Randor's Song of the Week: 10.30.11

"Whomp-a-saurus Sex" by Mochipet from the album Whomp-a-saurus Sex. 2011.
    I knew all week I wanted to feature a Halloween-y song, just like last year. You're no doubt sick of hearing the same ol' monster mash thriller that tends to pop up come October's end. Just based on the sheer magnitude of Christmas music and its radio-hijacking persistence in society, how come, then, the so-designed antithesis of the holly jolly season carries the musical weight consisting solely of classics on its Bach? (Ouch, forced pun). I've thus compiled a Halloween playlist that steps outside the usual bounds of tired tricks. Some mention of a Halloweeny trait qualifies a song (i.e. monsters and other spooky stuff), but an appropriate atmosphere can also let it past the bouncer. This makes anything from "All You Zombies" to "E.T." fair game in terms of scope. And while it would be fun to post the entire 10+ hour list here, well... that's not the purpose of these columns.
    This weekend I poked through the list and managed to get two worthwhile ditties stuck in my head. One of them now stands in the spotlight before you. The other you keen-eyed readers might have noticed among the TIME top 100 list bombarded by Djandor in her guest post: the 1977 political "Zombie" by Fela Kuti. Both the song and Kuti himself have spurned controversy, which I suggest you read on their respective Wikipedia articles for at least interest's sake. I suppose that's the reason why Mochipet gets the nod instead, though; Halloween has enough flak of its own without 40-year-old political embroilment. Yet, I wanted to second-place it officially for that jazzy, free-flowing style akin to the Return to Forever number I once featured. The societal meanings and undertones adds its own unique study, but again... save it for a heavier post. This one's about electronic dinosaurs.

Guest Blog: 100/100 by Djandor

Hello, everyone. My name is Jacqui, and I am a musician and sibling to Randor. My boyfriend calls me ‘Djandor’, so we’ll go with that. Why not.

This may be a little longer than some of the broski’s posts, but it’s cuz I have a serious complaint. In honor of WTF’s 100th music post, I will guest blog about TIME Magazine’s 100 Best Songs of All Time that they put out on October 24th.

I wish you could have heard my sigh.

Originally I was going to go through it and replace all of the songs I thought should be replaced, then replace the musicians with musicians I would have put in instead. I realized before I even started this task that that would be ridiculously impossible because I disagree with a majority of their list.

I don’t know which hipster they asked to write this, but it was NOT someone who actually knew (good) music (okay it looks like it was a staff-contributed thing). To be fair, Rolling Stone’s list already came out, and it is way better (even some of THOSE songs I disagree with), and maybe they just wanted to be different… Here is a link to Rolling Stone’s list

The only song from the 2010s on TIME’s list is a song and artist I’ve never even heard of. Probably because I don’t listen to a lot of popular music these days because a lot of it is sincerely crap. Okay so I just YouTubed it… yeah, awful. I mean not awful, she’s a good dancer and whatever, but… not so much top 100 songs of ALL TIME material. I mean, I would have picked Amy Winehouse over Janelle Monae any day of the week. Songs also on the list that I have complete disagreements with include (but are not limited to): Jay-Z’s 99 Problems, Kanye West’s Gold Digger, Richard Thompson’s Black Lightning, Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road, I GOT RHYTHM (the most annoying jazz standard of all time)… I mean with names like this I’m surprised we don’t find Justin Bieber and Jimmy Buffet on here.

Just so you know, there are definitely some songs on here I totally agree with. For example, Dolly Parton’s Jolene is a mournful tune about lost love, and heck we all like some good old-style country, amiright? Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody is a given, obviously. That whole album is on my desert island top 5. I can’t even believe Funkadelic and Mahalia Jackson made it on here, but yes, they should totally be on here. The Beach Boys’ God Only Knows is easily one of my favorites (topped only by Surfer Girl, my absolute favorite guilty pleasure song of all time). Lena Horne’s Stormy Weather? Delightful. Louis Armstrong’s Stardust is very in the time, for sure, though I probably would have picked a different tune for him… That’s a hard one since he did so much for music (well, another blog for another day). ANYWAY.

Without further ado (and after the break), I pick apart the list vaguely but definitely, by taking artists I agree should be on the list but making suggestions as to which songs I would have chosen instead (TIME, are you listening?!). For the full list, see the very bottom of this blog entry or go to the source itself

Randor's Song of the Week: 06.06.10

"Talkin' World War III Blues" by Bob Dylan from the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. 1963.