30 Day Song Challenge – Day One: Best Song to Choreograph Your Chippendale Audition To:

So Many Men, So Little Time By Miquel Brown (1983)

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Posted on May 1, 2011

from AV Club, Chicago

I’ve been friends with Billy since he was sporting a satin Batman bike cap and me, ignorantly, a Rasta skull cap solely because I liked the colors. In other words for a very long time. And if there’s one thing I know, he compiles a list of soul songs, you best listen. Which is just what Van and I have been doing with his AV Club recommendations all day.

From the dirty Mary Jane ditty you don’t know to a Gene Chandler song that will have you wishing summer was here, the list is great. The world kind of stopped around me though when I listened to his Sam Cooke selection, “Mean Old World”.

Other favorites of mine are The Mighty Clouds of Joy’s “I’m Glad About It” a gospel song which Billy describes as “like something Nick Cave would write” and the very pretty “Go Now” by Bessie Banks.

Van was not so divided about his favorite. He perked up, smiling and bouncing to Booker T And The MGs, “Sunday Sermon”, Billy’s “favorite Sunday chill-out song” and Van loves to chill out.

If any of my readers are in Chicago, he and his band are playing at the Double Door tonight.

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Posted on March 18, 2011

by Alicia Keys (2009)

One good thing about winter isolation is that I rarely have to inadvertently listen to the radio playing in stores, that plus an ability to fast forward commercials? I’ve heard nary a Sugar Ray or an American Idol winner song in months and months.

The down side is that once and a while an uplifting gem slips through my radar, like Alicia Keys’ Empire State of Mind Part 2.

I am not sure if it makes me lame to the broader world that I didn’t know this song (when I asked the manicurist who sang it, she was polite enough to not give me an “are you serious?” look, yet I could tell that something had been decided for her about me right then and there). It was, as I’ve since learned, all the rage almost two years ago.

But then again, among the I-only-listen-to-radio-for-NPR crowd, it might make me just as lame to be so in love with such a popular hit – after all, it played right after the Gin Blossoms’ “Hey Jealousy”.

But lame or not – this sounds like modern day Donna Summer and there’s not a thing wrong with that. It makes one feel all alive with excitement, teaming with the hope of Diana Ross’ Mahogany stepping out to make her dreams come true in a huge shawl and a maxi skirt.

It reminds me of the initial thrill of coming to New York, when it felt as exciting in it’s vast energy as it was intimidating. And while I don’t walk down a street in Soho with the same dreamy eyes I had back in those days, the city can still amaze: when you drive back home during dusk and the skyline welcomes you, when snow first starts falling in the night time street lights, when… see look at me. I am super sentimental and it’s all because of this song.

But not the original Jay-Z version, I get less emotional to raps about Robert DeNiro.

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Posted on February 8, 2011

by Luna (1994)

I love how music can touch you deep down and take you back to a person that you once were.

Luna’s California (All the Way) is one of those songs that will always be associated in my mind with my Junior year in college. While it doesn’t take me back to the specific memories (which boyfriend was breaking up with me at the time, again??) it does transport me to a very certain feeling.

I can close my eyes when this song comes on and see a warm afternoon outside my apartment on Arnold Street in Providence filled with all the optimism of the young and cocky and all the insecurities of the young and barely experienced.

As for the song itself, I was introduced to it by an old friend, Peat, back when mix cd’s were still given as gifts.

Even if the song holds no sentiment to you, it’s still very lovely.

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Posted on February 1, 2011

by Broadcast (2005)

I have to admit, as a person generally wary of indie rock, I was not completely familiar with the complete works of the band Broadcast when I learned that the lovely and talented lead singer Trish Keenan died from pneumonia complications.

It’s such a tragedy to lose anyone so young, but particularly sad when you realize they had so much more surely to offer the world with their talents.

Over the years a few of their songs have made my itunes library thanks to friends’ mix CD’s etc and one of my favorites is the beautiful political pop song, America’s Boy.

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Posted on January 15, 2011