February 24th 2008
The Daily Random 10, part 1
I finally finished building a computer with parts made in this millennium, and I can now run programs also made this millennium. This includes switching from my old faithful Winamp to iTunes, entirely for the smart playlists on that latter. Of course, this will also leads to rating a lot of songs, some of which I haven’t heard in well over a year.
To help me in this moderately gargantuan task, I’m going to rate 10 random songs a day and slap the results up here. I (not so) secretly hope that I generate a bell curve, just because bell curves are awesome. On with judging!
- Depeche Mode - Never Let Me Down Again. 2 stars. While it does Britishly rhyme ‘trousers’ with ‘houses’ this plods on and on in its four minutes, reminding me of Ethan Frome.
- Mercury Rev - Nite and Fog. 3 stars. The only album I really listened to from Mercury Rev was Deserter’s Songs, so there’s a good chance I’ve never heard this before. I’ve heard worse songs about being a pathetic loser wanting a girl who lights up, but I’ve also heard a lot better ones.
- Wallflowers - The Difference. 3 stars. Hell yeah, a song I actually know! This is probably rated higher than it should be because of nostalgia, but since iTunes doesn’t allow ratings by halves (or even more properly for this one, by quarter stars), this gets bumped down a bit. I do wish that Jakob Dylan could sound a bit pissed during this song, that’d make it an actual four stars.
- Crowded House - Better Be Home Soon. 4 stars. At first listen, I want to give this 4 stars, it’s aching sound is usually something that wears well for me, and I like the quiet strength of the lyrics underneath the vocal. There’s something in the song that makes me think it has a limited life-span at 4 stars. I guess I’ll find out.
- Oasis - Slide Away. 3 stars. Call it anti-nostalgia, but I just can’t give myself to give an Oasis song other than “Don’t Look Back in Anger” 4 stars.
- Placebo - Song to Say Goodbye. 3 stars. If this came later on in the life of the Daily Random 10, I’d probably give it 4 stars. It starts with a “tell us how you really feel” lyric of “You are one of God’s mistakes/You crying, tragic waste of skin” and then moves on to being a rather tender “freaking stop the drugs/alcohol/self abuse or you’ll die soon and I’ll be sad” song. It’s too bad that they already did it better with “Special K.”
- The Pipettes - It Hurts to See You Dance So Well. 4 stars. Sad music that makes you want to move around and forget about how sad you are. Then it all crashes down again, all in 1:53.
- The White Stripes - Take, Take, Take. 3 stars. A solid White Stripes song, but right now I’m looking for more than solid to get into the 4 star category, especially from a band as good as the Stripes are.
- Barenaked Ladies - Hello City. 3 songs. This suffers from precisely the same fate as the previous song.
- The Mountain Goats - The Alphonse Mambo. . I can get past the horrible, stabby connotations I have with the word “mambo,” I really can. I’ve barely listened to this album, and I know that I take a while to really love most of John Darnielle’s songs, so I’ll probably rate this up on the future promise of greatness. Wait. He delivered a lyric totally pissed off! That’s deserving of 4 stars.
