Summer Jamz 2012

Here, have a summer playlist.

Now, you may notice that these songs are not particularly summer-y, but they are the songs that I've listened to the most this summer.
I think you'll like them. :)


 

&...here is last summer's playlist.

The Rocket Summer

When I was in high school, and AOL Instant Messenger was still the standard form of communication, I would use the program to file share music with my friends. This is probably illegal now, or maybe it was then but, at the time, it was a great way to expand your music collection without bugging anybody to burn you a CD. You remember CDs, right? ;)

I discovered a lot of bands this way through my lifelong bestie Carissa Bertrand, including The Rocket Summer. I've had his first two albums in my car for the past six years, and they are always heavily played in my car CD rotation. I was revisiting them last week and getting really into the songs again, songs I've heard probably hundreds of times over the years. I even sent a playlist to my dad, because I knew he'd be on board with this awesomeness.

When I get into something, I start to research everything about it. I don't know what it is but, when I have an interest, I just get so curious about every aspect of it. Enter Wikipedia, my truest love. So, I'm on Wikipedia, reading about The Rocket Summer, and I see that he had released an album on June 5th! So, I bought that album (yes, I buy things now, and I put them on my fancy iPhone, but I will forever love my burned copy of the Garden State soundtrack). I've already listened to this new album over a dozen times-- it's so good.

Here are my favorite songs:

Go ahead and buy the album, because I don't file share so much anymore. Plus, this guy deserves the money. He plays all of the instruments you hear on the album and sings the vocals. He also produces the albums. Yeah, he's amazing. & a lot of this album is dedicated to his wife.

People & Things

My favorite musician, Andrew McMahon, just released the third Jack's Mannequin album, People & Things, on Tuesday.

You should buy this album.

If you need more convincing, listen to this song...

...and then buy this album.

Vacation Jamz 2011

1. Forget You by Cee Lo Green

2. Miss California by Jack's Mannequin

3. Barbie Girl by MxPx (cover)

4. The Boys of Summer by The Ataris

5. Bojangles by Pitbull

6. I Woke Up in a Car by Something Corporate

7. The Whole World by OutKast

8. Island in the Sun by Weezer

9. Jukebox Breakdown by Saves the Day

10. Holiday from Real by Jack's Mannequin

{I feel compelled to tell you that my music is so old because I stopped pirating songs a couple of years ago. When it came down to buying new music or re-loving old favorites, well, it is obvious which side won.}

Traffic Remedies

My new job, while amazing beyond words, requires a 50-minute rush hour commute twice a day. I'm normally a rather civilized person, but there's something about bumper-to-bumper traffic that taps in to my inner beast. It's just so...dreary. To help combat this dreariness, I've thought up a list of things that I think might alleviate traffic-associated stress.

#1

Some happy jams.

Here is my playlist of mood lifting tunes:

1. Bend and Not Break by Dashboard Confessional

2. Chariot by Gavin DeGraw

3. Spinning by Jack's Mannequin

4. Dirt of Your Shoulders by Jay-Z

5. Float On by Modest Mouse

6. You'll Be in My Heart by Phil Collins

7. Bojangles by Pitbull

8. Show Me Everything You've Got by The Rocket Summer

9. This is Not an Exit by Saves the Day

10. Ruthless by Something Corporate

11. Spice Up Your Life by The Spice Girls

12. Island in the Sun by Weezer

13. Switch by Will Smith

#2

Delicious food.

With me, everything is better when food is involved. Getting home doesn't feel as urgent when you're already having a little snack. I think plump green grapes would perfectly fit the bill here. Promise to be careful when you eat while driving, though!

#3

A good imagination.

Whenever I get angry with the elderly driver in front of me who seems to have no earthly idea what is going on around him, I imagine that he is my grandpa or a friend of my grandpa. Almost immediately, my anger dissipates. When other drivers are veering in and out of lanes with nary a turn signal or seem to think their lives depend on not letting a single other car in front of them, I try to imagine all the times when my own driving acts may have looked selfish and irresponsible to others. Sometimes we just don't focus enough or we make silly mistakes when we're driving. If I can frame the situation well in my head, then my anger and impatience are more under my control.

#4

As much comfort as you can muster.

At my new company, the dress is pretty formal. When I'm sitting in my not-too-spacious car for an hour at the end of the day, the last thing I want is to feel constricted. I make an effort to make small adjustments to improve my comfort, like taking off my cardigan or untucking my blouse. The only person in the car is me and, at 5 o'clock on a week day, looking posh is the last thing on my mind.

Well, that's all I've thought of so far, but if any of you rush hour veterans have any tips for me, I'd certainly appreciate reading them!

*image from weheartit.com

Musicbox

Ashley, whose blog is amazing BTW, does a Top Five Friday feature on her blog that I have come to depend on. Sometimes they're hilarious, like, Top Five Foods You Should Never Share; sometimes they're incredibly wise, like, Top Five Tips for a Happy Marriage.

I've been thinking for a while that I wanted to post my top five favorite albums. These might not all be my favorite albums of the moment, but they have been my most listened to at some phase in my life.

#1

  Everything in Transit by Jack's Mennquin (2005)

Favorite tracks include:

La La Lie

The Mixed Tape

You Can Breathe

I'm Ready

Bruised

Into the Airwaves  

{basically everything}

#2

North by Something Corporate (2003)

Favorite tracks include:

Me and the Moon

Ruthless

Break Myself

#3

Tell All Your Friends by Taking Back Sunday (2002)

Favorite tracks include:

Ghost Man on Third

The Blue Channel

Timberwolves at New Jersey

#4

"The Blue Album" by Weezer (1994)

Favorite tracks include:

Only in Dreams

Say It Ain't So

Buddy Holly

#5

Friends with Benefit: Music from the Television Series One Tree Hill, Volume 2 (2006)

Favorite tracks include:

For Blue Skies (Strays Don't Sleep)

23 (Jimmy Eat World)

Coffee & Cigarettes (Michelle Featherstone)

Nice Nice Very Nice

This guy's music is beautifully compulsive. So much so that I've decided to buy his CD. His CD, for Pete's sake.

