Um... music suggestions? aka: Happy Birthday to *us*

[miminnehaha]

Hey, everybody (9 days, 20-some hours...)!  So, it's my first SU Season Premiere (flail!), which should be birthday gift enough... but I have to have something to do for the week between birth-day and New Content.  And, after all, it is tomorrow today for some of the fandom (Hey, Aussies!), so I'm not waiting until today's tomorrow to ask for a birthday gift we can all share.

I love my ipod.

So will everyone make a suggestion for songs to check out?  What's your new favorite?  What songs remind you of SU?  What old songs are you finding creepily resonant for today's world? I really want to know!

For a frame of reference, my fave playlist currently includes Vampire Weekend's whole new album (yes, you still call it an album; who knew?), Don McLean, George Winston, 1 new Pet Shop Boys, 1 old Rolling Stones, Garrison Keillor,* and a whole bunch of other really cool stuff.   Honest.   

_{*Titles available upon request.}

[Foxipher Jones]

A few songs off off Seanan McGuire's album Red Roses and Dead Things:
--The Black Death
--Silent Hill
--Dear Gina
--What A Woman's For

Poe's "Angry Johnny", and "Beautiful Girl"

Boulevard of Broken Songs

[MadGastronomer]

I usually just stick to the PTB's playlists.

[hawkwing_lb]

I've been listening obsessively to Mark Knopfler, Warren Zevon, and Heather Dale lately. And Amanda Palmer.

*may be entirely strange*

[Grayjack]

Another vote for Amanda Palmer, particularly anything on "Who Killed Amanda Palmer".  And just for fun "Evelyn Evelyn".  Maybe a little Zoe Keating too.

[glinda_w]

For some reason, I've got the Dies Irae from the Mozart Requiem stuck in my head when I think of the coming episode.

Does not bode well.

[el_jefe]

Apologies to the late Lane Staley, but the new Alice in Chains song "Check my Brain" comes to mind. . .

So I found myself in the sun, oh yeah
A hell of a place to end a run, oh yeah
California, I'm fine
Somebody check my brain
California's all right
Somebody check my brain
Check my brain

I walk these streets, I creep and I fall, oh yeah
When she sang I answered the call, oh yeah
California, I'm fine somebody check my brain
California's all right somebody check my brain
Aaaaah tears have filled my bones
Aaaaah years expended gone

guitar

I hung my guns and put em away, oh yeah
The trick of the trade, and by the way, oh yeah
California, I'm fine somebody check my brain
California's all right somebody check my brain

Aaaah tears have filled my bones
aaaah years expended gone
(Repeat)

Check my brain, check my brain ...

[Jezabella49]

I ran across Van Canto - Speed of Light, and it felt like it should be the background music, or maybe theme, for an SU episode.

I'm not as good at matching music to eps unless I happen to be reading the right one when the right song comes on, so I'm open to your assessment of this.

and just for fun... Apocalyptica - they do it with cellos! *is amazed*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G3Ny7ACtqM

[eschatonic]

Hooray for Apocalyptica!  The same people who introduced me to heavy metal cello also pointed me at Nox Arcana and Dead Can Dance, both of which are mostly instrumental but do have a very SU-ish ambience.

random others:
The Clash - London Calling
Oscar Brown Jr - Mr Kicks
Tears for Fears (actually I like Gary Jules' version better) - Mad World
Pennywise - Unknown Road
Bach - Toccata and Fugue in D minor
Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata

_{I was a band nerd in high school and college, can you tell? people ask me what my favorite band is and then give me funny looks when I say Bach.}

[miminnehaha]

Thank you, all of you-- I have had a lot of fun the last few days, listening to the songs you all mentioned.  I bought a few from itunes & added some more to my wish list. 
MG, you suggested going back to the playlists-- I spent a long time going through the ones Emma & Bear had given in Season 1... same as above, bought a few & wished a few more.

I think the songs that grab my attention at any given moment are the ones that resonate with whatever's on my mind (For example, sparkly vampire books: Furr/Blitzen Trapper, World Spins Madly On/Weepies, When She's Near/Fiction Family)... and when SU is on my mind, these are the songs that make me feel the way SU's existence makes me feel:

Afterlight  ~Clayhill 

The Earth Has Lost Its Hold  ~Calhoun

More than Alive  ~Hayden

We Will Fall Together  ~Streetlight Manifesto (a treatise on the fall of the angels...)


