For a couple of years now, I have made it a habit to buy myself a new album of some kind before embarking on any trip. For LCC New Orleans tour, it was Lady Gaga's Born This Way; for Folk ChoIreland, it was Ingrid Michaelson's Human Again; for Edinburgh last month, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. When I went to buy myself a new album to accompany me on spring break, though, I found that my iTunes money supply had mysteriously dwindled to a dollar and some change. I went to my purchase history, knowing that I share an iTunes account with my sister, and prepared for the damage. Twenty country and pop songs. My interest in country music ranks consistently just below my interest in how Citigroup stock is doing, so I skipped over those to peruse the Top 40 fare. Finding some Bieber on the list, I decided to download the most promising selections from the sibling's new purchases and make them my spring break playlist. Despite having no initial interest in any of the songs, I ended up listening to the playlist on an endless loop for the entirety of break. I have so many thoughts on the songs, in fact, that I decided I needed to break them down in a blog post.
Do any of you particularly care what I listened to on spring break? Probably not. But do you or should you have a burning desire to learn as much about me as possible to most effectively model your lives on my own? Yes. So here it is, folks, the official Domerberry playlist of SB2K13.
"Stay" - Rihanna (featuring some person I don't care about called Mikky Ekko). I'm sometimes embarrassed to admit that I would still call myself a pretty big Rihanna fan, but this song reminds me that that is exactly what I am. This song is catchy. It's a very angsty, emotional kind of song, which makes it fun to sing along to when I'm alone in my flat (sorry, neighbors). Mostly, though, this song makes me wonder why on earth iTunes has it labeled as "Explicit." This song seems pretty squeaky-clean by Rihanna standards. If we're handing out explicit labels for seriously far-fetched innuendos nowadays, I've got a long list of new additions for your "explicit" stock, iTunes: it's called every song ever.
When I Was Your Man - Bruno Mars. Pretty much the guy version of "Stay." Admittedly, the subjects don't really have that much in common. But they're both sad, they both pretty much only require a vocal range that stretches from three notes below middle C to five or six notes above it, and when you're half asleep while listening to them, they literally sound like one, seven-minute-long breakup ballad. Thanks, Ri-Ri and B.Mars, for making the start of my playlist really, really depressing.
Suit & Tie (featuring the inexplicably caps-locked JAY Z) - Justin Timberlake. Oh, JT, I love you so. This song is so catchy, and so deeply inappropriate. I had this stuck in my head for the entirety of break, and now that I'm writing about it, it's stuck in my head again. And do I care? No. No I do not.
Carry On - Fun.. This song has got to stop doing what it's doing to me. Considering how many inside-joke-y references to "Some Nights" I've made since last summer all over my blog and my everyday conversations, it should come as a surprise to no one that I fell immediately in love with this song. Though I have still yet to venture particularly far into the world of Fun. beyond their soaring, literary, and Billboard Hot 100-approved singles, I have adored Fun. in the contexts where I've experienced them. I loved "We Are Young" as soon as that started happening, I have based my entire life around "Some Nights," and now, I have "Carry On" to keep the Fun.-induced tears tradition alive. "But I like to think I can cheat it all to make up for the times I've been cheated on"? Are you kidding me? STOP BEING PERFECT, FUN.. JUST STOP.
Troublemaker - Olly Murs. Last summer, my eleven-year-old host sister in Edinburgh told me, in a game of music-swapping we were all playing, that Olly Murs was, like, the best thing ever. If I liked One Direction, she said (which, of course, I unabashedly do), I would loooove him. Cut to ten months later, this song finds its way onto my iPod, and we are shown once again that the tastes of eleven-year-olds are and will always be an accurate reflection of my own. Also, in listening to it so many times, I have discovered that the chorus of this song overlaps almost perfectly with the chorus of Britney Spears' "Crazy." If I liked this song before making this realization, I now like it enough to make it the first dance at my wedding.
Okay I'm kidding. Sort of.
Mirrors - JT again. I don't understand what this song means. I don't even remotely understand. I thought it might have been a really dirty but cleverly coded innuendo that was just flying over my head, but then he dedicated the video to his grandparents. Mostly, I choose to ignore the confusing words to this one and just focus on what it's really good for: a taste of what N*SYNC would sound like if they made a record in 2013. Seriously, everyone, go listen to this song again. Post-modern boy band. Right on down to the "Is this secretly dirty?" lyrics, that is all it is. And again...I am not complaining.
C'Mon - Ke$ha. Ke$ha is my girl, and I have no shame in owning up to that fact. Like all of Ke$ha's music, this song simultaneously makes me want to dance and makes me sit back and ponder for hours how anyone could even invent such a life for themselves as Ke$ha's bottle-of-Jack-toothbrushing self manages to do. Furthermore, the full verse of rhymes on the syllable "rrr," set in motion by the mind-blowing line "Feelin' like a sabertooth ti-grr," has actually changed my life. I almost applauded from my seat on the Stansted Airport bus when I heard these rhymes for the first time. You've done it again, Ke$ha. Go buy yourself some soap.
Beauty and a Beat - Justin Bieber. I love Justin Bieber and everything that he does. This is not news.
My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light It Up) - Fall Out Boy. Quite honestly, I am not sure how this song made it onto my sister's list of recent purchases. There is only one person in this family who identifies as faux-edgy enough to listen to Fall Out Boy back in the time when listening to Fall Out Boy was a thing, and that person is me. This song has also shown me that, unsurprisingly, I am entirely out of touch with what the young kids are and aren't listening to these days. I assumed that new Fall Out Boy music was the kind of thing that the young folks - like the college-junior folks - could really only embrace through a deeply refined sense of irony. Fall Out Boy? Sewww retro - and yet so recent. Given the complete lack of irony that characterizes the rest of this playlist, though, it seems that this is not the case. Meanwhile, as I dissected the layers of context and meaning that surrounded my sister's purchase of this song, I also came inadvertently to discover that I really, really like this song. Pete Wentz, there may still be a place for you hiding somewhere in my heart, even after all these years.
Those nine songs - and pretty much just those nine songs - were the soundtrack to my spring break. They accompanied me through two countries, four cities, two flights, three trains, and a bus ride, and they have done me well. I can now answer the question, "What's the cool jams?", and I know that not only can one feel like a sabertooth tiger, but one can rap about that feeling in such a way that it rhymes with kosher. Thanks, SB2K13 playlist. You've set the bar pretty darn high for Easter.
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