21-30 OF 100 SONGS (THAT ARE PARACETAMOL FOR MY SOUL).

June 17, 2009 at 12:24 am | Filed under lists

Hello, hello! My laptop decided to re-install Windows by itself (and certainly without my permission, that insolent piece of metal and plastic and techie sorcery. I’m looking into secure online storage options) two Sundays ago, wiping out twenty gigs of music I had collected over the past three years. I’m coping.

Songs 21-40 (because ten aren’t enough!) will be songs that defined my high school years! It’s always good to remember the late 90s and early 00s, when mainstream pop was actually good*.

Although a couple of those listed are actually from the mid-90s, I think.

21. I Don’t Want To Wait – Paula Cole
There’s something magical in Paula Cole’s voice and this song always envelopes me in warm sunshine; there is an itch to run barefoot on sand while being bathed in golden light, the wind in my hair.

I blame Dawson’s Creek.

22. #1 Crush – Garbage
Such frightening passion (bordering on creepy/stalkerish) that aptly describes the love between Romeo and Juliet (at least the 20th century Hollywood blockbuster version…and you bet I was a huge fan of the movie and soundtrack). Now imagine a 12-year old girl wailing the words (my favorite lines: I will burn for you, feel pain for you, I will twist the knife and bleed my aching heart and tear it apart. I will lie for you, beg and steal for you, I will crawl on hands and knees until you see— you’re just like me) to this song. Scariest declaration of love. I love it.

23. The Rockafeller Skank – Fatboy Slim
One of my former high school best friends and I used to dance to this in their house’s guest bedroom after school. This and Korn’s Got The Life. Basically, we did a lot of jumping around in our uniforms.

24. Maria – Blondie
Maria is the kind of girl I would like to be: walking on imported air, making your heart beat like a subway train, blue as ice and desire, and all that.

25. Near You Always – Jewel
I didn’t think that the song I used to skip in favor of the heartbreaking You Were Meant For Me, the commentary on American lifestyle that is Who Will Save Your Soul, and the poetic Foolish Games would be the song that would play in my mind when I was falling in love with the lover. <3

26. Landslide (Fleetwood Mac original) – Smashing Pumpkins cover or Tori Amos cover
Everyone loved this song— to the point of cheesiness— in high school and I’m a bit annoyed at myself for not appreciating the original version more, but it is what it is: I spent my awkward teens listening (with the occasional sob here and there) to Billy Corgan‘s barely breathless screeching earnestly singing about the passage of time, change, and loss. Nevermind that I was too young to know what it’s like to build my life around something and someone.

In college, I come across Tori Amos’s cover and fall in love all over again.

27. Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinead O’Connor
Remixed, this makes a good jeepney rock anthem. Sad and pining, it makes a perfect companion.

(I am aware that this song— the original, that is— is older than I am, heh.)

28. Celebrity Skin
I totally have a thing for sexy decadence and angry girl anthems. And cokewhores. Plus, Courtney Love and Melissa Auf der Maur!

29. Shimmer – Fuel
Because all that shimmers in this world is sure to fade away. Again.

30. Life in Mono – Mono
Best listened to at the beginning of your day, preferably when it’s gray and dreary. Or while drowning past regrets in tea and cigarettes.

*With some exceptions, of course. Boyzone, Ronan Keating, Westlife, and A1, to name a few.

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11-20 OF 100 SONGS (THAT ARE PARACETAMOL FOR MY SOUL).

June 3, 2009 at 7:05 pm | Filed under lists

See songs 1-10 here!

11. Stars – Au Revoir Simone
Cutest chorus ever (that makes me think of the lover who is thousands of miles away): “You make wanna measure stars in the backyard with a calculator and a ruler, baby. I found a letter that describes how the moonlight will lead me to the distant place that you will be.”

12. Both Hands – Ani DiFranco
Ani and her beautiful imagery ♥

13. The Quiz – Hello Saferide
When I was 15, I wrote this foolish little manifesto of sorts called “The Boyfriend Contract” listing what I require from, well, potential boyfriends. Said contract has long been erased from memory (thankfully) and I’ve sworn never again display such pompousness. But! if I’d ever have to (seeing that we all have a choice in the matter), I’d like it to be a little like this song. Questions like “Can you sleep when I grind my teeth?”, “Do you talk in the middle of Seinfeld?”, and “Do you still keep pictures of old girlfriends? Are they prettier than me?” before asking “If I fall, will you pick me up?”

Annika Norlin writes some of the funniest, most adorable (and saddest) lyrics.

14. Fuck and Run – Liz Phair
Once upon a time, I was a trusting (and very masochistic) 18- or 19-year old being strung along by this guy. This is how he made me feel.

15. Tempted – Squeeze
Reality Bites <3

16. Breathe Me – Sia
00:11. Favorite part.

17. Fiery Crash – Andrew Bird
I can’t help but smile when he sings “Just as you were starting to say something apropos, I don’t know” and the bum bum bum bum and whistling that follows.

I also have a crush on him.

(And Sufjan Stevens and Rufus Wainwright.)

I mean, look:

18. Your Rocky Spine – Great Lake Swimmers
This is how I would like a boy to describe/sing about my body (none of that Your Body Is A Wonderland crap (which is about as romantic as comparing me to a shipping box)).

