Music Monday :: 5 more more albums with names that have nothing to do with songs that feature on them

4, 5. Be Not Nobody and Harmonium, Vanessa Carlton
I still remember the way that people (I don’t remember who exactly) used to make fun of the strangeness of a title that Be Not Nobody was, and I still definitely remember the way my seventh-grade self got really irate about it because I would defend Vanessa Carlton the way I now defend feminist principles or my headerwomen or something.  I’m pretty sure the majority of the world stopped caring by Harmonium, but I… definitely didn’t (to this day that’s my favorite Vanessa Carlton album, possibly because so many of the songs are dark as hell).

3. On a Clear Night, Missy Higgins
In this case, the lyrics of one of the songs, “Steer,” allude to the title of the album as a whole (“But the search ends here/Where the night is totally clear“) but don’t say the phrase verbatim.  And that’s good enough for this list.

2. Strict Joy, The Swell Season
Nope.  No relevance here, although “strict joy” is in my opinion a good descriptor of their music as a whole.

1. Take Offs & Landings, Rilo Kiley
Airplanes are a motif with this album (most notably “Plane Crash in C”) but again, the titular phrase is not sung.  So.

–your fangirl heroine.

Music Monday :: 5 examples of how my musical taste has not entirely changed over the years

Or, 5 artists that I listened to circa 13-14 years of age that I still keep on my iPod.

5, 4. Michelle Branch and Vanessa Carlton
I am lumping these two in together because my keeping them around is… well, of a similar nature. I was the biggest Vanessa Carlton fangirl in the world in junior high (I could play the majority of her first two albums on piano by memory; I still have certain songs floating around up there) and she’s for nostalgia. Michelle Branch was similarly enjoyed, though not as intensely; I keep her around because she is simple and sweet, also nostalgic, sometimes twangy, and, well. “Goodbye to You” for when I feel like crying in my heart.

3. Mirah
Mirah is, as an inordinate number of my fanmixes can allude to, still my girl. A friend gave me three of her albums freshman year and I still know them freakishly intimately well. They’re beautiful and evocative of many feelings and I may be listening to one of them right now.

2. The Beatles
Well, duh.  I’ve been listening to the Beatles since I was a kid, not in the hipster “I did it before it was cool” way but rather in the “I honestly didn’t realize that most of my peers listened to other music because we always played oldies radio in my house” way.  It wasn’t until eighth grade that I started obsessively playing Revolver and Rubber Soul and the White Album on repeat, but that is still something I have been known to do.

1. The White Stripes
I was, as before alluded to, given Elephant as a Christmas gift when I was in eighth grade.  I still do not have every single White Stripes album that ever there was, but I have several of them, mostly the newer ones, and I find new reasons to love them every time I listen.

–your fangirl heroine.

Music Monday :: 5 times that soundtracks have inspired my music-buying choices

5. Vanessa Carlton (as per “A Thousand Miles” on the Legally Blonde soundtrack)
Laugh all you want.  My twelve-year-old self got that soundtrack (’cause when I was twelve, I just bought soundtracks to movies in lieu of having actual definable musical taste) and grooved on it.  There were some nonmemorable pop tunes I enjoyed at that time and place in my life.  Then there was “A Thousand Miles.”  I don’t know.  I was a pianist as a kid (technically, I guess I still am, though I haven’t taken lessons since junior high) and I liked finding piano songs.  I liked that “A Thousand Miles” was hella challenging to anyone I saw trying to play it (really, probably not that hard, but a lot of my friends weren’t pianists) but I could do it perfectly.  I got Be Not Nobody and the sheet music for it, which I then memorized cover-to-cover, I saw her in concert, some years passed and the rest of the world apparently got over her.  I didn’t, I bought Harmonium when it came out, and the sheet music for that too, which was also memorized, I saw her in concert again, I got Heroes and Thieves when it came out.  I have no regrets.

4. The Shins (as per “Know Your Onion!” on Our Little Corner of the World: Music From Gilmore Girls)
Okay, amendment: I didn’t go and buy the Shins, a friend gave me their first two albums as a result of my interest.  The Shins are quirky and wacky and paved the way for much geek indie in my life, though “Know Your Onion!” is hardly my favorite track of theirs nowadays.

