Ickmusic’s Friday Five: January 25, 2008
On an average week, most of my Friday afternoon is spent resisting the urge to count the minutes until the weekend and getting the last of my work done before ‘unplugging’.
I also find it’s the day I’m most likely to hit ‘shuffle’ on my iPod / iTunes. You can learn a lot about someone through what they’ve got in their music collection and I figured that I’d share the first five tracks (and some thoughts, anecdotes and defenses, you know in case a Spice Girls or N*Sync track comes up) with all of you.
Feel free to add your random ‘Friday Five’ in the comments and be honest! We all have those guilty pleasures…
Here are this week’s tracks:
1. Cyndi Lauper – The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough (from Time After Time – The Best Of)
I’ll make a admission here, I never loved “The Goonies”. I don’t look back fondly or reminisce over the ‘Truffle Shuffle’. That said, I always kind of liked this song. It was a top 10 hit for Cyndi in 1985 and I recall it getting more than it’s share of airplay.
2. The Clash – The Guns of Brixton (from London Calling)
I was a late-comer to The Clash. I connected with the singles (“Rock the Casbah”, “London Calling” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go?”) when I was younger but it was not until my early Twenties when I picked up the London Calling CD that I really understood how influential and amazing they truly were.
3. The Toasters – Too Much Happening (from New York Fever)
Before the late 90’s ska explosion there was The Toasters. The first and the longest running group in the third wave of ska they embodied the ‘rude boy’ image to me. Being a short train ride from NYC I’ve had the opportunity to see them live many times over the last 15 years and they always put on one of the most energetic shows I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing.
4. N.W.A. – Straight Outta Compton (from Straight Outta Compton)
How do you go from Cyndi Lauper to Ice Cube in less than three tracks…? I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard this record, sitting on the long bus ride home a friend had copied the cassette from his older brother. We sat and listened. From the first verse to the very end this was like nothing we’d ever heard before and I was hooked.
5. Pantera – Walk (from Vulgar Display of Power)
Re! Spect! Walk! ‘Nuff said!
So what comes up in your shuffle?
10 Comments
Rob
I’ve been reading for a while, but this is my first post. I also like to see what others are listening to, and shuffle makes it more interesting.
1. Nine Inch Nails – A Warm Place (from Natural Born Killers Soundtrack)
I loved this movie at the time, not so much now. The soundtrack is still great, with a wide range of styles (I could do without some of the movie dialog). This song is excellent.
2. Genesis – I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) (from Turn It On Again – The Hits)
Not my favorite Genesis song, but still much better than some of their later stuff.
3. David Bowie – Changes (from Best of Bowie)
All compilations so far! I’m a fairly new convert to Bowie, and I love this song.
4. Cat Power – Willie (from The Greatest)
Ok, a great album to break the string of compilations. This album was my introduction to Cat, and is one of my favorite albums of the last couple of years. Not a bad track to be had.
5. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magik (from Blood Sugar Sex Magik)
One of my all-time favorite albums (and I’m not a huge Chili Peppers fan). This song is not one of my favorites from the album, but excellent none the less.
All in all, nothing too bad. I’m sure I have stuff on my iPod that would require more explanation!
ger
I shuffle daily. It comes with a 5 minute commute (2 full songs if I stop for coffee). Even though my taste is all over the place, I always think my iPod knows I’m gay (it has nothing to do with my music collection:
1, Annie Lennox – Pavement Cracks
The Goldtrix Club Mix. I have too much Annie, I think.
2. Kylie Minogue – 2 Hearts
From her new album ‘X’. Haven’t listened to it yet – bought it out of some sense of duty. A month ago.
3. Racquel – Special AKA
I bought this 3 disc collection only for the 3 remixes of ‘Free Nelson Mandela’.
4. Public Enemy – Contract on the World Love Jam
‘Cuz I fight the power.
5. Royskopp – Dead to the World
A boy’s gotta dance. Except not to this Royskopp tune – it’s kinda blah.
Jim Russell
I’m constantly shuffling through about 100G of music on my computer. I also load my iRiver using a totally random picker. (iRiver instead of iPod? Why? Because it plays .ogg files!)
