Janes Addiction

Gallimaufry 3

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Third verse, same as the first…

Ten random tracks from my iTunes library:

  • Violent Femmes, ‘Fat‘, off of 3: The Femmes are a long-time favorite of mine, and ‘Fat’ is one of my favorite tracks off of this album. Very tongue-in-cheek, it’s a rather bouncy little lament about a man hoping a girl will gain a little weight. “‘Cause if you got really fat, fat, fat, / You just might want to see me come back, / I hope / you got / fat.”

  • Hole, ‘Drown Soda’, off of Tank Girl: I have to admit, I’ve never been much of a fan of Hole. They’re not really bad, but most of what I’ve heard from them just doesn’t grab my ear (though I will say that I do like ‘Malibu‘). This track pretty much follows the formula: droning guitars and Courtney Love screeching.

  • Romeo Void, ‘Never Say Never (Hot Tracks)’, off of The Edge Level 1: I’m such an 80’s child sometime. Not necessarily the best 80’s one hit wonder out there, but it’s definitely a fun one — “I might like you better if we slept together, / never say never!” This is a remix off of one of the DJ-only promo CDs I got through the Hot Tracks service.

  • Leftfield, ‘Storm 3000‘, off of Leftism: I first heard of Leftfield through the single ‘Open Up‘, with John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) guesting on vocals. That one track was enough to get me to pick up the full album, and I wasn’t disappointed. While this isn’t one of the strongest tracks on the album, it’s not bad filler, and works quite well as background music.

  • Concrete Blonde, ‘Darkening of the Light‘, off of Bloodletting: This is such, such, such a good album. Most people if they know it at all will only know of it through ‘Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)‘, but there’s not a single bad track on this disc. I’ve been lucky enough to see Concrete Blonde live a few times since I moved to Seattle, and they’re firmly cemented in their place as one of my favorite bands. Besides, Jhonette’s voice is just so good….

  • Sarah McLachlan, ‘I Will Not Forget You‘, off of Solace: Not one of Sarah’s more well-known tracks, and probably for good reason. Not bad, but nothing to make it stand out, either, very much standard Sarah McLachlan. Of course, she’s an artist whose standard pieces are still very worth listening to, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

  • Children of No Return, ‘White Horses’, off of German Mystic Sound Sampler Vol. IV: This song isn’t great, but I love the series it’s from. I’ve got four of the GMSS discs — I picked the first two up while I was in Germany in 1991, and got the second two off of a friend who found them online and then decided that he didn’t like them as much as I would. Great stuff, as far as I’m concerned, with a lot of German industrial and gothic music that’s nearly impossible to find in the states. Amusingly, some of the artists on these albums (like Das Ich, Girls Under Glass and Project Pitchfork) have since gained popularity in the goth/industrial scene here in the States…but I was listening to them first! :)

  • Tori Amos, ‘Professional Widow‘, off of Professional Widow: The original mix of ‘Professional Widow’, from the single of the same name. Here Tori’s somewhere in her middle stage, between songs with lyrics that make sense and songs that still sound incredibly good but are so obtuse as to be nearly nonsensical. Doesn’t mean I don’t like listening to her stuff at all, but there are times I really am clueless as to what she’s talking about.

  • Front 242, ‘Rhythm of Time (Messengers of Neptune)’, off of Mut\@age Mix\@age: A trancy remix of one of Front 242’s earlier tracks, very Orb-ish. In fact, now that I check, the mix was done by the Orb, imagine that. Front 242’s long been one of my favorite industrial groups, and this remix album is worth picking up — not all of it’s really danceable, but it’s a strong collection of mixes that can be pretty difficult to track down otherwise.

  • Jane’s Addiction, ‘So What!’, off of So What!: Jane’s Addiction’s later stuff never really got me as much as Nothing’s Shocking, Ritual de lo Habitual and their self-titled live album did, but ‘So What!’ isn’t too bad. The remixes on this single are rather forgettable, though. Not much else to say, really…not bad for Jane’s Addiction, but not their best, either.

All in all, not a bad set of songs this week. And now, the weekly bonus track:

iTunes “Dream On” by Chemical Brothers, The from the album Surrender (1999, 6:46).

