this track, but I really hope he makes the same terrible picture face.

I think that their voices go so well together and every time they sing in cannon or crescendo their honey-toned voices, a tiny bit of my cynicism dies and is replaced by a slight urge to buy a puppy calendar. This urge never lasts and is either replaced by self-loathing at having been thusly melted or a stronger urge to eat my weight in high-calorie junk food. But in real life, this song actually satisfies a lot of my favourite things about songs whose draw is its melody or lyricism: harmonies, accoustic, bearded musician....All in all, such a win.

Basically, this song is what I think should be playing at every anniversary for couples who make it longer than Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston. Not actually. But it definitely should have played during the final scene of The Notebook when the two golden oldies die together in the same bed. Yeah, I’ve also seen The Notebook. In case you weren’t aware, Ryan Gossling is partially naked in portions of it, and were that the case with Jersey Shore or even The Real and Desperate Housewives of Wisteria Lane, I would probably cave and watch those too.

a woman after my own heart

While she is a total dummmmb bitch for not visiting Calgary or indeed any of Western Canada in her upcoming tour of North America, she writes a mean lyric to pretty awesomely haunting melodies, and for that I will spare her life…by which I of course mean: still buy her forthcoming record when it drops in September.

These two songs are off of different albums, but I’ve been listening to them an offensive amount in the last little while; often back-to-back. If ever she releases a greatest hits album (which I hope she doesn’t because I don’t respect any artist that does), she should place these two tracks in succession. ..with Night Terror first followed by What He Wrote. Just like this:

(Guess how long I tried to formulate a good "that's what he said" joke with the above song title.)

Laura Marling is pretty dope in general and I can’t say that I can pick a favourite song of hers. These two have just been dominating the charts in my workforce playlist. So definitely check out all of her albums which will total three in September, all since 2008. Before this, she was involved in Noah and the Whale, another favourite of mine, though rather more upbeat.

Also, an added win: she is a total babe and asking no one to hit her, not even just "one more time" in order to sell records.

Sad and Soothing

This song has been a regular feature on my everything playlist for the past few weeks. I've been listening to a lot of CocoRosie lately, partially just trying to figure out whether or not CocoRosie and Hercules and Love Affair need to release a joint album or not. I've decided that there might almost be too much overlap. But since I'm such a fan of layering with clothing, maybe that would be glorious - much like wearing a muumuu over sweatpants.

Anyways, when I listened to this song the first 100 times I remained under the impression that it was an uplifting-y ode to love and commitment. Then I listened to alll the lyrics and not just the cool high-pitched ones and realized it was about domestic violence. Le Yikes. This actually doesn't take away from how much I enjoy this track though. On the contrary, it makes it a hell of a lot more resonant. It might be a lot harder to listen to were I at all familiar with domestic violence personally. Thankfully, I am not. My domestic partners are nothing if not the most loving. In fact, the lyrics:

I'll wear your black eyes
I'll bake you apple pies,

I take as referring to Kelsey's fondness for dark eye makeup and willingness to apply it on me, as well as her violent affinity for apple pies and mine with baking them.

Music Snob

Many times over the course of my life wherein I have been super into music I have been called a music snob. S'not true. My defense against this has always been that I WANT, nay, NEED people to listen to the music that I listen to and appreciate it similarly. Music snobs, on the other hand; want to keep all of their favorites trapped within their own ear canals.

It should also be noted that music snobs never admit to liking "mainstream" music. It should be noted in bold italics that I LOVE HANSON.

That being said, this blog willn't have any goal other than exposing you to music that happens to be dominating my iPod of late. Some of it will be new, some of it will be old, and some of it will be HANSON.