All songs are equal, but some are more equal than others

[vovat]

zaph did a "five songs you can't stand by artists you otherwise like" meme, and I considered doing it, but I really can't think of very many songs that would fit the criteria. I mean, there are certainly songs I like less than others, and I can usually choose least favorites. If it were simply a matter of listing those, I probably would do it. I guess I'm the type who prefers to see the good in the weaker tracks, though. I mean, to take They Might Be Giants as an example, I'm probably never going to love, say, "Mr. Klaw" or "The Vowel Family," but I don't find them unlistenable, either. They have their own merits. It's sort of a case of the worst songs by a band I really like still being pretty good. As a general rule, the songs that bug me the most tend to be ones that everybody knows, but aren't particularly representative of the band's work. You know, stuff like "Istanbul," which isn't a bad song at all, but it's annoying that that's pretty much all of what a lot of people know of TMBG. There are also some songs that I don't like for reasons other than musical quality, but those tend to change with my attitudes and feelings. And sometimes I just haven't been able to really pay attention to certain songs, for whatever reason.

Today, I bought a few short-sleeved shirts with buttons, since I didn't really have enough of these. I seem to recall having more in the past, but oh well. Specific types of clothing tend to disappear when I need them most. During the winter, it always seemed like too many of my button shirts were short-sleeved. I actually wore a long-sleeved shirt to work today, and that worked out pretty well, since it was a cool and rainy morning. After work, in addition to the shirts, I bought a few presents for bethje. I won't divulge the identities of those items at this time, for obvious reasons.

Comments

[revme.livejournal.com]

Hm, there's a few I could think of, given enough time. There's some Elvis Costello stuff, particularly later, where it's all Overwrought Ballady, in the exact wrong way from the way he usually does Overwrought Ballads, but I'm blanking on song titles. There's the occasional Ween song, like "Mourning Glory", but a lot of times those end up kinda growing on me (like "Fluffy" or basically all of Chocolate and Cheese). There's even some TMBG stuff -- it's very, very rare I don't skip "Particle Man", but that's mainly from over-hearing than anything else. Some Zappa stuff, too, but the man released so much it's hard to think that there wouldn't be _something_ I wouldn't like. And some later DEVO stuff is so Cringeworthy.

Oh, god, "Homophobic Dream #22" by Barnes and Barnes. I hate that song. Melody is OK but sorta childish, and the lyrics... eeagggh.

Oh, "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" by the Beatles.

Hm. XTC's "Knuckle Down" is pretty awful, too, though I have to give it credit for pissing off rednecks. An "In Loving Memory Of A Name", though that might just be my innate distaste for religion that's clouding that one.

Hm. I dunno, this is actually kinda hard. I don't have a whole lot of albums with tracks that I typically lunge for the skip button on. I usually skip Track 13 on Miscellaneous T, but that's more because it's boring if you've heard it before, and it's kinda funny once in a while.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't think "Particle Man" is a bad song per se, but it's so overexposed. My reaction when hearing it isn't "This is horrible!", but more along the lines of "Oh, no! Not this again!" And I feel pretty much the same way about Track 13. Oddly enough, that actually came up randomly on iTunes about an hour or so ago.

Without naming names (mostly because I never bothered to learn the names of many of the songs in question), Erin McKeown's Distillation has some really great songs, but also several totally boring ones. And I really haven't been thrilled by any album Blur has put out since The Great Escape, although they still do the occasional cool song. And I'm not all that fond of Barry Andrews' songs on XTC's Go 2. (I actually like "Knuckle Down" quite a bit, though, and I'm pretty cool with "In Loving Memory," although it's not a favorite of mine.)

[revme.livejournal.com]

Barry Andrews' stuff is something I find utterly cringeworthy, but not so much because they're bad songs, but, well, erm, the subject matter. I like the story (I think in "Coat of Many Cupboards") where Barry demoed "My Weapon" for them and they kept saying "I see what you're trying to do here, but you totally don't have the right voice for it to be, ahem, clear that it's ironic." and he insisted on it anyway, and so, of course, you've got one of the skeeviest songs of XTC's career. (It doesn't help that it's incredibly catchy, either, so you're humming "lying beside me like a parcel of fat/feel her beneath me, wanna crush her to death" or "i don't know what she done wrong, but I want to huuuurrt her" and then you catch yourself and go "Jesus christ!"

[revme.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah -- not sure if you saw this: New Wizard of Oz DVDs with 2/3 disc versions, the third having like 4 hours on Baum and 5 pre-1939 film versions of the story.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd heard about that. I already have the movie on DVD (and I haven't actually watched the DVD yet), but I'd really like to see that bonus material.