19. Elevator Love Letter – Stars
If this song had a heart, legs, and arms, I’d take it home with me and teach it how to love ♥

20. Photobooth – Death Cab for Cutie
I think that had I heard Photobook before We Laugh Indoors, it wouldn’t have taken me years to warm up to DCFC. Sad songs sung cheerfully— definitely one of the quickest ways to my heart. Plus, the melody is so.cute.

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1-10 OF 100 SONGS (THAT ARE PARACETAMOL FOR MY SOUL).

June 1, 2009 at 8:23 pm | Filed under lists

A couple of weeks ago and inspired by a One Tree Hill episode/character, my manly friend Gino wrote a blog entry listing a hundred songs he’d like his yet-to-be-conceived baby Baddie to listen to. People grabbed the opportunity to make their own lists (aka showing off their supposed impressive taste in music) and like how all self-serving internet-y things go, the entry quickly turned into a meme. Or something. And quite a useless meme, too! I mean, really…100 songs and no download links or, at the very least, a link to a hypem entry?!

But anyway. Thanks to Gino, I now have blog entry fodder. Instead of boring you, though, with a long list, I have decided to breakitdown! into ten parts (Shazam!— ten instant new blog entries to get me out of my blogging rut). Added lulz as I try (and fail!) to describe my choices.

(I also thought of categorizing the parts into playlists: breakup songs, favorite post-rock tracks, rainy day music, complements to caffeine and nicotine etc etc but I’m too lazy to. Moo.)

1. Við spilum endalaust – Sigur Rós
The train had pulled in to Ortigas station and just as the doors were about to hiss open, this song started playing on my iPod. Like I always do, I sighed. Quite loudly, because I heard myself despite having the volume turned way up. At the risk if sounding like a wide-eyed adjective-inept idiot, I’ll go ahead and describe this song as “pure magic”. And “beautiful…OMFG, beautiful”.

There are two songs that have this effect on me (sighing audibly, like I am exhaling my proverbial heavy heart); the first is this and the second is…

2. First Breath After Coma – Explosions in the Sky
Pling pling pling…my heart swells.

3. Flocks III – Collections of Colonies of Bees
The buildup, the buildup, I have a special place in my heart for songs that start slowly and tentatively and then just burst into brilliance (HAHAHAHAHA WTF AM I SAYING HAHAHAHAHAHA) and after it stuns and hypnotizes you, ends with a flourish, perfectly. At 10:47, I shake my head in awe. I probably look like a moron everytime.

4. Motorcyle Drive By – Third Eye Blind
I love that, no matter my situation in life, this song always seems to hit the bullseye. Perhaps there is a part of me that will always be 12, naively sad, and wanting. I am in love with the lines Careening through the universe, your axis on a tilt, you’re guiltless and free / I hope you take a piece of me with you. !!!

5. Charm Attack – Leona Naess
Yummy pop goodness, this defines my freshman year in college and is probably the best song I’ve ever shared with my female friends. I remember a girl friend and I singing-yelling “Watch out! He’ll charm you! Smoother than the LAweather that’showheholdshimselftogether heiscolderthanthewinter Iwrapmycoataroundtobetter *DEEP BREATH* COUNTERACT! HIS CHARM ATTACK! THAT LEAVES ME HUNGRY WELL! I’M NO SAVIOR BUT I TRIED TO SAVE YOU WITH! ALLLLL MYYYYY LOOOOOOOOOOVE” in the school hallways. Ah, so much love <3 for Leona Naess.

6. Lost Coastlines – Okkervil River
This is the kind of song that gets me out of bed at 3am to fish my iPod out of my bag (in the dark!), like a craving that needs to be satisfied, just so I’d have something lovely to lull me to sleep (and it fails to put me to sleep, of course, as these guys are such goooooooood lyricists that I end up listening listening to the words). “Is that marionette real enough yet to step off of that set to decide what her dance might be doing? Ruining the play to, in the ensuing melee, escape”. Seriously? Such eloquence <3

7. Last Goodbye – Jeff Buckley
Did you say “no, this can’t happen to me”? Did you rush to the phone to call?
I did, I did.

8. World Spins Madly On – The Weepies
Opens with “Woke up and wished that I was dead” and ends with “I thought of you and where you’d gone and the world spins madly on”. Oh, heartache.

9. Hear Me Out – Frou Frou
#7 used to be my numero uno breakup song…until I discovered this song in a Hed Kandi album I downloaded a couple of years ago. While Last Goodbye screams of desperation— a more appropriate emotion during breakups, Hear Me Out is calm pleading and denial with a little bit of hope. “I’m a slow motion accident, lost in coffee rings and fingerprints. I don’t wanna feel anything but I do…and it all comes back to you”. Oh oh oh <3

10. Daniel – Juliana Hatfield
So simple and pretty and very girlypop 90s (nevermind that it gets repetitive towards the end). This song makes me wish I had blue eyes so I could shock a boy by telling him “My eyes are blue like you. Our babies will be born blue.”

Holy industrial hand wheels! I blogged! 11-20 some time this week!

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