Top Ten Tuesday: Katy Perry featuring Juicy J "Dark Horse" (Second Post: Official Video)

I made a rule with myself that I wouldn't post the same song twice on this Top Ten Tuesday feature, but there's no new song on the Top Ten this week and when I posted this song the last time, the video hadn't come out. And it's a pretty fun video!

)

New Countdown. Blame It On the Rock (music)

The White Stripes (ca Icky Thump)

Ugh, Spring Forward is going to suuuuck, but at least we'll have alternative music to listen to as we feel all disjointed and weird. Try not to be late for anything, but if you are, blame it on the Rock (music). The Rock (music) can take it. Plus, any non-Daylight-Savings excuse will probably be welcome to any employer/celebrant/rendezvous co-participant.

Countdown #188

***Featuring***
Anberlin
Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
Cage the Elephant
Foster the People
KONGOS
Linkin Park
Lorde
The Neighbourhood
Phantogram
Vampire Weekend
The White Stripes
Young the Giant

One Year, 100 Albums: #33 Rx Bandits "The Resignation"

Rx Bandits The Resignation, 2003

This is another album that took me a while to get into. "Sell You Beautiful" had me from the start, but the rest of the album took some growing. I was expecting the same kind of ska/reggae/rock blend that had made their previous album Progress so amazing. And this album was so weird! It felt like Matt Embree wasn't singing into the microphone all the time and the time signatures of the songs were odd and disjointed. It certainly didn't grab me right away.

But I gave it some time. I let it play over and over and over and now I can see that this album leaves Progress in the dust. It's a complex album with lots of intricacies. It's the kind of album that, were it just a single track, I would enjoy just as much.

It's an album that gives you a sense of being in the room as these songs come together. The band is able to create the illusion that they just started jamming and these amazing songs were what came out of it. The laughing and yelling off mic are what do it for me in this respect. When she was talking about what initially drew her to Doomtree, Dessa said that she liked that you could picture them recording. You could hear the rustle of the pages of their notebooks. Rx Bandits bring that same sort of thing to this album. It reminds the listener that they are real people playing amazing music and not a jigsaw puzzle assembled of the best takes for each musician.

Rx Bandits - Sell You Beautiful
Rx Bandits - Never Slept So Soundly

You can buy The Resignation on Amazon MP3 and iTunes (I could not find a physical copy for less than $40)

Throwback Thursday: 1982

We're officially over the rainbow, people. All of these songs were on the top 10 more than a year before I was bornnnnnnn [eerie echo]

10. Little River Band - Take It Easy on Me
9. Dan Fogelberg - Leader of the Band
8. Diana Ross - Mirror, Mirror
7. Hall and Oates - I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)
6. Air Supply - Sweet Dreams
5. Stevie Wonder - That Girl
4. The Cars - Shake It Up

I was actually going to play the Joan Jett song, but I played it in the Billboard All-Time Hot 100 countdown (Part 4 specifically), and this is also a fantastic song. It would be a shame to play one great song twice and miss out on playing another great song.

3. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - I Love Rock 'n Roll
2. Journey - Open Arms
1. J. Geils Band - Centerfold

One Year, 100 Albums: #34 Green Day "Nimrod"

Green Day Nimrod, 1997

I am sure there's more than one person who clicked on this thinking, "Not Dookie?? What can he possibly be thinking?" And to those people I will say, Dookie is a fantastic album. It changed the face of music in basically the same way Nevermind did 3 years before it.

But Nimrod takes everything that was good on Dookie combines it with everything that was good on Insomniac and then takes that combination and somehow makes it even better.

It's the most eclectic Green Day album by a mile and I think Green Day is better when they mix it up. One of the problems I've had with post-American Idiot Green Day has been that all the songs sound VERY similar. Sure, there are exceptions. And those exceptions are the singles. And that is never a good thing. In my book, your single shouldn't be the best song on the album. It can be ONE of the best, but it should never leave the rest of the album in the dust.

The songs on Nimrod are their own little worlds, but they somehow contribute to the whole in a very positive way. I'm not sure I could listen to just one song from this album even if I tried really really hard.

Green Day is a band of peaks and valleys, I've found. Dookie was a peak. American Idiot was a peak. But Nimrod is the band at their best. It's no wonder their next album, Warning, took such a long time for me to get into. It was a left turn from this fantastic album, and EVENTUALLY an album that I very much enjoy. But it almost feels like an album from a Green Day side project.

It blows my mind to think that "Platypus (I Hate You)" and "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" are on the same album. And that they both WORK. I think we've reached a point where no one hates Green Day for "going acoustic" anymore and I am so glad because putting a reflective acoustic song on an album that also contains "Take Back" is a punk move. It's an almost undeniable fact.

Get this album. Listen to it. Then listen to it again. It's a masterpiece and that's not really a word I throw around lightly.

Green Day - Worry Rock
Green Day - Reject
Green Day - Scattered

You can buy Nimrod at Amazon, Amazon MP3, and iTunes

Top Ten Tuesday: John Legend "All of Me"

A very straightforward piano ballad from John Legend this week. Kind of a nice change of pace from the last couple weeks. Not that I didn't enjoy the songs from the last couple of weeks. It's just that it can't always be about partying and drinking, you know? This is very sweet.

New Countdown!: Murder and Anagrams

Cage the Elephant

It starts SO strong and then by the end it all starts to unravel. Of course, it's still a fantastic episode definitely worth listening to and playing for your friends, it's just that you might preface this one with "Ok, I know he sounds crazy by the end, but...."

:)

Countdown #187

***Featuring***
Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
Cage the Elephant
Fitz and the Tantrums
Foster the People
Lorde
The Neighbourhood
Phantogram
Sublime
Vampire Weekend
The White Stripes
Young the Giant