Sarah McLachlan

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).

Gallimaufry

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Terrance resurrects an old meme as a weekly thing. He titled it Friday Ten, but posted it on a Wednesday, so I’m not sure where things are going to go from here, time-wise, and so have decided that ‘gallimaufry‘ will make a good title (the definition works, and it’s a fun word). In any case, it can be entertaining to do, so let’s see what we get…

The rules are simple: put your entire music playlist on random, and post the first ten songs your music player comes up with.

  • The Postal Service, ‘Nothing Better‘, off of Give Up: Rick had me make a copy of this album to see what I thought. I’m still not entirely sure if I’d buy it, but it’s not bad — a very 80’s-synth-pop-ish feel to the songs. Catches my ear, but hasn’t yet snagged my wallet.

  • Pigface, ‘Hips, Tits, Lips, Power’, off of Fook: Pigface is one of my personal favorites, an industrial ‘supergroup’ with an ever-changing lineup. HTLP is definitely one of their better tracks, but it’s the live versions that really stand out.

  • Simple Minds, ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’, off of The Breakfast Club Soundtrack: Okay, yeah, I’m a child of the 80’s — not only is this one of my favorite songs from that era, but often it’s all I can do not to pump my fist in the air like the character does at the end of the film as this song kicks in just before the credits roll.

  • Scott McKenzie, ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)‘, off of Pop Music: The Golden Era 1951-1975: The Sony Soundtrack to a Century collection has an incredible set of songs spread across twenty-some discs, covering literally a century of recorded music. I’ve got most of the sets that make up the full collection, and will track the last few down eventually.

  • Tori Amos, ‘Yes, Anastasia‘, off of Under the Pink: Much as I like Tori’s work, her more recent albums have just been getting weirder and weirder lyrically. This is from back when you could still figure out what she was talking about on most of her songs. ;)

  • Delerium with Sarah McLachlan, ‘Silence (Sanctuary Mix)’, off of Plastic Compilation Vol. II: The Plastic Compilation series of samplers are some of the best collections of modern electronica I’ve found in recent years. This track (in its various remixes) was quite a hit on the dancefloors a few years back.

  • Fischerspooner, ‘Emerge (DFA Remix)‘, off of iTMS Exclusive EP: I first heard of Fischerspooner when The Vogue got a bunch of free sampler CDs that included Emerge, which was one of the more requested tracks at the club for a while. Admittedly, though, this is a rather bland remix.

  • Bytet, ‘Anything‘, off of Split Single: Bytet is Robert Geiger’s dark electronica project from Anchorage. I saw him perform on quite a few occasions, and I used to chat with Robert every so often when I ran into him around town. I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that he’s on the iTMS, even if I had to link to different mix of the song that popped up on my playlist. Going to have to drop him an e-mail later on and say hi.

  • Mojave 3, ‘Mercy‘, off of Dr. Martens: Shoe Pie: The Dr. Martens shoe company used to put CD samplers in with their shoes from time to time. Shoe Pie is one of two of the samplers that I have, though I picked it up used rather than with a pair of shoes. The song…well, I can’t really say it grabs me.

  • Tori Amos, ‘Past the Mission‘, off of Under the Pink: Now, that’s just funny. 15,189 songs in my collection, and iTunes randomly grabs two songs off of the same album. This one happens to feature Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails doing backup vocals — singing, even, rather than screaming!

Not a bad little list, that.

And now, a ‘bonus’ eleventh track (consider it a not-really-hidden track), thanks to the usual iTunes blurb I toss on posts when I’m posting from home…
iTunes “Higher Than the Sun” by Primal Scream from the album Just Say Anything (1991, 3:37).