Pack Up Your Sorrows  ~Mimi & Richard Farina  (for Todd & Reyes)  this is all SU, but too soft for the less-than-poignant moments...


A New Beginning  ~26  ...very much "ecr" inducing, as it seems to me like Chaz or Hafs could have written it themselves.  "I'd love to say I'm sorry.  I'd love to say I'm wrong.  I wish I could control myself and feel like I belong."


No One Understands  ~Bayside.  "I've got your cure right here-- is that what you want to hear."  This gets my vote for SU theme song!

You might notice that almost all of these are new, but I think it's a synchronicity thing-- that our artists, musicians create work that resonates with where we're "at" in a given time...

[InkRose]

I guess I probably should've opened up a new thread for this, since I'm not specifically aiming this post at miminnehaha, but I guess this is as good a place as any. Just a few more or less general recommendations.

First off, a song that keeps whispering SU in the back of my mind, though I'm not entirely sure why: I Am the Void, by Dark Tranquillity (from the album We Are the Void, 2010). The band is a recent find for me, although they've been active since 1989. Melodic death metal from Gothenburg, Sweden. I guess it's the chorus: "I am the cold that speaks inside of you, I am the void that haunts you, I am the hollow that calls you out." Sort of keeps Bugging me.

Next, one that I can't help but love, and that in its lyrics just sums up perfectly what initially appealed to me (and still does) in much of Finnish metal: The Lay of Autumn, by Insomnium (from Across the Dark, 2009). Melancholy, melodic (death) metal.

Dein Herz, by L'Âme Immortelle (single and bonus track on Auf Deinen Schwingen (2006), also found on a German E. A. Poe tribute compilation that same year. The lyrics are a German translation of a poem of his. Chaz's posting of the Annabel Lee reading reminded me of this, as there's also a performance of Annabel Lee on that Poe tribute but I forget who by. Sir Christopher Lee performs a very pompous rendition of Eleanor on there as well. Can't seem to find mention of the compilation online and my CDs are still boxed up in storage so I can't check the details I'm afraid. Austrian electro-goth, shame they've been so quiet for the past few years again. No growling here, though some of the male vocals are distorted - but much less so than on their early albums.

Also, Amanda Palmer is still awesome.

And for some gorgeously emotional listening, I offer for your enjoyment the 2008 album Hindsight, by Anathema. Or Judgement (1999), or A Natural Disaster (2003?). Quite growl-free, aching songs that still bring me to the verge of tears every time. Especially this one: One Last Goodbye. And this one

[Elizabeth Bear]

Reminds me of two of my Anomaly songs, being Gary Numan's "Dark" and John Gorka's "Raven in the Storm."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6Wy88qSA5Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsIrMXMhTU0

I am the darkness in your daughter
I am the spot beneath the skin
I am the scarlet on the pavement
I am the broken heart within.

I won't take a train to nowhere
I will not touch just anyone
Ask a stranger why I'm waiting
In the chamber of a gun.

[antongarou]

I think my Nikki song is either "Gravity" or "The Tower"- both by Vienna Teng. Chaz is something much darker- maybe her "Hope on Fire" but I'm not sure. Hafidha is totally "Wings" by Echo's Children.

[miminnehaha]

It's tough to think of something to share- my ten-year-old is listening to George Winston doing Vince Guaraldi*... Hmmm, which of our characters would be listening to Peanuts piano?

*doesn't matter if it's Linus&Lucy or TNT, ten-year-olds play it LOUD.

[eschatonic]

It's tough to think of something to share- my ten-year-old is listening to George Winston doing Vince Guaraldi*... Hmmm, which of our characters would be listening to Peanuts piano?

*doesn't matter if it's Linus&Lucy or TNT, ten-year-olds play it LOUD.

All of them, but Brady and Reyes would do it ironically, and Faulkner would claim one of the kids put it in her playlist when she wasn't looking. The rest of them would bob their heads and either hum along or pretend to play piano on their desks, or both. Like everyone else does.