Favorite Songs of 2015
Jan. 4th, 2016 08:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretLast year I made a playlist for bookherd of my favorite songs from 2014. Here's the 2015 version.
Favorite Songs of 2015
-"Elevator Operator" by Courtney Barnett. "Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit" was my favorite new album this year, which should be of little surprise as I've posted about it several times and written fic for "Pedestrian at Best". I was torn between putting "Elevator Operator" here or putting "Pedestrian at Best" here or both, but my gut tells me "Elevator Operator" is a step up. The inversions it takes you through, with such wicked lyrical precision... it is a deep song disguised as something petty and insignificant, or vice versa.
-"Young Moses" by Josh Ritter, the best song on Ritter's new album, and it is no surprise a new Ritter album means a place on my best of 2015 list. I love what this song says about American faith in the context of traditional faith, and also faith as a journey of constantly growing.
-"Ready to Get Down" by Josh Ritter, the other best song on Ritter's new album. My favorite thing here is Ritter's riffs through Biblical storylines: "It's four long years studyin' the bible,/ Infidels, Jezebels, Salomes and Delilahs" and later "Every little thing they ever hoped you'd never figure out/ The Red Sea, the Dead Sea, the Sermon on the Mount." This is a song about how the antidote to bad religion is actually READING THE FUCKING BIBLE.
-"Lincoln's Nigun/ Yamin U'smol" by the Joey Weisenberg and the Mechon Hadar Ensemble, which has unexpectedly stolen my headspace for the past week after a friend posted a live recording on Facebook. It's a lovely melody, and the album cut is gorgeous, but the live cut is what really does it for me. It was recorded at SCI, a weeklong seminar in using Jewish song to uplift Jewish communities and hearing dozens of Jews singing together out of the pure joy of singing is just wonderful.
-"The Ascendant: No. 1. The Beginning And" by Wally Gunn, performed by Roomful of Teeth, setting of a poem by Maria Zajkowski. This was so lovely that I sought out the poetry book it's from, a small volume of simple but marvelously composed poems about death and what comes after. Unsurprisingly, Roomful of Teeth knocks it out of the park.
-"Somebody Will" by Ada Palmer, performed by Heather Dale. The original Sassafrass version is amazing, but isn't from 2015 but Heather Dale's new cover is pretty great, too. I first met this song at Balticon, when Jo Walton introduced it as her favorite song and asked Sassafrass to perform it as part of her Guest of Honor Q&A. It speaks so much to the geek's sense of purpose, that there is a meeting of the mind's between being dreamers and being practical workers toward a better future.
"No Anthems" by Sleater-Kinney... It was such a joy to hear Sleater-Kinney reunite this year, picking up their place in the culture as if a decade hadn't happened.
"Foreign Object" by the Mountain Goats because of all the lulz. Such a delightfully danceable melody, such delightfully murderous lyrics.
bookherd of my favorite songs from 2014. Here's the 2015 version.Favorite Songs of 2015
-"Elevator Operator" by Courtney Barnett. "Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit" was my favorite new album this year, which should be of little surprise as I've posted about it several times and written fic for "Pedestrian at Best". I was torn between putting "Elevator Operator" here or putting "Pedestrian at Best" here or both, but my gut tells me "Elevator Operator" is a step up. The inversions it takes you through, with such wicked lyrical precision... it is a deep song disguised as something petty and insignificant, or vice versa.
-"Young Moses" by Josh Ritter, the best song on Ritter's new album, and it is no surprise a new Ritter album means a place on my best of 2015 list. I love what this song says about American faith in the context of traditional faith, and also faith as a journey of constantly growing.
-"Ready to Get Down" by Josh Ritter, the other best song on Ritter's new album. My favorite thing here is Ritter's riffs through Biblical storylines: "It's four long years studyin' the bible,/ Infidels, Jezebels, Salomes and Delilahs" and later "Every little thing they ever hoped you'd never figure out/ The Red Sea, the Dead Sea, the Sermon on the Mount." This is a song about how the antidote to bad religion is actually READING THE FUCKING BIBLE.
