30 Day Song Challege, Day 11 - A Song From Your Favorite Band

I'm calling bullshit on this one, just like I did on Day 1 (Your Favorite Song). Just like I don't have a favorite song, I don't have a favorite band. There are bands I'm really into at the moment (e.g Raconteurs & The Mountain Goats), there are bands I haven't listened to in a long time but would leave on if they came up on shuffle (The Welcome Wagon, Violent Femmes) and there are bands I listened to obsessively for a long time, but then stopped for some reason (Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground).

So, what constitutes my favorite band? I have no idea, so I'm gonna bend the rules and do a song from all three categories. Take that!

11a - A Song From a Band You're Really Into Right Now: The Crystal Method, "I Know It's You," from Legion of Boom.



I first started listening to The Crystal Method in 1998, during a month-long stay in Greenville, SC. (That's a story for some other time.) Vegas was in heavy rotation, for a year, especially in the car as it makes excellent driving music. But they fell off my playlist for a few years. A friend recently turned me on to Legion of Boom recently though, and it gets played a good bit on my computer at work. "I Know It's You" is one of my favorite tracks, very much reminiscent of their work on Vegas, and Milla Jovovich's spooky vocals work perfectly with their distorted bassline and drums. I am amazed that track hasn't yet been appropriated for an action-movie chase sequence or television commercial, like pretty much every track on Vegas was.

11b - A Song From A Band I Haven't Listened To In A Long Time But Would Leave On If They Came Up On Shuffle: The Cure, "Pictures of You," from Disintegration.



I guess The Cure might also fall into the category of "bands I listened to obsessively." It's hard to tell, really, because I listened to them a lot mostly because people I was around listened to them a lot. I really do like their music, at least everything up to Disintegration, but they haven't made it onto a playlist in a long time.

"Pictures of You," is probably one of my favorite songs; it has great instrumentation and clean, if mopey, vocals from Robert Smith. The video is only so-so, sadly, but stands out as yet another example of the director doing everything he can to make the band miserable. (This was sort of a theme in their videos. For another example, check out the video for "Close To Me.")

11c - A Song From A Band I Listened To Obsessively For A Long Time, But Then Stopped For Some Reason: The Velvet Underground and Nico, "Femme Fatale," from The Velvet Underground and Nico (aka: "the banana album," "peel slowly and see")


velvet underground - femme fatale by erioluk

My friend AJ introduced me to the Velvet Underground in my Junior year of high school. He loaned me his vinyl copy of The Velvet Underground and Nico and by the time I handed it back a week later I'd already made two cassette copies. (I needed one for home and one to live in the Chevette, you see.) From then until 1995 or so I pretty much listened to anything by The Velvets or Lou Reed that I could get my hands on.

And then, I sort of, stopped. I don't know what happened. I know I started getting back into techno around that time, so that might have had something to do with it. Or maybe it was Lou's later albums that put me off. Whatever the reason, I haven't listened to anything by the Velvets in a long time; the closest I've come, in fact, was a brief stint listening to a cover of that first album by Beck's Record Club - something I blogged about here a while ago.

So, there we are. Another "day" finished in this interminable challenge. Look forward to my next entry, when I'll most likely call bullshit on the topic again and then spend entirely too long writing about it. Excelsior!