Random Tuesday Music: Chasing Pirates

Performed by: Norah Jones
Album: The Fall (2009)

I chose the Late Show clip because that was the first time I heard the song. (See the video here.) I'm honestly not sure whether or not I like it. Norah Jones' songs generally put me to sleep, but this one makes me feel like I'm on a boat. Perhaps that fits in with the whole "pirates" thing. For the record, I didn't know she was singing "pirates" until I looked up the name of the song.

Random Tuesday Music: What's My Age Again

Performed by: Richard Cheese
Album: Lounge Against the Machine (2000)

The line "What the hell is ADD?" in this rendition never ceases to crack me up. I thought I'd put a couple of different clips here...this song seems to be a popular pick for video assignments. (See the original here.)

The Richard Cheese song I really wanted to share with you was his cover of Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" (from the upcoming album OK Bartender), but since I can't find that anywhere, this will do for now.

Random Tuesday Music: Last Christmas

(Warning: Contains animated gore. The actual song starts :30 in. This is the only clip I could find that wasn't someone else covering this version. :P)



Performed by: Jimmy Eat World
Album: Disc 2 of the deluxe version of Bleed American (2008 release)

This is being shared with you only because I first heard it recently. I don't care for it, mostly because this cover doesn't even use the verses, it's just refrain - interlude - refrain - interlude - bridge x2 - refrain - long fadeout. Meh. Here's the original, while I'm at it. I don't mind the song unless I've been listening to All-Christmas Radio and I'm hearing it for the fourth or fifth time that day.

Random Tuesday Music: Eighties Roundup

I felt like linking to a bunch of videos this week, so that's what I did! I don't know how accurate the years are; I used Wikipedia to find out single release dates. They're likely correct, but who knows. On with the music!

1980: Hall & Oates - You Make My Dreams
1981: The Human League - Don't You Want Me
1982: ABC - The Look of Love
1983: Journey - Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)
1984: Duran Duran - New Moon on Monday
1985: Whitney Houston - How Will I Know
1986: Howard Jones - No One Is to Blame
1987: Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead or Alive
1988: INXS - Devil Inside
1989: Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus

Random Tuesday Music: My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone)

Performed by: Chilliwack
Album: Wanna Be a Star (1981)

I'll be honest--I first heard this song today. One of my YouTube recommendations was of an SCTV skit I hadn't seen before, so I checked it out:



This led me to look up the actual song. It's not bad...

Random Tuesday Music: I Confess

Performed by: The Beat (or "English Beat", depending on where you are, I guess)
Album: Special Beat Service (1982)

KNBR regularly uses this as their 7AM weekday bumper music. My alarm goes off five minutes prior, so I'm always hearing this, whether I struggle to get up then or I decide to snooze a while longer.

Random Tuesday Music: One Thing Leads to Another

Performed by: The Fixx
Album: Reach the Beach (1983)

I've decided October is going to be 80s Month.

(It's not October yet.)

Shhh! :P Anyway, I did the live clip thing again since I could embed it--go see the video here. My night owl habits started at a young age, when I would watch Night Tracks on TBS until the wee hours of the morning. (Do I know why I was allowed to do this? No. I can tell you that this was back during the days before I had something called "school"...or "MTV", for that matter.) When I think of those days, this is one of the first songs that comes to mind. It's also made the rounds in commercials (as well as the other song I know from that album, "Saved by Zero").

Random Tuesday Music: Paparazzi

Performed by: Lady Gaga
Album: The Fame (2008)

I had this song stuck in my head on Saturday while I was out running errands. As if on cue, someone behind me in line at the grocery store started humming the refrain. That was weird.

