Monthly Archives: July 2008

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Song of the Day #4: ‘Jealous’ – Sinead O’Connor

I was really into Sinead O’Connor when she first hit it big back in 1990. ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ was on constant MTV rotation — that mesmerizing video where O’Connor stared right at you with those big beautiful eyes and sang her heart out until she teared up — and this bald, lanky Irish woman had put out the best album of the year, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got.

I remember my Dad dismising her as a flake and once when I was going on about what a talent she was, he said something like “Just wait, in ten years I bet nobody will even know who she is.” And I said, yeah… I’ll take that bet.

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Song of the Day #3: ‘Memories Can’t Wait’ – Talking Heads

It’s said that the sense of smell is tied directly to the brain’s memory center, that an odor can place you right back in a certain time or place. In my experience, it’s the sense of hearing that works that way — specifically the sense of hearing songs.

Today’s song is the sixth track on Talking Heads’ Fear of Music, a bizarre transitional album that bridged their early art-pop records with the electrified African rhythms of their later work. I like this album but don’t love it… it’s trippy and weird and not very melodic, designed to put you on edge.

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Song of the Day #2: ‘Oh My Sweet Carolina’ – Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams is an artist who could be one of the all-time greats if he’d just stop making so much damn music. This guy writes a new song every hour of every day… which is fine, except he puts them all out on CDs. If you go to the store and pick up a new Ryan Adams release, the odds are pretty good that another Ryan Adams album will be released before you get back home.

So I have mostly given up on following his career closely — it would involve way too much time and money. But he has released two albums that I consider true classics. The first is Gold, which features the hits ‘New York, New York’ and ‘When the Stars Go Blue’ and brought him to national attention. The other, and better of the two, is Heartbreaker, his solo debut.

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Song of the Day #1: ‘I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish’ – The Smiths

Inspired by this blog by the lovely and talented Malagueta, I’ve decided to write about a new song every day. I’m not sure how long I can keep this up… I currently have 7,798 songs in my iTunes library, so theoretically I can do this until I’m 56 using only my current collection. Throw in all the new music I’m sure to pick up over the next 21 years and it’s safe to say I can carry on for the rest of my life.

For now, I’ll concentrate on making it through next week.

To kick it off, I’ve chosen a song the title of which reflects my doubts that I’ll be able to carry out this daunting task. In the future I’ll choose songs pretty much at random.

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The Bank Job

Date: July 21, 2008
Location: Clifton Living Room

After the sleek perfection of the heists in Ocean’s 11 through 13, it’s refreshing to see a good old-fashioned “bank job” as sloppy as the one in this Roger Donaldson crime caper. There is nothing elegant about this group of men (and one woman) tunnelling from an abandoned leather shop under a Chicken Inn and into the vault of a corner bank in London. And they are woefully unprepared to deal with the repercussions of stealing what’s contained there.

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