30 Day Song Challenge - Day 30: Your Favorite Song At This Time Last Year

Brandon Flower's "Crossfire" was my summer jam of 2010.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 29: A Song From Your Childhood

In my elementary school days I was convinced that every contemporary song on the radio was sung by the same person. I was wrong, there were actually two people. Phil Collins and Lionel Richie. Richie's "Say You, Say Me" takes me back...

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 28: A Song That Makes You Feel Guilty

I have an amazing relationship with my father and my kids receive all my attention as they are the most important thing in my life but still Harry Chapin's "Cat's In The Cradle" leaves me wracked with guilt every time I hear it. No link, so you're on your own if you feel the need to listen to this one...

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 27: A Song That You Wish You Could Play

If I could play The Killers "Human" like the fellow in this video my life would be complete.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 26: A Song That You Play On An Instrument

As a live musician my technique is limited at best and so is my repertoire but the teacher of my high school electronic music class gave me the task of learning Edvard Grieg's "In The Hall Of The Mountain King". To this day I can play the piece by memory with both hands on the piano.  I programmed two versions of the song for the class creating a traditional orchestral arrangement and a "rock" arrangement.  This version is better than both of my takes.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 25: A Song That Makes You Laugh

R Kelly's "Trapped In A Closet" is a full exploration of one of the most original song concepts ever.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 24: A Song That You Want To Play At Your Funeral

I can not approach this question with any sort of seriousness because I'm just not built that way but the topic is still an interesting one.  L7's "Pretend We're Dead" immediately springs to mind as do a couple of songs from The Smiths.  "Cemetery Gates" would be a nice choice and "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" would be amazing if I died in a very specific manner.  The over top emo thing to do would to drop John Cage's "4'33"" so everyone has to drink in the silence, but ultimately I would have to go with the fake Tupac song from Chapelle's Show.  It was the dopest song I ever wrote.



Chappelle's Show - Tupac is Alive from Dundy on Vimeo.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 23: A Song That You Want To Play At Your Wedding

I've been married for ages and didn't pay much attention to the music at our wedding. However, if I were to go back in time I would slip Freelance Hellraiser's "A Stroke Of Genius" on the soundsystem because marriage brings together two different people to create something better than they are alone.  Also this would rock a dance floor.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 22: A Song That You Listen To When You're Sad

Drink in the sadness listening to Moby's "Natural Blues".

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 21: A Song That You Listen To When You're Happy

Junior Senior "Move Your Feet" is fantastic when I am happy and not nearly as good when I am moody.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 20: A Song That You Listen To When You're Angry

Nine Inch Nails "Wish" is a great way to release some anger.  Actually, the he whole Broken EP is a cathartic experience.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 19: A Song From Your Favorite Album

Pet Shop Boys Behavior is my favorite album.  It's "Only The Wind".

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 18: A Song You Wish You Heard On The Radio

The year is 1993 and I am faithfully listening, as I did most Saturday mornings, to Rock Over London on Live 105 when I first heard this amazing blast of a song. Having listened to the show for some years at this point I knew that it often took awhile for the songs featured on the show to make it to the station's playlist. I waited patiently to hear The Auteurs "Lenny Valentino" on the radio again but that time never came.  Was this due to the increasingly US-centric content of the Modern Rock station as grunge took over?  I don't know, but I do know that I am still wishing this song received more than one spin on air nearly 20 years later. Listen and then tell me that I'm wrong.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 17: A Song That You Hear Often On The Radio

Is there any other song so popular across the radio dial in 2011 than Adele's "Rolling In The Deep"?  You can hear it playing on one station flip the dial and finish the song on another frequency. I can't knock the song's success even though it's not my cup of tea if only because some of my favorite bloggers proclaimed the genius of the song a year ago.  Sometimes the public does get it right.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 16: A Song That You Used To Love But Now Hate

Was there a time when I liked The Bravery's "An Honest Mistake"?  Embarrassingly, the answer is yes.  Picking up their album after I bought into the hype, strong write-ups in NME and the familiarity of the music what I discovered was the work of uninspired bandwagon jumpers.  I'm not a fan of the former Skabba The Hut.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 15: A Song That Describes You

There are times when I think that Pet Shop Boys "Too Many People" describes me well.  Not all the time though.



Just as an afterthought, if you do not own Alternative then you should do yourself a favor and buy it today.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 14: A Song That No One Would Expect You To Love

Do people expect me not to love ODB's "Got Your Money"? I do.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 13: A Song That Is A Guilty Pleasure

Remember when Ace Of Base were huge? Chartrigger does, but I was against them from the start. They are musically close to so many things that I love in music, but they did it all wrong. They were the kind of band that I was so passionate about disliking that I lectured my friends on why AOB were so wrong as we drove around listening to a cassette copy of their album I had checked out from the local library. Did listening to "The Sign" open up my eyes? Let's just keep that part quiet.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 12: A Song From A Band You Hate

Why do I hate Dave Matthews Band?  As one of the first non-alternative bands to breakthrough in the mid-90s, their rise in popularity marked a conservative streak in music which symbolically ended the dominance of the left-of-center music in the rock world. At that time I described the act as music for admins, in part due to the only DMB fans I knew actually were administrative assistants but mostly because their musical inoffensiveness so defines them that background music for corporate busy work is their natural function.  Over the years I have found that most of their fans only own a handful of albums because they just aren't into music which plays into a mention in The Onion that they are a sales powerhouse who rely "on the musical ignorance of their fans".  "You & Me" is a song that I have the misfortune of hearing often at work.  The chorus is a minefield of things that shouldn't happen in music.  "You and me together, we could do anything" has to be one of the most generic expressions of love ever test-marketed which is paired with a melody so lazy it sounds as if it was created by a child on a playground.  What really tops of the song is the faux jazz coda which adds absolutely nothing to the song but gives fans a reason to champion a very bland piece of pop rock as arty and innovative.  They are so very wrong.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 11: A Song From Your Favorite Band

"Every second counts when I am with you" and "I think you are a pig" don't belong in the same song.  This didn't occur to Bernard Sumner and the world is a better place for it.  I'm not suggesting that "Every Second Counts", the closing track on 1986's Brotherhood, is the greatest New Order song, but it does help explain their charm.  The lyrics may be be bonkers but the band acknowledges it on this self-produced track by leaving Sumner laughing at his own words on the record because the song is much bigger than the lyrics.  Little more than halfway through the running time the singing ends and the instruments take the melody soaring into a place that is almost too precious before the band's punk instincts take things down a notch.