24 posts tagged “music”

Dear iTunes,

 

Your Genius tool in the iTunes store is a very useful one for me, particularly since I recently lost a long list of potential CDs to buy and artists to check out.  I enjoy the fact that I can be matched up with artists that I would potentially like.

However, I have a few bones to pick with your system.

First of all, let me make this quite clear.  Just because I bought a few tracks from "Sesame Street" does not mean I like every note of children's music ever written.  "Sesame Street" music is clever and fun.  I do not want to hear "The Best of The Wiggles".  That show is stupid and demeaning.

Also, on that note, just because I like one soundtrack does not mean I am automatically going to like every other soundtrack.  I bought Where the Wild Things Are; that is very, very different from Gossip Girl.  Please realize this.

Finally, please stop showing me the same Fall Out Boy albums over and over again.  If I want to buy them, I will.

 

Sincerely,

Carly

 

This irks me just a tad.

When I went into the dorm bathrooms to take a shower just now, there was nobody in there, so for my own sake I turned off the radio in the bathroom, which always, ALWAYS is tuned to the Muncie "popular" radio station that plays the same 50 or so songs over and over again, about 45 of which I now completely hate because of this. 

I enjoyed peace for about 5 minutes, until someone else came into the bathroom and turned it on again.  Really loud.  Now, this would annoy me slightly by itself, since I at least made sure that no one else was around before changing it.  But I do also realize that some people actually like this music and that they like to listen to it in the shower.

However.

After a couple of minutes, I realized that whoever this person was had not even gotten in the shower.  Rather, they had turned on the radio for the sake of listening it for the minute and a half it took them to pee and wash their hands, and then left.

Seriously?  Do you really have to listen to Top 40 Radio while you pee?

 

(Also, for some reason, it bugs me that the radio is on all night.  Number one, we're wasting energy.  Number two, if I wake up in the middle of the night and have to pee, the last thing I need is for Fergie to be blasting in my ears when I go into the bathroom.  I don't want to be awakened any further.)

I just looked at the fall lineup for the Pageant (the club where Paul and I saw Tegan & Sara last summer).

OH MY GOD.  SO MANY GOOD SHOWS.

AND I CAN'T GO TO ANY OF THEM.

Why can't their summer lineup be this awesome?  Here are all the shows I want to see:

 

Sep. 28: Ben Folds w/ Kate Miller-Heideke

Oct. 1: Hanson and Hellogoodbye w/ Steel Train & Sherwood (I don't really care about Hanson, but Hellogoodbye!)

Oct. 7: Paramore w/ Paper Route & The Swellers (I've only heard a few of their songs but I really like what I've heard.)

Oct. 9: They Might Be Giants (Oh my God, Mer is going to freak out over this too.)

Oct. 18: The Used w/ The Almost (not as cool as the others, but still)

Oct. 24: Relient K w/ Barcelona

Nov. 17: Boys Like Girls w/ Cobra Starship, The Maine, A Rocket To the Moon, VersaEmerge

 

And they haven't even announced through December yet.  I hope there are some good concerts then, when I'll actually be home for at least half the month.

Okay, so this is the one cool thing I've been working on for the past week.

I have created 7 mix CDs - or, rather, playlists for mix CDs, since I don't have anyone specific to give them to - themed on the days of the week.  What I did was, I found a song in my playlist that had the name of a day in the week.  Then, whatever that song was about, I made that the theme of the playlist - starting, of course, with the inspiration song.

There were a few restrictions I put on myself to make it more challenging:

1) I could only use songs I had in my library.  No buying new songs to make it more interesting, and no creating playlists online.  Also, I had to make them as if I were actually going to make CDs out of them, so I could only put enough songs in a given playlist to fit on one CD.

2) Since so many of my playlists rely heavily on showtunes, I tried to severely restrict my use of those, unless I really, really thought the song fit with the theme. I also tried to shy away from really mainstream things unless I absolutely had to include them.