The YT clip I have posted is the glowpinkstah parody. It is very silly, therefore it cracks me up. This one isn't for the kids, though...then again, neither is the actual Paparazzi video. :P

Random Tuesday Music: Gusty Garden Space Remix

From Super Mario Galaxy (2007)
Mario Paint Composer arrangement by Adolfo Baez

Yeah, we're back to gaming. Believe it or not, I just got Super Mario Galaxy a couple of weeks ago. I was hesitant about getting it because I didn't think I'd do well with the controls. While I suck at swimming, I'm doing alright with the basic controls (up to 36 stars now, woohoo :P). Anyway, this is a fun song. I had posted one of Adolfo Baez's videos here before and remembered that he had done a version of the Gusty Garden theme, so I hunted it down for this week's feature. I enjoy his stuff, especially considering that he does it all by ear. It blows me away a bit. Though I guess you kind of have to go by ear when you're doing video game music, it's not like there are scores just hanging out, you know? (Unless you're talking Final Fantasy, I suppose.)

Random Tuesday Music: Major Tom (Coming Home)

Performed by: Peter Schilling
Album: Error in the System (1983)

There was another song I was going to look for, but the notes I had on it (including, oh, what song it is) are on a different computer. Whoops. So I bring you this, which I thought about just now because my father likes it. If the song sounds somewhat familiar to you but is before your time, perhaps you heard a cover of it recently in this Lincoln ad that's been running in the US. Listen to the original German version here!

Random Tuesday Music: Romeo and Juliet

Performed by: Dire Straits
Album: Making Movies (1980)

This is one of those songs that grew on me. I didn't enjoy the first few times I listened to it--and I mean really listening, not just hearing it sitting in the backseat of my dad's car as a wee one. It took me a while to get used to the mixture of singing and speaking, but the line "y'know, the movie song" always irked me a little bit. Not quite a Pope in Rome line, but irksome nonetheless.

"Pope in Rome line" is a term I believe I've only used with my father, but I'll explain. Have you ever heard a song that had a line that seemed out of place and/or ruined the song for you? That's a Pope in Rome line. It's a direct reference to the line "'cept for the Pope maybe in Rome" in Joan Osborne's "One of Us". Another example is "when she thought up that I should be with you" in James Blunt's "You're Beautiful". You just hear it going along, whatever, and then that line comes out of left field.

Back to Romeo and Juliet--a play I happen to loathe, but I digress. This song's been covered a few times. The Killers' rendition is the only cover I've heard, and I happen to like it, so I'll end the post with it. :) Going by what they're saying in the beginning of the clip here, it sounds like they covered it for the right reasons.

Random Tuesday Music: Gay Bar Part 2

Performed by: Electric Six
Album: Flashy (2008)

OMG I actually posted a recent song this week. :O Ahem. I originally intended to post Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet", but...I've yet to do the full write-up for that. Oh yes. There will be a write-up. But enough about that. I posted this song to share with you the Drinking While Listening to Electric Six Game (which is not officially affiliated with anything except my crazy mind). There are two rules / times to drink:


1) During a song, a reference is made to one of their other songs. (Can possibly be stretched to include album titles.)
2) SOLO!


Gay Bar Part 2 is at least a four-shot song. :P

According to the clip description, this was taken from a gig in Portland late last year. (Is Portland nice? I'd like to visit that city someday.) Last year was also when I was introduced to this band's music by one of my friends. While it's fun, I find I usually have to be in a mood to listen to the songs for an extended period of time as it can get repetitive after a while. I guess that goes for many a band/artist, though. Now to finish off, here are two random Japanese songs that have been stuck in my head today:

MAX - Ginga no Chikai
LAREINE - Fuyu Tokyo

Random Tuesday Music: The Waiting

Artist: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Album: Hard Promises (1981)

Hi. It's been a while. I've been a bit occupied lately. This is actually a documentary clip talking about the song; see an actual video here. I have no real thoughts other than that this song's been stuck in my head all day. It was kind of hard to come up with songs just because I hadn't done this for a few weeks (though in my process of figuring out today's song I have two more ready to go for this month, yay). I had considered posting something from Electric Six's "Switzerland" for the sole purpose of posting a quote I just came across from this review of the album:

The more=better strategy can flop in practice, no matter how enticing hyperbolizing your art appears-- it's why so many "Family Guy" jokes tank or why no one listens to Michael Moore.

