Tag Archives: 30-day song challenge the Sequel

Something good can work: 30-Day Song Challenge, the Sequel, day 28 – a song you like by a band or artist you first discovered in the past year

I seem to discover lots of news bands that I like every year, and since this particular day of the challenge doesn’t ask me to pick my favorite – just a band I like – let’s keep it simple and pick one without overthinking it. Because if I start thinking about this one I’ll be here all night. Two-Door Cinema

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DJ Enhanced Interrogation Techniques: 30-Day Song Challenge, the Sequel, day 27 – a song you think would be an effective instrument of torture

It seems that America now officially believes in torture as a primary tool of investigation. And back in 2008, I did a little story on how, believe it or not, we are using music as an implement of torture. So I suppose today’s challenge has a dark side, huh? Mercifully for those suspected terrorists in captivity, DJ EIT (Enhanced Interrogation

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Another heart has made the trade: 30-Day Song Challenge, the Sequel, day 26 – a song by a band or artist you’d like to have dinner with

We’re going in a slightly different direction today. I mean, for a variety of artistic and intellectual reasons I’d love to have dinner with the greatest bands ever – The Fabs, The Stones, The Who, Zep, Floyd, U2, REM, Van Morrison, and a bunch of others. Then there’s this class of really cool, past and present indie artists from then

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I just don’t get it: 30-Day Song Challenge, the Sequel, day 22 – a song by the most overrated band or artist you can think of

The guy can’t sing (phrasing, anyone?) He can’t write songs. And while I’ve heard guitarists defend him, I’ve personally never seen or heard him play anything that strikes me as being more than sort of marginally competent. I would ask you to explain to me what the big deal is, but I’m afraid you’d try. So here’s a song by

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Meanwhile, American Idol is sucking your brains out like a zombie apocalypse: 30-Day Song Challenge, the Sequel, day 21 – a song by a band or artist that has never achieved the level of fame they deserve

Here’s one I’ve been waiting on. Few things reveal more about a society than its music. Plato explained that when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the state change with them. Argue chicken and egg on this if you like, but Jimmy Swaggart bitched about it and Pop Will Eat Itself sampled his rant in the intro to

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So lonesome I could fly: 30-Day Song Challenge, the Sequel, day 20 – a song that could easily have been written about your life

I’ve always felt strongly attuned to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s famous short story, “Ethan Brand.” The title character forsakes his life to search the world for the unpardonable sin. He finds it. It ends badly for him. The nature of the sin? He remembered with what tenderness, with what love and sympathy for mankind, and what pity for human guilt and woe,

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30-Day Song Challenge, the Sequel, day 18 – a song that makes you think of a place you’ve never been

So many places I haven’t been, so many places I want to go, so many songs about places. But I guess the place I haven’t been that I want to see the most is Scotland. My favorite Scottish artist is Fish. And as he sings here, when he was still with Marillion, he was born “with a heart of Lothian.”

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30-Day Song Challenge, the Sequel, day 17 – your favorite holiday song

And I’m back from several days of packing and moving, just in time to find this emotional and spiritual landmine waiting for me. [sigh] When you’re a kid in America, nothing is as tangibly magical as Christmas. The excitement, the presents, the lights, the sheer spectacle of the entire world gone shimmery. And nothing is more special than family, the

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Sax and violins: 30-Day Song Challenge, the Sequel, day 16 – your favorite song from a TV or movie soundtrack

Every movie has a soundtrack. And let’s be honest – most of them are as unmemorable as … well, as the movies themselves. At its best, though, the music captures the spiritual essence of the auteur‘s vision, interacting with the film in ways that are simply transcendent. One plus one equals infinity, and it’s impossible to ever conceive of song

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Something was always wrong: 30-Day Song Challenge, the Sequel, day 14 – a song you associate with breaking up

I imagine most of us have loved. And lost. I also imagine that most of us look back, on occasion, and wonder what the hell we were thinking. Some years ago I made what I still regard as the worst mistake of my life. When it went to hell it didn’t destroy the whole world, it didn’t leave me any

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I’d do anything to turn you on: 30-Day Song Challenge, the Sequel, day 13 – your favorite make-out song

In a way, this is kind of a trick question. If you’re doing it right, a song doesn’t last nearly long enough. So when I was creating 30-Day Song Challenge, the Sequel, maybe I should have designated day 13 for your favorite make-out album. In any case, this may be the single easiest day of either the original challenge or

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The Holy Trinity of Nu-Wave: 30-Day Song Challenge, the Sequel, day 12 – a song you love from the ’00s

If you’ve been following the series, you may have noticed that instead of simply offering up a song that fits the criteria (“a song you love from the ’00s”), I’m trying to write about songs that are in some way definitive. Maybe it was something that typified a dominant movement, or perhaps it was a tune that marked an important

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The nude that broke my heart: 30-Day Song Challenge, the Sequel, day 11 – a song you love from the ’90s

For a long time – basically, from the British Invasion through the end of the ’80s – there was a great deal of shared history between the rock of America and the UK. What was happening on one side of the pond made its way in short order to the other side, and this was generally a good thing. But

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