Artist: Them Crooked Vultures
Song: Gunman
Album: Them Crooked Vultures
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Why this song is awesome:
This lyric is just dripping with attitude:
It don’t matter / Don’t try to explain / You’re just another dog to be trained / Choke chained
Josh Homme could look you straight in the eye and tell you he’d just eaten everything in your fridge and taken a dump in all your shoes and you’d still think he was the coolest motherfucker alive.
Song: Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You
Artist: Frankie Valli
Album: Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You
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Why this song is awesome:
Does this song make you want to go back to 60s Jersey or what?
Artist: Mother Mother
Song: Hay Loft
Album: O My Heart
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Why this song is awesome:
This song is bloody weird.
Not bad weird, like the feeling you get when a clown with fangs smiles at you from outside your 3rd story window at midnight.
Good weird, like the feeling you get when you lean up against hot tub jets at the right angle.
If Billy Talent and The B-52’s had a musical baby, it would definitely be this song.
Artist: Band of Horses
Song: Evening Kitchen
Album: Infinite Arms
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Why this song is awesome:
Listen to this:
Got lost in the places I’ve been / I should go out with my friends / I’d go tonight but I know you’ll be there too
For me, this bottle of wine / Is to slow down my mind / And forget the things that I knew
Who hasn’t been there? Feeling lost and bummed, thinking about how plans and loves can slip through your hands like water.
But it’s amazing how a song this sad can also be so soothing. The sweet melody is like a lullabye that hugs you tight and says: “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
If you know someone that’s having a rough time, wrap them in a blanket, play them this song and watch how soon they start to smile. Promise.
Artist: They Might Be Giants
Song: Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
Album: Flood
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Why this song is awesome:
This song makes me feel like an adventurer, searching the deserts of Egypt for ancient loot.
I can picture it now. I’d be screaming “ALE-LE-LE-LE-LE-LE-LE-LE” from the top of the sand dunes. Then I’d take my Ali Baba sword, chop a camel and drink its milk straight from the hump.
An hour later, I’d find myself enthusiastically shaking hands with a smiling cactus as fruit punch begins to pour from my fingertips. Then I’d begin to feel lightheaded and happy like I’d just sucked in a blimp’s worth of helium. The rest would just kind of go black.
Moral of the story: do not drink straight from the hump.
Artist: Matchbook Romance
Song: Monsters
Album: Voices
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Why this song is awesome:
A lot of people learned about this song through Guitar Hero 3, including me. The embarrassing number of hours that game sucked from my life could have been better used building a boat or inventing some sort of see-through toaster.
But back to the song.
What a creepy ass melody! What a pounding, unholy rhythm! Those sliding guitar riffs sound like a moaning ghost. This whole song makes me feel afraid of the dark.
Add that psycho guitar solo into the mix? Well guys, I just shit my pants.
Artist: Mike Patton
Song: 20 KM Al Giorno
Album: Mondo Cane
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Why this song is awesome:
I have no clue what he’s saying. It could be “20 kilometers per day” as easily as it could be “I just ate 20 hot dogs.” Whatever it is he’s saying, it sounds so fucking cool. Like Frank Sinatra would sound if he went insane and had just chain smoked 400 cigarettes.
Artist: John Mayer
Song: Edge of Desire
Album: Battle Studies
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Why this song is awesome:
Just listen to these words:
So young and full of running / All the way to the edge of desire / Steady my breathing, silently screaming / I have to have you now
Don’t say a word, just come over and lie here with me / ‘Cause I’m just about to set fire to everything I see / I want you so bad I’ll go back on the things I believe / There I just said it, I’m scared you’ll forget about me
Now if that doesn’t say “young love,” I don’t know what does.
Whatever your opinion of John Mayer, it’s hard to argue that this song is anything but beautiful, moving, and relatable.
Because who hasn’t been there, where you feel like the end of a relationship is the end of the world, and you’ll never recover?
I just love how no matter what I’m doing, this song can always make me stop and remember past loves, with all their highs, lows, mistakes, lessons and triumphs. And immaturity. But that was mostly on my part.
Artist: Mindless Self Indulgence
Song: Stupid MF
Album: You’ll Rebel to Anything
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Why this song is awesome:
If I had been born a 400 pound beefcake with billowing chestnut hair and a smile that could melt iceburgs, I’d have become a professional wrestler. It’d be the only sensible career choice.
My daily routine is a vivid picture in my mind. I’d wake up each morning to go to work, slipping on my golden sequined unitard, slathering myself in gold chains, and misting myself with an experimental perfume made of testosterone and steak.
As I arrive at the stadium locker room, I nod to the fellow wrestlers, Jock Jacker, Slice Matthews, and The Fluffer, and they salute me in turn. In moments, I will be destroying them in the ring.
After mentally preparing myself for a moment backstage, my theme song, Stupid MF, begins to play, and I know it’s show time.
I triple backflip into the ring while chugging a beer, which I break over the referees head as I land. Then I just start pounding faces. I play the dangerous side of me up, even throw a trick lawnmower into the crowd. And they go wild, chanting my name: Bum Rush! Bum Rush!
And then I wake up in a cold sweat, relieved it’s just a dream. Then I look down and I’m wearing a golden sequined unitard.
*gasp*
It wasn’t a dream!
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Best lyrics:
Should I talk slower / like you’re a retard? / Should I talk slower / like you’re retarded? / They think you’re dumb / I think you’re smart / No, wait, I lied / I think you’re dumb
Artist: The Dear Hunter
Song: In Cauda Venenum
Album: Act III - Life and Death
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This song makes me feel like running around and destroying things, like a caged ape. In fact, it literally turns me into a caged ape. Like werewolves do with full moons.
Oh no, my palms are sprouting fur! I’m getting a huge craving for bananas. I’m beating my chest for some reason.
Ah, I can’t stop it from ksajfdfjsj ooo ooooooo oooo EEEE OOOOOOO OOOOOOOOO EEEEEE OOOOOO
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Kickass lyrics:
In the cradle we’re helpless, but on our feet we are fatal / How we evolve and grow into twisted beasts with a desire for disorder.
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Check out another one of their great tracks, Mustard Gas, done acoustically. It shows of how intimate, but powerful Casey Crescenzo’s voice can really be.