3) I had to include not just songs that included the theme in the title, but in the lyrics as well.

4) I tried not to include too many songs by the same artist in any given playlist, unless the theme called for it.  (For example, "Crazy Tuesday" has a lot of Weird Al and They Might Be Giants; "Sleazy Wednesday" has a lot of Scissor Sisters.  You get the picture.)

Here goes.

 

Gloomy Sunday - sad and melancholy songs

1) "Gloomy Sunday", Sarah Brightman

2) "Erase", MIKA

3) "Asleep", The Smiths

4) "Memory", Betty Buckley (Cats)

5)"Like O, Like H", Tegan and Sara

6) "Only a Dream", Mary Chapin Carpenter

7) "Lithium", Evanescence

8) "Brothers On a Hotel Bed", Death Cab for Cutie

9) "Oasis", Tarja

10) "I'll Cover You (Reprise)", Jesse L. Martin (Rent)

11) "Perfect (Acoustic Version)", Alanis Morissette

12) "He Doesn't See Me", Sarah Brightman

13) "Gomenasai", t.A.T.u.

14) "Come to Your Senses", Amy Spanger (tick, tick...BOOM!)

15) "Passenger Seat", Death Cab For Cutie

16) "Mr. Bojangles", Jerry Jeff Walker

17) "Hard Candy", Counting Crows

18) "For Good", Idina Menzel & Kristin Chenoweth (Wicked)

 

Rainy Monday - the best rain songs

1) "Rainy Monday", Shiny Toy Guns

2) "I Know I Know I Know", Tegan and Sara

3) "He Lives In You", Tsidi Leloka (The Lion King)

4) "Rain", Breaking Benjamin

5) "Reflection", Lea Salonga

6) "Every Time It Rains", Charlotte Martin

7) "30 Minutes", t.A.T.u.

8) "Music For a Nurse", Oceansize

9) "Hijo de la Luna", Sarah Brightman

10) "Train", Sonya Kitchell

11) "The Weakness In Me", Joan Armatrading

12) "Andare", Ludovico Einaudi

13) "fljotavik", Sigur Ros

14) "Without You", Rosario Dawson & Adam Pascal (Rent)

15) "Complainte de la Butte", Rufus Wainwright

16) "Rain", Dana Glover

17) "The Coast of Galacia", Bill Whelan

18) "Galadriel's Mirror", David Arkenstone

19) "Mad World", Michael Andrews

 

Crazy Tuesday - weird songs

1) "Crazy Tuesday", Thenewno2

2) "Particle Man", They Might Be Giants

3) "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", The Beatles

4) "Walk the Dinosaur", Was (Not Was)

5) "Truck Drivin' Song", Weird Al

6) "Johnny, Are You Queer?", Josie Cotton

7) "Crazy Train", Ozzy Osbourne

8) "Lollipop", MIKA

9) "99 Red Balloons", Nena

10) "Plea From a Cat Named Virtue", The Weakerthans

11) "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)", They Might Be Giants

12) "The Weird Al Show Theme", Weird Al

13) "Kike on the Mic", Hip Hop Hoodios

14) "Don't Mug Yourself", The Streets

15) "Baby Got Back", Richard Cheese and the Lounge Against the Machine

16) "Other Father Song", They Might Be Giants

17) "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite", Eddie Izzard (Across the Universe)

18) "Plastic Surgery Slumber Party", Jeffree Star

19) "We Want a Rock", They Might Be Giants

20) "Bicycle Race", Queen

21) "She Blinded Me With Science", Thomas Dolby

22) "Dare to Be Stupid", Weird Al

 

