Thursday, February 21, 2008
Top Songs of 2007 (#s 15-11)
15 "Pull Shapes" The Pipettes We Are the Pipettes [Interscope]
"There's a whole floor before us, just for you and me."
It's starting to be a trend. Every year there's a song that reminds me of one of my bestest friends, Patrick Arthur. He's the only one who comments on these posts, so it makes sense that he's the only friend that gets "his own song" on the countdown. But "Pull Shapes" is not just a reminder of him, I literally cannot think of anything other than how much I unabashedly love this man when I hear this song. And it's not even his favorite Pipettes song! And while this whole album may not be one of my favorites of 2007, most certainly my favorite music discussion of the year was between Pat and I as we went through this record track by track, rating each song, entering into a discourse regarding each melody, each Pipette (regarding both their hotness levels and vocal presence in the group, okay so mostly hotness levels), etc. But it all comes back to this song, because of our constant "Pull Shapes" vs. "Your Kisses are Wasted on Me" debates, plus I was the one who got the DJ at Qualler's wedding to download this song so he could play it and Pat and I danced our hearts out together as it blasted through the speakers, playing air violin during the outro freakout and ending the song with a giant hug. Damn, P. Arty, you got me all bleary-eyed.
14 "Falling Slowly" Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova Once: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [Columbia]
"We've still got time."
So Pat gets a song, and now so do the movies. Jessica will get her song later in the countdown to prove my heterosexuality (as one must in this day and age when confessing a deep but platonic bromance of any magnitude). But first, 2007's greatest movie and most definitely my favorite musical of all time jumps up to #14 on the list, the highest a soundtrack song has made it since 2003's "Phone Call" by Jon Brion, from the Eternal Sunshine... soundtrack, which was my #1 song that year. I've always gotta have that song from a film that makes me sink into my seat in the theater, feel affectation take over in digital surround sound, and just totally lose myself into a puddle of a gooey despair/joy mixture, and many songs from Once did this for me, but predictably the track that brings the two romantic leads together is the one that hit me the hardest. But it's not just that it's when the two finally "connect" in the film, it's that they're connecting because of the music! It's so insanely beautiful that finally a musical has not only used its music in a very literal and neo-realist (read: NOT Hollywood) manner, but that the lyrics to said song have nothing to do with what's going on in the moment. They are vague and mysterious, leading us to what may happen down the line, but what's more important is the priceless melody that is keeping them together in that music shop, singing and loving the act of playing together.
13 "Rugla" Amiina Kurr [Ever]
Moment @ 2:28
There's a reason that these women are Sigur Ros's backing band. They practice restraint when Sigur Ros cannot. They exemplify playfulness when Sigur Ros cannot. They somehow strike the perfect balance between restfulness and crowdedness. This may sound crazy, but have you ever felt your sense of self float out of your body? Kind of like a spiritual experience, but more mental or psychological? I'm well aware no part of my essence actually removed itself from my skin and bones when I saw this song performed live in the austere environment of a still Varsity Theater, but I swear that I felt the world's gravity disseminate from my mind, allowing muscles to relax I never knew I had. The inner workings of this song's clean electric guitar, shiny keyboard, and tension building string section all folded into each other, creating a dense weaving of fibers that dug their way into my stress-filled head, collided with my brain tissue, and ever so gently pulled (much like a filter through a pool drain) through my being and the end result was a sense of clarity undefinable by the English language. As the Icelandic murmurs and quivering saw lead me through the song's final act, I had never felt so removed from the cage that is the human body before in my life. It was more transcendent, it was the beginning of a new life right before my ears.
12 "Lump Sum" Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago [Self-Released]
"We will see when it gets warm."
Turns out ghosts do make music. There's few songs where I can still honestly hear for the first time and say they had something in their sonic palette that I had never heard before. "Lump Sum" is one of only two songs I heard for the first time in 2007 (the other song is in the top 5 of this countdown, stay tuned) where I seriously sat back, took a deep breath, and thought to myself, "what in bloody hell is that?" The man doesn't just layer his soft acoustic drama-wrought anti-ballads, he slices slabs of crusted ice and melted souls through one another until they create a patterned yet chaotic collage of a semblance of undead music. The more noticeable half of this song is a driving, tapping, and brushing percussion topped with a start-and-stop suspenseful acoustic wrangling - this is the part where the human runs away for his life in an out-of-focus, color-drained shot on a hand-held camera. The other half of this song glides and cuts through the aforementioned portion with blood-red eyes and a frosty sheen, sterile ambience piled upon feral forest noises, slowly encapsulating the human without him/her ever knowing that it was gaining on them. Listened to loud enough, it becomes both frightening and deathly powerful - leaving us in a shocked and sullen state all at once, feeling left alone in the snow - whether it was an outside force or ourselves that put us there we may never know.
