Yay Music!

I love reading Robyn's music blog, because she has such a genuine passion for music and knows a lot about it but never gets all annoyingly over-analytical. Plus, yay for added funniness! And cute listening-bunny icon, of course. Samples:

from May 8, 2005:

Oh, there's a certain type of music I most definitely hate: crappy ringtones. My phone just makes beepy noises when it rings. Is it just me or does 90% of the cell phone toting population set their phones to play annoying songs? WHY? WHY MUST YOU BE SO CRUEL? FOR GOD'S SAKE. I hate "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies" after having to hear my roommate's cell phone-ified version innumerable times over the course of the past year. If you like crappy ringtones and use them on a regular basis, I kind of wish bad things to happen to you. Or rather, your phone.

from May 7, 2005:

Magnet's new album is called The Tourniquet. OMG, NEW ALBUM! (Just a note, when I say OMG I'm kind of kidding. And kind of not). My first thought was, Does that imply massive pain? Hope not. Or maybe YES, I love depressing things! I do. You probably do also. YOU DO! Why I'm shouting, I don't know. There are lots of depressing Magnet songs and it would make me ever so gleeful if he one day made a song about happy penguins just waddling around glaciers, sitting on eggs and puking out food for their babies or something.

from May 2, 2005:

It's nice listening to music you haven't heard in a while. I listened to bits of OK Computer today and it made me happy. Still good! Not that I expected it to be not good but it's like finding something in your kitchen that may have expired but you eat it anyway and it still tastes good.

...that was a bad comparison. Sorry.

Kristine has had similar experiences with food, except for the "still good" part. ;p Hope you don't mind all the quotes, Robyn!

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And I notice that a musical baton (a.k.a. a survey) has been passed to me. :) I'll do my best to run with it:

TOTAL VOLUME OF MUSIC FILES ON MY COMPUTER:

Can't check right now. Ever since I upgraded my PC to a faster processor, it keeps keeling over due to the overheating brought about by this sweltery summer season. That's why I'm renting a PC in a 24-hour internet cafe on Morato right now. :p I vaguely remember having only about 10+ gigs though.

THE LAST CD I BOUGHT WAS:

My newest CD is Narda's full-length debut (good stuff!), but that was given to me so I guess it doesn't count. Got a bunch of secondhand discs recently, from Cubao: Gentlemen by the Afghan Whigs, Wasp Star by XTC, Lifeblood by Manic Street Preachers. I've owned them all previously, either as cassettes or burns, but it's nice to have the originals on CD. The last new disc I bought was by Kings of Convenience, but now I'm eyeing the new Garbage, not to mention the first Pedicab album.

SONG PLAYING RIGHT NOW:

"What Do You Do With a BA in English?/It Sucks To Be Me" from Avenue Q

FIVE SONGS I LISTEN TO A LOT, OR THAT MEAN A LOT TO ME:

1. "As the World Falls Down" by David Bowie: For sentimental reasons.

2. "Wrapped in Grey" by XTC: Great music, great lyrics. Inspiring without being cheesy.

3. "Goodbye" by The Sundays: Makes me feel like a child riding in a car, stretched out in the back seat, watching the landscape flash by in the back window, on a long trip home.

4. "Epiphany" by The Spinanes: Very difficult to choose a single Spinanes song, so I'll go with the first one I really fell for. I love "Lines and Lines" though. And "Kid in Candy." And...

5. "Breaking the Rules" by Robbie Robertson and The Blue Nile: Hard to explain why this song affects me so much. It has something to do with it being used at the end of Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World -- both film and song touched me deeply -- but there are probably other reasons which I'm not even going to try to sort out just now. Lots of Blue Nile stuff makes me get all choked up anyway, particularly anything from Hats.

FIVE+ PEOPLE TO WHOM I'M PASSING THE BATON:

This is probably cheating, but I would love to read the answers of anyone who's reading this right now. Yes, that means you!

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In other news, over at Achewood, one of my favorite online strips, Ray and Roast Beef take a ride in Trent Reznor's car (which Ray bought on eBay). "This was Trent Reznor's high school car! If you sit in it, you are guaranteed to feel total despair!"

Also, check out funnysmart guy Chuck Klosterman's column for May, which semi-helpfully defines various genres for "people who only listen to rock music casually."

And finally, I've been meaning to write something about audioblogs here, for those friends of mine who have grown increasingly irritated at my propensity for mentioning them in casual conversation while being too lazy to define what they are, exactly. Luckily, The Tofu Hut has provided a handy guide. Yay music!