Here’s the last five:
Johnny Cash / Bird on a wire (2003, from Unearthed)
Sly and the Family Stone / Thankful ‘n’ thoughtful (1973, from Fresh)
Badfinger / Matted spam (1974, from Badfinger)
Wax Fang / Sweet bloody murder (2007, from SXSW Showcasing Artists)
Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm / You’ve got to lose (1958)
Which reminds me — you should get a hold of the SXSW Showcasing Artists collections (they’re free downloads) and shuffle some in. Incredible variety of music, and I’ve found a very good hit/miss ratio with these. The one that popped up here, “Sweet bloody murder”, was an excellent slice of retro power pop. Hard to categorize — the best I could come up with was Cream meets the Moody Blues.
Pete
With 70 gigs of music, Shuffle is a beautiful thing – my last 5 randoms tonight, according to iTunes “Recently Played”…
“Trenchtown Rock” – Phish
“Another Lonely Christmas” – Prince
“Bebe Yaourt” – Kekele
“Great Rain” – John Prine
“Our Day Will Come” – Ruby & the Romantics
And who has the chutzpah to Shuffle it up in public? I’ll stream my iTunes to my garage stereo when I’m doing yardwork or washing the car. And inevitably, the guilty pleasures will rear their wussy heads from time to time…. Manilow, Air Supply, Bette Midler’s “The Rose”… they’re in there! I’m sure it gives the neighbors a different perspective of big bad Pete!
I’m always interested in finding out what other people are listening to. Another reason I love LastFm.
KathyB
Out of the first five songs that came up in my shuffle list, I could recognize only one of them:
1. “No Loot, No Booze, No Fun” by The Tossers
2. “In the Dark Pine-Wood” by Susanne Abbuehl (turns out this was an iTunes Discovery Download in September, 2006–and a really good one)
3. “Rambo” by the Manhattan Transfer (the one I recognized, from their excellent Vocalese album)
4. “Middle Distance Runner” by Sea Wolf
5. “The Only One I C++ is U++” by The Superfantastics
Not terribly interesting–it became a little more interesting (bizarre?) slightly farther down the list:
1. “Goodbye Girl” by Emmylou Harris (outtake from Red Dirt Girl)
2. “The Lonely Goatherd” reprise, from a 1960-something live performance of The Sound of Music
3. “Together as One” by Lucky Dube–courtesy of Pete!
4. “Proposition 61” by The Most Serene Republic (I rated this song as one star, and I’m wondering why I haven’t just gotten rid of it; there’s got to be some reason why I continue to hang on to it)
5. “Sugar Mama, Peachy Papa” by Percy Mayfield
Jim
a friend had copied the cassette from his older brother.
Hear that RIAA, these kids didn’t invent piracy, it just sounds better now.
“Joey” Concrete Blonde
-> Sometimes you need forgiveness, Sometimes you need to forgive
“Fall On Me” R. E. M.
-> the end of the world I was promised never came to pass
“Marlene Dietrich’s Favourite Poem” Peter Murphy
-> I don’t know it get to me sometimes
“Enjoy the Silence” Depeche Mode
-> I still like 80’s proto techno and sometime I do enjoy a quiet moment, though it may bring terror to Pete to hear (read) this.
“L’Amour Looks Something Like You” Kate Bush
-> Why you forgive
whiteray
Late Saturday evening shuffle:
“Fishes and Scorpions” by Stephen Stills from “Stephen Stills 2” (1971)
“I Don’t Get It” by Cowboy Junkies from “The Trinity Session” (1988)
“Kansas City” by Wilbert Harrison, Fury single 1029 (1959)
“I’ll Be Your Baby” by Bobby Jameson from “Working” (1969)
“T-Model Blues” by Lightning Hopkins, Gold Star single 662 (1949)
Looks like my collection to me . . . Interesting reading the other folks’ fives.
Bryan Clarke
Prairie, represent!
How funny is that that I go to your blog and the first thing I see is The Time. Nice to know nothing changes after 18 years.
Here are mine:
Future Foe Scenario – Silversun Pickups from “Carnavas”
Stars of CCTV – Hard Fi from “Stars of CCTV”
Voyeur – Blink 182 from “Dude Ranch”
I’ll Back You Up – Dave Matthew Band from “Remember Two Things”
Shiny Happy People – REM from “Out of Time”
Hope all is well in PHX. The damn Packers should be there right now!
BC
Pete
And look at you, Bryan… still have REM on the playlist after all those years… the more things change, the more they stay the same…..
Good to see ya on Ickmusic!!
Anne
1. Kiss –Prince
2. Here By Me–3 Doors Down
3. Frozen–Madonna
4. Deadweight–Beck
5. Ain’t No Sunshine–Bill Withers
You can’t tell from this mix but I really do have a lot of current music.