What I've Been Listening To: Part 1

I love Spotify, and have been using it for years. As soon as I found out I could pay to remove the adverts, I did so immediately. I still hear people complaining about this, but seriously, for around the same price of a CD/Album download per month, I have access to most of the music I could possibly need, without people trying to sell me things. Non Spotify stuff I happily pay for from iTunes. I like the idea of Pandora, but regardless of their ground breaking algorithm, they keep on making me listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd. I can only listen to 'Free Bird' so many times. Coldplay actually came on randomly one day, and after skipping them, I looked out of my window to make sure no one had heard. I’ve been building up a playlist over the course of years called ‘What I’ve been listening to’. I add songs to it that I read about, or that catch my ear. I then use the playlist as a reference if I’m looking for something new or different to listen to. I occasionally play it on shuffle, but in most cases I like listening to single albums as a whole, but often make up playlists for parties from it. The list is here:

https://open.spotify.com/user/camartic/playlist/1896pvJtDjdgEfGKsw8B8o

I’m currently sitting at 999 songs, so thought I’d randomly go through the list, and share the 5 best songs that come up first. This video showed me how to visually randomize the list, which I find is more fun than shuffle - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ibBkjoLO4w

Enter The Ninja: Die Antwoord - added 2010-10-31

This song is just utterly insane. I heard it during one of my first trips to the U.S., when my wife and I had satellite radio in the rental car, and listened to Faction non-stop. This song was described as ’scaring the bejesus out of me!’ by one of the hosts. I would have to concur.

Sigourney Weaver: John Grant - added 2011-01-04

I love the lyrics in this song, and also Sigourney 'Get away from her you bitch' Weaver. The album that it’s from ‘Queen of Denmark’ actually makes me feel sad, kind of in a good way. Whilst I was working in London, I used to get off the tube early and either walk through Hyde Park, or Victoria, on the way to South Kensington, so I could listen to music before the joy of the office. If I was feeing pissed about anything, I’d often listen to ‘Marz’ from this album (you’ll get the ’sad’ thing from this song), followed by the Slash song with Iggy Pop ‘We’re all gonna die’, which would make me feel better.

Poor Girl: Eddie Vedder and the Supersuckers - added 2010-10-07

I actually had Bette Midler’s ‘The Rose’ in place of this, possibly to appear more outwardly eclectic. But as that’s a dickhead thing to do, I’ll go with the better song. This track is amazing, and has been on every party playlist that I’ve made, and is usually the first song. Either that or Merle Haggard’s ‘I think I’ll stay here and drink’. I have many memories of listening to this with my wife, Negronis in hand, whilst preparing food in both Kentish Town (London) and San Francisco. Eddie Vedder never overstays his welcome.

The Only Thing Worth Fighting For: Lera Lynn - added 2015-09-16

I’m still upset about True Detective 2. This show even made me start liking Colin Farrell, but it was screwed up. One of the good bits was the weird bar where Vince Vaughn met with Colin Farrell a few times. Lera Lynne was always sitting on stage on her own playing tunes like this one. I can remember one critic describing it as ‘the worst bar ever’, but I thought this was one of the highlights of the show, and Lera Lynne sounded and looked great. I caught her at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, which was fantastic. This song is super moody, and just has Lera’s voice and an electric guitar, which is actually very hard to pull off well.

Outlaw Pete: Bruce Springsteen - added 2011-05-07

I was listening to Nebraska around the same time, so ‘Atlantic City’ was also a contender. Less people have probably heard this one, and it’s a great song. It’s not clear what happens to Pete at the end of the song, and it’s mostly not good. The final verse finishes with a young Navajo girl who 'braids a piece of Pete’s buckskin chaps into her hair’, which in turn is extremely sad, and one of my all time favorites lyrics.