Friday CJ Random 11

"It’s one more random than 10."

Santa deemed me a good boy this year, despite my intense hatred of freedom, and brought me a nice shiny Apple. And even though I know the only blogging theme more overdone than cute kitten photography is the iPod shuffle post, I feel inspired by the brilliance of Three Bulls Pants Down Smack Down of the Pitchfork best songs of 2006 list.

I’ll also make my random list more original by ripping of Spinal Tap (again).

1. “Not When I Need It,” Matthew Sweet. Matthew Sweet albums are like Saturday Night Live episodes from Hartman-Carvey-Meyers era. You know there will be tracks that are just brilliant, A-list stuff. But you also know there will be tracks where what was a good idea for 30 seconds gets dragged out for five, and that people this talented should know better. Thankfully, this song is one of the good ones.

2. “Heat of the Moment,” Asia. Uh oh, there goes my cred. Funny story: When TLB and I saw The 40-Year Old Virgin in a packed theater, we were the ONLY people who laughed at the two Asia references (one involving an Asia poster, one involving the appearance of this song). I love this song, there I said it (now I sound like Blue Girl).

3. “One More Time,” The Cure. Sweet fancy Moses, this song is now 20 years old. When I was 16, I had to move right before my senior year of high school and left behind my first serious girlfriend. I had this album, and this fucking song could make me weep over her like chopped onions. Then I met TLB and got over it. The moral of the story: Robert Smith should have learned to get over chopped onions by now.

4. “The Best of Jill Hives,” Guided by Voices. GBV is the drunkest band I have ever seen play. They were so drunk, it would have been embarrassing, had I not been drinking pitchers of beer straight out of the pitcher during the concert. I guess two negatives do make a positive. They were the best band in America from 1992-2002.

5. “In a Lonely Place,” The Smithereens. Another band like Matthew Sweet. A couple absolutely killer songs each album, then a bunch of stuff that sounds like xeroxes of those songs. Incidentally, Pat DiNizio will play in your living room, and this would be a very good song to hear him play.

6. “Last Fair Deal Gone Down,” Robert Johnson. One of these kids is not like the other... I think my iPod is trying to tell me something about the complexion of my music collection. RJ has the best bio of any musician ever.

7. “Seeing Other People,” Belle and Sebastian. I can’t hear these guys without thinking of Barry in High Fidelity yanking B&S from the tape deck so he can play Katrina and the Waves.

8. “Los Angeles, I’m Yours,” The Decemberists. There’s such a fine line between stupid and clever, Pt I: Context is everything with synthesizers. When you’re a hyperliterate indie rock band with prog aspirations, they are winkingly cool. When you’re an Englishman wearing a cape and playing mounds of keyboards stacked like Jenga blocks ON ICE, they’re as cool as Funky Winkerbean.

9. “Sunday,” Nick Drake. Like a lot of other yuppie scumbags, the Volkswagen commercial featuring “Pink Moon” introduced TLB and I to Nick Drake. It’s the best thing a commercial has ever done for us.

10. “Outsiders,” Franz Ferdinand. There’s such a fine line between stupid and clever, Pt. II: There are times when I think FF is Right Said Fred after RSF learned how to play music.

11. “Essence,” The Church. When I was in high school and college, CDs came in tall cardboard boxes with the plastic cases inside (kill trees AND fill landfills with plastic—I loved the 80s!). I used to cut out the cardboard covers and use them like posters. The cover to this album was one of my favorites because it had these cool panoramic pictures of the band at nice locations. Honestly, it’s a wonder I ever lost my virginity.

Whew, dodged the REO Speedwagon bullet the first time out! Happy Friday, everyone!