Pop Music Catharsis
A playlist for feeling bad so I can get feeling good.
"A Dustland Fairytale," The Killers
This song is dusty, like the title suggests, Midwestern, iconic Americana, with the Killers touch of New Wave-inspired Vegas-and-neon drama. See the band, including lead singer Brandon Flowers, perform this song on Letterman’s show, letting the orchestra behind them amp up the emotion without overpowering the pop.
Click ahead for 13 more great songs.
"Alone in Kyoto," Air
Entirely instrumental, a sad, slow and ethereal song from the soundtrack to Lost in Translation. Yes, if you haven’t figured it out by now, my own personal emotional difficulties are taking on a vulnerable, waifish, girly sheen, Sofia-Coppola-style. (But that’s what great about Coppola; her movies are campaigns to acknowledge the way that even privileged young girls suffer. I’m not being ironic at all saying that. She picks great music for her films, as well; both this soundtrack as well as the one from Marie Antoinette are in heavy rotation on my iPod right now.)
"Baby Got Going," Liz Phair
Sort of a strange song, not really representative of Liz Phair at all, all synth-pop background and tongue-twister lyrics, but it’s a driving force, from the lack of lyrical breaks to the images of trains and trucks crashing through everything. Liz Phair is a shit-kicker, and it is a shit-kicking song.
"Chasing Pavements," Adele
Adele has got an incredibly dynamic voice, and in this song she goes from breathy to bombastic without losing any power. As far as the Internet can inform me, "chasing pavements" is an expression Adele coined herself with the song; it’s kind of like "chasing rainbows" or "tilting at windmills," an exhausting but ultimately futile activity. The pavement Adele is chasing is a man, of course.
"Fire Island," Fountains of Wayne
This song is just here for silliness, because the lyrics make me laugh. Still, it’s also a great song because the tune is strangely melancholy and nostalgic. It’s incredibly evocative (albeit of a time I never really had—rebellious youth), and I respect the lyrics for the lovely details (what happens at parties when the parents aren’t there? Jumping on the couch, skinny dipping and "feedin’ chocolate to the dog" of course).
"Grapevine Fires," Death Cab for Cutie
This is a strange song, seemingly about a guy and his woman and her daughter, who all escape into a cemetery during a widespread fire. As he watches the world get wrecked around them, he thinks how lucky he is to have them. I really like the way Death Cab can render an image or a situation in a way that is completely unexpected. Even though it sounds terrible, isn’t there something kind of charming about letting mass destruction reaffirm how great you have it?
"It’s All Over But the Crying," Garbage
Garbage does a great break-up song, but this one is especially poignant. The chorus laments, "Everything you think you know, baby, is wrong, and everything you think you had, baby, is gone." This should be too close to what I’m going through personally, it should devastate me right now, but I’m drawn to the music of suffering. It’s all about catharsis, after all. Plus, the tune is haunting and beautiful.
"Lovesick Mistake"/"Love Save the Empty," Erin McCarley
These songs appear one after the other on the album (Love Save the Empty, which I’m sort of addicted to right now). McCarley’s just offering basic, slightly shallow pretty-girl pop, but her voice is better than most—just a hint of jazz, just a touch of edge—and these two songs bring great sweeping, melodious floods of mildly adolescent angst. I wonder if Sofia Coppola has heard of her yet.
"Mrs. Leroy Brown," Loretta Lynn
A sequel song of sorts, Lynn responded to Jim Croce's classic "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" with a song about what that man’s wife would be contending with. Like her bad man, Mrs. Leroy Brown is pretty bad herself: she empties their shared bank account, rents a limo and has it driven into the bar where Leroy’s chatting up a lady. And then? "Gonna grab her by her phony ponytail, gonna sling her around and around – When she wakes up, she’ll know she met up with mad Mrs. Leroy Brown." From Van Lear Rose, an awesome country-rock hybrid album that Lynn produced with Jack White of The White Stripes.
"Now We Can See," The Thermals
I’m kind of a sucker for songs whose choruses are nonsense sounds like “Oh way oh-oh oh-oh.” They’re so easy to sing along with! A great tune. No idea who The Thermals are, I got this as a free download from iTunes awhile back.
"Ride," The Vines
A bit more up-tempo than the rest of the stuff on this list, it feels a bit more raucous. (Especially in comparison to the others—have you ever noticed that about a mix? How a song can seem totally different depending on its mix neighbors?) Kind of a party song, a driving song, a let’s-get-drunk-and-who-cares? Kind of song. That behavior’s got its place, too.
"Time Won’t Let Me Go," The Bravery
Great guitar line on this one. There’s something uplifting about this, something about this song that recalls for me the experience of going through something emotional and difficult, but also coming through on the other side, strength regained and lesson learned. A song for the end credits of a movie.
"The Rake’s Song," The Decemberists
Just your average pop song about a discontented guy whose wife dies, and who decides to revive his bachelorhood by murdering all the children they had together. Yes, it’s totally perverse, and lead singer Colin Meloy delivers the lyrics like a confirmed psychopath, but damn if the tune isn’t really catchy.
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