Sleazy Wednesday - songs about sex, solo and otherwise

1) "Sleazy Wednesday", Jack's Mannequin

2) "She Bop", Cyndi Lauper

3) "Lovers In the Backseat", Scissor Sisters

4) "Contact", Rent

5) "Dancing With Myself", The Donnas

6) "Coin-Operated Boy", The Dresden Dolls

7) "Just Like Heaven", The Cure

8) "The Internet Is For Porn", Avenue Q

9) "Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too", Say Anything

10) "Go All the Way", The Raspberries

11) "Dancing In the Sheets", Shalamar

12) "Come on Eileen", Dexys Midnight Runners

13) "Filthy/Gorgeous", Scissor Sisters

14) "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", The Beatles

15) "You Shook Me All Night Long", AC/DC

16) "Crazy Bitch", Buckcherry

17) "Fever", Peggy Lee

18) "Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me", Susan Sarandon

19) "Tits on the Radio", Scissor Sisters

20) "Lolita", Prince

21) "Lady Marmalade", Moulin Rouge

22) "Seduce Me Tonight", Cycle V

 

Thursday's Child - best children's songs

1) "Thursday's Child", David Bowie

2) "The Garden Song", Rosenshontz

3) "I Just Can't Wait to Be King", The Lion King

4) "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", Mary Poppins

5) "Trashin' The Camp", Tarzan

6) "No You Can't Take Them", The Clouds

7) "Winnie the Pooh", Disney Studio Chorus

8) "I2I", Tevin Campbell (A Goofy Movie)

9) "Cooking By the Book", LazyTown

10) "Hashu'al", Israeli traditional

11) "Be Our Guest", Beauty and the Beast

12) "Happy Working Song", Amy Adams (Enchanted)

13) "Zero to Hero" - Hercules

14) "Hard Knock Life", Annie

15) "Ich Bin Dein Gummibaer", Gummibaer

16) "Son of Man", Phil Collins (Tarzan)

17) "Teddy Bear's Picnic", Rosenshontz

18) "Puff the Magic Dragon", Peter, Paul & Mary

19) "Never Had a Friend Like Me", Robin Williams (Aladdin)

20) "Arthur Theme Song", Ziggy Marley

21) "After Today", A Goofy Movie

22) "The Chicken Dance", German traditional

23) "Wallace and Gromit Theme & Chase",  Prague Philharmonic Orchestra

 

Friday I'm In Love - best love songs

1) "Friday I'm In Love", The Cure

2) "With or Without You", The Walls

3) "Dancing", Elisa

4) "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)", The Proclaimers

5) "Take Me Anywhere", Tegand & Sara

6) "May Your Hearts Stay Strong", Cloud Cult

7) "Think I'm In Love", Eddie Money"

8) "I'll Cover You", Jesse L. Martin & Wilson Jermaine Heredia (Rent)

9) "As the World Falls Down", David Bowie (Labyrinth)

10) "Accidentally In Love", Counting Crows

11) "Fidelity", Regina Spektor

12) "Have a Little Faith In Me", John Hiatt

13) "All I Want Is You", Barry Louis Polisar

14) "Every Car You Chase", Party Ben

15) "I'm a Cuckoo", Belle & Sebastian"

16) "Good Enough", Evanescence

17) "Top of the World", Shonen Knife"

18) "Falling For You", Ronnie Day

19) "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth", Meat Loaf

20) "I Will Follow You Into the Dark", Death Cab For Cutie

 

Drive-In Saturday - the best songs from movies

1) "Drive-In Saturday", David Bowie

2) "Hey Jude", Joe Anderson (Across the Universe)

3) "A Little Priest", Helena Bonham Carter & Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd)

4) "Flashdance...What a Feeling". Irene Cara (Flashdance)

5) "Such Great Heights", Iron & Wine (Garden State)

6) "The Goonies 'R Good Enough", Cyndi Lauper (The Goonies)

7) "Does Your Mother Know", Christine Baranski (Mamma Mia)

8) "Uh-Huh", Munchausen By Proxy (Yes Man)

9) "The Candy Man", Leslie Bricusse (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)

10) "Let's Hear It For the Boy", Deniece Williams (Footloose)

11) "Man With the Hex", Atomic Fireballs (Scooby-Doo)

12) "This Is Halloween", Marilyn Manson (The Nightmare Before Christmas)

