“Go With The Flow”
by Queens of the Stone Age
from the album Songs for the Deaf
2002
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Definitely a best song ever. “Go With The Flow” will remain on the five-star playlist for a long, long time. The music video is a gorgeous piece of work, but even without its automotive theme driving home the point, this song would be a windows-down, blasting-across-the-asphalt song. Continue reading November Five-Star Shuffle: “Go With The Flow”
“The Promise”
by When In Rome
from the album When In Rome
1988
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“The City That Day”
by Matt Skiba and Kevin Seconds
from the album Split
2002
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I was really hoping this album would come up on the 5-star shuffle this week. I was hoping for one of the other songs I’ve got in this playlist, because they’re more like 6 or 7 stars, but this is the one that came up, and them’s the rules.
I don’t have any idea how I first got turned on to this album, but man, do I love it (I think I used to think I should give 7 Seconds a try, and saw this and picked it up). Half of the songs are 3 stars for me (meaning good but not something I listen to all that often, and they’re not portable), and one is 4, but the others are all 5 stars, which is not normal for me.
Continue reading November Five-Star Shuffle: “The City That Day”
“Dead”
by They Might Be Giants
from the album Flood
1990
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This is probably my favourite TMBG song. There’s something about it that’s so simple and so beautiful and so catchy. I actually made Lance try this with me once or twice at karaoke, acapella, looking at the lyrics on my phone, when there was a lull in songs in the queue, because I just want so badly for it to actually be in the book. It never ever will be, but this is one of those songs that we would totally add if we ever opened a karaoke bar, and that if we actually lived in the same city (or country) we would practice together until we could nail it. It’s such a fun song to sing (I can never decide which part I would prefer to do), even if it’s just doing it loudly in the car. If I’m in a place where I’m alone and can sing this, I will almost always do it a few times in a row when it comes on shuffle.
“Nothing Lasts”
by Matthew Sweet
from the album Girlfriend
1991
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When Lance wrote up this album last week, it was pretty spot on. I completely agree with him that it’s one of the rare albums with nary a skippable song. I associate this album most strongly with my high school friend Joel Robinson (not of MST3K fame), as we had a shared love of it from the time it first came out. It is indeed a perfect album. I don’t want to rehash what Lance went into, but just to expand on a couple of points (and I’m going to ramble here entirely too long to just add it as an article comment)…
“Burn After Writing”
by the Menzingers
from the album On The Impossible Past
2012
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A couple of thoughts before I really dig in. First, it’s kind of fucking amazing that neither one of us has talked in-depth about how fantastic this album is. And it’s not like the band puts out constantly stellar material, but this particular album I’ll put up there against most of my favorite albums from my favorite groups. Second, it’s totally Thursday and I never did a Karaoke Tuesday post, but two days late is hard to fake, so I’m coming clean. The shame of this Karaoke Thursday post title will haunt me at least until I finish writing this post.
“Summerland”
by Everclear
from the album Sparkle and Fade
1995
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I’m not sure how I feel about Lance’s theme for the month, but that’s mostly because it’s been cold and miserable here the past few days, which made it feel like the awful winter is truly never going to leave. Hopefully throughout this month I can get into the right summer song mindset. Regardless, onward.
“From a Million Miles”
by Single Gun Theory
from the album Millions, Like Stars In My Hands, Daggers In My Heart, Wage War
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I remember the very first time I heard “From A Million Miles.” I was sitting in my bedroom and a slight breeze was coming through window. It was after midnight on a Sunday so it was dead quiet in the neighborhood and the only light was the glow from the TV. As soon as the video began to play, I was instantly transported someplace completely different. There was something so exotic about the sounds and imagery.