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Showing posts with label animal collective. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animal collective. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Witness Trees

I had never heard of the idea of witness trees before reading this story from earlier in August but I find it fascinating. I had heard of the infamous Shakespeare tree [stories here and here] but I didn't know they did the same thing with the Civil War.

The Move -- (Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree
From The Best of the Move collection.

Radiohead -- Fake Plastic Trees
From The Bends album.

The Beach Boys -- A Day in the Life of a Tree
From the Sunflower/Surf's Up double CD.

Stereophonics -- A Thousand Trees
From the Live From the Dakota album.

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly -- An Oak Tree
From The Chronicles of a Bohemian Teenager album.

Wolfmother -- Apple Tree
From the self-titled debut.

Robbers on High Street -- Beneath the Trees
From the Tree City album.

Mew -- Chinaberry Tree
From the And the Glass Handed Kites album.

Belle & Sebastian -- Family Tree
From the Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant album.

Ben Kweller -- Family Tree
From the Sha Sha album.

Loretta Lynn -- Family Tree
From the Van Lear Rose album.

Blue Cheer -- Feathers from Your Tree
From the Outsideinside album.

Belly -- Feed the Tree
From the Star album.

Counting Crows -- Hanging Tree
From the Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings album.

Pearl Jam -- In My Tree
This is on the No Code album.

Bright Eyes -- Lime Tree
From the Cassadaga album.

Ween -- Marble Tulip Juicy Tree
From the GodWeenSatan album.

Animal Collective -- Must Be Treeman
From the Grass EP.

The Clientele -- My Own Face Inside the Trees

From the Strange Geometry album.

Hootie & The Blowfish -- Not Even the Trees

From the Best of Hootie & the Blowfish collection.

U2 -- One Tree Hill
From The Joshua Tree album.

The Wailers -- Out of Our Tree
From the Nuggets collection.

Brenda Lee -- Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
From the Time-Life Treasury of Christmas collection.

Damien Rice -- Rootless Tree
From the 9 album.

Damien Rice -- Rootless Tree [Live]
From the Live at Fingerprints: Warts and All EP.

U2 -- Shadows and Tall Trees
From the Boy album.

Dave Matthews Band -- The Dreaming Tree
From the Before These Crowded Streets album.

Dashboard Confessional -- The Shade of Poison Trees
From the album of the same name.

Badly Drawn Boy -- The Treeclimber
From EP2.

Andrew Bird -- The Trees Were Mistaken
From the Soldier On EP.

Aretha Franklin -- Tree of Life
From the Rare & Unreleased Recordings collection.

The Federalists -- Tree Song
From their self-titled album.

Radiohead -- Treefingers
From the Kid A album.

Nada Surf -- Treehouse
From the High/Low album.

I'm From Barcelona -- Treehouse
From the Let Me Introduce My Friends album.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Personal Best of 2007


Here are some of the songs that meant something to me this year for a variety of reasons...some of the songs are from 2007, some are older but my discovery/re-discovery of them happened in 2007...

In no particular order, here we go:

Favorite Song from 2007 For Sentimental Reasons That You Probably Won't Understand:

For all the fun and good times I have had in 2007, it has been a year that I wouldn't mind putting behind me as quick as possible. I will keep the list of bad things that happened to myself but above all else the distance between myself and the person I love above all else has been very difficult. This is the song I listen to when I am at my most sad.

Radiohead -- All I Need
This track is from In Rainbows and if you didn't download it for .01 when you could you are an idiot.

Favorite New Song From a Group That Has Been Around For More Than 30 Years:

This one originally comes from this Dell commercial and hints at maybe, just maybe, if Devo put out a new album they could be the most influential "older" band still around and kicking.

Devo "Watch Us Work It"
The song if only available through iTunes at the moment.



Favorite Older Album That Everyone Else Ignored But Now I See The True Genius Of:

Okay it's time for a SAT analogy:

Question: Radiohead : The Bends :: Marcy Playground : _____
Answer: Shapeshifter

Radiohead was considered to be just another one-hit wonder destined for the "Buzz Bin" after the follow-up singles to "Creep" failed to do anything in the U.S. and England. In much the same way, Marcy Playground has been written off as a one-hit wonder of the 1990's. Whereas, Radiohead came back with The Bends to high critical praise but limited sales growth, Marcy Playground gave us Shapeshifter [in 1999] which was met by the same limited sales growth and, unfortunately, little to no critical praise.

But like The Bends, in which you can hear Radiohead greatly improving in melody and song writing ["Fake Plastic Trees" anyone?], the same can be said between Marcy Playground's self-titled first album and Shapeshifter.

Unfortunately, the album was and has been unfairly ignored. For pure novelty, the opening track "It's Saturday" is just as good as the huge hit "Sex & Candy." The two other standout tracks in my mind are "Bye Bye" and "Wave Motion Gun" the latter being on the best soft-loud-soft song style that was oh so popular in the "grunge era."

Marcy Playground -- It's Saturday
Marcy Playground -- Bye Bye
Marcy Playground -- Wave Motion Gun
Please buy Shapeshifter here.

The Most Popular Song On My iPod From 2007:

I wish I would have been the one to say that these lines "I was driving through the misty rain / just searching for a mystery train" was the quintessential Bruce Springsteen lyrics of all time [I think it was Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone] . He was right and this song got me excited about Bruce Springsteen again.

Bruce Springsteen -- Radio Nowhere
This is from Bruce's new album Magic.

Guilty Pleasures of 2007:


No commentary needed:

Avril Lavigne -- Girlfriend
From The Best Damn Thing album.

Kelly Clarkson -- Since U Been Gone (Live on Saturday Night Live)

Available on the Live from SNL CD which I guess is only available at Target stores.

Album I Keep Being Told Is Soooo Awesome But I Just Don't Get It Of 2007:

Animal Collective -- Strawberry Jam

I have tried, oh how I have tried, to love Animal Collective. Last year I really tried to like Xiu Xiu but got the same result. I even stayed up late to watch AC's network TV debut on Late Night with Conan O'Brien hoping to find what I was missing in their albums maybe was there in their live performance. I still didn't get it...I've given up.

Animal Collective -- Peacebone

Some Of My Other Favorite Songs Of 2007:

The White Stripes -- Conquest
From the Icky Thump album.

Underworld -- Crocodile
From the Oblivion With Bells album.

The Hives -- Fall Is Just Something That Grownups Invented
This track can only currently be found on iTunes.

Babyshambles -- Deft Left Hand
From the Shotter's Nation album.

Hard-Fi -- Suburban Knights
From the Once Upon A Time In The West album.

Caribou -- Melody Day
From the album Andorra.

The Bad Plus -- Narc (Interpol Cover)
From the album Prog.

LCD Soundsystem -- North American Scum (Kris Menace Remix)

This remix is from the North American Scum EP.