13) "Love Is a Crime", Anastacia (Chicago)

14) "Pretty In Pink", The Psychedelic Furs (Pretty In Pink)

15) "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Main Titles", Danny Elfman

16) "The Time Warp (Remix)", Richard O'Brien (The Rocky Horror Picture Show)

17) "Rhythm of the Night", Valeria (Moulin Rouge)

18) "Cruel To Be Kind", Letters to Cleo (10 Things I Hate About You)

19) "We Are Not Alone", Karla DeVito (The Breakfast Club)

20) "Underground", David Bowie (Labyrinth)

21) "Out Tonight", Rosario Dawson (Rent)

21) "Flip Flop and Fly", Ellis Hall (Chicken Run) 

Okay, not really.  I jus thought that would make a good title.

So, somehow, through some massive MSWord gaffe, I ended up completely losing my CD wishlist, which covered at least five pages, single-spaced.

Which means, due to the fact that I can't ever think of any of those CDs off the top of my head, I will have to completely rebuild it from scratch.  I'm starting with iTunes Recommends and then moving on from there.

Here's the thing, though.  I've realized recently that although I have 8,000+ songs on my computer, there's a good third of them that have never been played all the way through on my iTunes, and I'm guessing there's a good number of the remaining songs that I don't really listen to except as background music.  So, what I've been doing is going through on Shuffle and basically deleting any songs that I don't really like. 

As much as I love music, having a bunch of songs that are just kind of so-so was getting in the way of listening to and finding really good ones, and it seemed hypocritical to keep all of those songs just so I could brag about how much music I had.

So, I'm going to do the same thing with my wishlist.  I'm going to go through the previews of every single song on every single album I put on it, and if I don't love the majority of the songs on the album, it's not going on the list.

 

Wish me luck.

I think someday it would be really fun to make a movie with a completely inappropriate soundtrack.

By that, I don't mean songs with inappropriate language or subject matter.  Rather, I would film a completely normal movie, but put all the songs in the wrong situations.  For example, a sappy love ballad while someone is getting the shit kicked out of them, or a Beach Boys song during a blizzard scene.

It'd be classic.  Or at least entertaining.

 

Life hasn't been too interesting.  We got a lot of snow, which caused Ball State to cancel classes, a rare happenstance.  Instead of dissecting poetry and discussing the imagery of war, I spent the day watching House with Jason.

Yesterday I had a fairly major-league headache for the entire day and took a five-hour nap in the evening.  Today I feel slightly off-balance.

 

 

I sometimes wonder at random times of the day if I've ever broken anyone's heart.  I sincerely hope not.

I wonder why I have such an attraction to Labyrinth.

I really can't put my finger on why it's such a sexually charged movie, besides the fact that, you know, it involves David Bowie in crotch-hugging leggings.  Thing is, I've been watching this movie for years, and I didn't even think Bowie was attractive when I first saw it; in fact, he kind of scared me.  And yet, I can't remember not ever watching it without this feeling of overlying sexual tension.

With that in mind, I am now going to list every CD I have a hard copy of, for no reason at all other than the fact that I feel like it.

10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack

AC/DC - Who Made Who

An Horse - Not Really Scared

Ac Rock - Acappellago

Christina Aguilera - Christina Aguilera

Priscilla Ahn - A Good Day

Avenue Q soundtrack

B-52's - Wild Planet

The Bangles - Doll Revolution

Sara Bareilles - Little Voice

The Beach Boys - Greatest Hits Vol. 1

The Beatles - Help!

