Soundtrack to my Week: 4/22-4/28
Better late than never...
So last week was a ridiculously stressful week. When I’m stressed I tend to fall back on tasty things and cheestastic pop music to calm my nerves. Monday, over green chili pork tacos at my favorite lunch place, I threw together a playlist of about 50 pop songs that turned out to be almost the only thing that I listened to all week.
As I’ve said before, I’m a huge Adam Schlesinger fan. He has a knack for writing the kinds of pop songs that crawl in my ear and take residency while I’m too busy dancing around to realize it. I was having a geek out with a fellow power pop nerd at work and it led me to get this whole record, which I’d disregarded when it came out (what was I thinking?), and I have to say I’m really digging it. Especially this song, which has Adam all over it.
I know this is from the post Left Eye record and I’m therefore not supposed to like it, but this is probably one of my favorite TLC songs. I remember watching the video premier on TRL and liking it. I more or less forgot about it until about a year ago when I downloaded it and I’ve been surprised just how much I’ve listened to it in that time.
The Pippettes - Pull Shapes
I found these ladies on a trip to Criminal Records in the old location when they had the box of $1 and $2 singles by the cash register. I used to troll through there looking for treasures every time stopped by. Most of them were misses, but the single of “Judy” was enough to buy the record, which I remember getting at Decatur CD not long after, and quickly becoming obsessed. I have a love for classic girl groups and these three are packaged like a modern version, so of course I liked them. I haven’t listened to this record in a while, so I suspect this song’s rediscovery will have me listening to the rest of the record more soon.
In this case pop isn’t the right word. The proper term is FunkyPopSexyHouseRap, which is the name of their record. I found these awesome Atlanta locals at the Atlantis Music Conference in 2007 where I saw their lead singer and her hot pink hair in practically every panel. They played Vinyl the same night as some friends and I was blown away.
I’m not sure when I originally found this songs. I know it was o a CD set on the evolution of rock and roll that my dad had and that I listened to when I was five or six. There’s something in the bounce of it that never fails to make me happy. This is the love song version instead of the “real” version of the song, where the girls complain about their horrible teacher and plan his death. I actually didn’t know that one existed until last year when I read Girl Groups, Girl Culture: Popular Music and Identity in the 1960’s. Despite being the “original” it was released later. I really should find myself a copy.
The Weepies - Gotta Have You
I stumbled into this my senior year of college when I was at my peek of downloading every free legal mp3 I could find. I was getting so many samplers from so many places that I couldn’t keep up (Really, one of those songs came up on shuffle last week and it was an a-ha moment, but it’d been unlistened to on my hard drive for 5 years). Somehow this song actually got played and I wore it out at the time. I specifically remember flying home from school for a friend’s birthday and listening to this on repeat on the flight. I was working on a twang playlist earlier in the week and remembered this gem, which is quite possibly the beginning my letting go of my strict anti-twang stance, and I didn’t even realize it at the time.
Alkaline Trio - Movin' Right Along
I never got into Alkaline Trio. This is seriously the only song of theirs in my collections, and it’s a cover. It’s from The Green Album, which is a tribute to the Muppets. I was talking about that record with a friend last week and it led me to completely wear it out since.
