30 Day Music Challenge

Day 13: Song from Your Favorite Album

I've covered this one 100 times... my favorite album (at least to date) is Eminem's Recovery.  Picking just one song from it is the challenge.  I'll go with Cinderella Man, but really I feel like the whole album is one song.

30 Day Music Challenge

Day 12: A Song That Relaxes You/Puts You to Sleep

For this one I went instrumental.  While there's lots of songs out there that are pretty relaxing, few things are more soothing and relaxing than a well played piano.  I love the piano and wish I could play.  When it comes to piano there are too many greats to even begin sorting through them, but for me my favorite piano solo comes from a punk band... which is very odd but it just further proves that even though their "main" form of music may not sound "talented" to some, most are very musically talented.  For example Corey Taylor can scream with the best of them while belting out most of Slipknot's heavy hits, however switch gears and check out Vermilion Pt. 2 and his smooth vocals, you'll never believe it's the same guy.  Anyway, I digress, for my favorite piano solo I'm going with the hidden track on Pennywise song Bro Hymn Tribute.  The song is buried a few minutes after the last track.  I actually bought the Full Circle album in college just for this song, but lost it... and I don't think you can download just the piano solo on iTunes.  It's very long, but very good.

30 Day Music Challenge

The weekend was full of errands and cooking so no posts, so to make up for it I put a couple on this one and they both have to do with the radio.  Radio has been dead to me for awhile now, mainly because I'm pretty sure most stations have a standard 12 song play list and anyone that listens longer than 40-60 min is just S.O.L.  With the invention of Pandora and it's gloriously customizable bounty of musical awesomeness I have little use for the radio, with the exception of AM radio which gives me my sports talk for a few hours a day.

Day 10:  A Song You Hear Often on the Radio

It seems like every time I turn on the radio this song is on, it's catchy and I used to actually kind of like it.  But now I find it annoying and even hearing just a few bars of it gets the hook stuck in my head for hours.  Rihanna, S&M

Day 11: A Song You Wish You Heard on the Radio

I'm going independent on this one, Borrow Tomorrow's, Wake Up.  Great song from a band I had the privilege to see many times in Chicago, I also hung out many a night with the lead singer Chris Jerles.  Anywho, I've written about these guys and I like their sound a lot.  This is a live version of one of my favorites, if you like it, you should absolutely check them out on iTunes.

30 Day Music Challenge

Bonus Day 8b (Day 9): A Song That Reminds You of a Certain Event

Sticking with my High School days, easily one of my favorite things about High School was camping and this song was one that got a lot of air time at our camp sites.  Not sure why, I mean it is a great and lessor known Smashing Pumpkins tune, probably because it was buried on the soundtrack to a failed move, Lost Highway.  Anyway, the song is really good and we hit repeat and just let it go... so much so that I haven't heard it for probably 10 years and I still knew most all of the words.  So if you like the Pumpkins this is one that is absolutely worth downloading.

30 Day Music Challenge

Day 8: Song You Know All the Words To

It was the High School ski trip to Keystone when I first hear this song on the radio and from that moment on it was nonstop.  I think in the year that followed I probably heard this tune roughly 7,543 times and after that much air time trust me when I tell you... a song sticks with you.  The video is also hilarious, but point of order... old man crashing through a sky light like that would have shattered both hips, and elbow, and possibly his coccyx.  Kryptonite, by 3 Doors Down. 

30 Day Music Challenge

Day 7: Guilty Pleasure

No contest this one goes to Taylor Swift.  Much like yesterday's song and the one before, my love for Taylor's music may come as a surprise.  But it's there and I like it.  A lot.  She's just a good singer, no bones about it.  And you can really feel what she's singing about, she sounds like she cares.  Anyway, my go too guilty pleasure song of hers is December.

30 Day Music Challenge

Day 6: A Song From A Band You Hate

Hate is a pretty strong word when it comes to music I think all music has merit and I can honestly say that I can find an appreciation for any artist or song, I may not like it, but I can generally find redeeming qualities for about anything.  That being said there are artists that I'm not a big fan of, bottom line they are just not my cup of tea.  Katy Perry fits in this category.  I just find her to be a bit overly "gimmicky" for lack of a more eloquent way of describing it.  It's this distinction that makes me a bit uneasy about the fact that I really kind of like her song ET.  I have no idea why, lyrically it's ... well... disturbing, really disturbing.  But still, like it or not, I'm drawn to it, it has a solid beat and is catchy, it's hooked me in, and I really don't like that it has done that.  Anyway if you haven't heard it, here it is...

30 Day Music Challenge

After a week of sickness and banking school projects last week the blog fell to the back burner, which was needed particularly since it was one of the things I did instead of working on my GSB paper so it was done early.  But the projects are done, I'm not as sick so the song challenge continues...

Day 5: A Song That No One Would Expect You to Love

I'm jumping around a bit here, but I had some song finders block so figure, it doesn't really matter the order all that much...  This one I have to thank Mr. James Reyes when I first heard him playing this I thought he was nuts and was wondering when the strobe light, fog and glow sticks would come into play (sadly there were no glow sticks) anyway I digress... The song is Take over Control by Afrojack.  It's techno or trance or electronic dance, whatever you wanna call it, it is not a song that would normally grace an iPod comprised largely of alt rock(ish) bands, but it is there and is played more often than you would probably think.  Trace music is very good to run too which is how the whole thing started, but then I made a Pandora station based on Afrojack and just listen to it randomly during the work day.  A bank examiner, listening to techno while working, figure that one out...