                     Abbey Road

Belle and Sebastian - Legal Man

                      Tigermilk

                      Storytelling

                      Dear Catastrophe Waitress

Pat Benatar - Greatest Hits

Blackmore's Night - Under a Violet Moon

                      The Village Lanterne

David Bowie - Best of Bowie

                     Ziggy Stardust

Andrea Bocelli - Sogno

Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet

                Have a Nice Day

Boomkat - Boomkatalog One

Bowling For Soup - The Great Burrito Extortion Case

The Breakfast Club soundtrack

Brian Setzer Orchestra - The Dirty Boogie

Sarah Brightman - Harem

                  Harem World Tour

                  La Luna

                  The Songs That Got Away

Broadway Project - The Vessel

Michael Buble - It's Time

Cambridge Singers - Flora gave us fairest flowers

Camp soundtrack

The Cars - Greatest Hits

Mary Chapin Carpenter - Party Doll and Other Favorites

Cats Broadway soundtrack

Cats London soundtrack

Cats German soundtrack

Charlotte's Web soundtrack

Cherry Poppin' Daddies - Zoot Suit Riot

Cirque Mechanics - Birdhouse Factory  soundtrack

The Concretes - In Color

Counting Crows - Beyond the Satellites

The Cranberries - To the Faithful Departed

                      Stars:  Greatest Hits 1991- 2000

Crowded House - Crowded House

The Cure  - Staring At the Sea

                  Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me

The Cute Lepers - Can't Stand Modern Music

Ronnie Day - The Album

Death Cab For Cutie - We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes

John Denver & the Muppets - A Christmas Together

Dexys Midnight Runners - Too-Rye-Ay

The Donnas - Spend the Night

Dralion soundtrack

Dresden Dolls - The Dresden Dolls

Duran Duran - Decade

Echo Revolution - A Safe Place to Start

Edenbridge - Arcana 

Edie - Songs

Enya - The Memory of Trees

Epica - The Divine Conspiracy

Eurythmics - Touch

Evanescence - Fallen

                The Open Door

Ex-Boyfriends - In With

Feel Good Ghosts - Tea Party Through Tornadoes

Fists of Phoenix - City of Roses Promo

Flashdance soundtrack

Fosse soundtrack

Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better

From Bubblegum to Sky - A Soft Kill

Flogging Molly - Drunken Lullabies

             Within a Mile of Home

             Whiskey On a Sunday

Garbage - Beautiful Garbage

              Bleed Like Me

Garden State soundtrack

Dana Glover - Testimony

The Go-Go's - God Bless the Go-Go's

Goldfrapp - Let It Take You

Hairspray Broadway soundtrack

Hairspray movie soundtrack

Imogen Heap - Speak For Yourself

High School Reunion:  A Tribute to Those Great 80's Films

Hellogoodbye - Zombies!  Aliens!  Vampires!  Dinosaurs!

Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation 1814

Michael Jackson - Number Ones

Billy Joel - An Innocent Man

Howard Jones - Dream Into Action

Norah Jones - Come Away With Me

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat soundtrack

Journey of Man soundtrack

Kamelot - The Black Halo

Keane - Under the Iron Sea

Stacy Kray - My Last Eye

Labyrinth soundtrack

Mary Jane Lamond - Suas E!

Jonathan Larson - Jonathan Sings Larson

Avril Lavigne - Under My Skin 

Cyndi Lauper - True Colors

                  She's So Unusual

                  The Body Acoustic

Les Miserables London soundtrack

Lykke Li - Little Bit EP

Mary Lou Lord - Got No Shadow

Love and Rockets - Love and Rockets

Mad Hot Ballroom soundtrack

Madonna - The Immaculate Collection

Mannheim Steamroller - Christmas Celebration

                   Fresh Aire 7

Idina Menzel - Still I Can't Be Still

Metropolis soundtrack

Mika - Life In Cartoon Motion

Miss Saigon soundtrack

Joni Mitchell - Hits

Mozart's Sister - The Girls We Followed Home

The Music Man soundtrack

Music Of the Night - 41 Hits From Stage and Screen

My Fair Lady soundtrack

New Order - The Best of New Order

New Wave 80's

Nightmare Revisited

Nightwish - Wishmaster

               Dark Passion Play (Collector's Edition)

