Playlist of the Week

Remember those terrible days when you were a pretentious teenager and had to pretend to like music all day that actually made you want to stick knitting needles in your ears? Ah, it seems like yesterday. When I was maybe 16 all my friends went through this phase of listening to like, Simple Plan and all these really, really atrocious bands. It made me want to poke my ear drums out but fortunately I wanted friends so I did not, although I'm not sure my grimace passed their standards of approval. At home I downloaded loads of indie bands and listened them till my ears bled. I definitely made a few great discoveries at that time including The New Pornographers, The Smiths and Rufus Wainwright, but I also made some horrible discoveries that I made myself listen to because they were 'cool'. Furthermore, alone or with friends you had to pretend that the catchy songs on the radio were terrible and mainstream. Fortunately at the age of 24 I have overcome my pretensions, well some and now what do I do if I hear something and think it's terrible but am still enjoying like a child? I keep listening, I put it on my play list and I tell my friends-this is a tune! I was listening to The Joy Formidable (this is a great band name no?) and I was scrolling through the youtube comments because I know that sooner or later the comments will deteriorate into "ur gay" "no, you're gay" "your mom is gay" and I like to see how long it takes (Never mind, Lord of the Flies, youtube is a great landscape for political commentary!) Anyway, someone had commented that they used to love the song and play it on their college radio station (BRRR) until they heard it on the normal radio station and had to stop playing it. I felt some sort of pity for this guy, I mean, imagine the horrible inner turmoil he must face when hearing some catchy Nelly Furtado song on the radio and secretly enjoys it. This kind of comment is everything that's wrong with music. If only two people like it, it's cool but if 10 people like it it's too mainstream? Maybe the other 10 people also have good taste too, did you think of that Mr. College Radio?? Hmm. I digress. Here are this weeks picks. Some good, some bad, some old, some new.

1.) Commençons la semaine-Bodh'aktan
Unfortunately I could not find this on youtube, but iTunes Canada has a French song of the week and sometimes they are horrifying French rap, but 3 seconds into this song I was smiling like a giddy schoolgirl. Sure, it sounds like some French people singing over their Lord of The Dance soundtrack but this song is so damn catchy! I dare you to not love it.

2.) Más-Nelly Furtado
I love Nelly Furtado. The Subtitles are incorrect on this video. She is beautiful as well.

3.) Love is Won-Lia Ices
Apparently this is on some Starbucks list? Anyway, this song is perfect.

4.)No Children-The Mountain Goats
The thing about this song is that it speaks volumes about John Darnielle as a songwriter and musician that he is able to pull it off.
Let's have a listen

 In any other hands this could have turned into an emo disaster, but Darnielle's voice at once convinces you that he is absolutely serious but also seriously ironic. The song manages to make you sympathise with the couple but Darnielle also knows that they are the perpetrators of their own misery and as such he is also giving them pointed looks with this song.

5.) La Niña-La Mala Rodriguez
I had this on my play list  then forgot about it, however, I was home in Canada cooking dinner when it reappeared . I was kind of a strange experience, but I love this song.