2012 November❮❮prevnext❯❯

Found around 25 songs ("3 star and up") in October. 4 stars in red, links prefaced with a * are particularly fun to watch videos.

Bigband and/or Bigdrums

• *Yeah Yeah (Willy Moon) Admittedly I almost like the 30 second Apple ad better, but the percussion in this song makes it the only one I'm labeling with 4-stars this month.
• Sparkling Diamonds (Moulin Rouge! Soundtrack) I've had the album for a while... can't believe I didn't give the beautiful horn hit at the begining 3 stars years ago!

Love Found

• Collide (Howie Day) Soft and sweet, almost shmaltzy.
• Rhythm Of Love (Plain White T's) Also soft and sweet but with ukuleles.
• *That Man (Caro Emerald) Veronika mentioned this album last year. Besides the nice retro feel, I love the faux-phonecall wooing by some Don Juan (at about 3:16 in)
• Drive By (Train) Maybe technically more Love Lost? Whatevs.

Love Lost

• Tonight You Belong to Me (Janet Klein) That video is actually Zooey Deschanel but there's a ukulele instructional video for this song by Janet Klein.
• *50 Ways To Say Goodbye (Train) Funny video for a slightly bitter song... more songs should have this much mariachi!
• Good, Bad, Ugly (Ani Difranco) Another song that deserved more stars than I gave it. "open open open open open open all the time"
• Paper Girl (July Talk) Alternating growly and sweet.
• *If You Think You Need Some Lovin (Pomplamoose) I love the "making of the song" videos for this, along with Nataly Dawn's way of looking at the camera out of the corner of her eye.
• Not Big [Explicit] (Lily Allen) Heh, harsh.

Hiphop

• Sesame Street [Explicit] (Blowfly) Oh man, the lyrics of this A-Z rundown are funny and FILTHY, but the beat is SO GOOD.
• He Got Game (Public Enemy) Dig Chuck D's lyrics ("folks don't even own themselves / paying mental rent to corporate presidents") overcome Flava Flav's rambles on the Explicit version.
• Girl On Fire (Inferno Version) (Alicia Keys / Nicki Minaj) The sparse but huge beat and rap intro make up for the overly repetitive chorus.
• Pony Pop (DJ Amtrak / Ginuwine / Lil Wayne) There's a whole blog Dancing Along to Pony, and it's a great riff, but better when mashed up with some modern sexed up hiphop.
• *Gold Digger (Glee Cast) Funny how every "ass" is censored-- makes the core message left behind that much more offensive. Still, the choral backgrounds punchup a good song.
• *Frank Sinatra vs Freddie Mercury (Epic Rap Battles of History)

80s/90s Retro

• 25 Or 6 To 4 (Remastered) (Chicago) I think my jazz band played this one. (I like DJ Magnet's Best of Bootie mashup "Chicago Bump" a bit better)
• Mama Told Me Not To Come (The Wolfgang Press) Cover as seen in the movie "Party Girl"

Rural

• East Bound And Down (Jerry Reed) From "Smokey and the Bandit", not sure where I saw it. Fun song though.
• Johnny Law (William Elliott Whitmore) Banjo player at Harvard Square was covering this.

Other

• *Thank Heavens for Little Girls (Ruby and Lesley Rankine) Ha, I had to rip this from the commercial that I loved in the 90s. It turns out there was no full length version of the song. There's a minute version of the commercial, but the 30 seconds has the good bits and no voiceover.
• Monsters (Monsters Are Waiting) A suicide girls video once had this odd little work.
• Red Alert (K5) Surprisingly hard club track to find, despite its use in "Chasing Amy"

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What did the guy say to his glasses? I can see right through you.

Joke I made up this morning. While looking for my glasses.

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Fetch from the stick's PoV:

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We can't say that steroids caused any one home run by Barry Bonds, but steroids sure helped him hit more and hit them farther. Now we have weather on steroids.

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fun visual puns about disney + star wars -- only 1 darth-in-mickey ears.

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I will never apologize for America

I will never apologize for the United States -- I don't care what the facts are...

I hate Republicans. The idea that we are above apology is disgusting.

