Well, now that I’ve transferred my entire rock/pop/folk/country library to my iPod, I’m enjoying the circus show better-known as “Shuffle Songs.”
The machine tends to deliver a rather bumpy road of randomly selected tracks from the 6,600 songs I’ve loaded up.
But most of the time, the pros outweigh the cons. I love being surprised by tracks from albums that I haven’t heard in years. And old favorites seem brand new when dropped into unexpected contexts and unpredictable sequences.
When I was in high school, I dreamed about giving all of my favorites to a DJ who would create me a custom radio station playing all of my favorites and anything new that intrigued me. Once in a while, technology does make a dream come true.
So, from time to time I’m going to share the sequence that’s currently dazzling me, just as a way of recommending my favorites from the archives and the latest new releases.
And to make things interesting, let me know:
- Do any of these songs mean something to you?
- Any lyrics that rock your world?
- Any performances that make you stop what you’re doing?
- Does one of these tracks bring back any vivid memories?
Today’s unexpected program:
- “The Saints are Coming,” U2 & Green Day, U218
- “Keep Your Distance,” Buddy and Julie Miller, Buddy and Julie Miller
- “John, I Love You,” Sinead O’Connor, Universal Mother
- “To Feel This Way,” Michael Been, On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakthrough
- “Six-Fingered Man,” Elvis Costello and Alan Toussaint, The River in Reverse
- “God is Watching You,” Leslie Phillips, The Turning
- “A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel,” U2, The Best of U2 (b-sides)
- “Innocence Lost,” Steve Taylor, I Predict 1990
- “Lolita,” Suzanne Vega, Nine Objects of Desire
- “Feel Good Inc.,” Gorillaz, Demon Days
- “Doctor Worm,” They Might Be Giants, Dial-a-Song
- “Lily and Parrots,” Sun Kil Moon, Ghosts of the Great Highway
- “Il Est Dans Mon Poche,” Over the Rhine, Patience
- “Very Ape,” Nirvana, In Utero
- “The Lakes of Canada,” The Innocence Mission, Birds of My Neighborhood
wow. yeah.
“innocence lost” and “river of love” definitely take me back (i’m not sure i own a cd copy of I Predict 1990 anymore and i know i don’t have The Turning.
really, i miss cassettes and making those mixtapes in jr. high.
“keep your distance”, i think, was the song covered by Solomon Burke in his country album, which i’m also liking and is getting some play on my iPod.
so are some singles from Gorrilaz, including “Feel Good, Inc.”
Speaking of making your own radio station, that plays what you like, and introduces you to other songs that you might like, check out http://www.pandora.com/
You might be interested in this page on Apple’s support site which tells how to publish your own iMix directly to your web page or blog. That might be more useful to you than requiring people to go to another site, plus the process is automated from iTunes.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304795
Just wait until you switch songs between “An Cat Dubh” and “Into the Heart.” You can’t listen to one without the other…
You know, I never get tired of that Gorillaz song. It’s deadly catchy.
have you tried the “shuffle albums” setting? Nicer for long periods of listening, etc.
I’m not crazy about shuffling all the contents of my iPod, but you can also do it by genre tag, and that gets pretty interesting.
Also, Last fm (www.lastfm.com) more than gives Pandora a run for its money. (And has a far larger library.)
For those of us – the vast majority – who wished to watch a “traditional narrative”, the New World was a tedious venture.
That much is clear.
But then, my moviegoing interests have changed considerably over the years, like my dining interests, and I don’t spend much time eating where “the vast majority” eats anymore.
I don’t mean that in any way to sound “elitist” … just to testify that I’m on my own individual journey through film.
Part of that is because I’m less and less interested in things that are familiar. I’m more and more interested in artists who are out in uncharted territory, discovering not only new stories, but new ways to tell them, and new forms to cast them in. (And in saying that, I am in no way denying the power of traditional storytelling.) But we remember the pioneers, and Malick is pioneering territory that has other filmmakers speaking of him with awe and reverence.
And plus, Malick’s film is quite a technical marvel in many ways. Alfonso Cuaron, who worked with cinematographer Emanuel Lubezki on “Children of Men” after Lubezki filmed “The New World,” told me that Lubezki did not use one single electric light in the whole of Malick’s film. Everything is lit with natural light. That’s amazing.
And that’s just one of myriad details that makes it such an enthralling experience for me.
My own movie tastes have changed considerably over time. Once you watch a few hundred films a year (thank you Netflix!), you get bored with the formulaic, pattered Hollywood junk. Over time, I’ve found myself going to more and more art house, winter, Oscar films and less traditional blockbuster Summer flicks. There will always be a place for the popcorn, Summer movie, but most of them are just poorly made. Or worse – predictable.
Film is still a reletively young art form and I appreciate the innovators, like Mallick, who are trying to find new ways to say the same thing.
However, the true innovation comes when a genius combines the avante-garde with the traditional to form something the masses can get their mind around. And Mallick has failed here. Oftentimes, great filmmakers seem to fall into two camps:
1. Those that understand the visual nature of film
2. Those that understand narrative storytelling.
Mallick obviously falls into the former. My interest in Mallick ends at his cinematography.
One more quick point: Who cares if it’s natural or electric light?
There were two magicians: one used real magic and the other used trickery. But ultimately, their magic shows were identical. Do you get where I’m going with this?
It doesn’t matter how you got what you got. All the audience sees is the final product.
I know this is an old post, so perhaps this rebuttal will go unheard. However, in response the comment about electric light vs. natural light, one only has to watch a behind the scenes clip on lighting to understand how dependent most DPs are on artficial lighting and how courageous it is for one to light even a single scene entirely with natural light, let alone an entire feature.
So I must correct you (and I’m trying to be respectful, an attitude which is difficult to convey on blogs) on your attitude towards Lubezki’s technical achievement on that film. To light naturally is a challenge…to light naturally and create something of beauty is a miracle.