June 2006 Music Diary

For those of you who don't know, every month I blog what music I'm listening to at the moment.

A while back, I read about Cameron Crowe and his mix tapes that he makes every month - he can go back and listen to previous tapes and remember what he was doing that month. Never above stealing from my heroes, I give you the music that iTunes says I've been listening to most this month-

One - Mary J. Blige & U2
Take It Back - Pink Floyd
How to Save a Life - The Fray
What You Know - T.I.
Life is a Highway - Tom Cochrane
No More I Love Yous - Annie Lennox
We Never Change - Coldplay
World In My Eyes - Depeche Mode

I've avoided the new cover of One. I'd read some pretty unflattering things about it, but I finally broke down and plunked down my 99 cents for it... and I love it. Mary J. Blige gives the song less of a "son vs father" feel to it and more of a "woman vs man" - and nobody sings about an angry woman in love like Mary.

Pink Floyd is one of those bands that everyone told me how great they are. Yes, I've seen the Wall and yes they're talented. But I still didn't "get" Pink Floyd. Thanks to the good people at Pandora, they found a Pink Floyd track that crawled into my head and stuck there.

You know the sure way to sell a bunch of records? Write a catchy song, call it "How to Save a Life", and then watch as your tune gets used as catchy background music on both Grey's Anatomy and Scrubs.

Living in San Diego for a few years ruined my appreciation of good rap and hip-hop, because San Diego has a horrendously bad rap and hip-hop scene. If your choice is bad rap or no rap? No rap wins by a LANDSLIDE. As a result of being out of touch, the whole ATL/Ludacris/krunk style has never hooked me, which must because it's either not that good or because I'm now old and unable to appreciate it. Then I heard this track by T.I. on the radio and now I'm discovering this great stuff. "What You Know" reminds me of summer nights in high school, with bass speakers booming in the trunk, rolling down Brookhurst Ave towards Huntington Beach - cruising below the speed limit so everybody would notice. Man, were we uncool...

"Life is a Highway" is back in the regular rotation thanks to the Rascal Flatts cover on the Cars soundtrack. For whatever reason, I remember exactly when I first heard this song. I was a kid and my alarm clock went off in the morning and this song was on it. Took me a decade or so to get this catchy tune out of my head, and now years later thanks to Cars, it's back.

While I've been singing the praises of Pandora, Pandora also played an awful track for me - some cover of "No More I Love Yous" that made me want to stab out my ear drums with a PDA stylus. I cleansed my palate by listening to the original.

The Coldplay and Depeche Mode tracks are just random selections that have gotten played a few times this month, when iTunes was set to randomize music. No significance to them, except I wrote to them this month.