-"Lincoln's Nigun/ Yamin U'smol" by the Joey Weisenberg and the Mechon Hadar Ensemble, which has unexpectedly stolen my headspace for the past week after a friend posted a live recording on Facebook. It's a lovely melody, and the album cut is gorgeous, but the live cut is what really does it for me. It was recorded at SCI, a weeklong seminar in using Jewish song to uplift Jewish communities and hearing dozens of Jews singing together out of the pure joy of singing is just wonderful.
-"The Ascendant: No. 1. The Beginning And" by Wally Gunn, performed by Roomful of Teeth, setting of a poem by Maria Zajkowski. This was so lovely that I sought out the poetry book it's from, a small volume of simple but marvelously composed poems about death and what comes after. Unsurprisingly, Roomful of Teeth knocks it out of the park.
-"Somebody Will" by Ada Palmer, performed by Heather Dale. The original Sassafrass version is amazing, but isn't from 2015 but Heather Dale's new cover is pretty great, too. I first met this song at Balticon, when Jo Walton introduced it as her favorite song and asked Sassafrass to perform it as part of her Guest of Honor Q&A. It speaks so much to the geek's sense of purpose, that there is a meeting of the mind's between being dreamers and being practical workers toward a better future.
"No Anthems" by Sleater-Kinney... It was such a joy to hear Sleater-Kinney reunite this year, picking up their place in the culture as if a decade hadn't happened.
"Foreign Object" by the Mountain Goats because of all the lulz. Such a delightfully danceable melody, such delightfully murderous lyrics.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-01-05 03:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-01-05 03:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-01-12 04:59 am (UTC)-"Elevator Operator" by Courtney Barnett. Interesting storytelling -- I definitely see what you mean by "inversions", and want to sit down with this song sometime and figure out what the heck is going on (if that's possible). I am favorably inclined toward any song that gives a shoutout to SimCity.
-"Young Moses" by Josh Ritter. I have no clear concept of what this song is about, but like all of Ritter's work, it's packed with intriguing phrases and complicated implications. I am glad to have more Ritter at hand.
-"Ready to Get Down" by Josh Ritter. This song might be about me in an alternate universe, where I start questioning everything at the age most people start questioning everything. Probably my favorite of this playlist.
-"Lincoln's Nigun/ Yamin U'smol" by Joey Weisenberg and the Mechon Hadar Ensemble. I don't know the melody or the language, but everything else about this is familiar to me, homey even: voices raised in harmony (without instruments), blooming with the joy that twines around the intersection of song, love of God, and a shared faith/culture. The part where the rhythm lags and someone starts clapping to pick up the beat again confirmed my hunch that this group was singing as equals, without someone up front keeping time for them all.
-"The Ascendant: No. 1. The Beginning And" by Wally Gunn, performed by Roomful of Teeth, setting of a poem by Maria Zajkowski. This one did the least for me, though it may open up more on subsequent listens. For me, less melodic is less accessible, though not necessarly less worth accessing.
-"Somebody Will" by Ada Palmer, performed by Heather Dale. How surprising and charming, in these days of envisioned dystopia, to hear a new song about a bright, exciting future. This one almost moved me to tears, it was so earnest and unabashedly idealistic.
"No Anthems" by Sleater-Kinney. I was never a Sleater Kinney fan in their heyday, despite plenty of exposure; I wasn't angry enough. This is a good song, though, and makes me think I should give them another chance, now that I'm angrier.
"Foreign Object" by the Mountain Goats. John Darnielle is having way too much fun with this gleefully gory song. I don't know whether to laugh or run away!
Thanks again! I wish I could reciprocate, but I just didn't listen to much (any) current music in 2015, for Reasons. I'm delighted to get a glimpse of some of the good stuff I missed.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-01-12 03:43 pm (UTC)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lekhah_Dodi#Text
To your right and your left you will burst forth,
And the Lord will you revere
By the hand of a child of Perez,
We will rejoice and sing happily.
Come in peace, crown of her husband,
Both in happiness and in jubilation
Amidst the faithful of the treasured nation
Come O Bride! Come O Bride!
(Child of Perez is an allusion either to King David or more likely to the eventual coming of the Messiah, of the heritage of David)
(no subject)
Date: 2016-01-13 04:34 am (UTC)