playlist.2011.you’re over now – 13 Songs I Couldn’t Stop Playing

Are We Lovers or Are We Friends?
Acid House Kings

Amoreena, again — the only reason I know about some song I get obsessed with and can’t stop playing. This girl has better taste in music than roughly 90% of my friends (sorry guys). I played this about a million times in February and March. This album was the first NEW music I added to my iPod after paying for it with my tax return. (YAY TAXES.) I want to walk around my neighborhood in yoga pants and sketchers with heavy earphones everytime I hear the opening refrain.

These Days I Wake So Early
Goodbye Kumiko
http://goodbyekumiko.bandcamp.com/track/these-days-i-wake-so-early

“I wish I knew you when I was younger / before we got older / before all the heartbreaks / we know // the places to go / i’ve already been there / and they all mean something to me / now”

Aren’t we all regretful about the callousness of our youth? I think about Holden Caulfield sometimes, and my Junior year of highschool, and I wonder if either one of us survived. I’m being melodramatic, I know- but seriously- Holden Caulfield? As an adult? You don’t think that was the narrative? Someone looking back, romanticizing their youth? Holden is such an asshole. This song has nothing to do with assholes, but everything about the perspective the past gives you on the present. And how immalleable time really is. And the lines in your face. And the walls.

Dear Mr. President
Fitz and the Tantrums

The album version is a little more high energy than this Wilcox Session, but the feeling comes across just the same. It was April, and the days were gaining light, and I was walking around my neighborhood after a jumprope to this song: “Hey, put your foot down- and take a look ’round” seemed as good a rally cry to me as ever after months of watching what was happening in Wisconsin and then in New York and eventually, in Oakland. Dear Mr. President, Please take notice. XOXO, all of us.

Build.Destroy.Rebuild.
Hanni El Khatib

Over, and over and over again.

And again.

How It Ended
The Drums

Damn-you-reena! Hehehe. My BFF posted this song on my FB and was all, “This reminds me of when you lived next door to me.” And I was like, “Um, K, I loooooff this song. What is this!?” And she was all, you can check out pictures of this band (which are clearly awesome here: and also visit her website : http://www.amoreenalucero.com

Blood Red Blood
The Ettes

“Heee Heee YEEEEeees”… Coco! Let’s get married. Let’s take your litle hat and run over some ridge somewhere and adorably giggle and drink Rolling Rock, which is what drinkify suggest for me to imbibe while listening to you, Pony and Jem (Totally Outrageous) as you belt and whelp it out into my ears. (Though I love a cold Beck’s.) I adore this song, and the version captured here just breaks my broken heart.

In fact, the whole series makes me wish I was there, beer in hand, nodding head and heartfelt jaw-clench engaged, the stomp of my foot just seconds from the floor.

The Ettes pretty much saved my October/November. I was adrift and they anchored me. Thank god.

If You’re Lucky You’ll End Up With Someone You Don’t Hate
Elephant
http://soundcloud.com/mjmccarthy/mjsongs7
I go back and forth about what this song means to me. And then forth and back. But I love belting it out in my car.

Friends of Friends
Hospitality

Please go to iTunes and immediately pre-order this album, which is available on Jan 30(?). Not only do the opening chords of this song make me want to grab a microphone and declare something as bold as brash as having new friends, the desperation of a cheap dress with a wrinkled sleeve makes an urgent argument for your purchase. Do it. Preorder it. Now.

Mouth Drum
French Cassettes

OK, so, I was trolling the internet and found this Bay Area band and then missed my chance to see them at the Stork. Have kicked myself ever since. Sexy lyrics, nice stylings – I really dig them. Kind of a Vampire Weekend-From-the-Bay-Area-But-Less-Obnoxiously-Quirky-Than-VW kind of vibe. To be, you know, really vague about it.

Also, this song was STUCK in October. Couldn’t get it out of my head.

At+T
Pavement

I’ve been listening to Pavement since that damn haircut song, but never with any kind of urgency. Always a background and never a focus, I was cooking and I heard this come across my iPod on random. Something about the way Malkmus intones “Whatever whatever whatever” resonated… but my favorite lines “(spell me) Spritzer / on ice in New York ci-ty / isn’t it a pi-ty / you never had anything to mix with that” and “Jacob – Jacob Javvers – I’d like to thank you for everything – Primarily your glass house” are equally silly and nonsensical. And the way he wails at the end with complete abandon? I wish I could feel that free, even for fifteen seconds.

By Your Hand
Los Campesinos!

Oh, LC. Let’s all go steady. KK? Thx. Bye.

Glitter and Twang
Tullycraft

I never said the songs were from this year. (See: Pavement.) But there were about seven nights, maybe ten, where this song was on repeat. And a multitude of car rides to and from work. And I’m pretty sure if my coworkers hear “She grew up just north of privelege / where pink and perfect were sold” I’ll be shot.
Please, pay NO attention the the actual video.

bukowski
Modest Mouse

I never got into Modest Mouse and suddenly it’s like a book I can’t put down. This song resonated with me and came right at the perfect time when I need to say “asshole” a lot. I love the part where Isaac Brock accuses God of being an Indian Giver.

And those were the songs that I couldn’t get off my mind this year. And still can’t.