Ruth Sadelle Alderson

This was an interesting project for me. I thought it would be more of a challenge than it was. I had no problem coming up with 22 songs I like, and I enjoyed telling you stories about each song I was recommending. I also love doing an LJ post a day. I'm thinking about coming up with some kind of scheme to keep me on track with making a post a day.

The question I have is: how was this for you? Did you enjoy seeing what I like and what I had to say about it? Did you listen to any of it? Did you discover anything you liked?

I told you I was making a playlist of these 22 days on imeem. I suspect it doesn't work particularly well as a playlist since I was thinking in terms of individual songs and not in terms of putting them together, but here it is anyway in case you want to listen to all 22 days of songs at once.


22 Days of Music 2009

Today is Chris's turn to be featured here on 22 Days of Music. I'm sure he's very proud. (I have to tell you that I set up a comprehensive Google alert for him, and since I have my LJ set to let Google index it, when I post about him, it shows up in my Google alerts the next day, and makes me laugh.)

I thought about picking one of his new songs as Christian Kane, but I've already told you about how much I like "Let Me Go." Plus, when I'm listening to him, I'm usually listening to Kane songs off of their two CDs. (For those of you who don't know: Kane was Chris and Steve and sometimes some other people, while Chris's solo career now has varying other band members backing him up.) According to iTunes' Top 25 Most Played feature, there are two Kane songs off of Kane: Acoustic Live In London! (I swear the exclamation point is there on the CD even though it doesn't show up that way on the merch page) tied for my third most listened to song. (While twenty of the twenty-five are Kane songs, neither of the top two are.) "Track 29" seems more appropriate for the day before Valentine's Day because their intro commentary for it tells us that it's about a girl and because part of what I love about it is that Chris is laughing at the beginning. But it's also Friday the 13th, which seems like a day for turning things on their heads, which is why today's song is "Mary Can You Come Outside." Where else are you going to find a badass country singer doing a song about the dilemmas involved in overhearing a domestic violence situation? In the intro track just before this begins, Chris says, "I went over and politely knocked on the door and then politely beat the shit out of him."


Mary Can You Come Outside - Kane

Wow, only three more days to go. I'm excited about the next two (surely you've guessed who gets to be last before Valentine's Day), and I continue to be indecisive about the last.

I've been listening to my entire iTunes library (well, the music part of it anyway) on shuffle, and I heard this song today and realized that it, not "Amazing Grace," was the Ani DiFranco song I wanted to post. (I'd thought it was "Amazing Grace," and was disappointed when I actually listened to "Amazing Grace" and realized it wasn't what I was thinking of.) The song is a live version of "Fire Door," wherein she also sings part of "Amazing Grace" (hence the confusion).


Fire Door (Live) - Ani DiFranco

Today's song is a shout-out to all those old-school DamonAffleck fangirls still hanging around. I have this version of Stevie Nicks' "Edge of Seventeen" on Live Planet & Beyond! (The EP), where the track listing lakeeffectgirl sent with the CD describes it as "(The Ballad of Matt & Ben As Teenagers)."


Edge of Seventeen - Stevie Nicks

I think I've mentioned that some members of my ballet class and I had fun making a game out of identifying what musical the instrumental versions of songs we dance to are from. I've leveled up now to the more advanced class, and our teacher doesn't use as many pieces of music from musicals, and the tone of the other students is a little too serious for such frivolity. Today, however, she used one that it had taken us a couple of weeks to identify. We knew it was an Andrew Lloyd Webber song, and I was pretty sure it was from Evita, but we had to keep listening and figure out what we expected the lyrics to be and then use that to identify the song as "Another Suitcase In Another Hall," which is actually a somewhat unlikely song to have as a ballet practice piece that may be used with small children. Although I suppose you might not notice that without the lyrics.

I was hoping to find the version off of the 1979 soundtrack, which is the one I used to own, but if it's at imeem, it's not identified as such. This is a nice version.


Another Suitcase In Another Hall - Evita

I only realized this is day 13 when I looked it up to see where I was to title this entry. I feel like 13 should have something wacky or bizarre or significantly obscure, but that's not what you're getting today.

In terms of songs from Rent, the obvious one would be "Seasons of Love" or possibly "Rent," or even "Life Support," but instead I'm choosing "La Vie Boheme." I like it. It's catchy. It contains a lot of plot. It's also funny, and if there's one thing filmmakers who make movie versions of musicals forget it's that they're often comedies. Rent's an opera, of course, and not a comedy, but the stage version is still much lighter than the film version.