3. Lissie (as per “Everywhere I Go” in Dollhouse 2×13, “Epitaph Two: Return”)
There is no official Dollhouse soundtrack.  (I keep thinking about compiling one myself, but then I get distracted by whatever relevant track I’ve just downloaded being the inspiration for a new fanmix.)  But just as “Remains” is the most memorable song in the first season, playing over the end of “Epitaph One,” Lissie’s plaintive-as-all-hell “Everywhere I Go” is the most memorable to me in the second season.  It’s playing over the end of “Epitaph Two,” as everything is coming together and ending and being absolutely devastating, and it took my hearing the song on another television program (a reality show that was just on; I was in the kitchen baking and went “WHOA WAIT WHAT”) and then… a few months of twiddling my thumbs to get me to actually get on iTunes and buy Lissie’s album.  Which I finally got around to doing, and… yes.  I am in love.  Another of her songs, “Little Lovin’,” was on the trailer for the second season of Justified, and the album is probably closer to that son’g's tone overall than to the epic drama of “Everywhere I Go.”  Not that I mind, because it’s all lovely.

2. April March (as per “Chick Habit” on the Death Proof soundtrack)
When first I saw Grindhouse, opening weekend, I was in a state of perpetual giddy.  And I was pretty instantly obsessed with “Chick Habit.”  It playing over the closing credits was just sheer perfection.  We acquired the soundtrack later that week.  Later that year, I was in New York City, and I decided to try to find April March in a record store.  I figured the Virgin Megastore was much larger than anything I had access to at home, and if not that, there were cute little record/sheet music stores with lots of random things, right?  I had no success at the Megastore (the cashier seemed confused when I even said April March’s name) but there’s a wonderful music store in the Times Square general area, Colony Record and Radio Center on Broadway, and we just ducked in to peruse sheet music because we’re that kind of people.  I took a look through the used albums just for the heck of it, and surprise, surprise!  April March’s Chrominance Decoder was there, just like it had been waiting for me.  It was perfection.

1. The Swell Season (as per Once)
A group of my coworkers were going out the summer that Once came out, and it was suggested as our destination.  I am a sucker for independent films, so I was all about it, but I was surprised with how in love I fell.  The soundtrack was purchased from the theater counter that night, and I couldn’t get enough of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.  I had the chance to see them live later that year, which I took (I still regret having switched phones without having the chance to transfer the scratchy recording I took of the entire audience singing along with “Falling Slowly,” it was a beautiful moment) and I’ve bought both Swell Season albums subsequently.  (Because there is still a little bit of that pianist in me, I will own to having taught myself “The Hill” by ear, or my approximation of it, but I have probably forgotten it by now, all for the better, as I can’t sing like Marketa at all.)

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: Thus Was She Born, Thus She Lived, Thus Did She Die [a Mellie/November/Madeline fanmix]

(Go ahead and just shorten it as “Thus Was She Born,” I don’t mind.)

1. The Harmonica Song (Fiona Landers)
Oh, that he might breathe me in, and I might catch his every exhale.  Oh, that I might sit below his chin, gaze up at him and shine.  Oh, that I might make him mine.

2. Gravity (Sara Bareilles)
But you’re on to me and all over me. You loved me ’cause I’m fragile when I thought that I was strong.  But you touch me for a little while and all my fragile strength is gone.

3. Run Away (Jewelia Owens)
It’s a cold, cold feeling when it’s time to face the facts.  That just a brush with a thought that everything has gone bad — it’s a cold, cold feeling.

4. Make You Feel My Love (Adele)
No, there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do to make you feel my love.  The storms are raging on the rolling sea and on the highway of regret.  Though winds of change are blowing wild and free, you ain’t seen nothing like me yet.  I could make you happy, make your dreams come true.  Nothing that I wouldn’t do.  Go to the ends of the earth for you to make you feel my love.

5. What I Say and What I Mean (The Like)
Walking from the past but I don’t think I’ve said my goodbyes.  Sometimes I just find that they keep sneaking up from behind.

