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Author: tantan on April 16 2008 Viewed 3299 times. 25 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
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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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astroid
lol i'll be doing this all day
04/16/08
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room
AC/DC : Back in Black - first 7"! single I ever bought and just picked up the album on CD - the guitar riffs are so precise and powerful
The Orb : Little Fluffy Clouds - floating nostalgia
The Beatles : I Am The Walrus - this song is soooo mad, hectic an outpouring of creative genius
Miles Davies : So What - it knows when to be gentle and when to build - its soulful and touches me
Aphex Twin : Mookid - its got sounds in it that pulls on my stomach
04/16/08
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license
jkn said: "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. "
YES! This is a favorite of mine too. I love so much of their stuff but this probably stands out as one of their best for me too. It's one of those songs that expresses a certain mood so well and so clearly that it's kind of hard to believe it exists. Not a damn thing wrong with it.
I also second your Second Bad Vilbel but I think the track after that (the second..) is the best on that EP. that EP is spotless the whole way through though.
04/16/08
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jkn
license said: " jkn said: "pan sonic - vaihtovirta (track 2 off of aaltopiiri) "
YES! This is a favorite of mine too. I love so much of their stuff but this probably stands out as one of their best for me too. It's one of those songs that expresses a certain mood so well and so clearly that it's kind of hard to believe it exists. Not a damn thing wrong with it.
I also second your Second Bad Vilbel but I think the track after that (the second..) is the best on that EP. that EP is spotless the whole way through though."
That pan sonic track has always transcended so much other music for me. It's rare to have tracks that leap out that far.
Garbage and Anvil Vapre are far and away my favorite Autechre ep's/albums... when I bought Tri Repetae++ I couldn't believe how amazing those two ep's were...
Definitely look at the radian/juxtaposition album for a similar vibe, but with live drums and bass player and lots of controlled lovely feedback. Can't recommend that album enough.
04/16/08
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monty
hard to list all time favs
these 5 rocked my worlde and continue to rock my worlde
Machine Gun - Hendrix Band of Gypsys (yay jdg!!)
basically i think its the best electric guitar music ever recorded, like a stream of conciousness,
i hear anger, joy, love, exsistential panic all wrapped in that recording.
link
See Those Eyes - Altered Images
Breathtakingly cheesey 80s guitar pop. reminds me of a girl i used to lust after.
link
I Wanna Be Adored - The Stone Roses
love Ian Browns vocals. the bass is perfect.
great guitar stuff.
dreamy, reminds me of being young.
link
Rocky Road to Dublin - The Dubliners
made me want to play the banjo, i love the feel of this, again sounds like a stream of conciousness
you lot would hate it.
link (good live version)
Sister Ray - The Velvet Underground
link (part1)
link (part2)
an awesome slab of music. John Cales organ work melts my mind.
shits all over those shoddy noise bands that the Wire seem to take seriously.
Bob Marley - Time Will Tell
I had to get some Bob up in here.
link
i could go on and on.
04/16/08
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tylth
Nightmares On Wax - Les Nuits link
Air - All I Need link
Sofar Rockers - Sofa Surfers remix by Richard Dorfmeister link
Phoenix - If I Ever Feel Better link
Autechre - Clipper link
THE VERY BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER THERE'S NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!!!
04/16/08
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monty
my favourite beatles track:
link
YAY GEORGE!!!!!!!!!!!!
04/16/08
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astroid
1. dolphy - god bless the child link
2. coltrane -while my lady sleeps (can't find)
3. the kinks- victoria link
4. black sabbath -sweet leaf link
5. willie nelson- crazy link
04/16/08
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flies
1) Debussy - claire de lune. this shit makes me tear up everytime i hear it. so fucking beautiful. Don't even have to think abotu it, i have loved this song since i heard it, continuously.
as for the rest, i'll just pick some that are great. maybe not 4evah, cuz, yno, tastes are transient
2) Kevin Drumm - hitting the pavement. perfect name for this brutalizing, anti-ambient music. subtly detailed, brilliantly developed, this is one of the pieces of music that changed my tastes forever. this is the sound of a guitar exploding for 18 minutes.
3) taylor deupree - stil. (period is part of title, AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT!). Again with the good name. This 23 minute track is a multi-layered sine-wave masterpiece. It is forceful, cold, brilliant, like a diamond. The song is basically binary in a sense, meaning that either it switches between two states. It has a steady state of weaving sine-tones, disonnant, spacious, simultaneously busy and inert, never changing, constantly changing. about once every 3-5 minutes, the dissonance disperses, giving a breath of harmony, short-lived and pristine, quickly dissolving back into the steady state. The timing of these transitions is restrained and concise. Really excellent tune. much more abstract than most of deupree's other work.
