A few of my latest guilty pleasures in music:
- Morrissey’s new CD - I Just Want to See the Boy Happy. Sure, who didn’t like The Smiths’ How Soon Is Now in college? But I’m a bit too straight to be a big Morrissey fan. Maybe it’s the fact that now that one of my oldest and dearest guy friends is a woman and I’ve put a great deal of thought into gender and even my own sexuality lately. Maybe it’s just that slightly whiny depressing music (albeit with a good beat and crunchy guitars) is a good grief soundtrack. Whatever it is, his new CD sounded great to me when I listened to it at work this week.
- Matisyahu’s Jerusalem. Hard to take a Pennsylvanian, former jamband junkie seriously as a big star singing Jamaican music, but it’s a really catchy tune. And I suppose Rasta and Judaism are, very roughly, cousins. I have a problem with people faking accents in their music. It seems to be the norm, whether it’s “metal accent”, a la Nickelback or “fakey urban, slightly latino, slightly african-american accent”, a la Fergie, but it’s weird to me. I prefer someone like Billy Bragg who has the same accent when he talks and sings. Why try to sound like you have a Jamaican accent in your music when you sound like an upper-middle class jewish guy in interviews? Nonetheless, it’s good reggae. And on the slightly humorous front, I can’t help but singing “Jerusalem, if I forget you, fire not gonna come from me bum.” - a line I misheard the first time
- Way too much Justin Timberlake for a healthy mind. My Love and SexyBack have been in heavy rotation in the Dufair household. I even looked online for a karaoke version of SexyBack this week to try and record Bringing Messy Back in my spare time. I’m neurotic. Didn’t find much. Luckilly, the JT meme has peaked in my head, I think.
On the not so guilty front (aside from the guilt of playing it for my kids with pretty inappropriate lyrics), I ran across Le Disko by Shiny Toy Guns on Q101 in Chicago while doing some last minute holiday shopping and it jumped out of the radio at me. Tasty electronica/dance/pop with lots of stops and changes and other things to keep an ADHD mind very happy. Reminds me a bit of Hardknox in it’s bratty, overconfident, sexually charged way.
On the not so guilty and quite excellent front, I played Martin Sexton’s Black Sheep today while cleaning house and it was, as it always is with Martin, my favorite Bostonian singer/songwriter, a religious experience. Serendipitously, Karrie posted about Black Sheep (the old skool rap group) today, which prompted me to find a copy of Sexton’s Black Sheep. Found this on YouTube and it’s pretty tasty:
Puddlejumper
| 15-Jan-07 at 1:56 am | Permalink
JK. You were doing just great till you admitted the Justin Timberlake thing.
Mind you. We all have our little musical taste secrets. Can you guess what mine is?
Josette
| 15-Jan-07 at 2:10 am | Permalink
Do you just need the “Sexy Back” instrumental to do the karaoke thing? Because I totally have it.
jase
| 15-Jan-07 at 8:52 am | Permalink
Puddle - I know you’re into music, but I couldn’t tell too much from your blog what you actually listen to. So I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that your musical taste secret is either Michael Bolton or Abba. Let’s pray it’s Abba
Josette - I definitely want the instrumental! Does it have Timbaland still doing his thing? Can you email it to me? How did you come across such a thing?
venessa
| 15-Jan-07 at 9:11 am | Permalink
Mmmm… Morrissey. I love.
karrie
| 15-Jan-07 at 1:50 pm | Permalink
I would say your taste is more evolved than mine, save the JT part.
I can’t wait to hear your version!
Heather
| 15-Jan-07 at 4:06 pm | Permalink
Jase -
I really like Black Sheep. Is the rest of Sexton’s album similar to that song?
jase
| 15-Jan-07 at 9:48 pm | Permalink
Karrie - I think my taste is devolved sometimes. I had a big Avril Lavigne phase and a Kelly Clarkson phase too.
Heather - All of Martin Sexton’s stuff is awesome like Black Sheep. Look him up on YouTube or use Rhapsody’s 25 free listens a month to check out the whole Black Sheep CD.
dpdunne
| 15-Jan-07 at 10:05 pm | Permalink
yeah martin sexton is the sheezy, there are only a few handfulls of albums i can listen to all the way through with out skipping a song and Sexton’s “Black Sheep” is one of ‘em
i actually was driving around charlotte today singing “Diner” with amanda
“…gonna make it a al mode”
jase
| 15-Jan-07 at 10:13 pm | Permalink
I love “Diner”. I imagine Amanda would be a pretty big Sexton fan too. This time listening to “Diner,” I loved the line
“There’s a couple from the show-me state
Knockin back a little meatloaf plate”
Guy’s a genius. I want to be him when I grow up.
James Welborn
| 17-Jan-07 at 3:14 pm | Permalink
I listened to Morrissey’s “Viva Hate” constantly my junior year of high school. The only album that I played more was the first Violent Femmes.
“Were you and he lovers, and would you say so if you were? On a forecourt, on a Friday, passing my way, ohh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ohhhhh ….”
Also, have you seen the “Diana-Morrissey Connection”?
http://www.dianamystery.com/
Freaky.
jase
| 17-Jan-07 at 10:34 pm | Permalink
Heh. That Diana/Morrisey site is funny. Someone with strong conspiracy theory tendencies and waaay too much time on their hands.
I didn’t hear Viva Hate back in those days, but Violent Femmes was probably played in my Sony Walkman about 200 times, literally. I’ll never forget riding on Wisconsin backroads on my Schwinn 12-speed singing Blister in the Sun at the top of my lungs. And their followup albums were pretty amazing too.