La Vie Boheme - Rent

You may think "I Put a Spell on You" is something of a standard and you know it well, but you don't know it until you know Natacha Atlas's version. Natacha Atlas is a favorite of belly dancers, and I think this and "Mistaneek" are the two of her songs that I've seen soloists at the Bistro use most.


I Put A Spell On You - Natacha Atlas

One of the mixes I downloaded had "Under Pressure" on it. "Under Pressure" is a good song, but, at the risk of mocking, I have to admit that every time it comes on the radio, I'm disappointed that it's not Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby."


Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice

I downloaded a bunch of mixes, mostly fic soundtracks. The one to the fic that was so bad I couldn't believe I was still reading it was possibly worse than the fic, and so I won't include it on the list. But let me give you a rundown of the others:

A Soft Place to Fall (the soundtrack is at the end of the entry) - The story itself has some problems that are mostly due to the fact that the author isn't a native speaker, but she did a really nice job of capturing the atmosphere of the world she was developing, and the soundtrack does a mostly good job of reflecting that atmosphere. The third track, Dar Williams' "The One Who Knows," is a good song but out of place, both because all of the other singers are men and because all of the others are country songs, but other than that, I've really been enjoying it.

Do It Again and Dreams of Men and Machines - These two are fanmixes rather than fic soundtracks. I don't know how much I like either of them on their own, but they both do a good job of capturing the mood they're going for.

Just Want to Drive 'Til I Run Out of Money - I read the story before I downloaded the soundtrack, and I didn't expect to like the soundtrack based on the story. I'm not sure why; I just reskimmed the story and the story makes it obvious that it's more country than the indie/alt rock I expected. I love this soundtrack. I had a hard time getting to this post because it took me so long to force myself to stop listening to this one and see about the others I hadn't yet listened to.

Nosce te ipsum - This is an interestingly odd mix. I think it does capture the feeling of the fic (which is also excellent). There's one song that I may have to also copy over into my Belly Dance folder.

Open Mike Night at the Fremont - I like some of the songs, but I'm not sure it's that good either as a mix or as a representation of the story, which is fantastic. (I did say out loud, "Hey, it's that song. I love this song!" when Matt Nathanson's "Come On Get Higher" started playing.)

The Fortress of a High Mind (soundtrack at the end of the post) - I didn't think I would like this based on the story, and I was right. I mention it here because some of you might like it - it's not bad in itself, just not my kind of music.

Veterans of the Psychic Wars (WARNING 1: This contains spoilers for the story; scroll to the bottom to the soundtrack download link if you haven't read the story yet. And you should read the story, even if you're not into J2. It's a fantastic piece of sci fi, and there isn't that much sex. WARNING 2: One of the songs will only unzip from the file with WinRAR; see the comments on the post for more information.) - This is another awesome soundtrack where I both like the music and think it beautifully captures the mood of the story. You may be tempted to dismiss it because it includes a Backstreet Boys song. Don't. Trust me when I tell you it fits and it all works.

Walls - I thought I would like this more than I did. Some of the songs are good, but it kind of left me cold, and I did like the story.

why don't you do right? - I haven't read the story yet, but I downloaded the soundtrack anyway. It's awesome. I listened to it while reading a trashy novel today, and it's sexy enough for that use too.

Yes Sir (I Don't Mean Maybe) - I mentioned this before, and it hasn't really grown on me since then. I do like some of the songs, but there are too long stretches where I don't. It might be more your thing than mine.

Bottom Line
If you're going to download only my highest recommended of these, that would be Just Want to Drive 'Til I Run Out of Money (country), Veterans of the Psychic Wars (rock, I guess), and why don't you do right? (jazz). (I was going to recommend one best, but I couldn't narrow it down to just one!)

There's probably a time in life when you're supposed to discover Jeff Buckley's version of "Hallelujah." I think that, as with many things related to music, I missed that time. I'd heard of it by the time it was on The O.C. the first time ("The Model Home"), and I remembered it and therefore got the reference when I heard Imogen Heap's version over Marissa's death in "The Graduates," but I didn't know it particularly well or have much of an opinion of it. Sometime in the last year or so, Seth Roberts had a comparison of "Hallelujah" versions (some entertainment site/magazine, possibly Entertainment Weekly, did the same thing at about the same time), and I got caught up listening to it over and over again. I'm in a kind of melancholy mood today, so it seems appropriate.


Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley

(Dear imeem, Please tell me which things will embed the whole thing and which only clips. No love, Ruth You can also hear this with the video.)