11 "Oh Be One" Oh No! Oh My! Between the Devil and the Sea [Dim Mak]
"Yes, you are my only hope."
No, I am not nor have I ever been "obsessed" with Star Wars. This does not change the fact that I did cuddle up under the blankets of a fort when I was little and watch the first A New Hope at least a couple times, feeling the pain of Luke - so forced into all that ruckus so fast and with so many expectations. All he wanted was his Uncle Ben to help guide him through this painful process of becoming himself, and he couldn't even have that. Sure, it turned out to be for the better in the long run, but oh how I could feel for that kind of suffering of lacking the hope when hope was the only thing that could keep you going, especially as a child. The cherubic smallness of this song reverts me back to a time when I couldn't reach the counter, when I couldn't fathom pain enough to talk through my problems (only throw a temper until I felt better), when I couldn't do much of anything but strive to develop. It's remarkably unsettling how vividly these feelings come back as I enter adulthood, thrown away from being the educated and now into being the educator, tossed aside from my family base in Midwest as they set up new roots on the East Coast - as if now it's my turn to set up roots on my own. Where is my only hope? Sometimes it feels like it's not there, but I can only repeat the refrain, calling for my Obi Wan: "you're my only hope." Luckily, on the right days, along with the right people, my Obi Wan does answer and gets me through many a sleepless night full of wonder and unknown.
Next week: #s 10-6 of the Top 50 Songs of 2007.
¶ posted by chris at 5:39 PM
15 "Pull Shapes" The Pipettes We Are the Pipettes [Interscope]"There's a whole floor before us, just for you and me."
It's starting to be a trend. Every year there's a song that reminds me of one of my bestest friends, Patrick Arthur. He's the only one who comments on these posts, so it makes sense that he's the only friend that gets "his own song" on the countdown. But "Pull Shapes" is not just a reminder of him, I literally cannot think of anything other than how much I unabashedly love this man when I hear this song. And it's not even his favorite Pipettes song! And while this whole album may not be one of my favorites of 2007, most certainly my favorite music discussion of the year was between Pat and I as we went through this record track by track, rating each song, entering into a discourse regarding each melody, each Pipette (regarding both their hotness levels and vocal presence in the group, okay so mostly hotness levels), etc. But it all comes back to this song, because of our constant "Pull Shapes" vs. "Your Kisses are Wasted on Me" debates, plus I was the one who got the DJ at Qualler's wedding to download this song so he could play it and Pat and I danced our hearts out together as it blasted through the speakers, playing air violin during the outro freakout and ending the song with a giant hug. Damn, P. Arty, you got me all bleary-eyed.
14 "Falling Slowly" Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova Once: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [Columbia]"We've still got time."
So Pat gets a song, and now so do the movies. Jessica will get her song later in the countdown to prove my heterosexuality (as one must in this day and age when confessing a deep but platonic bromance of any magnitude). But first, 2007's greatest movie and most definitely my favorite musical of all time jumps up to #14 on the list, the highest a soundtrack song has made it since 2003's "Phone Call" by Jon Brion, from the Eternal Sunshine... soundtrack, which was my #1 song that year. I've always gotta have that song from a film that makes me sink into my seat in the theater, feel affectation take over in digital surround sound, and just totally lose myself into a puddle of a gooey despair/joy mixture, and many songs from Once did this for me, but predictably the track that brings the two romantic leads together is the one that hit me the hardest. But it's not just that it's when the two finally "connect" in the film, it's that they're connecting because of the music! It's so insanely beautiful that finally a musical has not only used its music in a very literal and neo-realist (read: NOT Hollywood) manner, but that the lyrics to said song have nothing to do with what's going on in the moment. They are vague and mysterious, leading us to what may happen down the line, but what's more important is the priceless melody that is keeping them together in that music shop, singing and loving the act of playing together.
