May of '08 Mix Made for Me

behold,

1. Love Child >> The Supremes
2. Sweet Child O' Mine >> Guns N' Roses
3. Breakaway >> Kelly Clarkson
4. Higher And Higher >> Jackie Wilson
5. Higher Love >> Steve Winwood
6. If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next>> Manic Street Preachers
7. Let's Dance >> David Bowie
8. Bastards Of Young >> The Replacements
9. When You're Young >> The Jam
10. Billie Jean >> Michael Jackson
11. Heartbeat >> Madonna

Fun with iPod word search? Yes. Guilty. But! I also had a plan, a vison, even... I got treated to Love Child followed by G'n'R's Sweet Child (on shuffle) and thought I needed to make a mix that kicked it off just like that. That idea, of course had me thinking about youth. And my youth was filled with Madonna and Michael Jackson. Well, Madonna has been in my ears hypertime, so I put one of my most played, and most enjoyed songs of late on there.

And, well, Breakaway comes from it still gnawing at my brain since re-watching S.F.U...The Jam song makes me think of E Beth and gets me excited that she's moving BACK TO MPLS, muthfucka! And the High and the Higher are songs that I have loved and have been (actively, I swear) in my head since I was 8 years old.

I am digging Spring, my new bike (circa 1968, actually...give it up for RIOTS at the Convention-style!!!) and my seasonal music shift. Life is bright.

Dig it!

to all you haters,

I completely, whole-heartedly, know why you hate American Idol. I really questioned my choice to watch it this year, too.

But, since my friends got a get-together a'goin' (with MEALS!) it makes it more fun to sit through the shit.

And now, IT'S OVER!

and although I couldn't give a rat's ass about which fucking David won (they are both LAME) last night's finale actually threw me a bone. A smokin' hot, sexy, powerful TALENTED piece of musical MEAT, really...

My two faves from this season, doin' a *classic* that I've always loved (the Alex Chilton version and the Joe Cocker version, which they do the latter of.) Missed them. They shoulda been in the final two. Watch the Hot Aussie, Michael Johns and the Sexy Irish, Carly Smithson sing blue-eyed soul with actual *passion* (totally lacking in the season after they left--WAY too early!)

this makes me feel better about EVERYTHING

The Rising!!!!!!!!

who wants to go with me!?

Madge.

Chicago.

October 26th--it's a Sunday, Funday....

Beautiful fall weather road trippin'!

Wow. To be excited about October is a trippy feeling.

Hard Candy hits my ears! And I LOVE it.

New record is in my hot lil' hands! This time it’s really an album, too. With breaks in between totally different-sounding songs!

And, I really mean it. A NEW sound is all over this thing. Which, has always been Madonna’s strongest skill: finding the hottest, most exciting, most modern sound to dance to out there and making those creators her collaborators. This time she’s “gone American” for the first time since pre-Ray of Light era. It’s more U.S.-clubby than she’s been in years. It actually took me a while to warm up to that sound (as opposed to her Anglophile ways of recent years). But, it’s Madge and she (as ALWAYS) makes it her own and makes it *quality*. They are the kind of dance tracks that take you by surprise—in a Beck/Dust Brothers sort of way, even.

Drugs and music and exercise and love and lust make you *forget about your problems* (she told us on the last album—straight up!) She brings that message home--and hard-- on this disc. To borrow from one of the best Six Feet Under philosophies—it cuts out the STATIC in your brain. Static, like the steady, ever-present *buzz* in your head—a stream of thoughts and nagging questions and anxieties that distract us every day from the moment we get up to the thought filled-moments after our head hits the pillow at night. That abandoning-worry vibe runs beautifully throughout these uplifting dance ditties. Songs of total Ambition Seminar from Madge 101, songs of mega ego, spiced with jealousy…. Sex songs are even back. Mmmm, and she still sounds hot and frisky after all these years.

Although Madge is not without (musical) sin …pretty much ever, for me…(well, the mid 90’s were a bit muddled, weren’t they??) she really has remained constant and damn strong in making music to get down to and get joyful to. She has never gone off and done sumthin’ stupid like make a record totally out of character that ya couldn't dance to. (OK, except for that ballad album crap and Evita…and Erotica—sort of.) This is just riding that road even higher. I take great comfort in that. Even though she's a bit of a dictator mogul, self-absorbed in every way, she still finds the heart and the time to get inspired and keep writing songs. Songs that don't disappoint.

She is hell-bent on getting her listeners to shake away their doldrums. From “Everybody,” her first real single—a call/cry for every-fucking-body to get up and dance and do your thang, to “Heartbeat” on the new record, a love letter to the joy of dancing. In fact, the whole of Hard Candy is a (yet another) love letter to shakin’ it. And, on my favorite track so far, “Give it 2 Me,” (yeah, Madge is now doing that Prince thing. Heh.) she calls for you to get up off of your ass and be as ambitious as the Lady Madge. Be like me, she suggests—“Give me a bass line and I’ll shake it/give me a record and I’ll break it.” it’s fucking great. Energizing and inspiring like the best music should be.

*WARNING*: there is the worst little blemish on this fantastic song, and it's a DAMN shame. A break from the song that has her chanting "get stupid, get stupid" in that really, really lame Gwen Stefani-way. I like Gwen, but that annoying, sing-songy bullshit (is it supposed to be annyong on purpose??) really brings me down.

It’s stuff like this that affects me in the most mood-lifting way. It’s a formula that Oasis and Bruce both use and it’s never-failing.

I will have more to report soon....I haven't even listened to it twice all the way through yet. Damn.