6. Casualty (Missy Higgins)
Tell me you fell ’cause of my grace and not to help you erase her face, and oh, make it your best lie.

7. You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You’re Told) (The White Stripes)
But it’s for someone else’s benefit, not for what you wanna do.  Until I realize that you’ve realized I’m gonna say these words to you.  You don’t know what love is, you do as you’re told.

8.  Porcelain Lady (Elizabeth and the Catapult)
Porcelain limbs and a paper heart, how long does it take before you crumble apart?  Patiently waiting for the healing to start, how long does it take before you crumble apart?

9. Rinse (Vanessa Carlton)
She’s been wishin’ on the stars that shine so bright for answers to the questions that will haunt her tonight.  She must rinse him.  She must rinse him.  She can’t rinse him.  She can’t rinse him.

10. Sleep to Dream (Fiona Apple)
Don’t you plead me your case, don’t bother to explain.  Don’t even show me your face ’cause it’s a crying shame.

11. Promise to Me (Mirah)
There was a child who was born to be the one who comforts me, who grew up strong and brave and holy, loves me rough and tenderly.  Can it be understood the reasons why you belong to me?

12. I Will Internalize (Martha Wainwright)
And I will bleed on your knees, and I am comfortable on my knees in the corner whispering, whispering, whispering, whispering “please.”  ‘Cause I have seen the light and it’s in, it’s in your eyes.

13. Soljah (Laura Jansen)
I, I, I wanna be, be, be a soljah for your love.  My eyes have finally adjusted to the light down here below.  My eyes can finally see everything real that’s real to me.

–your fangirl heroine.

Film Friday :: The Sweetest Little Lies [an Amber Sweet fanmix]

1. Everyone’s At It (Lily Allen)
But how can we start to tackle the problem if you don’t put your hands up and admit that you’re on them?  The kids are in danger, they’re all getting habits, ’cause from what I can see everyone’s at it…

2. Boring (The Pierces)
Sexy boy, girl on girl, menage-a-trois, boring.  Marijuana, cocaine, heroin, boring… nothing thrills us anymore, no-one kills us anymore, life is such a chore when it’s boring…

3. The Garden (Mirah)
Oh oh, I really wanted that thing, I just want to sing.  I love you baby, won’t you bring all the flowers you find out in the garden?  Don’t tell me the truth, that your heart has hardened.

4. Private Radio (Vanessa Carlton)
Find me out of my pillow, ’cause I’m lyin’ here but I am ready, good to go, and on a whim I’ll leave this town, or not, I’ll stay and chase the sun now.  And you can’t deny me, and you will oblige me, it’s my melody.

5. Cheap and Cheerful (The Kills)
I’m bored of cheap and cheerful.  I want expensive sadness.  Hospital bills plural, open doors to madness.  I want you to be crazy ’cause you’re boring baby when you’re straight.  I want you to be crazy ’cause you’re stupid baby when you’re sane.

6. The Moneymaker (Rilo Kiley)
You’ve got the moneymaker, they showed the money to you, you showed them what you can do, showed them your money.  Make you get out out out, oh yeah.  You’ll get out out out, oh yeah.

7. Out Tonight (Rent)
My body’s talking to me, it says ‘time for danger.’  It says ‘I wanna commit a crime, wanna be the cause of a fight.  I wanna put on a tight skirt and flirt with a stranger.’

8. Model Behavior (Kate Nash)
Standing there, all you do is stare.  You got no soul and you just don’t care about anything but yourself.  Did you know other people exist?  Don’t wanna hear about your life.  Hang out with you?  I’d rather die!  Please stop wasting all my time.

9. The List (Metric)
We’re wondering, one more cheap suit in the loop, more chlorine in the pool.  The blonde dolls smiling behind us say one day you’ll be just like us.

10. Hotel Song (Regina Spektor)
A little bag of cocaine, a little bag of cocaine.  So who’s the girl wearing my dress?  I figured out her number inside a paper napkin, but I don’t know her address.

11. Meeting Paris Hilton (CSS)
I wanna take you home, bitch, ’cause I wanna treat you good, bitch, what do you think of it, bitch?

– your fangirl heroine.