I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you

I’ve been listening to Passion Pit’s Better Things on loop for the past 2 weeks. It’s one of the songs that Nick put on my ipod two years ago. Fantastic lyrics, great music, and no one hates being told that “Better things are coming…”

“Change the bloody bhain-bhain, you’ve been listening to the same shit for days now,” my mother screams. Then she ignores me. I just don’t think I’ll ever get over it.

My synthpop sense is tingling.

And I’ll admit that I’m not a rabid music lover. I like music sure, but I like the sound track of life a little more. I like to hear the fan, the cars, the construction, the satsang, and the crows. Everything. But I’ve been listening to it on loop for two weeks, I’m listening to it as I type this and I’ll probably listen to it again.

So for no reason other than I just did, 5 songs I’ve been addicted to in the past.

1. Praise you- Fatboy Slim

The opening bars of this song get to me like nothing else. The piano sample and the rollicking beat are very good reasons to rip off all inhibitions and do whatever rendition of “dance” you can do. (Though, I’d recommend this in an enclosed space where no one else has to be subjected to it.) And then as if the song wasn’t awesome enough, I saw the video. And that pretty much clinched it.

(Back Story: The video was made by Spike Jonze. It was shot guerrilla-style (no one in the footage (except the dancers) knew they were in a music video.)

You may know Fatboy Slim from their Grammy-winning Weapon of Choice. It was like I was eating a roll made out of Christopher Walken, wrapped in Christopher Walken, deep friend in Christopher Walken and sprinkled with a fairy dust of a thousand fairies as they came to Earth for that reason alone. Good roll. Better video.

2. Around the World- Daft Punk

Daft Punk is certified awesome (Nick often recollects, very vaguely their concert he went to when he was younger. I think his mind was blown so hard the details have become fuzzy. All he can recall clearly about it was how “awesome” everything was.)

The artful composition of this song only came to me when I saw the video of the song, made by Michel Gondry (of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind fame). Each instrument in the song was represented by a group of dancers, some representative of pop-culture and some outright bizarre. And the video just breaks it down so beautifully, it’s one of those videos that makes you wonder about the basic nature of the world.

If we could just get to match moves sometimes, the world would be a pretty cool dance party to be at.

3. Homecoming

O.K, I love Kanye, I don’t care how self-obsessed he is, how he ruined Taylor Swift’s Grammy moment (it was staged apparently?) or how his lyrics are borderline vapid. I’ve not heard one track of his that I don’t like and his last album Graduation really rocked my socks.

This collaboration with the Chris Martin from his previous album Homecoming hits the spot, right on target. Martin’s nostalgic voice crooning about “coming home again” along with Kanye’s rhythm make this my jam if I’m ever missing anyone.

4. Caring is Creepy- The Shins

Included on the sound track of the Zach Braff-Natalie Portman starrer, Garden State, this song pretty much defined an entire year for me. I’ve never had a song’s lyrics speak to me so much, and the main guitar riff makes evokes a thousand emotions at the same time. Lots of post adolescent, “oh so this is what they refer to when they say…. “These are the ways of the world,” type, angsty emotions.

5. Olsen Olsen- Sigur Ros

I couldn’t possibly step away from this list without a mention of Sigur Ros. This song comes closest to what I imagine a happy haze would feel like. I remember listening to it on loop for so long that I didn’t know how the song started or ended for a very long time because it just blended into this long beautiful accompaniment to everything.