13 "Rugla" Amiina Kurr [Ever]Moment @ 2:28
There's a reason that these women are Sigur Ros's backing band. They practice restraint when Sigur Ros cannot. They exemplify playfulness when Sigur Ros cannot. They somehow strike the perfect balance between restfulness and crowdedness. This may sound crazy, but have you ever felt your sense of self float out of your body? Kind of like a spiritual experience, but more mental or psychological? I'm well aware no part of my essence actually removed itself from my skin and bones when I saw this song performed live in the austere environment of a still Varsity Theater, but I swear that I felt the world's gravity disseminate from my mind, allowing muscles to relax I never knew I had. The inner workings of this song's clean electric guitar, shiny keyboard, and tension building string section all folded into each other, creating a dense weaving of fibers that dug their way into my stress-filled head, collided with my brain tissue, and ever so gently pulled (much like a filter through a pool drain) through my being and the end result was a sense of clarity undefinable by the English language. As the Icelandic murmurs and quivering saw lead me through the song's final act, I had never felt so removed from the cage that is the human body before in my life. It was more transcendent, it was the beginning of a new life right before my ears.
12 "Lump Sum" Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago [Self-Released]"We will see when it gets warm."
Turns out ghosts do make music. There's few songs where I can still honestly hear for the first time and say they had something in their sonic palette that I had never heard before. "Lump Sum" is one of only two songs I heard for the first time in 2007 (the other song is in the top 5 of this countdown, stay tuned) where I seriously sat back, took a deep breath, and thought to myself, "what in bloody hell is that?" The man doesn't just layer his soft acoustic drama-wrought anti-ballads, he slices slabs of crusted ice and melted souls through one another until they create a patterned yet chaotic collage of a semblance of undead music. The more noticeable half of this song is a driving, tapping, and brushing percussion topped with a start-and-stop suspenseful acoustic wrangling - this is the part where the human runs away for his life in an out-of-focus, color-drained shot on a hand-held camera. The other half of this song glides and cuts through the aforementioned portion with blood-red eyes and a frosty sheen, sterile ambience piled upon feral forest noises, slowly encapsulating the human without him/her ever knowing that it was gaining on them. Listened to loud enough, it becomes both frightening and deathly powerful - leaving us in a shocked and sullen state all at once, feeling left alone in the snow - whether it was an outside force or ourselves that put us there we may never know.
11 "Oh Be One" Oh No! Oh My! Between the Devil and the Sea [Dim Mak]"Yes, you are my only hope."
No, I am not nor have I ever been "obsessed" with Star Wars. This does not change the fact that I did cuddle up under the blankets of a fort when I was little and watch the first A New Hope at least a couple times, feeling the pain of Luke - so forced into all that ruckus so fast and with so many expectations. All he wanted was his Uncle Ben to help guide him through this painful process of becoming himself, and he couldn't even have that. Sure, it turned out to be for the better in the long run, but oh how I could feel for that kind of suffering of lacking the hope when hope was the only thing that could keep you going, especially as a child. The cherubic smallness of this song reverts me back to a time when I couldn't reach the counter, when I couldn't fathom pain enough to talk through my problems (only throw a temper until I felt better), when I couldn't do much of anything but strive to develop. It's remarkably unsettling how vividly these feelings come back as I enter adulthood, thrown away from being the educated and now into being the educator, tossed aside from my family base in Midwest as they set up new roots on the East Coast - as if now it's my turn to set up roots on my own. Where is my only hope? Sometimes it feels like it's not there, but I can only repeat the refrain, calling for my Obi Wan: "you're my only hope." Luckily, on the right days, along with the right people, my Obi Wan does answer and gets me through many a sleepless night full of wonder and unknown.
Next week: #s 10-6 of the Top 50 Songs of 2007.
¶ posted by chris at 5:39 PM
Comments:
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Awww...I'm tearing up. Dancing to Pull Shapes may be my favorite memory of the 2007, and I saw Tegan & Sara twice!! And the Pipettes discourse was great too.
I can't wait to see which Pipettes song made the top 10!!! You're Kisse? Tell Me What You Want? Dirty Mind?
P.S. Rosay is the hottest.
I can't wait to see which Pipettes song made the top 10!!! You're Kisse? Tell Me What You Want? Dirty Mind?
P.S. Rosay is the hottest.
Polley! READ THIS!
They played the Amiina song in Quarterlife this week! Twice! It was awesome. Love that Icelandic snoozetronica!
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They played the Amiina song in Quarterlife this week! Twice! It was awesome. Love that Icelandic snoozetronica!
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