urgency to bleed

So... here's the deal. I enjoy making lists. I also enjoy torturing myself in the form of forcing myself to pick favorites (it's a very painful process for me, okay? I feel bad leaving things out and choosing one thing over another!). So what better way to combine these two boredom-induced activities than by making lists of my top twenty songs by my favorite musicians? Naturally, first up is none other than Rilo Kiley.


I had planned on posting this particular list awhile ago and I had this whole entry with in-depth explanations for each choice all ready to go... and then I somehow accidentally clicked refresh and the saved draft ended up being not-so-recent so I lost it all and got so frustrated that I didn't even want to post it anymore. But I have the songs uploaded so it seems a waste not to. But I can't do all the explaining over again. I've posted about a good amount of these songs before anyway so if you want to know my reasons for loving them, just look back through the Rilo Kiley tag or something. Or just let the songs speak for themselves; come on, I think it's pretty obvious why they're awesome. If you somehow have not heard any of these, get to doing that right this moment!

As a disclaimer of sorts, I must stress that this is a list that's constantly changing; the top ten has been pretty static for awhile but the bottom ten are more fluid and move around depending on what I'm in the mood for. Also, please don't hate me for not including a certain song. I do love almost every song of theirs and this was a hard list to narrow down! And I was hoping this would make a nice "ultimate Rilo Kiley" mix but unfortunately it won't quite fit on an 80-minute disc as is. The last couple of songs would have to be knocked off. Or maybe only one if the silence/interludes at the end of certain songs was edited out but I'm too lazy to do that right now.

( Drumroll, please. )

I know I haven't been posting very often lately - at least not very often by my standards, anyway. I guess I just haven't had much to talk about recently. The albums I'm still most anticipating this year have yet to come out and I haven't been making very many notable new discoveries. However, here are some songs that have caught my ear lately, some from new releases, some older. Enjoy. :)

Alright, finally, a 2007 wrap-up. I was getting nowhere with trying to make a cohesive mix, so I've decided to go about this a bit differently. Basically, this whole week is going to be "2007" week and I'm going to try to post something everyday - the first two days will be my top ten albums, the next two will be songs from other good albums, and the third will be sort of an "anticipated in 2008" post. I've posted quite a few of these songs in the past, but it gives you the chance to realize that these are my very favorites and if you haven't tried them by now, I definitely recommend you to! There are still some albums I haven't listened to properly but I realized that if I kept trying to listen to everything, this wouldn't be done until the end of 2008, so I decided that none of those would probably make it into my top ten anyway and settled on this list. I'm pretty happy with it; the only spot that doesn't feel completely static is #10, which was occupied by quite a few different albums until I decided on what's there now. So, without further ado, the latter half of my top ten, complete with reviews, purchase links, and Youtube videos!

10. Emma Pollock - Watch The Fireworks (purchase)


Watch the Fireworks, in many ways, picks up where Emma's previous band the Delgados' final album, Universal Audio, left off. It's full of catchy, slightly quirky indie pop tunes sprinkled with well-written lyrics and Emma's distinguishable raspy yet sweet vocals. The album opens with "New Land", which could be a pretty generic singer-songwriter track if not for the carnival-esque melodies and persistent drumbeat propelling it. This is true of most of the tracks; they don't tread any new territory, but Emma knows how to make them memorable and instantly lovable. "Acid Test" is a bit edgier and more rock-oriented while singles like "Paper and Glue" and "Adrenaline" are poppy without being completely vapid. All of the catchiness is interspersed with more folky simple songs like "Limbs", "Fortune", and "The Optimist" which are soft and pretty but Emma's slightly raw voice keeps them from sounding bland. Her music is probably most reminiscent of female artists like Anna Nalick and Nerina Pallot, but her years of experience with the Delgados allows her songs to be more meaningful, impactful, and durable than others with a similar style who haven't been active for as long. Her delivery sounds both youthful and wise at the same time and her songs fit nicely as one unit but never blend together until you don't know which is which. I used to listen almost exclusively to artists of the "female singer-songwriter" ilk but I've grown a bit tired of that these past couple of years, so it takes a lot to capture my attention in that category anymore. For that reason, Emma definitely deserves to be on this list. From the moment I first heard Watch the Fireworks I knew I was in love and even if her chosen style of music isn't terribly unique, she definitely stands out as one of the most talented women in that group right now.

• Acid Test
• Paper and Glue
• The Optimist

( See #9-6. )

#5-1 tomorrow! (Unless you know the one other place I've posted this. In that case, you're lucky.)

It's still a month until Christmas but seeing as it is already completely white and miserably cold outside, this seems to be the perfect time to bust out the Christmas tunes anyway! Now, I don't know about you, but most Christmas music annoys me, so aside from a few traditional songs (though performed fantastically, of course) I've tried to mostly include ones that can be easily enjoyed all year 'round. Some are explicitly about Christmas while others are more vaguely winter-y or contain a fleeting mention of Christmas but are just so awesome that it's enough to count. Hopefully, this mix will bring you more enjoyment over the holidays than whatever crappy radio station playing those generic cheesy Christmas songs. As always, below the cut, you can find the tracklisting with links to each individual song or download the entire thing in a ZIP file.

( Sew up the bad that you've done - tomorrow Christmas day comes. )

Download entire mix (72 MB)