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Song of the Day #559: ‘Lights Out’ – Santogold

I chose today’s song not because I had anything particularly interesting to say about it but because I hadn’t paid much attention to this album in a long time and I figured it was due a little love.

I did stumble across an interesting tidbit while preparing for this blog entry, though.

Apparently Santogold (which is the stage name of Santi White) changed her name to Santigold a year ago after she was sued by Santo Gold, a company that produced a bizarre infomercial in the mid-80’s selling a money-making opportunity related to gold jewelery and a wrestling movie called Blood Circus.

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Song of the Day #558: ‘A Martyr For My Love For You’ – The White Stripes

The White Stripes’ most recent album, Icky Thump, came out a little over two years ago. After that release, Jack White went off and started about two dozen bands, none of which have excited me very much (at least not the bits and pieces I’ve heard). I wish he’d get back with Meg and release another White Stripes record because the last few have been excellent.

Today’s song is one of my favorites from Icky Thump. It’s about being so insecure about a new romance that you call it quits before things even get started… or at least that’s what it’s mostly about.

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Song of the Day #557: ‘The Wind’ – Cat Stevens

When it comes to music in movies, it’s usually the songs I don’t know well that have the biggest impact on me. That way the music and images arrive all of a piece without prior associations. Sometimes when a song I know well is used in a movie it’s jarring and actually takes me out of the film.

One big exception was the use of Cat Stevens’ ‘The Wind’ in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore. I knew this song very well and loved it, having worn out my copy of Teaser and the Firecat during high school and college. So when the opening notes kicked in during the kite scene in Rushmore, it could easily have gone wrong.

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Song of the Day #556: ‘It’s All Good’ – Bob Dylan

Yesterday I posted the first track on Dylan’s first album, so today I’ll post his most recent. I’m skipping the Christmas album as that’s more of a novelty and posting the final track of Dylan’s 2009 album, Together Through Life.

Dylan is known for excellent closing tracks and this one, while not on the level of his classic album finishers, is indeed one of the better songs on the album.

It’s funny to hear a wizened old dude like Dylan repeating the very modern phrase “It’s all good,” and of course he knows that.

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Vampire Weekend – Contra

Second albums are tough.

The concept of the sophomore slump is particularly valid in the music world, where many a promising debut is followed by something head-scratching or, worse, boring.

Often the artist spent years building up to the first release, honing the perfect batch of songs into something meaningful and thought out. And once the debut is a hit, pressure comes from the label (not to mention fans) to put out something else right away. So the result is a hastily thrown together group of songs, often chronicling the experience of fame itself, something nobody really cares to hear about.

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