Ancestor worship must be an appealing idea to those who are about to become ancestors.

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first doodle on my mini ipad Single on Facebook, it must be official.

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There is no human society without some musical tradition. Although the traditions are very different, some principles can be found everywhere. For example, musical sounds are always closer to pure sound than to noise. The equivalence between octaves and the privileged role of particular intervals like fifths and fourths are consequences of the organization of the cortex. To exaggerate a little, what you get from musical sounds are super-vowels (the pure frequencies as opposed to the mixed ones that define ordinary vowels) and pure consonants (produced by rhythmic instruments and the attack of most instruments). These properties make music an intensified form of sound experience from which the cortex receives purified and therefore intense doses of what usually activates it. So music is not really a direct product of our dispositions but a cultural product that is particularly successful because it activates some of our capacities in a particularly intense way.

(he goes on to say we do the same thing with colors, filling our environments with pure and "unnatural" saturated colors.)

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remember there is a totally scary skeleton inside you right now

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Just an FYI: The number of unlikely things that can happen is so large, you can be assured that unlikely things are likely.

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I simply can't resist a cat, particularly a purring one. They are the cleanest, cunningest, and most intelligent things I know, outside of the girl you love, of course.

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november blender of love
bird

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I understand why people hate the DST thing, but the minute you say our summer evenings should end an hour earlier, you are dead to me.

RIP Uncle Bill My Uncle Bill passed away last night, in a hospital bed but surrounded by family. After we had a mini-wake with lots of "Grey Goose Martinis, straight up"

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I sort of enjoy how the Fox News website makes a "Four More Years" headline sound like a threat when to me it's a promise.

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Obama raised the bar for how bad an economy you can get reelected with. But future historians will scoff, 'That was in the Tea Party era.'

There are no real majorities, only pluralities and coalitions.

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pretty sure the opposite of 'peas in a pod' is 'bees in a bod'

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If You're Surprised By The Election Results, You're The Reason You Lost, Or: A Plea For Useful Republicans Wow. Comparing Republican's confidence before Romney's loss to the Democrat's realism before Kerry' loss in 2004 is super telling. This is some of why modern mainstream conservatism is terrible: the Republicans have become the party of "if the facts don't match the theory, change the facts." A great thoughtful piece by what sounds like a true moderate.

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One thing I've learned (by being even faintly aware of politics over 20 years): any talk of any "perpetual political majority" is foolish.

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I like the gay friendly patter by Chuck Berry in "My Ding-A-Ling". Also the faint English accents of the crowd in the chorus.

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Fox News and Rush Limbaugh don't actually care about the GOP. They really don't. They are in the business of terrifying aging white people for money.

"Thrift Shop" A bit NSFW and raucous, but funny:

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Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness.

My family was so touched by what Josh wrote on the comments here the other day that they asked him to speak at my Uncle Bill's funeral today, but compared to the following tribute he wrote in some personal e-mail... well, I wanted to share it here. Josh has a combination of an truly open heart and adeptness with words that's all too uncommon these days...

You are right. He would never have wanted to live incapacitated after the stroke. He would have hated being dependent on others to take care of him. He always insisted on being independent--to go where and when he wanted to, to choose his own activities, and I think even more importantly to read what and when he wanted to. According to what I read in the emails, he would have lost all or most of his autonomy, at least in the short term, after the stroke and that would have made him unhappy.

As for the Alzheimer's, I saw that in March when I visited. He had forgotten how much time he and I had spent together talking about books and politics, going to the movies and dinner, and going to the bookstore. I had to remind him of these things, and I had to tell him, not that I minded, how much I love and admire him. He seemed surprised to hear that, but I know that before I moved to Japan in 2004, he knew that because we spent a lot of time together. It was almost like he forgot that when his mother died, he called me to go out for dinner and to a movie (this was before I moved in), and that when I lived there we spent hours together talking about literature and history and politics and watched a few PBS series together. I am glad that I saw him in March and that I got the chance to remind him of all that he meant to me and that he showed me how to be a great husband and friend.

When I think of the definition of a spiritual, religious, and righteous man, it is always Bill that comes to mind right away. If I were asked to name whom I think lived by Christian ideals, as I said to Susan a number of years ago, Bill is that person.

