It's not Friday and it's been a super long time since I've done one of these but I figured the best way to get back into blogging would be to do something that was kind of like filling out a form; that I didn't have to be too creative with. Both the Genius and Shuffle lists this week are particularly good so it was extra hard to choose a winner between each song.
Before I go onto the songs I just want to mention how much I love the starting song; Pulp's Like A Friend. It's so gorgeous and so fun and so quintessentially Pulp yet also really fits the movie it was penned for (kind of like Born To Cry, although that's kind of less fun, more sad). I love how it, like most of my favorite Pulp songs, is about relationships and is like sex in the fact that it starts out slow, rises to a climax (the awesome, quasi-headbanging bridge, "You are the last drink..." etc.) and then ends in a slow comedown. It's probably the Pulp song I've played most on bar jukeboxes (along with Disco 2000 and Do You Remember the First Time).
I obviously heard it the first time I watched Cuaron's Great Expectations, which unless I'm misremembering was in my friend Matt's basement, but didn't really notice it at the time, being background music and all. Any time I think of all the times I must have heard Pulp songs but didn't notice it makes me sad I didn't get into them sooner, like Mile End in Trainspotting and I'm sure some Pulp must have been played at the ULU bar, the Duck and Dive, when I was studying abroad. Oh well, onto the lists.
Starting Song: Like A Friend - Pulp
(I used a pic with Russell even though Like A Friend is a post-Russell song because Russell is awesome)
Shuffle Playlist................................Genius Playlist
1. Like A Friend – Pulp.........................1. Like A Friend – Pulp
2. She's Gone – Tindersticks.................2. I Will Kill Again - Jarvis Cocker
3. In Many Ways – Pulp.......W.........W.3. Lazy Line Painter Jane –
..................................................................Belle & Sebastian
4. Tango Maureen – Rent Soundtrack...4. The Drowners - Suede
5. Beyond The Pale – BAD.....................5. Please, Please, Please, Let Me
.................................................................. Get What IWant - The Smiths
6. Diamonds In The Dark – Mystery......6. Laid - James
......Jets (Dusty Cabinets remix)
7. Allison – The Pixies..........................7. Wild Horses - Sundays
8. Theme From Permanent Record.......8. Bar Italia - Pulp
.....Joe Strummer
9. This – Vic Ruggiero..........................9. Heroes - The Wallflowers
10. Jezebel – Owen Gray......................10. Love Will Tear Us Apart –
...................................................................Joy Division
Track comparisons after the jump.
She's Gone vs. I Will Kill Again: Ok, even though it annoys me that so many Pulp/Jarvis songs showed up in genius (I know it's supposed to have similar songs but instead of the repetition how about some Blur, Cornershop or Black Box Recorder). I'll take a really good Jarv solo song over a sleepy song off an ex’s mix tape any day. Round one to shuffle
In Many Ways vs. Lazy Line Painter Jane: Now it’s shuffle repeating artists. Lazy Line Painter Jane (although off the same mix tape as She’s Gone) is an amazing song. In Many Ways is good for early Pulp (although it's no Blue Girls) but I like LLPJ better.
Tango Maureen vs. The Drowners: Embarassing musical song on my itunes round. I do like all the songs from Rent, pretty much, but The Drowners is my absolute favorite Suede song. It’s sexy, trashy, and homoerotic. Everything I want from Suede. Genius pulls ahead 2-1.
Beyond the Pale vs. Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want: Please, Please is one of my fave Smiths' songs but I absolutely love Beyond The Pale. It's my favorite BAD song, mostly because the lyrics just ooze Strummer. "My grandpa came from Russia. Stowed away hidden in some bales. And he took my grandma dancing. To the air raid siren's hail" could easily be from a song on Sandinista! It makes an image form in your head of people waltzing while bombs glow faintly in the background like an orange sunset.
Diamonds In The Dark (Dusty Cabinets remix) vs. Laid: It took a few YouTube searches to find the uncensored Laid video. If you know what come means in this context you probably won't be too damaged by hearing it in a music video, and if you don't, it won't make any sense to you so the censoring is pretty useless. I love Laid, I can listen to it over and over again. I also love that it sounds like a song from the 60's, like it played on the oldies station that used to be on all the time when my parents drove me around as a kid, but Diamonds in the Dark is one of those rare songs by a new band that is completely, unreservedly great, and this particular remix enhances the song without making it lose any of the aura it had to begin with. Also I'm biased because I hung out with Mystery Jets when they played New York awhile ago and they're really fun and really nice and I tend to like it when bands aren't assholes to the people who like them (one of the many and one of the most important reasons for my adoration of Joe Strummer).
Allison vs. Wild Horses: Despite being less than two minutes long, or maybe because of it's awesomeness being so concise I love Allison. It has that dreamy quality so many of my favorite Pixies songs have while still having a hard-ish edge. Sundays' cover of Wild Horses is really pretty, I tend to like covers of Rolling Stones songs better than Rolling Stones songs (probably because I'm immature and my parents like them) and it gets extra points for being in a very important scene in Buffy but it does not beat the Pixies.
Theme From Permanent Record vs. Bar Italia: This one goes to genius. Bar Italia so clearly conveys the kind of malaise one feels while sitting at a coffee shop or diner after an eventful night out. Whether it was eventfully good or bad, there's always a come down when it's all over and your head is spinning and you're too wired to go to sleep but too tired to stay out. It's my go to song for train rides home in the wee hours. The Theme from Permanent Record is good but it's an instrumental and Bar Italia is just so poignant I can't not go with it.
This vs. Heroes: I love Vic Ruggiero's solo stuff. It's trashy and sexy and bluesy and I've been lucky enough to hear him play some of his songs solo. I walked into the last Warped Tour I went to, which I went to mostly to see The Toasters and maybe Rancid, and heard the familiar voice and was completely shocked to see him, guitar in hand, playing to a small group of people. It was awesome. I think that's where I bought his album(s), with the hand drawn artwork, because it was always sold out at Slackers shows but I might have already had it. The Wallflowers version of Heroes is ok, it's pretty faithful but obviously nothing compares to Bowie and I pretty much only have it because I had the misfortune of being a teenager in the late nineties. Vic clearly wins and Genius attempts a late comeback.
Jezebel vs. Love Will Tear Us Apart: This is an easy one, a random song from a Trojan comp (which are awesome and inexpensive and full of songs), the page of which the Jezebel link takes you to as there is no YouTube vid, and my favorite Joy Division song (I'm not that into them yet so the most popular/iconic is still my favorite, I kind of predict that in the future Transmission will be my favorite). I very assuredly go with Joy Division and Genius gets one more point.
This week Genius wins in the end, a close 5-4, eking out shuffle. The overall score sees Genius pulling ahead of shuffle 3-2. (It's really sad I've only done this 5 times.)
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