30DSC DAY 1: YOUR FAVORITE SONG

This entry was completely up in the air right up until I picked "All Cats Are Gray". I love so many song so deeply that marking out one as my favorite bordered on painful. It may sound melodramatic and nonsensical, but music makes me feel alive; listening to it, performing it, in all of its guises, makes me who I am, and narrowing down that portion of myself to one song seems worse than limiting. It's almost like lying, really; I feel like I'm trying to boil my personality down to one specific thing that only represents a small facet of who I am.

I picked a Cure song because I knew one would be easy to find online. I picked this particular Cure song because it is one of the few that it always on my shortlist of favorite pieces of music; the simple percussion line mixed in with those haunting synths and the plaintive vocal line, followed by that aching coda... not only is it well-constructed and performed, but it's also an emotional sledgehammer rife with imagery. The album it comes from, Faith, is 30 years old this year, but in many ways it still feels like it was just released yesterday.

There are many other songs I could have posted here; take, for example, this:



I first performed "Take him, Earth, for cherishing" as a college sophomore with the Harvard University Choir. This was my second year singing in a church choir and it really formed the backbone of my college experience, especially as a musician. In fact, the main reason I am a church musician now is tied into the fantastic experiences I had with that group at Memorial Church. The song itself is one of many outstanding pieces of choral literature that we did during my college career; the shifts in tempo and how it hops through different tonalities make it a living beast, even setting aside the occasion for which it was written, as a memorial to the recently assassinated John F. Kennedy. Adding that layer into an already heady mixture makes it one of the most personally meaningful pieces I've ever performed. I'll never tire of it, and I am always thankful I was introduced to it during my college experience.

Conversely, I could have gone this route:



I've cycled through several favorite electronic acts, ranging from synth pop through industrial acts and lots of styles in between, but the album that has stuck with me the most is Orbital's In-Sides, largely because of this song, "Adnan's". Most of the album looks to meld the dancefloor with the epic but this is the track where all of the pieces really fall into line. The synth melody that appears around 4:05 encapsulates much of what I look for in music; simplicity augmented by repetition into something much more majestic than the sum of its parts. In fact, I stopped writing and just basked in the music coming from my headphones once the track hit that midpoint.

Finally, there is Prince:


Housequake Live 1987 by samsarax

I can't find a link to the Sign 'O' The Times version of "Housequake", which literally is one of the greatest things ever recorded. It's pure, visceral, booty-shaking funk as only Prince can do it; this kitchen-sink live recording is also amazing but you really need to hear the stripped-down album version to really get the genius melding of iciness and heat that elevates this song into genius. So basically, go get a copy of Sign 'O' The Times. Almost every song on it is as amazing as this one and this one melts your face.

So, there you have it; several different perspectives on "what is my favorite song?" Even now, I want to keep going and list even more songs, but I really need to save at least a few for later entries.

My favorite song (that I never listen to): Part 1 of an ongoing series.

The Orb - "Toxygene"

I love the iTunes Genius playlist feature. I've pulled most of the music off of my main iPhone playlist and replaced it with about 30 different Genius lists, all of which end up being better mixes than anything I have time to put together. It's revolutionized my listening habits; not only does it scratch my ongoing nostalgia itch, but it also makes links between songs that would have been second-nature to me 10 years ago, before I started focusing more on work and marriage and all of those other alleged "grown-up" things we're supposed to invest in, all in handy chunks of 25 songs at a time. It has also reminded me of songs that at one point ruled my world to the point of obsession, at least until the next shiny melody came along and grabbed my fancy.

Like most other people diving into British dance music circa 1990-1992, I knew about The Orb. I knew they were considered a major player in the world of electronic music. I knew that critics and consumers alike loved them and, given the limited avenues I had to get to raves what with having no cash, no car and limited access to like-minded friends, I heard "Little Fluffy Clouds" A LOT. And, you know what? It was... okay. I liked it but I wasn't crazy about it. I read rhapsodic article after rhapsodic article, in magazines, newspapers and online, hailing their genius. I just didn't get it. I mean, it was blatantly obvious they weren't bad. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that I thought most, if not all, of the hype they received was warranted; it just didn't resonate with me. In the back of my mind, I thought I was missing out on something, but everything in the scene I encountered was so fresh, new and exciting to me that I didn't really care.

Fast-forward: It is now 1997 and I am in the peak time of my show-going days. I'm completely obsessed with Orbital at this point; In Sides is in such heavy rotation in my CD player that most of my friends think I've forgotten all about my mopey post-punk roots and have given up on my Cure fandom (I hadn't; I went to the Wild Mood Swings tour that year and was still busily convincing myself that "Strange Attraction" wasn't a steaming pile of a song). When I hear Orbital is touring, I can't wait to get my ticket; finding out that The Orb is also on the bill is just a neat bonus (or so I thought at the time).

I really did enjoy that show (IIRC, it was The Orb/Orbital/Chemical Brothers) but I was wholly unprepared for how much The Orb was going to blow me away, particularly with "Toxygene". The bouncy shuffle-step ragga-influence intertwined with traffic noises and various movie samples flipped a switch in my head. I no longer thought, "Oh, obviously they're good but I'm just not into them." That song was a perfect gateway; not only did it squarely hit the right place/right time bullseye, but its competing strands of simple dance floor joy and environmental pathos converged into a beautiful balance, something that made me rethink some of my stances on the environment while dancing until I collapsed. Furthermore, it shone a vastly different light on the rest of their catalogue; I went back to "Little Fluffy Clouds" and realized that I had been denying myself heaven for years by not surrendering to its charms. This one song, a song most would unanimously agree is not anywhere near The Orb at its peak, completely and utterly made me a strong fan of The Orb, and every time I hear it I receive the same revelatory rush I felt on the dance floor at Avalon over a decade ago.

http://www.theorb.com/ (RSS feedz for u)
http://www.loopz.co.uk/(WAIT, ORBITAL IS TOURING THE UK THIS SUMMER????)
http://www.astralwerks.com/chemical/ (srsly, We Are The Night is pretty great, stop hatin')
http://www.thecure.com/ (lol, Robert rants in caps)