                Oceanborn

                 Once

                 Century Child

Oppenheimer - Take the Whole Midrange and Boost It

Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz

Elaine Paige - Encore

The Phantom of the Opera London soundtrack

The Phantom of the Opera German soundtrack (Das Phantom der Oper)

The Phantom of the Opera movie soundtrack

Pirates of Penzance soundtrack

Rough Guide to Planet Rock

The Powerknobs - Tomorrow's Never Going to Come

Pretty In Pink soundtrack

Prince - The Very Best of Prince

The Producers soundtrack

Rachel Sierra Project - Held Under the Knife

QNTAL - Ozymandias IV 

Queen - Greatest Hits I & II

Rabbit Is a Sphere - Laps In the Sleep Saloon

Rabbits Against Magic - Daylight

Anthony Rapp - Look Around

Rent Broadway soundtrack

Rent movie soundtrack

Retro 80's

Rockin' 80's

The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack

The Rocky Horror Picture Show - Audience Par-ti-ci-pation Album

Run Lola Run soundtrack

Savage Garden - Savage Garden

Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters

                     Ta-Dah

Sia - Lady Croissant

Sixpence None the Richer - Divine Discontent

The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs

                    Rank

Solarium soundtrack

Sondheim - A Celebration At Carnegie Hall

The Sounds - Living In America

Spamalot soundtrack

Spoon - Gimme Fiction

Spring Awakening soundtrack

Starlight Express concept album

Starlight Express New London soundtrack

Starlight Express London soundtrack

t.A.T.u. - 200 km/h In the Wrong Lane

                 Dangerous and Moving

Tegan and Sara - So Jealous

                If It Was You

               The Con

                The Con Demos

               This Business of Art

tick, tick...BOOM! soundtrack

They Might Be Giants - Flood

                  The Spine

Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Beethoven's Last Night

Turkish Dances No. 3

U2 - The Joshua Tree

Urinetown soundtrack

Andrew Lloyd Webber:  The Premiere Collection Encore

Julian Lloyd Webber - Julian Lloyd Webber Plays Andrew Lloyd Webber

Wicked soundtrack

The Wild Party soundtrack

Weird Al Yankovic - Dare To Be Stupid

The Wiz soundtrack

Remy Zero - The Golden Hum

November has barely begun and I am already listening to Trans-Siberian Orchestra on my iPod.  I feel like I am justified in doing this because a) I'm not making anyone else listen to it and b) I am somewhat of a Christmas freak, and rushing the season makes me calmer on days when I need it.

It's amazing what music will do.  I saw Songs For a New World  in Strother Theatre last night and could barely keep from crying.  Partly it was because I already knew a few of the songs and their storylines, partly because everything was so very well-performed, and partly because I kept hearing lines of songs that could apply very readily to the results of this past election - an election that made me proud to be an American again.

This is a good day.

In no particular order, these are the songs featured on my Halloween playlist, from the predictable to the not-so.

 

"Science Fiction/Double Feature" - Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.  I have enough songs from Rocky Horror on here that I decided at least a couple of them have to be the cover versions.

"Teenage Frankenstein" - Alice Cooper.

"Don't Pay the Ferryman" - Chris DeBurgh.  A lesser-known 80's spook tune featuring Charon in a character role.

"Man With the Hex" - Atomic Fireballs.  Hardcore swing, presumably about a witch doctor.  Also has the bonus of sharing a few lines with Bowie's "Dance Magic".

"Underground" - David Bowie.  It just seemed right.

"Cry Little Sister"  - G Tom Mac.  First heard by me on the "Lost Boys" soundtrack.

"Hells Bells" - Vitamin String Quartet.  Originally I had the AC/DC version on here, but when I bought the VSQ cover I thought it was almost as cool, if not more so.

"The Devil Went Down to Georgia" - Charlie Daniels.

"The Time Warp (Remix)" - Richard O'Brien.  (You know, there is a guy in my English class who looks exactly like Richard O'Brien in his American Gothic outfit.  He even has the same expressions.  It's freaky.)