Needless to say, watching any of the suggested videos at the end would not be a waste of your time.

People

I'm currently in the stage of the job seeking process called "go on a million interviews". It's nice to have these opportunities, of course, but it's also something of a challenge. I'm the type of person who loves being prepared, which is sometimes difficult in job interviews with totally out-of-left-field questions. I prepare as much as possible by memorizing company information and developing answers to common interview questions, but I often end up stressing out. My sleep the night before an interview is always fitful. For instance, last night I dreamt that I had forgotten to put on my suit & had worn jeans the whole interview. The horror!

Anyway, whenever I get nervous about these interviews, I calm myself through music. Regina Spektor's song "Ghost of Corporate Future" contains the most reassuring lyrics:

people are just people/they shouldn't make you nervous

people are just people, like you

The song grounds me every time, without fail.

9 Crimes

This song is hauntingly beautiful, but I gotta agree with the YouTube commenter who described the video as "disturbing to the point of being distracting". I kind of dig it, though.

Girlfriend of the Year

Noah is a huge fan of metal; I am a huge fan of Noah. This must explain why I spent four hours at an Iron Maiden concert last night when no-one else could go (the usual understudy, my brother Max, had to work).

I don't at all like metal; I'm more of a Something Corporate/Jimmy Eat World/Brand New/Weezer kind of girl. Give me a piano and some lovelorn lyrics and I'm set. Best of the Beast? Not so much. Even so, I love watching how music affects people, how it gets inside them and moves them. I don't know if it's something universal, but it looks pretty much the same at an Iron Maiden death jam as a Red Hot Chili Peppers funk show.

Barraged by cigarette smoke, absurdly dirty hair, and the distinctive smell of Mexican weed, I tapped my foot with the best of 'em and drank a $4.50 bottle of Dasani. I would be lying if I said that I wasn't impressed by the special effects and mad guitar skills.

I guess the bottom line is that relationships are about give and take, and I am totally taking Noah to see Snoop Dogg next time he's in town.

Something Beautiful

2002 was the first year I heard Something Corporate. "If You C Jordan" was on MTV and my best friend Autumn and I thought it was the greatest. We called a lot of people "little redhead bitches" after that.

In 2005, my best friend Eric sent me "Konstantine", by one-and-a-half times through I had found God again. Later that year, my friend Leeann loaned me her copy of "North". Immediately I realized that "Down" was my anthem and "The Runaway" had the best vocal pattern I'd ever heard. When my mom's laptop caught fire in our house and the toxic smoke forced us to escape to a hotel for a few days, we listened to that album every single car ride.

Eric sent me all of "Everything In Transit" (from Jack's Mannequin, what was then Andrew McMahon's side project) via AOL Instant Messenger in the beginning of 2006. When I got my first car, it was the first CD I ever listened to while driving. Jack's Mannequin performed on "One Tree Hill" that same year. I think "The Mix Tape" was my first favorite track on the album, but it's so hard to remember. Every.single.song on that CD has claimed the title of "favorite" at one time or another (currently it's "La La Lie").

I was in Borders that first summer when I bought "Leaving Through the Window", SoCo's 2002 album. It was the only CD in my car that whole summer, serenading me on my way to summer school, to pick up my boyfriend, to drive home minutes before curfew.

In October 2008, at a particularly timely time, Jack's Mannequin released "The Glass Passenger". I couldn't believe that someone could make their fight with leukemia come alive as well as Andrew did in "Caves". How could he know my fantasies so well as to capture them perfectly in "Drop Out- The So Unknown"? Later that month, Noah surprised me with tickets to see Andrew perform. He drove me two and a half hours away on a Sunday night to see my hero, stood in the back for over two hours, and then drove me back while I slept in the front seat, remembering, in detail, every lyric sung. That night I watched in awe as Andrew sang and played and walked around on top of the holiest piano I'd ever seen. He played while I watched mouth agape in awe. Some guy next to me pulled my hair back from my ear and whispered, "They're songs you dance to at your wedding." It was surreal to stand next to a stranger who understand the most fundamental marital law: a marriage is invalid if the words of Andrew McMahon aren't present.

The next time I was in the same room as Andrew was just last February. My brother and I stood feet from the stage and jumped and sang and stared. Seeing the words that had fixed me, had pulled me up and out, come out of Andrews mouth, the notes come from his fingers, was a remarkable experience, one that stayed with me fully for days.

I just found out that SoCo played "Konstantine" at Bamboozle Left in March, the show I fought with myself over going to, and ultimately decided it was too expensive. If I had known they would be playing that song, my song, I would have tunneled there to see it. I was crushed. Until...yesterday I got a text from my brother Max. "SoCo is having a summer tour. They'll be at the Marquee on August 22nd. We're going, right?" Like he even had to ask.

White & Nerdy

A couple weeks ago, I was at a stoplight near my apartment, when a car pulled up next to me, blaring Eminem. I turn to my left to see a skinny white guy staring disinterestedly out the windshield, practicing his cool guy look (lips slightly pursed, eyes narrowed, slouched so low in his seat it's a miracle he can see over the steering wheel). I try to conceal my mocking smile, lest he run me down in his low riding compact car. Just as the light turns green, my iPod shuffles to a 3OH!3 song. I ride sheepishly into the intersection as I realize, perhaps for the very first time, that I too am skinny and white with questionable taste in music.