You are so fortunate to have had him as your uncle and to have spent your life with him. He's such a fount of love, knowledge, enthusiasm, and devotion. One of things that I noticed about you is how much of Bill is in you. When you and I hung out in Japan, I really was reminded of Bill in many ways. Of course, you are a wonderful guy and wholly by your own individuality, but I really felt that you had internalized Bill's quests for knowledge and his devotion to family and friends. I know that talking with him all those years ago,he really loves and admires you. He really looked up to you and admired everything that you have become.

I am sure that for the rest of my life, whenever you and I meet, I will be searching for Bill in you. Amber is really lucky to have you because you have inherited Bill's capacity for love and devotion. I am lucky, too, for your friendship.

Bill's legacy will live on through you, Kirk, and you should know that you are worthy of it and that you have become an amazing person in all aspects of your life. I am sure that Susan, too, sees how much you take after Bill and that you're being so close to her will comfort her and be a constant reminder of how good of man Bill was and you have become.

Josh

the funniest truest possible answer to "Why Doesn't MTV play music videos anymore?":

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Today, let us honor vets like my grandpa, who survived Pearl Harbor and 'Pearl Harbor' the movie and pronounced them 'equally dumb.'

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They should make a reality show called You Are Here To Make Friends where you have to make friends with everyone.

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If you go to Mitt Romney's Facebook page and click refresh, you can actually watch his 'likes' drop in real time.

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http://randomshopper.tumblr.com/ - kind of genius, Darius has made a virtual 'bot that has a $50 budgets and buys him random things -- its been described as "the saddest, most nihilistic thing ever".

Facebook is a lot like ancient Egypt, people writing on walls and worshiping cats

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Whenever someone tells me "Mac 'just works'" I'll think back to trying to open an iMovie project on a different mac. It's like 1994 called and they want their "The document could not be opened, because the application program that created it could not be found" back.

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caveman

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such a lovely autumn night- I removed my shoes and socks to feel the cool grass of the park underfoot on my way home from Zen Pencils, "cartoon quotes from inspirational folks:

Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

A rep from MBA online encouraged me to repost this, and it's kind of fun, so why not. (It's interesting though... in the short term, I think the consensus is that Nintendo is suffering, despite the success of the Wii, it's kind of getting squeezed by the other consoles for the "serious" player, and by iOS devices for the casual...)

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The crows maintain that a single crow could destroy the heavens.

facebook.com/DirtyOldBoston/photos_stream - pre-gentrified Boston and Cambidge. Like Instagram minus the hipsterism. (via cmg)

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Enjoying the chronological dichotomy of listening to C+C Music Factory's "Things That Make You Go Hmmm" on a newish iPhone. "Things that make you go... Hmmmm" was a good meme before we knew what memes were.

When I was a child, I used to pray to God for a bicycle. But then I realized that God doesn't work in that way--so I stole a bike and prayed for forgiveness.

Kind of sounds like the foreign policy we had in the 2000s.

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It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.

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God made man because He loves stories.

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In a dangerous world there will always be more people around whose prayers for their own safety have been answered than those whose prayers have not.

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For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems that are beyond our comprehension. Well, the truth is there are simple answers. They are just not easy ones.

I would argue "and maybe not good ones".

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Miracles aren't always blessings.

hard day basementing Mike Tyson as photographed by Howard Schatz, from this slate piece on his new book with photographs of boxers:

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ESPN Football Coverage and Princess Bride Reference, dig it!

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Kyrie Irving's Dunks for Footlocker:
Boingboing writes about a new Tarzan books and includes this terrific image:

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Imma eat so much Turkey on Thursday, it's gone back in time and made me sleepy now.

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http://kirkdev.blogspot.com/ - new on my devblog, introducing http://trunKit.alienbill.com/ - a simple workaround to a common visual design problem...

Whenever a jacket zipper splits from the bottom, my first thought is always 'I'm never going to get out of this.'

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Found on the internets:
iMovie is a UX disaster. Reminds me of everything I used to hate about Macs. "my way or the highway- not intuitive for you? Get stuffed."