30 Day Music Challenge

Day 3: A Song That Makes You Sad

I don't like this day, mainly because music is suppose to be an escape and is suppose to make you happy, motivated, really any emotion but sad.  But I suppose that that being said there are a lot of songs out there are touching and have heart wrenching lyrics, May Angels Lead You In by Jimmy Eat World comes to mind.  Another song that I find sad, although it doesn't really "sound" sad musically but if you listen to the lyrics it is pretty sad, Inside the Fire by Disturbed.  I've talked about this one before, but it's about the lead singer for Disturb's battle with depression and thoughts of suicide after finding his girlfriend had committed suicide in their home.  Song is twisted in a way, but lyrically it is gripping and pretty genius way to express feelings, thoughts, and emotions on such a topic.  Alas, though in my mind there has been only one song that independent of an event, meaning I just heard it on the radio, got me a bit misty eyed.  It's an amazing combo of a touching topic and heart tugging vocals the original was done in 1961 by Wayne Cochran and it was good... but add the angsty voiced Eddie Vedder combined with those lyrics and this is a guaranteed heart grabber.

Pearl Jam, Last Kiss

30 Day Music Challenge

Day 3: A Song That Makes You Happy

This one was another tough one, because really if you're listening to a song it should make you happy, with the exception of Cowboy Troy.  Since me and my friends all have a pretty deep love and appreciation of music it's tough to pin point just on song to pin with a smiley face.  My first instinct immediately went to Bobby McFerrin, Don't Worry Be Happy, but I thought that I should maybe put a bit more thought into it because that seemed to be a bit too obvious (although it is a happy little tune).  This has added difficulty because a lot of music I frequently listen to has darker undertones to it, sadder, desperate lyrics, not EMO... I don't go that far.  But to quote a friend there's a lot of "Angst."  At the end of it all, the dust settled and there was one that ended on.

O.A.R., Crazy Game of Poker, I had the good fortune of seeing O.A.R. in a free mini-set in downtown Chicago a couple of years ago.  The set was fantastic and just when I thought it was over they unmistakable intro to this song... and they rocked it.  The beat, the tempo, you can't help but smile and sing along.

30 Day Music Challenge

Day 2: Least Favorite Song

Wow... another fast ball down the middle.  Least favorite song is a tough one because I like a lot of music spanning many all types, rock, rap, country, you name it.  But the more I thought about it if you like a lot of music you probably dislike a lot as well because you start to listen more and more critically so that you don't a) go broke mortgaging your house to Steve Jobs and iTunes or b) go to jail pirating music from some corner of the internet.  So with that I will say I have my fair share of songs that get the dislike button in Pandora, many of these though aren't "bad" they're just bad for me.  But there are some artists that I really don't care for, as much as I wanted to put Bieber or Rebecca Black on here I just couldn't because they are catchy and I get the appeal, I mean, I won't be downloading any Bieber anytime soon, but I'm not ruling it out in the future if he manages to pay someone to put together a good tune.  I think gimmicky artists are the ones that annoy me the most and fall into the unsavory or least favorite category.  The perfect example of that is crowned my least favorite... 

Cowboy Troy, I Play Chicken With The Train

Now embedding was disabled for the video apparently they don't want just anyone to be able to stream this chart topper from their website all day for free.  The guy took a chance I'll give him that, but I can't take you seriously when you brand yourself as a "hick-hop" artist.  I mean certain things do not mix.  Oil/Water, Politicians/Logic, etc.  So I put a link here if you'd like to check out the calamity that is known as "hick-hop".  But warn you... it was the least favorite so I won't have hurt feelings if you don't watch, but for every person that didn't watch Audience of One, I flicked Dublin's ear... how does that make you feel?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUPK9z59yUc

30 Day Music Challenge

Stole this from a friend and fellow blogger Tina Johnson, author of 'But Anyway...' and since I've been doing a horrible job of posting lately... I'll give the series approach a try.  Basically, 30 questions, 30 days all about music.

Away we go...

Day 1:  Favorite Song

They really aren't screwing around here, kind of kicked this one off with one of the hardest questions on the face of the planet.  I've written about music on here a lot and have substantial evidence to support the fact that my favorite song changes with the breeze.  As my fellow blogger did, I retreated to iTunes in hopes of getting an easy answer, Wake Up by Three Days Grace occupied the top spot based on number of times played.  But honestly I don't think that would be it, at all, frankly I can't believe that's my top played song, that's very odd.  I think my iTunes lies.  With iTunes failing me I ran to Pandora for a hope of salvation.  Based on a perusal of my many Pandora stations one band and one song came up time and time again as the 'seed' selection for nearly all of them.

Rise Against, Audience of One.  I know this is a newer song and thus is likely to get some scrutiny as being elevated to "favorite" status, but really it came down to one song lyric that I just find brilliant and is one reason I love this song and this band:  


We're all ok, until the day we're not.  


Enjoy.