The Friday Five: January 02, 2009
Happy New Year!
Welcome to the first Friday Five of 2009. We’re kicking the New Year off with a look back as I hit shuffle on my Top 100 of 2008. As you can guess I have a bevy of playlists that I maintain to keep a good balance of new/unheard music and my personal favorites. This particular playlist was created to help me write up the Year in (Ick)Music 2008 column and I liked it so much that I put it on countdown style (counting down from 100 to number 1) on New Years Eve.
For those who have not joined in the Friday Five here is all you need to know; each Friday I hit the shuffle button on my iTunes and share my five and drop a little knowledge and insight for each track. Sometimes there is a playlist involved, sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes we have guest, but most of the time it’s just me.
The rest is up to you, our friends and readers! Fire up your media player of choice and share the first five random track of your shuffle in the comments. The more the merrier!
But hey, enough of my yakkin’… Whaddaya say, let’s boogie!
The Five:
“Staying In Love” – Raphael Saadiq (from The Way I See It)
A rave up to kick off the first shuffle of the year, this song is a great start to any playlist!
“Say You Will” – Kanye West (from 808s & Heartbreak)
As far as track one, side one cuts go this one definitely is up there. Setting the mood of Kanye’s heartbreak perfectly this track is an introduction to the state of his (apparently) fragile psyche.
“Details in the Fabric (feat. James Morrison)” – Jason Mraz (from We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.)
This one has made a previous appearance on The Five. From September 26, 2008… This tune opens to an answering machine message from Mraz cohort Bushwalla clearly dealing with a bad day. The song itself has a lilting yet uplifting message “Everything will be fine, everything in no time at all, Hearts will hold”. The song closes with a second message where he strikes the single oddest metaphor I’ve ever heard “I feel like you’re an island of reality in an ocean of diarrhea. And I love you buddy. Ok. Bye.”
“Another Day” – Jamie Lidell (from Jim)
True blue-eyed soul from the UK. This one made my Top 10 and I have a feeling it will continue to spin up whenever I need a little lift. Jamie stopped by KEXP (Seattle) back in May ’08 and turned in this brilliant stripped down performance…
“I Wanna Know” – Alan Wilkis (from Babies Dream Big)
You know that scene in Pretty In Pink where Jon Crier does his best Otis Redding impersonation? That’s what I always think of when I hear this track, Alan is a rather unassuming white guy who is able to capture so damned much soul that it should be illegal. If you still have not picked this record up, you are missing out.
Okay, I’ve shown you mine, now show me yours!
A Nudge in the Right Direction
Happy New Year, folks. I’ll get into the groove of posting some tasty tunes soon, but for now, here’s a few nudges and news nuggets to keep you occupied.
Oh, Twitter. I decided to join up and blast out random music-related musings at any moment’s notice. If you’re on Twitter, and feel like “following” me and my music-obsessed brain, check out my profile here, and let’s connect. I’m keeping it music-centric, so you won’t be hearing from me when I’m “tired” or “working” or “taking a dump”.
On to the nudges…
- Ann Powers, a music writer for the LA Times, was summoned to the Hall of the Mountain King, or in this case, Prince’s pad off Mulholland Drive. Prince shared his plans for ’09, which include 3 albums (‘MPLSOUND’, ‘The Lotus Flower’, and protege Bria Valente’s record). Prince also explains that “Jehovah’s Witnesses haven’t voted for their whole inception.” I did not know that.
- Mr. Malchus from the Popdose crew shares my love for the Los Lobos song “Be Still”. It was even his wedding “song”, along with Bruce’s “Book of Dreams”. Malchus and I – same wavelength…
- Speaking of Lobos, Gregor shares a show from ’84 on Captain’s Dead. Great to see love for the Lobos on the blogs.
- I am not a Zune person, but seems the 30 GB Zunes did not like the leap year, and decided to lock up. Any of you out there experience the Zap of the Zune?
- Last, and definitely not least, former Eurythmics-man Dave Stewart is releasing his own line of diamond-studded vibrators. How about that for extraordinarily random news? Oh, and be careful with that thing, ladies. I know diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but they also cut glass. Easy does it.