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Author: tantan on April 16 2008 Viewed 3311 times. 25 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
People who enjoyed reading this: bla, Roshi, sAMsKi, jdg, SenorFrio, license, Leo, timmo, MonkeyPlus1, madeofoak, EsromCole, mlbot, jkn, tylth, eevvrr, Otterfan, minisystem, Zanf, thehydrax, frnortnr, hecanjog, KidQuaalude, opticecho, sclr, applaud
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There have been many fave this, fave that blogs lately. Lets take it further.
Name your (no more than) five absolutely favorite songs of all time. I'm talking songs that are fundamentally, archetypally connected to your soul. Songs that you never, ever tire of hearing. Songs that make you cry, or shake your ass, or piss you off in that righteous sort of way every single time you hear it. Songs that other people can cover and you still feel that tug. Dig deep. There is no shame here.
Finally, to hell with lists. Say something real about these songs and where / how they get you.
Mine.
1. Depeche Mode. Stripped. This song, for me, is the perfect dark techno-pop song. The sounds are clever, the arrangement is very effective, and melodically it is a punch to the gut. Every time that big old string pad kicks in, I am toast. I love this song to death, and I love every cover version of it, including that recent sort of popular cover by Shiny Toy Guns.
2. The Cure. Sinking. There are so many Cure songs milling about in my subconscious, in particular this one, A Forest, and To Wish Impossible Things. However, this is the first of their songs that I heard that tapped into the sort of desperate emotional vibe that they would gratuitously, wonderfully exploit on Disintegration later on. The simple little piano riff kills me.
3. Bjork. All is Full of Love. Specifically, the Funkstorung remix that features in Chris Cunningham's video. A perfect, gorgeous song. The sounds, songwriting, and more than anything, her performance are terribly moving to me.
4. Slowdive. Dagger. So much of Slowdive's canon is huge and dripping the sort of miserable sentiment that I get off on, I'm not sure what it is about this tiny song that hits me. Contrast? Its sparseness in context of their other work? However, it moves me just as much out of context. I just know that it is a very simple little gem of a song, and it works because of it.
5. Skinny Puppy. Worlock. Oh man, that vocoder. Damn.
Hm, with the possible exception of the bjork track, no IDM or contemporary electronic peoples.
Also, due to popular request: please recount your five favorite jerkoffs -- identify the location, duration, and time of day.
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04/16/08
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tantan
so much great stuff, I love the rationale behind these!
Monkey -- Tear Garden! Wow! I loved them a lot, I have to go back and re-listen to "Tired Eyes..." today. Good call.
license -- thanks for indulging us.  Awesome list. I used to have a Wire album, many moons ago, on vinyl in the late 80s. It was super super good, I dunno what happened to it, but now I have to try to re-find it. I'd completely forgotten about them. Also, "Cipater" is far and away my favorite Ae song. It's the pinnacle of the whole sad dance music thing that so many folks were trying to pull off in the late 90s. I almost named it too. The melodics are super effective against that tight little beat.
04/16/08
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Roshi
license said: "
Wire : Map Ref 41 N 93 W - wonderful, magical vibe. Another summer song! I love everything about this song and for some reason, singing along to the nonsensical chorus is so cathartic. Chorus!
"
Just for you, license. A MBV cover of Map Ref: link
04/16/08
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EsromCole
Here's what I can com eup with at the moment. In no particular order.
Wumpscut - Christfuck Has a sense of tragedy that just really gets me. I can't ignore it, ever.
Ministry - Flashback It's like that maniacal voice in your head.
A Perfect Circle - The nurse Who Loved Me Reminds of when I was locked up but not in a negative way, and a certain female guard. lol
Radiohead - Sit Down, Stand Up It's like a whirling fucking beautiful aural clusterfuck.
Tech N9ne - Welcome To My World This man is one rap's last few real artists.
04/16/08
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Roshi
And for everyone else: here's the original Wire version: link
04/16/08
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tantan
hey oak -- I have much nirvana love, but my favorite of theirs is probably still teenage spirit because it's the first song in that style that I'd ever heard and I thought it rocked.
I won't call you a hipster for loving a radiohead song.
04/16/08
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madeofoak
i understand the teen spirit vote. i just can't seem to ever get over in utero.
oh, and the hip thing was referring to the fact that i usually get insulted for talking about how much i like radiohead. somehow it seems like it's become uncool to think they're good. maybe not? i hope that's stopped.
04/16/08
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lowlifi
1. Janes Addiction - Ritual de lo Habitual - greatest rock album EVAR
2 Nina Simone - Summertime
3 White Noise - My Game of Loving
4 Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherezade
5 Ravi Shankar - Kathakali Katthak
04/16/08
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EsromCole
I didn't put any Nirvana on my list cuz the list would have been all Nirvana if I had. Incesticide is my choice album there. Dive, dude that shit is epic.
04/16/08
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license
haha, yeah, I got a little greedy...I can never restrain myself with these "name five" or even "name ten" things.
I like Wire a lot. Pink Flag is great and A Bell... is good too (still haven't heard Chairs Missing), but I think 154 is the best. Just enough synths and atmospherics with the sarcasm balancing it out perfectly and there are so many exultant, pretty harmonies and melodies. It's emotive without being phony or sentimental at all.
I had to bust out "Cipater" again just now I don't even think it's sad, I think it's one of the most hopeful things ever, especially the pentatonic stuff at the end, it's brilliant in the original sense of the word, bright light. It boiled their prior influences down to a simplified form, reverse engineered them, and reconstructed them with scrap metal parts. The roughness around the edges just makes it even more perfect. That kind of wabi-sabi is what I love most in music.