Sympathy for the Devil remixes

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Apparently the Rolling Stones just released a new CD of remixes of Sympathy for the Devil. For me, this is definitely a must-get (and thanks to the beauty of Amazon and credit cards, should be in my happy little hands in a few days).

Sympathy for the Devil has been one of my favorite songs for years, and I’ve collected quite a few versions over the years. I’m sure I don’t have all of the various versions out there yet, but so far I’ve managed to dig up:

  • The Rolling Stones, from Beggars Banquet: The original.
  • Jane’s Addiction, from Jane’s Addiction: just titled “Sympathy” here, Perry and the boys deliver a blistering live cover during one of their early concerts. One of my favorite versions.
  • Guns and Roses, from the Interview with the Vampire soundtrack: A solid but fairly straightforward cover, nothing terribly fancy.
  • Skrew, from Shut Up Kitty: A rather noisy, almost unrecognizable industrial cover. Not at all one of the best, but it comes from a fun album of industrial covers of old songs that is pretty solid overall (but more notable for KMFDM’s cover of U2’s “Mysterious Ways” and Blue Eyed Christ’s cover of Animotion’s “Obsession”, to tell the truth).
  • Laibach, from Sympathy for the Devil: German industrial band Laibach’s single contains no less than seven different mixes of their cover, ranging from dark-and-gloomy brooding to bright-and-bouncy dancefloor versions which were popular when I was DJ’ing back at Gig’s.

I think that those are all the versions I have now, at least until this new disc appears on my doorstep (though as I’m still working my way through my CD collection, there may be one or two more that I’ve forgotten). According to Flocculent, the new versions aren’t bad at all, either.

“Pleased to meet you…won’t you guess my name…”

Jane says…

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Jane’s Addiction rocks.

Jane’s Addiction has a new album out.

Jane’s Addiction’s new CD appears to be copy-protected (at least, the single from the new album had a prominently displayed ‘copy protection’ logo on it. I didn’t see one on the album itself, but if the single had it, there’s at least a good chance that the album will too, and I don’t know what the labeling requirements are for the new copy protection technology).

Jane’s Addiction just lost a sale.

If anyone can verify that the new album is not copy protected, then I’ll buy it. But I refuse to purchase a CD that likely will not play in my computer, but may not play in my normal CD player either. Besides, I listen to most of my music these days by legally copying it to my iPod. If I can’t do that, I’m not nearly as likely to listen to it, so why buy it? Grrrrrr.

Songs, A-Z

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Well, I didn’t read the rules of this game after I saw D’s list, so this list might seem a little odd. Rather than just list songs that start with a letter, I chose songs that I have in my .mp3 library, and where both the song title and the artist started with the respective letter of the alphabet. Uff!

The only times I couldn’t get a match for both were for X and Z, so I listed two songs, one for the song title that matched the letter, and one for the artist.

A: Ain’t Goin’ to Goa by A3
B: Bela Lugosi’s Dead by Bauhaus
C: Codeine, Glue and You by Chemlab
D: Destillat (VNV Nation Mix) by Das Ich
E: Emanuelle by Ex-Voto
F: Fired Up! (Club 69 Future Mix) by Funky Green Dogs
G: Games Without Frontiers (Massive D/B Mix) by Peter Gabriel
H: Hernando’s Hideaway (from The Pajama Game) by Carol Haney
I: The Indigo Swing by Indigo Swing
J: Jane Says by Jane’s Addiction
K: Kylie Said to Jason by The KLF
L: Lucy’s F*ck*ng Sky by Lords of Acid
M: Moonbeam by Men Without Hats
N: Ninety-Nine Red Balloons by Nena
O: Only A Lad by Oingo Boingo
P: Point Blank by Pigface
Q: Quad City Funk by Quad City DJs
R: Renegade Soundwave (Leftfield Mix) by Renegade Soundwave
S: Stay by Shakespeare’s Sister
T: Twist in my Sobriety by Tanita Tikaram
U: Until the End of the World by U2
V: Vengababes from Outer Space by The Vengaboys
W: Wimoweh by The Weavers
X: Dear God by XTC (or) Xhemikals by DJ H. Geek
Y: Your Horoscope for Today by “Wierd Al” Yankovic
Z: Living Dead Girl (Subliminal Seduction Mix) by Rob Zombie (or) Zeros and Ones by Jesus Jones