Sumer Mix 2009

1.“I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked,” Ida Maria:

I'd like them better if they didn't almost look like a ska band, but other than that these guys are the real deal. Also, they share my Facebook quiz nationality (Swedish).

2. “Rhythm of the Night,” Corona:

Dance music of the era when dance music was for people with tops instead of plaid shirts. Now it's for people with tops AND people with plaid shirts. Democracy!

[Spoiler alert if you haven't seen Beau Travail. What happens right before this scene is that the male gaze gets reversed, and then some laboring bodies get eroticized. Oh and meanwhile the postcolonial psyche is really fragmented:]

3. “Get Ready for This," 2 Unlimited:

See above.

4. “Lisztomania," Phoenix:

You had me at Liszt. And at not being the Decemberists.

5. “Thug Passion,” 2Pac:

Last summer I bought a bottle of Alize because of this song. It’s gross FYI.

6. “You Get What You Give,” The New Radicals:

Did you know I love uplifting music? Almost exclusively. I don’t tell people that because it makes me seem like a sociopath. The kind of person who would order mint chocolate chips online. The only people who have listened to the New Radicals in the past nine years are ant torturers, YouTube commenters, and me. And probably Europeans.

7. “Little Secrets,” Passion Pit:

Sorry I’m a blogger :( It gets the party started, tho.

8. “Bizarre Love Triangle,” New Order:

I advanced the thesis that New Order was to 2009 what Led Zeppelin was to 2004, and my friend was like, “New Order is to 2004 what Led Zeppelin was to 2004.” Touché.

9. “American Girl,” Tom Petty:

The breakdown of the song always reminds me of a dad band. Just bein' moms and dads. But the outro really brings it in terms of shredding. And what other terms are there?
Play back to back with “American Boy” for an intergenerational battle of the sexes!

10. “Wannabe in L.A.,” Eagles of Death Metal:

Why yes I do.

11. Thermals, “Now We Can See”:

This song reminds me of my pure love for music when I was a kid first learning about music. One of The Thermals was like, “let’s just write a modest, breezy jam that we can play in basement house parties for eternity” and the other Thermals were like “why not?" Plus it's about what life would be like outside the Cave and shattering the progress myth, whut.

In short, if you need me this summer, I'll be sitting in my office quietly listening to “Jock Jams.”

The National and the Problem of Other Minds

Nick:
Have you heard The National? I investigated them in earnest on the tip of a trustworthy blog.
Oh my god. Who is the world?

Liz:
I just checked out their MySpace. Lookout Barenaked Ladies. barf.

Nick:
Here’s my beef with The National. Do our peers really think that's beautiful? Like they live the lives we do, and then in their private time they sit down and really feel that vision of the world? Because I do not feel it, and I do not understand how you can live in the same world I live in and get that from it. And that's how things work.

Liz:
Well if that's the only basis for your beef w/ The National, maybe they'll grow on you? I agree, but on the other hand, music tastes follow certain set trajectories, and the one you end up on as an adult is the product of a lot of meaningless contingencies of your adolescence, so maybe those people who like The National aren't all that different from us. But it also seems like the taste trajectory you happen to follow still has to color your present-day worldview, if aesthetics means anything, so maybe those people are profoundly different from us and do experience the world in a completely alien way. [puzzled shrug]

Nick:
You're right. It's funny that I used to look for, like, metaphysical answers to those questions. Like I thought there was something in the music itself, then I thought there was a spirit of music that was progressing, and so on. It's like my brain went through the entire history of western thought just because I didn't understand why my heart was moved by certain things. And now I’ve come to terms with radical contingency. So, thanks again, Fleetwood Mac.

Liz: I feel our conversations sometimes operate on a strange plane.

Nick: I also like how this started by me wanting a girlfriend and convincing myself of how special I was.