Do the iPod Shuffle

I got this from happy:blissful!, which is one of the coolest blogs I have come across in quite some time.

Here's how it goes. Put your iPod on shuffle mode and list the first 10 songs that come up, with a little something about each song. No skipping songs! (In case you're wondering, the picture on the right is a third generation iPod, which is the one I have. I actually had something before the majority of the population had it. This will probably be the only time that happens.)

Here are mine:

1) "Like a Prayer" - Madonna. I am not a huge Madonna fan. I listen to some of her music casually. This began in high school and not a moment before (although I was familiar with her songs before then because she was so popular). My friend Katie gave me my formal introduction to Madonna when Erotica came out, and I later used BMG Music Service to obtain Madonna's The Immaculate Collection. Speaking of, I can't believe BMG is still in business! I wonder if their collection agency is still after me....

2) "Triad" - Tool. This song reminds me of being in some kind of machine shop. As a matter of fact, when I hear it, I think of the movie The Machinist. I highly recommend that movie, by the way, but I don't think it's for everyone.

3) "You Trip Me Up" - The Jesus and Mary Chain. You know how you'll buy an album off iTunes sometimes because it's cheaper than just getting all the songs you want? Well, that's definitely the case with this song, because I don't really like it all that much - I just wanted all the other songs that came with it on 21 Singles. It just sounds screechy to me, and it definitely reminds me that it's time to go through my iPod and do some weeding.

4) "Help Myself" (live) - Dave Matthews Band. Oh, how I love DMB. Oh, how this song pales in comparison to some of their other songs. However, the album this song is on (The Central Park Concert) reminds me of the time when my ex and I first split up a few years ago. In anticipation of moving out, I put a ton of his CDs onto my iPod, and this was one of them. I listened to portions of this album quite a bit while I was moving out and during Christmas that year (which immediately followed).

5) "Hell is Chrome" - Wilco. This song came to me by way of my friend Christian, who moved to Seattle in August. He let me copy several of his CDs before he left, and A Ghost is Born was one of them. Listening to this, I feel like I should be in a blues bar, chain smoking and drinking gin and tonics. Oh, and I absolutely love the title. Every song should have a kick-ass title.

6) "Wasted" - Mazzy Star. Yet another song from my high school days. This is a good song for a striptease/sex scene in some black and white filmnoir-type film. And it's definitely a far cry from the intoxicating "Fade into You" that I (and probably so many more) used to listen to as a teen in my bedroom with all the lights out. Mazzy Star is teenage angst at its finest.

7) "Tell Me I Was Dreaming" - Travis Tritt. I'm not a big country fan, but this is a song that has so much sentimental value to me that I can't bear to part with it (plus, it's not bad as far as country music goes). When I was 15, an upperclassman at my high school died. His name was Jeff. I was just another girl in the hallway to him, but I always recognized him and knew who he was. Even though we'd never been introduced, I went to his funeral with my friends Katie (who I mentioned before) and her sister Bonnie. This song was played there. It was his favorite, and it was eerie how well it described the feelings of loss that we all felt at that time.

8) "Not Too Late" - Norah Jones. I am not a big fan of Norah Jones' newest album, Not Too Late. I think most of the lyrics suck. This song is simple and pretty though. It's a good heartbreak, unrequited-love song. Those are always good, because there is always something to relate to. The lyrics aren't stellar, but they're not painful to listen to either.

9) "Be Aggressive" - Faith No More. First off, Faith No More will always remind me of the girl who sat in front of me in my sixth grade Social Studies class. She wore Faith No More T-shirts quite often, and back then, I couldn't figure out what it meant. I, being the dork that I was (and still am), didn't know Faith No More was a band. Fast forward to high school (why do so many of these songs reflect back to high school?) and I really got into Faith No More's albums Angel Dust and Introduce Yourself. "Be Aggressive" is one of my favorite FNM songs because it just rocks. Plus, it's so surreal to hear a funeral-like pipe organ-type thing combined with some wacky cheerleaders screaming, "Be Aggressive! B-E Aggressive..."

10) "Devil Got My Woman" - Skip James. I seriously have no clue how this song got on my iPod. It's a blues song and feels like it should be playing over some movie montage about drug addicts. That's about all I can say.

Whew! That was fun. I'm surprised that none of my guilty pleasures came up. I have my fair share that include Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, Another Bad Creation, Bell Biv Devoe, Sir Mixalot, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, and so on.

Oh, and here's the website where you can go download Radiohead's new album for free.