The review came up in my search for an image of one of their other album covers. I'm collecting octopus illustrations as reference for a little project I have going. I'm also pretty sure that the embedding is disabled for all Electric Six videos.

Random Tuesday Music: Big Bang Mini OST

Artist: Yubaba, Smith & Fortune
Album: Big Bang Mini OST (2009)

Okay, so the clip is actually a trailer for the Nintendo DS game, but it gives you a taste of the ambient qualities of the soundtrack, which can currently be downloaded for free at the Big Bang Mini site. It's rather soothing (which can offset the fact that the game itself can be frustrating at times), and I can tell you that it helps the workday go by faster.

(And no, I had no real songs for this week. Nothing's been grabbing me. Unless you wanted "Can You Keep a Secret?")

Random Tuesday Music: Can't Stop

Artist: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Album: By the Way (2002)

(I started to write this last week, but I fell asleep in front of the computer. Whoops!)
Another live clip...I didn't see the video right away, and if it is around, embedding's most likely disabled. But here is a "making of" the video clip that's pretty cool. Anyway, I've noticed that there are people who listen to songs for the lyrics and others who listen to them for the music itself. I can go either way. I enjoy a good lyric, but I can just as easily love a song where the lyrics are no more than stream of consciousness, provided the music's good. It seems like many a RHCP song falls into this latter category. :P

Random Tuesday Music: Love Machine

Artist: モーニング娘。 (Morning Musume)
Album: 3rd -Love Paradise- (2000)

I had another Morning Musume song stuck in my head last night, so I thought I'd share the pain with something a little more palatable. :P I believe this song is still their best-selling single, and it came out back on 9/9/99. Wow.

Random Tuesday Music: Sly

Artist: The Cat Empire
Album: Two Shoes (2005)

This band is based in Melbourne, Australia. I first heard of them when they performed on David Letterman's show a couple of years ago and thought, "oh, they're fun!" The feeling I get from most of their stuff is very...laid back party music. If that makes sense. Anyway, from there I picked up that album, and I recently bought their latest, So Many Nights. I have been addicted to it for the past week. :P

Random Tuesday Music: Poor Leno

Artist: Röyksopp
Album: Melody A.M. (2001)

I've been slacking again. :P I went on an internet hiatus of sorts, but I'm back now! Had I been online, last week's selection would have been "Ugly Girl" by Fleming & John. Anyway, on to this song. Röyksopp is an electronic duo from Norway. If nothing else, you've likely heard one of the versions of "Remind Me", which was featured in this Geico ad. I've had visions of this video in my head lately due to being addicted to this Bejeweled-esque game called Zoo Keeper. As far as the song goes, I'm hoping something was lost in translation and that the lyrics aren't actually supposed to be, well, creepy:

Poor Leno
where you'll be, I'll go
where you'll be, I'll know
where you'll be, I'll find you

Poor Leno
haven't you been told
being nine years old
means I'll always find you

...at least this is what it sounds like to me. Many lyric sites list the last three lines as "have you due in time, reunite as one, please I'll always find you". Um...yeah.

Random Tuesday Music: Strawberry Sex

Artist: Hirai Ken
Album: Life is... (2003)

This is a silly, silly video. :P As you can see, this song is a few years old, but I just came across it last week and I've been listening to it way too many times. It's bouncy, it's infectious, it makes me want to dance. Enjoy. I'll try my best to throw in an English song next week, but if I don't, please forgive me. I'm trying to be in my happy place as much as possible, and j-pop brings me there.

Random Tuesday Music: Kabutomushi ("Beetle")

Artist: Hata Motohiro

This is a cover of aiko's song performed last year on "Bokura no Ongaku" ("Our Music"). I really like the lyrics in this song, from what I can understand. I'm not sure what that says about me, though.