colleen vs. rodrigo: random rules

since we want to make this reception the dance party of the (albeit young) century, we've been thinking a lot about music.

we are of the firm belief that a person's musical taste is an interesting way to get to know them, and since we haven't seen many of you in quite a while, we stole this idea from the onion's a.v. club, in order to give people a taste of who we are through what's streaming into our ears.

here's how it works: we each grab our iPods, and set them on shuffle. then we comment on the first five songs that come up. then the other person is allowed to ask a follow-up question or make a comment. no hiding guilty pleasures (rodrigo!). it's us, in five-song increments.

#1
rodrigo
The Happy Song (Dum-Dum) - Otis Redding

I'm very glad this song came up first. There's no guilt in loving Otis Redding. I have to admit that I'm a bigger fan of his ballads. If you like Otis or Al Green or Marvin Gaye or Sam Cooke, we are destined to be friends. If not, we are going to have words. Stern words.

colleen: Which of Otis's ballads is your favorite then?
rodrigo: "I've Been Loving You Too Long" might be one of the top ones. The MGs (Otis's backing band) - their dynamics and their control is... solid. It needs to be studied.

colleen
Electioneering - Radiohead

I have to admit, I think this is my least favorite song off of this album (OK Computer). Not to say that it's a bad song, just that the other songs on this album - like Let Down, Karma Police and No Surprises - are blow-your-face-off amazing, that for me, this one pales a little. It doesn't quite have the Thom Yorke weirdness that I crave.

rodrigo: which thom yorke song satisfies your weirdness craving?
colleen: I don't even have to think about this one - "We Suck Young Blood (Your Time is Up)" from Hail to the Thief. it's so creepy and slow, with the thick hand claps and then the up-tempo piano freak-out in the middle. yum.

#2
rodrigo
Come to Me (Unplugged) - Björk

I'm not surprised Björk came up. I have an unneccessary amount of Björk on my iPod, that I've slowly trimmed from the 500+ songs that were on it. Or maybe it was one gigabyte. When we were first dating, we listened to a lot of her album Vespertine, and I still think that's a pretty perfect album. This Unplugged album is a pretty neat bootleg. Björk always finds talented and weird musicians to bring her strange little songs to life.

colleen: do you secretly want to make out with Björk? It's okay - I kind of do...
rodrigo: It's never been a secret.

colleen
The Empty - Le Tigre

"I went to your concert and I didn't feel anything." Ouch, Kathleen Hanna. I love Le Tigre. It's one of the few "loud" bands that I was obsessed with in college that I still frequently listen to. You know, in between all of the Yanni. And "Eau de Bedroom Dancing" off of this album is so beautiful - that weird mournful guitar and the Casio beat? There's a reason it's "Bedroom Dancing" and not "Kitchen" or "Garage Dancing." You dig?

rodrigo: I dig. Whose mustache do you admire more: Yanni's or JD from Le Tigre?
colleen: Well, considering that the hormones were against her and she was up against a Greek guy, I'd have to say JD's. It's formidable.

#3
rodrigo
Beat My Head Against the Wall - Black Flag

I was an angry youth. This is my favorite Black Flag record. They were getting real dark. Cynical. I once put the song "I Love You" off of this record (My War) on a mixed tape for a girl I was dating in high school. It really creeped her out.

colleen: I want to hear it. * Listens* Yeah - that's a restraining order waiting to happen, dude. Did you put it on the tape as a joke?
rodrigo: She was rightfully creeped out. The joke was, here's a mixtape full of potentially sentimental, definitely 'heart-on-sleeve' songs; and to end it all, the punchline is a song that is absolutely terrifying. I do like the song - it's a dark tune. The guy's losing his mind, going to some scary places.

colleen
Ragged Wood - Fleet Foxes

This song was the hook that baited me to first buy this album (Fleet Foxes). I love the harmonies so much, and how old-timey so much of their subject matter seems to be at first listen - it's a lot like Midlake in that way. Except Midlake actually does sing about old-timey stuff like mountaineers and raising barns. Fleet Foxes just sounds old-timey, but Robin Pecknold is really just singing about his family. When he's not raising baby birds in his beard. And now that I've listened to the album another, oh... 500 times, I'd say that "Blue Ridge Mountains" is currently my favorite track.

#4
rodrigo
Good Times - Sam Cooke

I have a lot of favorite Sam Cooke songs - this is one of them. "Come on and let the good times roll. We gon' stay here till we soothe our souls... if it take all night long." Such a great lyric. So simple. Sometimes you need to stay longer than all night to soothe your soul. That's how we wound up together.

colleen: And doesn't the xylophone marimba in this song remind you of the cartoon skeleton playing his own ribs?
rodrigo: It does. I'll think of it as one of those clever musical metaphors that Sam Cooke managed to work into his songs: even the guy with neither dermis nor epidermis can get down and make the best of the situation. Play his ribs, join the party.

colleen
I Can't Really Talk About It - El Perro del Mar

Because she is Swedish and has a bit of an accent, I thought for about six months that she was actually saying " I Can Really Talk About It," which really changes the dynamic of the song. Like - " I could go on and on about it, girl!" instead of the correct "It's too hard for me to talk about it right now," or maybe "the person that I'm mad at is in the room right now, so I can't really talk about it." Either way, she has a really unique way of capturing the sound of Motown girl groups, making it sound a bit more depressing (probably because of the lack of light in the wintertime in Scandinavia) but also sugary.

rodrigo: Because she repeats "I Can't Really Talk About It" over and over in the song, it's funny to think of it being heard as "I CAN Really Talk About It." As if she's threatening to actually talk about it, without ever actually saying anything about it, or ever getting to it.

#5
rodrigo
Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles

This is a brilliant song. This is one of the Beatles songs that's been covered with the least degree of success, I think. Aretha Franklin did an okay job. I think Irma Thomas did a version that's kinda wack. It's very hard to improve upon this original, let alone reinterpret something so singular.

colleen: Well said, Palma. Well said.

colleen
The Big Guns - Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins

The tussle over "alt-country cred" aside, I really enjoy this record. I think Jenny Lewis has a nice songwriting style that gets overshadowed a bit in all of the Rilo Kiley pomp. This album seems simpler, but still heavy on narrative, and those Watson Twins are phenomenal. This song's guitar and drum sounds have definitely been done before, but I think Lewis takes inventive risks with her lyrics. However, I do not really enjoy the cover of the Traveling Wilburys' song "Handle With Care." Sorry, Conor Oberst. You O'Whine too much.

rodrigo: Do you like Jenny Lewis more for having had a small role on a Golden Girls episode?
colleen: There are no small roles - only small actors. And since she was seven or eight at the time, she was pretty small. Especially standing next to Bea Arthur. R.I.P.