4) john duncan - infrasound: tidal, seismic, barometric. Another long one, 42 mintues. Long samples are placed in succession. Occasionally there is a feeling of one fading in, but in general the transitions are immediate. Clean. The sounds vary - rumbling, churning, fluctuating, sine-like tones. Each is either a recording of nature or a transcription of natural processes into sound, and hence each bears the mark of nature, which is structured stochasticity. The feeling of nature is in sharp contrast to the artful changes that appear rapidly in the sound, such changes being the indelible mark of an intelligence. Nature under the curation of john duncan.
5) Greg Davis and Jeph Jerman - third stata (track three of ku on room40). Listening to this is like taking a walk through the woods in springtime. Jeph Jerman is known for using found objects as percussion instruments, primarily natural objects such as leaves, shells, stones, water, etc, as well. Greg Davis has varied output, often using computers in his work, though in general the sounds are based in acoustical instruments. For this album, Davis uses Jerman's instrumentation, more or less, though the approach to sound each man takes was already of one mind. Both men are accomplished improvisers (both very much worth seeing!!!!) Ku also includes some 'minimal electronic' gear and the tracks are collated from improvised recordings. This track is my favorite on the album for the tonal elements, primarily drum and bowed cymbals. It is the most spacious, less a steady stream of rattles and bumps, it has a more restrained attitude. I suppose of the three tracks it is the one that uses the most conventional instrumentation. sue me. The piece flows like water. still and clear, occasional ripples dotting the surface.
04/16/08
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mlbot
My faves all mix pretty + ugly.
Sonic Youth - Teenage Riot. I'm with OF
Voivod - Phobos. Metal + psychadelic join together to make great.
Cranes - beautiful friend. So simple, yet effective.
Jesu - Silver. Simple, huge, so much reverb and distortion!
Meat Puppets - lake of Fire. Who needs pitch?
04/16/08
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jkn
flies said: "1) Debussy - claire de lune. this shit makes me tear up everytime i hear it. so fucking beautiful. Don't even have to think abotu it, i have loved this song since i heard it, continuously."
Cheers on that one... it was my mom's favorite favorite song and I heard it a ton growing up (either her or my sister or me playing it on piano). I recorded an electronic version of it for my sister's wedding - spent the entire night locked in the music store I worked at recording it in about 1990. I love the big ending scene in Ocean's 11 (recent version) at the Bellagio fountain due to the fantastic use of this song.
Taylor Deupree is great though I'm not familiar with that track.
04/16/08
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bodo
funny, I was thinking 'Clair de Lune' myself 
and 'God bless the Child' by Dolphy too
so I'll try to come up with a list
my funny valentine (as sung by chet baker)
so fragile and beautiful this song has it all for me, very sparse sounds and an incredible warmth
sometimes it snow in april - prince
have very fond memories of this song, and again is very fragile and heartbreakingly beautiful
Fratres - arvo pärt
just THE most beautiful music ever I think, you gotta listen to the entire album in one go, just mesmerising
i've been listening to this for about seventeen years now on a pretty regular base and it gives me the shivers every time
dub fi gwan - king tubby
something totally different, a very rootsy uptempo dubtrack by the king himself - absolutely timeless
in a beautiful place out in the country - board of canada
the title sums it up pretty well really, so lush and perfect
04/16/08
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astroid
1. dear god- xtc link
2. i know what boys like - the waitresses link funkiest song ever
3. hybrid moments- the misfits link
4. be my baby- phil spector link
5. the locomotion-carol king link
04/16/08
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eevvrr
does not compute. ur lists change in some time, but fav five now?
50 cent the mechanic
mf doom i sell rhymes like dimes
snoop dogg hi definition (lupe fiasco)
chemical bros salmon dance
ghostface be easy
04/16/08
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Roshi
Arthur Russell - Being It - voice, distorted cello, and echo...do I need to explain?
Brian Eno - Here come the warm jets - it's like proto-shoegazer
Jordi Savall - Les Pleurs (by M. de saint colombe) - lovely and sad gamba playing.
Electrelane - The greatest times - it's so sad and driving at the same time.
Ghost - Soma - so haunting!
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