"Sweet Transvestite" - Tim Curry.  Of course.

"Weird Science" - Bennies.  Frankenstein legend rewritten?  Hell, yeah.

"Carry On Dancing" - Savage Garden.  The lyrics of this song remind me hauntingly of Labyrinth.

"Little Shop of Horrors" - Alan Menken.  Because if I am going to be eaten by a giant plant, I want there to be some good background music.

"Over At the Frankenstein Place" - Alkaline Trio.

"Wild and Untamed Thing" - Gametime.  (Off the record, if you are a Rocky Horror fan and have not yet discovered the Rocky Horror Punk Rock Show, I highly suggest you check it out.)

"Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" - Philadelphia Orchestra.

"This Is Halloween" - Marilyn Manson.  There have been other covers of this song, but the original and this one are the best.

"Thriller" - Michael Jackson.  Because you can't have a Halloween playlist without it.

"Crazy Train" - Ozzy Osbourne.

"Super Heroes" - Ruth's Hat.

"Requiem (The Fifth)" - Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  Rock-style mashup of Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Mozart's Requiem.

"Erlkoenig, D.328, Op.1" - Andreas Haeflinger.  Knowing what the lyrics mean adds a creepy dimension to the song.

"Samhain Eve" - Damh the Bard.  Because the pagans deserve their due.

"Love Bites" - Def Leppard.

"Fear of the Dark" - Iron Maiden.

"The Phantom of the Opera" - Nightwish.

"Planet Hell" - Nightwish.  Another musing on the subject of Charon and Hades

"Mr. Crowley" - Ozzy Osbourne.  Written about Alastair Crowley, supposedly a 17th-century authority on Satanism.

"Abracadabra" - Sugar Ray.

"Addams Family (Whoomp!)" - Tag Team.  The subject matter of this song allows it to be more awesome than most hip-hip and rap songs.

"Oogie Boogie's Song" - Ken Page

"Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" - David Bowie

"Theme from Halloween" - John Carpenter.  Seriously, why did they bother to make a soundtrack for this movie?  It's all the same song.

"Psycho Circus" - KISS.

"Kidnap the Sandy Claws" - Korn.  (Another great cover album to check out - Nightmare Revisited.  Guess what the covers are of.)

"Supernatural" - Raven.  Okay, yes, I am slightly embarrassed to have this on my iTunes.

"Somebody's Watching Me" - Rockwell.  Don't look in the mirror!

"Devil House" - Shonen Knife.  If you look at the lyrics to thie song, it seriously sounds like these girls wrote a song about some snippet of Rocky Horror they saw while channel surfing.  Hilarious.

"Slime Creatures From Outer Space" - Weird Al.

"The Monster Mash" - Bonzo Dog Band.

"Scary Monsters (& Super Creeps)" - David Bowie.

"Haunted" - Evanescence.

"Maneater" - Hall & Oates

"Black Cat" - Janet JAackson.  This is pretty much the most hardcore Janet ever got, so enjoy it.

"Phantasia" - Julian Lloyd Webber.  This is a half-hour Phantom medley with a leading cello, so you'd better really enjoy Phantom if you want to listen to it.

"Night on Bald Mountain" - Philadelphia Orchestra.

"The Invisible Man" - Queen

And lastly, the unavoidable...  "Ghostbusters", by Ray Parker, Jr. 

Actually, it was more like a thought process.

The conclusion of that thought process was this:  I sincerely believe that the various stages of my life can be more or less defined by my tastes in music, the clothes I wore, and the kind of things I wrote.

As most of you know, I was a bona fide geek all through elementary school.  This never really bothered me, although my "geek" status became set firmly in stone in about the fourth grade, which was the point at which image became increasingly important in the formation of friendships.  During early elementary years, as in my pre-school years, I listened only to whatever music my parents happened to be playing, which included classical, Scottish fiddle music, Rodgers & Hammerstein and other musicals from the same general era, the Beach Boys and Mary Chapin Carpenter.  (Incidentally, there is no music that I listened to in my childhood that I do not like today.)  