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Before God and the bus driver we are all equal.

"It's like a tree. You know, some of the branches get old and die and it's more ok if they break off because they're dried out and dusty. But our branch was still kind of young and fresh. And maybe that's why I feel so sappy."

"Hee. That's pretty complex. Did you just think of all of that?"

"For a little bit. At first I thought the metaphor was a young tree, but then I realized it was just branches. The tree lives on. The tree lives on."

A poor dancer is impeded by his own balls.

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Looking for references to that joke I found the Wikipedia page about Russian Jokes including this one:

A Frenchman, a Japanese and a Russian were trapped by Tzar. He locked them in a closed chamber and asked to surprise him using three steel balls ... the winner will be released, the others will be executed. In a week the Frenchman demonstrates a juggle with the balls. The Japanese has created a rock garden. The Russian sits sad in his chamber with only one ball in his hands. The Tzar asks him: "Why are you so sad and where are the other balls?". The Russian answers: "One broken, one lost".

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Also, this old kisrael entry has some jokes I heard from actual Russians.

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Mark Sanchez, QB of the Jets, running into his teammate at full fumble speed:

His dejected look at the end... via If Grand Theft Auto had a main character who was a horse with magical powers it would look like this, oddly captivating:

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Vanilla Ice-Nine: anybody who hears him rapping instantaneously stops, collaborates and listens until death claims them.

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Anyone who admits to having made 'my share of mistakes' has in fact made far more than his share of mistakes.

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'All-Purpose' flour shouldn't be able to call itself that. Terrible as a bodywash.

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Inner-City Wizard School...

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Actually Kottke's other Key & Peele links are all great, I need to see more of these guys: http://kottke.org/12/11/inner-city-wizard-school The moon for 2013, one frame = one hour.

via Slate

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future self: for selecting multiple calendars on the iPhone: m.google.com/sync is broken because it lacks a link to https://www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect

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http://kirkdev.blogspot.com/ - on my ui blog, Zachstronaut's fun and easy "rotate3Di" library for sweet 3D-ish flip transitions.

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The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Well, actually it is mostly paved with human skulls; but the good intentions serve as a thickening agent.

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The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters. Then one morning he bringeth me to the shed out back and boom!, he maketh me into lamb chops.

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Favorite artist: Jackson Pollock, because I am in on the dirty little secret of his success: he was not an abstract expressionist.

Jackson Pollock was trying to paint landscapes the whole time.

He was a terrible, terrible painter.

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I came, I saw, She conquered. (Something seems to have been lost in the original translation...)

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http://www.thisismyjam.com/kirkjerk -- missed a few weeks but my 5 Star List is back with a vengeance: the tightest, funkiest cover in the world... Maynard Ferguson covers Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" The book "The Last Testament: A Memoir by God" is kind of intriguing. In parts it's a scathing parody, but like a lot of scathing parodies, it expresses some intriguing and insightful points about its subject matter, and like a few scathing parodies, there's some affection for the subject there. I quote from the related Twitter feed TheTweetOfGod often, and these were my favorite of the "100 Top Tweets" the book leads off with...

Yes, I'm pro-life. But if you're familiar with my work you know I'm not exactly anti-death either.

Every positive role religion plays in society also falls under the category of "good manors."

Closed-mindedness makes you incapable of learning. Open-mindedness makes you intellectually vulnerable. Be ajar-minded.

"It's funny because it's true" + "the truth hurts" = it's funny because it hurts. And that's what comedy is.

The problem with government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" is obvious to anyone who's ever dealt with people.

You can kill time as much as you like, but sooner or later it will return the favor.

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I'm acting guardian for Emma, Amber's older kitty. I like her temperament; not too aloof, enjoys being pet, but not in your face and lap all the time.

One indulgence she likes is being pet while she's eating, which seems a little over the top to me, but I'm kind of a soft touch for this kind of thing, so she'll usually get a few strokes from me. Still, if there was ever that much of a question about the relationship between humans and cats, that kind of settles it...

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Emma is trying too hard to be cute

Delight lies somewhere between boredom and confusion.

