Saturday, March 22, 2008

Shuffle Kerfuffle

I'm stealing this idea from the Onion. Ten songs on shuffle:

1.Play Dead - Bjork
Bjork's pretty cool. I guess people have opinions about her. I dunno. She's a great singer. This song has a funky bass line. I like it.

2. Blackbird/Yesterday - The Beatles
This is from the new Love album of mashups and greatest hits. I ignored the Beatles for a long time because I figure things that are that popular probably aren't any good. Turns out, they live up to the hype. Yesterday is one of the most enjoyable songs to sing along with.

3. J-E-N-O-V-A - The Black Mages
One of the best compositions from the Final Fantasy series, in rock form. I love the key changes in this. It keeps shifting up or down a minor third. Strangely affecting.

4. Chocolate City - Parliament
In Parliament's cool guy on the radio series, this one isn't as fun as Wants to Get Funked Up, but it's still cool. And it seems particularly relevant today - "They call it the white house, but that's a temporary condition."

5. jags minns inte - psilodump
This is one of many tracks I got from 8-bit Peoples. If you like the idea of music made with primitive video game sound chips, this is the site for you. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but I love that sound.

6. Fugue #7777 - Asuka Sakai
In the video game Katamari Damacy, this is the theme of the King of All Cosmos. It's a funny synth-opera type of thing. I like having this piece of silliness show up in my shuffles, almost as much as Totaka's Song.

7. Slippery People - Talking Heads
I love Talking Heads, especially in their funky phase. I believe that David Byrne is the ultimate cool white man.

8. Lint of Love - Cibo Matto
My sister got me into this band, which is kind of like J-Pop made by Americans of Japanese descent. They have a unique attitude, and there's a lot of humor in their lyrics. I'd say Lint of Love is definitely their best song. It's both funny and musically strong.

9. Metal Man Goes Clubbing - Disco Dan
From the venerable Overclocked Remix. Like a lot of these game remixes, this one goes on a bit long for my tastes, but it's still great fun. It's almost impossible to go wrong with Mega Man 2.

10. Hanging In There - Ray Holman (Mannette Festival 2003)
Ray Holman is one of the greatest pan composers. In his lightning-quick panorama pieces, he packs more excitement into a few chords than some people manage in entire songs. And then he has tunes like Hanging In There and Since You've Gone that draw you in with impressionistic harmonies but get more emotional as they go.

1 comment:

Larry "Liontamer" Oji said...

Thanks for the OC ReMix plug, David, we appreciate it! Glad to see a good assortment of VGM and chiptunes in your playlist. Keep the shuffle kerfuffles coming.

Larry "Liontamer" Oji
Head Submissions Evaluator, OverClocked ReMix
Creator, VG Frequency
Staff, VGMdb
http://www.ocremix.org
http://www.vgfrequency.com
http://www.vgmdb.net