Tumult and Turmoil Playlist

As my friend's heart has been batted around by his SO/ex-SO for the past couple of weeks since she decided she didn't want to date him anymore, then changed her mind, then changed it back, ad infinitum ad nauseam, I have been struggling with ways to help him.

We've taken long walks in the rain, spent hours on the phone and on im, and he hung out out our place every evening for a week.

Because I am a music geek, I thought I'd put together a playlist for him. It's better than I mixtape, since he has one of our old iPods we update for him from time to time. Loading a new playlist is pretty automatic, but the question of what to include . . . well, that took some thinking.

I don't think I got it completely right, but I gave it a valiant effort.



Here are a few sample songs:

Steve Wedemeyer, I'm So Low.

This has been a favorite song for years, but the album is filled with gems.

Buy Steve's album Disclose here.

The Rifles, Inbetween Days (The Cure cover).

I love The Rifles and this is a great cover of a great song.

Buy The Rifles here.

Jamie Cullum, Lover, You Should Have Come Over (Jeff Buckley cover).

The pathos is palpable.

Buy Jamie Cullum here.

Fool of Me, Me'shell Ndegéocello.

This is an all-time favorite song. It's terribly sad.

Buy the album here.

Brit Awards Nominations

I was reading on Stereogum this morning that the Brit Awards nominations are out.

Stereogum and its commenters had the expected snarky comments about the awards and the status of British music "the performers list is a vertitable who's whom of acts you love to be indifferent about, like Corrine Bailey Rae, Snow Patrol, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Take That, The Killers, Amy Winehouse ..."

My favorite comment was "You're bound to be indifferent, and rightly so. The British music scene is currently plagued by Indie bands with their knowing winks and 'realism' in their lyrics. Hell, I still haven't been involved with any of the stuff most of these bands talk about, nor do I know anyone who has. Realism, my arse."

Oh, horrors! Indie bands with their knowing winks! That separates them from US bands how exactly?

Here I am, once again, beating the drum for the British pop music, but it is enormously entertaining. I adore Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse, and many of the nominated bands. Corinne Bailey Rae is very talented and, though I am not crazy about her album, I love her cover of Munich. I hope she can become a British Alicia Keys, who also had crappy over-produced first album and then used her live shows and her covers to demonstrate the depth of her artistry before releasing a great second album and using her power for good.

I am actually looking forward to seeing the Brit Awards - they put together unexpected pairings and performances and something interesting usually happens.

I have a couple of songs from past Brit Awards below. Frankly, they are not great covers, but I am glad to have them because they fill out my covers collection.

Mp3: From Brit Awards 2004: LoveCats (The Cure cover) by Jamie Cullum and Katie Melua.

Mp3: From the Brit Awards 2005: Ain't Nobody (Rufus and Chaka Khan cover) by Daniel Bedingfield and Natasha Bedingfield. (It's an especially icky cover since they are siblings.)

Covers Only I Could Love - BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge

Last year, I rediscovered my love of British Pop and British Rock and all the music in between (really, that's like all the music from A to B).

In rediscovering this music, I found songs from the BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge, which are actually wonderful.

Just in case there is anyone in the world who wants to hear how Pharrell's Frontin' sounds being performed by Jamie Cullum, this is the post for you.

Frontin', Jamie Cullum.

Originally written and performed by Pharrell, Jamie Cullum transforms a catchy hip-hop track into a catchier jazzy pop song. I listen to it way more than I should.

As a direct result of hearing this song, I bought Jamie Cullum's 2004 album. Nothing on it capitvated me as much as this song.

Mp3: Frontin' by Jamie Cullum

Naive, Lily Allen.

This is the song that introduced me to Lily Allen, who became beloved and then reviled by music bloggers in a few short months (and before her album was ever released in the US.

It was written and performed by The Kooks, another British band I adore. (Alone, apparently.) As I have mentioned in my Best of 2006, I love this song in all its versions and this is the first version I had heard.

Mp3: Naive, Lily Allen