I think that's very true for music especially

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Household tasks are easier and quicker when they are done by somebody else.

November was a terrible month for me in most ways, but oddly enough a great one for discovering music, especially Golddust which you really need to watch.

All songs here I call 3 stars or better, 4+ star songs I've colored red. Songs with videos (vs just static image music uploads) are marked with an exclamation point, multiple exclamation points indicate extra goodness.

Club

• !!!Golddust (DJ Fresh) Oh my goodness. My first 5-Star in a long while. Both the video (amazing and well-shot jumprope action) and the song are so full of energy. (Tough MP3 to find; avoid the slower (and sadly more common) dubstep version)
• Humming the Bassline (Hideki Naganuma) From the "Jet Grind Radio" sound track, great bouncy bass.
• !Lazy (X-Press 2 Ft. David Byrne) I'm reading David Byrne's book... I guess this was a big hit for X-Press, and as some reviewer quipped, he'd collaborate with anyone "for a half-empty bag of Doritos"

Comedy Hip-Hop -- all of these have kind of some crude (or worse) lyrics but man, they are some of the funniest videos I'd seen in a long while.

• !!Thrift Shop (Macklemore & Ryan Lewis) Warning, kinda racy lyrics, but sometimes I like this song a bit more than "Golddust", even.
• !!Barack Obama vs Mitt Romney (Epic Rap Battles of History) Honestly, I was too stressed to listen to this 'til the election wsa one... but so much fun, and such great lines.
• !My Vag (Awkwafina) More racy lyrics, but laugh out loud funny.

Comedy Other

• !My Ding-A-Ling (Chuck Berry) Man, this is a funny classic. At first I didn't realize the crowd is british, but you can kind of hear it, especially when the women sing. Like the pro-gay aspect of it too.
• Happy Hour (Is The Saddest Time Of The Day) (Ray Stevens) Jeez. I had this on a tape when I was a kid. The hamfisted laugh track really is something.

Alt

• !Tell Me 'Bout It (Joss Stone) Sexy fun, with a great retro sound.
• !A Simple Motion (t.A.T.u.) I've known about the Russian version of this song for a long while; I think the more orchestral English version is new for the anniversary of "200 km/h in the Wrong Lane". Sexy and direct.
• !Dog Days Are Over (Florence + The Machine) Amber digs this song. It's a little long, but good.
• !Rolling In The Deep (Adele) Obviously this one has made the rounds, but it's such a good sound.
• Give It to Me (Reel Big Fish) Heard this in the restroom at Summer Shack. Not the biggest Ska fan, but this is alright.
• Linger (The Cranberries) Lovely little song from a while back.

Retro

• Express Yourself (Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band) Kind of amazed it took me so long to get this song.
• Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho (The Jordanaires) Back in my Salvation Army days, there was a novelty spoken word and brass band arrangement of this. Couldn't find that, but this version is more direct.
• They Built The Ship Titanic (Margaret Ann) The video isn't the song I found... but I remember singing this one with my mom.
• Rum & Coca Cola (Lord Invader) A classic, a bit more raw than the Andrews Sisters' version.
• Accentuate the Positive (Horace Heidt & His Orchestra) My version is different than the link. What strikes me is how many covers mention that it's a Johnny Mercer song.
• !My Way (Sex Pistols) A guy at Alewife quoted "regrets, I've had a few..." and I had to find a version of this. The Sex Pistols cover is idiosyncratic to say the least but I like how they also use it over the credits of "Goodfellas"

Rural

• !Always On My Mind (Willie Nelson) Oh, man, oh man oh man. Heartbreak like no other.
• !!These Boots Are Made For Walkin' (Radio Edit) (Jessica Simpson) Countrified remake. The video gets an extra exclamation point for gratuitous bikini-ness.

Hip-Hop

• !!Who Dat (Explicit Version) (J Cole) I was looking for marching band drum samples, and someone looking for similar referenced this song. Fun video.
• !Pitbull - Culo (DJ Amtrak Remix) Sweet remix by a talented DJ.
• !Fatty Boom Boom [Explicit] (Die Antwoord) Oh, man. "Weird", and leave it at that.

2012 November❮❮prevnext❯❯