04/16/08
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astroid
1. alameda-elliot smith link
2. wandering stars- portishead link
3. frances farmer will have her revenge on seattle-nirvana link
4. aguas do marco-jobim link
5. ergen daido- le mystere des voix bulgares link
04/16/08
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astroid
1. joni mitchell- my old man link
2. nick drake- parasite link
3. otis redding- these arms of mine link
4. leadbelly- where did you sleep last night link
5. bob dylan- with god on our side link
04/16/08
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tantan
astroid failed math class
04/16/08
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jkn
fave tunes of all time... no order and I'm massively violating the '5 track' rule...
saul stokes - downtown inaka (zo pilots)
This album kept me calm and focused while driving through a blizzard to Chicago... nearly 7 hours of driving which would normally have been 3 hours... visibility at about the hood of the car. I just kept the cd on repeat through a big chunk of the drive. Downtown Inaka is the first track that introduced me to Saul's work and made me go - wow - this guy is brilliant. I've since had the chance to work with him a couple of times and he's a great guy as well.
modern english - after the snow (the entire album)
Yeah, yeah - supposed to narrow this down a bit - but so much of this album defines a certain period of time for me that it's hard to narrow it down. Face of Wood and Dawn Chorus are the two that just take me to another place and time and lift my spirits. Life in the Gladhouse always reminds me of walking on late November through crunchy frosty grass with my headphones on as a teenager in my hometown in central Illinois. Ironically - the weaker track is the big hit... I Melt With You... fantastic song - but the power in the album is the other tracks.
david bowie - heroes (heroes)
There's just something amazing about the track. The studio recording is powerful, but it's really come to life on some of Bowie's live concerts. Gave me chills when I saw him do it live in about 1990 or so. One of my bands covered the track in the late 80's and it was always such a powerful song.
vidna obmana - lamentation (surreal sanctuary)
This is an incredibly powerful ambient track with gorgeous overtone singing from... eek - name escapes me at the moment. The whole first half of this album is dead on perfect (with a slight lapsing on the 2nd half - but the 1st half is definitly worth the price of admission...). It's a track that moves me every time I hear it.
pan sonic - vaihtovirta (track 2 off of aaltopiiri)
Another perfect ambient track. This track is so far above most other pan sonic tracks - this one I can hear at any time (where most of their tracks I really need to be in the "mood" for...). Gorgeous... perfection.
depeche mode -
Narrowing this down would be impossible - and as I've gotten older many of the tracks didn't hold up as well (maybe I'll cycle back one of these days) - to say they were a huge influence on my music would be an understatement. I definetely have a fondness for A Broken Frame and Construction Time Again. I've got an absolutely stupid number of 12" and 7" releases from the 80's from them... saw them 4 times live during that time also... great, great stuff...
rufus wainwright - beautiful child
Everytime I play it I have to belt it out at the top of my lungs... Rufus can be a bit whiny from time to time - but with this song he nailed it. Always makes me feel better.
supergrass - faraway (supergrass)
Yikes - hope I've got the right track name on that one... 2nd to last on the album. why? I dont' know - this track just works for me every single time and I usually end up hitting repeat. Ironically - this is the first supergrass album I'd bought where I thought it sucked on the first listen. I gave it a few chances and then let is sit for a year before discovering it again. Earlier albums hit me the right way on the first few listens...
herbie hancock and 60's era blue note records
Heck - I don't even really know the track titles and narrowing it down would be pointless... this era of jazz hits me the right way. Miles Davis was doing utterly stunning work on Columbia - the Herbie Hancock releases on Blue Note - and all the releases by basically that same core group of people each persons name (Wayne Shorter, Ron Clark, Tony Williams, etc...) wow - fantastic stuff. Miles shifting into Bitches Brew and Herbie heading into Mwandishi and then that utterly freaking brilliant first Headhunters album... wow.
muse - apocalypse please (absolution)
I'm on a big Muse kick lately - (the lastest HAARP live album's been stuck in my car cd player all week...) - this track off of Absolution is a perfection. An easy one for me to hit repeat on.
A few other tracks...
autechre - second bad vilbel (anvil vapre) - good every time
speedy j - borax (a shocking hobby) - another good every time track...
radian - juxtaposition album - freaking brilliant album straight through.
underworld - born slippy - has to be loud.
the who - i can see for miles and miles - mostly due to the raw energy and the fact one of my band's covered it and it was so damn fun to play... iggy and the stooges search and destroy had a similar power to it - same reason.
beatles... so many tracks
04/16/08
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Otterfan
As I age, the music that moves me the most tends towards old sentimental jazz, blues, folk, and country that I picked up from my parents. Probably five favorite right now, in reverse chronological order:
Sonic Youth: 'Teenage Riot' 1988 nostalgia; only one here I didn't pick up from my parents
Joseph Spence: 'Out on the Rolling Sea' music coming at you from everywhere, and Spence at his most bumptious
Eric Dolphy: 'Come Sunday' pure beautiful soul music, like from the soul, not R&B
Carter Family: 'Will You Miss Me when I'm Gone' I love dark love songs, and nobody does dark love--in real life and song--like the Carters (AP & Sara, June Carter & Johnny Cash, etc)
Mississippi John Hurt: 'Hey Baby, Right Away' as simple as a song can be; beautiful and unassuming; rural in the best sense
04/16/08
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astroid
1. freight train- elizabeth cotten link
2. whiskey in the jar- trad. link
3. new slang- the shins link
4. the archtypal man -judee sill (cant find a version)
5. manic-depression- jimi hendrix link
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