MY LOVE IS LIKE...WHOA

So my least favorite holiday is quickly approaching. That would be Valentine's Day. If you must know, I also detest Halloween, Christmas, Columbus Day, and New Years Eve. I love Thanksgiving and St. Patrick's Day. The rest are useless. 

SO. In celebration of the bullshit I am going to set out on a quest to post great love songs from then and now. For the next two weeks. Maybe longer. Maybe forever. Love songs are the cornerstone of every genre of music. You've got hip-hip romance, bluegrass love, pop luv, funk love, love love, hate love, hate love hate songs. I am going to touch them all. And maybe in the process, I will touch your heart. And perhaps my icy interior will melt and I will somehow be able to become human, one who is capable of this thing called "love." I'm excited.

I'm not in love yet but I have two weeks to listen to love songs non-stop and so do you. Get going so when I meet you we can fall in love and put our resentment and cynicism for the entire human race behind us. Do you know the song by The Spice Girls "Two Become One"? It is going to be like that but without the girl power and Scary Spice. 

I am going to start off slowly. After all, this isn't easy for me. Here are some love songs that aren't too lovely. I am choking back the vomit already. The next two weeks are going to be a challenge. xoxoxoxoxoxoxo, Emily

Mason Jennings "Nothing"

MF Doom "Hoe Cakes"

Girls "Lust for Life"

Kaiser Chiefs "Everyday I Love You Less and Less"

Mya "My Love is Like...Whoa"

Slumdog Millionaire really IS that good.

So both members of Gangster Legs just saw Slumdog Millionaire, and lemme tell ya, it was quite good. As good as all that Oscar business says it is. Seriously. Go see it. And what adds to that movie wonderfully is it's soundtrack, which includes everyones favorite preggers Sri Lankan/English hiphopdance superstar, M.I.A. There's this part in the movie when the two main characters, at this point they can't be more than 12 years old, are hustling random shit on a train and "Paper Planes" is playing in the background. But not the Paper Planes that we all know now. It's not the Paper Planes we've all turned it into. It's not the Paper Planes that frat kids playing beer pong get excited about and sing a long to when she says the line about getting high. Nor is it the Paper Planes of in-the-know white 20-somethings wearing bright pink pants and doing street art. Nor is it the Paper Planes of the someone I used to know that thought M.I.A. was silly and just a voyeuristic hipster fad until he realized that she had something of a social message about the effects of imperialism and modern day international capitalism (it was then really cool AND a thing to intellectual jack off to after that). While yes, Paper Planes is an amazing commentary on capitalism and it's effects, something it being shown on MTV and the gunshot noises being edited out kind of lessens a bit, it gets to mean even more than that in this movie. I know this might seem a bit obvious but it really shows it to you. You can actually see it. In this movie, specifically in this four minute clip of kids selling keychain flashlights and exotic food on a train, you actually see what M.I.A. sings/raps/speaks/howls about. The glaring irony of this song literally slaps you in the face to such an extent that you can't believe you didn't feel it this much before. And consequently, it makes you want to slap overzealous potheads in the face even harder for missing it.

Download M.I.A. Paper Planes and, for good measure the ADROCK Remix as well, which is pretty fly.

I won't call to my lover, lover you leave me alone. (jk Matthew, jk)

Now if you happened to catch my most recent encounter with Matthew Houck of Phosphorescent (that's right, most recent...there was another that was a bit more personal yet still included me making a silly fool of myself...but much more vocally that time...with more people i didn't know...and in a smaller room....umm..it was still magical!!) in this past post, you'll know that we're quickly on the way to solidifying a wedding date. But aside from helping me pick out flowers, making weekly trips to Crate & Barrel, and locating the right pair of cowboy boots for his suavely dressed-down tux, Matthew has been busy recording a new album To Willie. Composed entirely of Willie Nelson covers, this album is quite a bit more country than his older work but still as lovingly crafted and labouriously pronounced.

Download Reasons to Quit off To Willie, out February 3rd. Check him out at the Bell House February 28th too, I will probably be there beaming as well. Dreamy!

Oh my god, I can't pull off a comb-over

Now, I know this album came out seemingly ages ago, but this song came on via the "Party Shuffle" option of itunes (I just noticed this existed, like, a week ago and since then it's been party 24/7) and it made me remember how fantastic it is. Not only is the beat infectious and wonderfully repeatitive as fuck, not only is it a hella sexy song, not only has it seriously schooled me in indie music history of the past forty-odd years, but it also serves as a constant reminder of every aging hipster's nightmare. GET SPOOKED GUYS!

LCD Soundsystem Losing My Edge

Here's to near nudity

Check it: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/us/politics/29whitehouse.html?_r=1&hp

Not only is he the father of my child and responsible for diverting flocks of geese from on-coming jumbojets across the nation, but he also is teaching the country to dress anew. Obama wants you to put down those dress pants and sports coats and just take a chill pill guys! He really can do everything.

Download Summertime Clothes by Animal Collective: a song off that new album everyone is shitting themselves over. While I really tried to unabashedly like this album as well, I think I might have read more snotty, pimply, macbook touting music reviewers' letters of unadulterated praise to turn me off from it forever. The words "brilliant" and "progressive" really only strike my fancy if used in moderation. Really liking Animal Collective is something I like to equate with skinny jeans and intimate knowledge of a total of one art gallery in Brooklyn that is on a vaugely intimidating street: it is the band that lays the groundwork for future advancement of hipsterdom, but truely shows to those who are already there, you have not quite achieved it yet. While it's a good start, you haven't quite arrived and will be scoffed and shown as a non-nothing poser if drawn into a verbal trap by an older, wiser, thinner graphic designer at a party whilst nervously downing a PBR. (Simply: 9th graders with thick glasses really like Animal Collective)

Do you want to feel alive...like when you were born?

Put your electro/emotional seat belt on. This is one of those remixes that make you say, what the hell was wrong with The Verve that they didn't do it like this in the FIRST place? Bless his heart, Moby saw the light and added a healthy dose of uppers to this song. Inspirational. It has the kind of build-up releases that "Sandstorm" by Darude (come on, you remember) has so that it works you up into a frenzy waiting for the final moment of ecstatic combustion. (picture courtesy of St. Tiggywinkles Animal Hospital)

Download "Bittersweet Symphony (Moby Remix)"

P.S. For more bittersweet appendages see "Bittersweet Dirt" post by BAG. 

Who ARE You?

This band is majorly elusive. All I know about them is that Brooklyn Vegan thinks they're just lovely and that it's made up of a bunch of very attractive girls with bangs and lots of musical skill. They play in Brooklyn often, where they are apparently from. Maybe I'm just not in-the-know enough, or maybe I am just a bad investigative journalist (both rightly qualify me for bad/lame hipster status), but for the life of me I cannot find a simple mp3 of The Newleyweds Song (cool side note: it's based off of this native american myth or something...crazy!). So I will instead post a link to their myspace for you to, like myself, listen to it over and over again by clicking play a bunch of times. Listen to their other stuff too. And look at those silly instruments! Kids these days, huh?

www.myspace.com/effibriest

If you don't feel like doing that, watch this video instead. It's your call, really.

PS- They're actually not that elusive, here's an interview the Village Voice did a while back, http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2008/02/theyre_eerie_bu.php

Sexual High (Radiohead + Marvin Gaye)

Sexual healing is baby territory in comparison to the emotional wrecking ball that is Sexual High (YUP, High and Dry by Radiohead). Get ready to feel hopeful. Too bad love is the root of all evil and turns people into mumbling idiots. 

Download "Sexual High"

P.S. Thanks for the great mash-ups DT.