Monthly Archives: October 2008

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Song of the Day #71: ‘Rise Up with Fists’ – Jenny Lewis

2006 was a strong year for female artists. My top twenty that year featured seven women (including Neko Case, Regina Spektor and Nellie McKay). Among the best of those albums was Jenny Lewis’ Rabbit-Fur Coat, a collection of folksy pop songs featuring backup vocals by The Watson Twins (who look like the creepy girls from The Shining all grown up).

This was my first exposure to Lewis, who is better known as the lead singer of the group Rilo Kiley. I don’t have any of their albums, though her solo work intrigues me enough that I might check them out.

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Song of the Day #70: ‘Going to a Town’ – Rufus Wainwright

I’m pretty much alone among my family and friends in my adoration of Rufus Wainwright. Some don’t like his voice, some don’t like his music… some don’t like his voice or his music.

Me, I love it all. He’s far and away one of my favorite artists working today. Over the course of five albums, he has produced more songs that hit me where I live than just about anybody in my collection.

This is one of those situations where the Internet comes in handy. Nobody I know likes Wainwright, but I can log on to any number of Web sites and find scores of fans even more obsessed than me… people who get him the way I get him. Not that that connection is something I crave, but it’s nice to know it’s there.

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Why are our favorites our favorites?

I’ve had a few debates in the comment section recently about what some (read: this ‘Dana’ character) believe is a tendency of mine to celebrate the work of new artists over established ones. Specifically, the claim is that I will consistently rank a new work by an old favorite lower than a new work by somebody “fresh.”

I have a theory about this that I’ll get to in a bit.

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Great Scenes: Final memories erased in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

If I were asked to name my favorite movie of all time, I’d have a lot of candidates from which to pick.

I might go with pop crime masterpiece Goodfellas, which was my reflex answer to that question for years. Or with the pinnacle of romantic comedies, Moonstruck. I might look to one of my all-time favorite filmmakers, Woody Allen, and choose Annie Hall or Hannah and Her Sisters. Or I might go with another of them, and choose Steven Spielberg’s throwback adventure masterpiece Raiders of the Lost Ark. Wes Anderson has crafted two films that could easily fill the slot, Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums.

Depending on my mood, and how recently I’d seen the films, any one of those movies could be my favorite ever.

But deep down, when I really search myself for the answer, I keep coming back to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

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Song of the Day #69: ‘Sing’ – Travis

First, a bit of a rant.

Today’s song was going to be ‘Pensacola,’ a gritty slice of southern blues rock by Joan Osborne, whose debut album Relish is a woefully under-appreciated gem. But Ms. Osborne, or her handlers, apparently police YouTube like the SS, shooting down any videos containing her songs. I even tried uploading a clip with a completely misleading title but the system scanned the audio track and booted it.

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