Can a person's favorite songs reveal their inner self? Can a woman whose room mate recently caught her drunk lip synching to the Jane Eyre OBC on Marcy Avenue at 2am truly be considered "cool" by any reasonable metric? Each week, I’ll attempt to decide who I am, what I like, and why on earth I like it with the help of Spotify’s Discover Weekly. Week two was a bit one note, if you'll pardon the expression. I mean that somewhat literally - I got served a lot of drab, sing-songy melodies over slightly fuzzy guitars. You know when your coworker goes "Oh, you like music, have you heard of ********"? And then you listen to the debut album by ******** (not to be confused with !!!) and it sounds like the same car commercial ten times in a row but I guess they're playing Bonnaroo? This was a whole playlist of those. It's too early to give up on this concept though (and I just got my new playlist, and I have a LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT IT), so we'll struggle through with the standouts. "Tell Me It's Ok" - Paramore Guys, I like Paramore. I know, I'm supposed to spend all my time listening to Le Tigre or Nico or Patti Smith and goodness knows they're wonderful, but sometimes a guy is a dick or your boss is a dick or your friend is a dick and the only thing that helps is Hayley Williams, yelping over power chords. Paramore happened after I was out of high school, but the angst levels of their songs make me feel like theater camp never ended. I'd never heard this one before, and while it's no "crushcrushcrush" it's still been stuck in my head all week and I think that means the song is winning. Side bar: here's a Tumblr post from 2015 where Williams semi-renounces "Misery Business", a song with a great hook and truly objectionable lyrics. Probably chosen for me because: I told you. I like Paramore. "Number Crunching" - Ginger Snaps Remember last week when I complained about how songs reminded me of other songs and I couldn't get over it? Well, this song reminds me of The 90s and I'm surprisingly cool with it. This sounds like Oasis wrote a song for the New Radicals and Beck stepped up to produce - that is the level of 90s in play here. It is an excellent song for sauntering down a street in a leather jacket - yes, I tried it. It does contain the lyric "I can't stand these hipster chicks," which I do not care for as a hipster or as a chick. However, my main issue with this song is that I've reached the age where new artists are being clearly influenced by the music of my youth, which to them is Classic Rock. All you little punks can get the hell of my damn lawn. Probably chosen for me because: Chris keeps making me learn weird 90s covers to sing with his band. "You know this one," he always says. He's wrong. He's wrong every time. Except for "Glycerine", I knew that one. Backwards Dancer For fuck's sake. I wrote down the band but not the song title. But I'm listening to their album now and I'm enjoying it, so let's just carry on with the introspection, shall we? At first listen I assumed Backwards Dancer were from approximately 2008, and I only missed them because that was the year I listened exclusively to Elliott Smith. I was surprised to learn that this band's self-titled album came out last month - perhaps this is the emo revival the fancy music blogs keep talking about? I had kind of assumed they were just trying to make Fetch happen, but ok.* Over the weekend I saw Two Star Motel, an excellent musical about a struggling band set in 2001, and between that and the humidity and the punks on my damn lawn I am more than ready to slam cheap beers in a crop top and be simultaneously sad/horny/sweaty. I suppose this means I am on board with the revival of emo. Probably chosen for me because: I listen to that one Say Anything song a thousand times a month. I gotta knock that off or this blog is going to get really boring really quick. I once had this obnoxious therapist look at me with solemn condescension and ask "Do you even want to be happy?" No one writes good songs about being happy, silly. *"Make Fetch Happen" is a good name for an emo revival band. "Make Out" - Julia Nunes Ok, I take back what I just said about good songs and happiness. I forgot that this song made my list for the week. Sure, it dips into minor in a few places which gives it a lightly bittersweet quality, but overall this is just a perky little bop about wanting your person to stay home so you can kiss them some more. Also it starts with the lyric "I got shit to do/I know you do too" which I find impossibly endearing. This song is #RelationshipGoals for that small shameful part of me that wants to live forever in the first date montage from a rom com. That part of me is deeply opposed to the revival of emo, but we don't let her talk much. Probably chosen for me because: There's also that small shameful part of me that sincerely likes the song "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. Anamanaguchi Again, forgot to write down the song title like a dick. But I used to almost know Anamanaguchi! My friend knew the guy in it I think, and she was really into this local 8 Bit scene, and then one of her other friends wanted to do a Broadway 8 Bit mashup and she said "Hey Hannah, you've got a musical theater degree you're not using, right?" and so that's how I got roped into singing a bunch of songs from Wicked at an 8 Bit show at I wanna say General Assembly (but probably back when it was still Galapagos) which was crazy fun and also very strange and it was when my leg was broken so I had this weird Robot Foot Boot Thing and I was dyeing my hair black at the time and for some reason opted to wear this truly awful sweater I used to have so there ARE pictures of this event somewhere but sweet Jesus I look bad in them and I'm roughly 95% sure that Anamanaguchi headlined that show. Anyway whichever Anamanaguchi tune made it onto my playlist last week was enjoyable, because I looked down at my phone to see who was playing and said "Hey! Anamanaguchi! I used to almost know them!" Probably chosen for me because: Spotify went on my Facebook, found those awful pictures, and is musically sub-tweeting me. Overall Rating: There were a couple of good songs outside of the ones I listed, but not many. I give this playlist 2 Panics out of 10 Discos. This week I promise to take better notes. I have been considering actively fucking with the algorithm for the purposes of Journalism, and when you see what they gave me this week after a day-long rock musical binge you'll understand why.
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