Adding to my geekdom was the fact that my clothing was also pretty much the domain of my parents - more specifically, my mother - which meant that I wore a lot of stirruped leggings and vests.  I didn't write much of anything then besides school assignments.

The last part of elementary school was very defining in a not-so-great way, in that it was the beginning of the period of my life in which I became a not-very-admirable person.  During this time period I had a grand total of two CDs and two tapes (the former being Christina Aguilera and B*Witched, and the latter being Britney Spears and Destiny's Child, all of which I still listen to) but also listened to a great deal of my mom's tapes that were kept in the car (mostly soundtracks).  Shortly thereafter, my musical taste underwent a small explosion when I discovered Cats, which led me to other Andrew Lloyd Webber shows that were previously unknown to me.

There are several reasons I refer to myself as un-admirable at this point in my life.  For one thing, I had just entered puberty and thus was making much more of an effort to fit in; however, I did this in a rather extreme way, spending half of my time mindlessly following trends and the other half mindlessly going against them, usually with rather disastrous results.  I listened to Top 40 relentlessly even though I didn't really like most of it, I wore clothes that probably looked ridiculous on me at the the time (all the while trying to convince my mother that crop tops were too appropriate for my age) and I went through a brief phase where I wrote very bad love songs even though I had never been in love and still had a slight aversion to boys in general.  At the same time, I had to go into counseling for my anger management issues dealing with my family (although I did also spend quite a lot of my free time concocting diabolical revenge schemes against the kids who picked on me at school).

I also think it's worth mentioning that even though I didn't write much during this period besides bad fanfiction and worse poetry, I spent my idle time making up Redwall-esque stories about two mice who lived in an upscale hollow tree and somehow managed to save the world. 

Luckily, I had pretty much grown out of this phase by the time I entered high school, although as many will tell you, I still made some pretty grievous fashion mistakes, the most dramatic of which was believing that dance pants were appropriate school wear.  High school brought around a gradual increase in my musical tastes, due in part to borrowing other people's CDs during speech and debate tournaments.  The next explosion came around the time I discovered Pandora Radio, which led me to about a million new artists I probably would not have discovered otherwise.  I also managed to expand my own horizons during the phase in which I would go out and buy random CDs that I knew nothing about except what I had read in magazine reviews of the artists.  This usually worked out pretty well, leading me to such gems as Boomkat, The Like, Goldfrapp, and my personal favorite, Tegan and Sara.

High school, specifically sophomore year, was when I started blogging - first with Xanga, then on Myspace, and now finally on Vox.  My posts started as fairly vapid descriptions of my daily life, filled with random in-jokes and an embarrassing amount of netspeak.  Then, as the year went on, my entries became increasingly depressed and melodramatic until life started to get better junior year.  During that time I was also revising my old fanfiction into something that wasn't heinous, and writing the occasional poem or short story.  After freshman year, I more or less got a grip on fashion (although there was one pair of pants that Sarah likes to refer to as my "70's reject pants") and started pushing the envelope with my combinations and accessories.  I got into big earrings and dramatic eye makeup and chokers.

And now, at this point in my life, while far from static, I think I have reached the point where I've found a balance between extremes in all of the categories mentioned.  I know how to tell the difference between work wear / casual wear / semiformal wear / formal wear / Halloween wear, I can make an outfit distinctive with accessories, and I occasionally make my own clothes.  I will listen to pretty much any music someone wants to play for me, but my preferences lean toward Broadway, 80's new wave, alternative and indie, world music, and pretty much any kind of rock.  And although I'm more or less out of the fanfiction world, I do write a lot - I keep up this blog, I write songs based on books and movies, and I'm doing research for a complicated Holly Black / Labyrinth crossover fic in which Jareth and Roiben are estranged brothers.

Honestly, I have no elegant way to end this extremely pointless entry.