Notice the album of the quarantine organization in our nation's capital.

[tablesaw]

I've been seeing people talk about mix tapes (Sorry CDs), and it's got me longing for another project. With television showing either reruns or crappy reality shows that make me wish for reruns, I've been playing a lot more music around the house in general. Also, I have yet to "burn" anything on my new computer. So I'm taking a poll for ideas:

[Poll #145586]

Comments

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

My vote is: you’re a geek. But my kind of geek. :-) It reminds me that I need to get together my Hellmix: one song for each circle of Dante’s Inferno (ending, perhaps, with “Sympathy for the Devil” and, perhaps after, “Stars” from Les Mis, bonus points for knowing why.

[tablesaw]

Don't Dis me by thinking I wouldn't.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Also: just understood the title of the entry. Did I mention that you’re a geek?

[alsoname.livejournal.com]

I think a compilation (I can spell!) of songs about LA would have to be titled "I Hate LA," or at least "LA Makes Me Queasy." I can think of more anti-LA songs than pro-.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

You can? There’s Randy Newman’s “I Love LA,” there’s “Born in East LA” (sort of, anyway), there’s “LA is My Lady” by Sinatra, there’s “City of Angels” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That’s all I can think of about LA, in fact.

Re:

[alsoname.livejournal.com]

Well, most of the music I enjoy was written by pessimists.

And dude, you need to stop using curly apostrophes.

[alsoname.livejournal.com]

And curly quotes.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Actually, I wasn't using them--my web browser was. I have no idea why it did that--I'm on a different computer now; this browser clearly isn't doing it. It hadn't ever before and I don't think I changed a setting.

So: what is to be found in "A Musical Pessimist's Guide to LA"?

off the top of my head

[alsoname.livejournal.com]

Anti-California
Blatz - "California" ("I wish California would fall in the ocean and everyone would die")
Liz Phair - "California" (actually, I'm not sure what those lyrics are about, but it seems anti-)

Anti-LA
X - "Los Angeles" ("She had to leave ...")
That one song by that indie-rock band whose name I cannot recall for the life of me, that goes "I don't understand why you'd want to live here"
The Randoms - "Let's Get Rid of LA" (self-explanatory)
Pansy Division - "Fluffy City" ("Makes me want to get a Revolver/ The whole place puts me in a Rage")
Tool - "Aenima" ("Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA/ The only way to fix it is to flush it all away")

eureka

[alsoname.livejournal.com]

After some Google sleuthing:
Death Cab for Cutie - "Why You'd Want to Live Here" ("I'm in Los Angeles today: It smells like an airport runway" -- and that's just the opening couplet)

Re: eureka

[tablesaw]

Apparently, you two need to make a mix CD.

Re: eureka

[alsoname.livejournal.com]

Do you really want to listen to Tool?

Re: off the top of my head

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

You were right. Your music is much more pessimistic than mine. Put Sinatra up against "Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA" in a pessimism contest, and, yeah, it's no contest.

Not that Sinatra is really my music.

I think the real problem is that southern California wants to be western New York.

Re: off the top of my head

[tablesaw]

Los Angeles: The Immortal City.

Actually, I can't stand that song, because at its most crucial point it makes an error in word choice so heinous that every time I listen to it, I expect it to have been corrected.

But I think that southern California
Has more pain that we can say,
'Cause it wants to travel back in time,
But it just can't leave L.A.

Can't leave L.A.? That doesn't make any sense! But replace it with the already conveniently rhyming "today" and you've got a stanza that makes sense.

Rant over.

Re: off the top of my head

[tablesaw]

Well, you listen to a lot of music that has a generally pessimistic slant. I can't imagine Tool singing about any town, "Gee I love this place/It brings a smile to my face."

Of course, you forget one of the most beautiful Pessimistic LA songs, "River," by Joni Mitchell.

Re: off the top of my head

[alsoname.livejournal.com]

I should clarify that I don't listen to Tool; I just thought they warranted inclusion on my list.

Re: off the top of my head

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

Anti-LA: "L.A. Song" (???) it kept showing up on MTV several years ago. Decent song.

[tablesaw]

"Valley Girl" -- Frank Zappa
"Freefallin'" -- by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
"All I Wanna Do" -- Sheryl Crow
"Hooray for Hollywood" -- Various
"Malibu" -- Hole
"Pico & Sepulveda" -- Felix Figueroa & His Orchestra
And that's just what I can think of at work.

[thedan.livejournal.com]

I'd just like to note Bran Van 3000's "Drinking in LA". Great song.