Friday, May 13, 2011

100 Things I Love About Music

Now, this list probably isn't going to be as eclectic or interesting as my previous ones, just because while I love listening to music, I'm not as big a student of it as I am TV, film, and comics.  That being said, once my uncle pointed out I could also include aspects of musicals into the list, well, the compulsion was upon me.

  1. "Bandages" by Hot Hot Heat
  2. Using music for mnemonic devices
  3. "Anna Begins" by Counting Crows
  4. "Weird" Al Yankovic
  5. Stephen Sondheim
  6. The chorus to Letters to Cleo's "Here and Now"
  7. Concept albums
  8. "Agony" (and its Reprise) from Into the Woods
  9. "Piece of My Heart" sung by Janis.  And only by Janis.  Nobody else.  Period.
  10. Genre-bending cover songs . . . unless they violate the conditions of #9 
  11. Cake's Fashion Nugget
  12. Kronos Quartet's score for Requiem for a Dream   
  13. The bridge of Blues Traveller's "The Hook"
  14. "The Song That Goes Like This" in Spamalot 
  15. Kristin Chenoweth's performance of "Glitter and Be Gay" from Candide 
  16. "Jenny Says" by Cowboy Mouth
  17. "Are You Gonna Go My Way?" by Lenny Kravitz
  18. Barenaked Ladies
  19. "Stay" by Lisa Loeb
  20. "Money, Money" from Cabaret
  21. Kingston Trio
  22. Linda Ronstadt's Greatest Hits Volume 1 
  23. "Kamikaze" by Five Iron Frenzy
  24. Foo Fighters
  25. "Getting Married Today" from Company 
  26. B-52's Cosmic Thing 
  27. "Black Sheep" by Metric
  28. Mamas and the Papas
  29. "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler
  30. The Cardigans
  31. "Freak on a Leash" by Korn
  32. "Big-Ass Rock" from The Full Monty
  33. White Stripes channeling a song from Citizen Kane in "Union Forever"
  34. Our Lady Peace's Clumsy 
  35. "Lucas with the Lid Off" by Lucas
  36. "Love Will Keep Us Together" by Captain and Tenile
  37. Bjork
  38. Portishead's Dummy 
  39. "Inside Out" by Eve 6
  40. How the hymn "Church in the Wildwoods" always makes me think of my Papaw
  41. "Adelaide's Lament" from Guys and Dolls 
  42. "Trigger Happy Jack" by Poe
  43. "You Gotta Be" by Des'ree
  44. Ben Folds
  45. The dark and twisty lyrics of Ludo
  46. Aimee Mann's music from Magnolia
  47. "Pardon Me" by Incubus
  48. "I've Got Friends" by Manchester Orchestra
  49. "Sick and Beautiful" by Artificial Joy Club
  50. Nirvana on MTV Unplugged 
  51. Rebekkah del Rio's accoustic Spanish language cover of Roy Orbison's "Crying"
  52. "My First, My Last, My Everything" by Barry White
  53. The Swell Season
  54. Old 97s
  55. "Come Monday" by Jimmy Buffett
  56. "Sci-Fi Wasabi" by Cibo Matto
  57. "Smackwater Jack" by Carole King
  58. "Sleep to Dream" by Fiona Apple
  59. Weezer's debut album
  60. "I Know" by Dionne Farris
  61. Jason Mraz
  62. "Dry the Rain" by The Beta Band
  63. "Overkill" by Colin Hay
  64. "Teenage F.B.I." by Guided by Voices
  65. Allison Krause and Union Station
  66. "Reflections" by Diana Ross and the Supremes
  67. Sutton Foster singing "Gimme Gimme" from Thoroughly Modern Millie 
  68. All the songs from "Once More with Feeling," the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical
  69. "What it Takes" by Aerosmith
  70. "I Hate Music" by Andrew Paul Woodworth
  71. "Fallin'" from They're Playing Our Song
  72. "How Shall I See You Through My Tears" from A Gospel at Colonus
  73. The horn section in Blood Sweat & Tears' "Spinning Wheel"
  74. The Beatles
  75. The Who's Tommy 
  76. "I Can't Get Next to You" by The Temptations
  77. "Man of Constant Sorrow" by the Soggy Bottom Boys
  78. A Mighty Wind soundtrack and its pitch-perfect folk music parodies
  79. The Star Wars cantina song
  80. "El Paso" by Marty Robins
  81. Dada
  82. "Eli's Coming" by Three Dog Night
  83. Green Hornet theme song
  84. Flight of the Conchords
  85. "El Tango de Roxanne" from Moulin Rouge
  86. Toad the Wet Sprocket's Dulcinea
  87. Michael Jackson's "You Can't Win" from The Wiz 
  88. "Nothing Compares 2U" by Sinead O'Connor
  89. "Zombie" by The Cranberries
  90. "Lightning Strikes" by Lou Christie
  91. A cappella groups
  92. "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse
  93. "Breaking the Girl" by Red Hot Chili Peppers
  94. "Push" by Matchbox 20
  95. "Through With You" by Maroon 5
  96. Sound of Urchin
  97. "Vampires Will Never Hurt you" by My Chemical Romance
  98. "Understanding in a Car Crash" by Thursday
  99. "Gold Lion" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
  100. Queen.

      Wednesday, May 4, 2011

      100 Things I Love About Comics

      Yes, the list making bug has hit hard -- first movies, then TV, and now, comic books.  Granted, this one will be a bit more niche than the last two, but for the three people who'll actually read it -- and the one of those who will actually get 98% of the references without the aide of Google -- I hope it's worth it.  Again, I tried to keep it as varied as possible, so it wasn't just me listing 100 things I love about The Legion of Super Heroes and Alan Moore. Now, for those of you who do read this, please, leave thoughts on your favorite things about comics as well.
      1. Swashbuckling Nightcrawler
      2. Finding some new layer or detail the first half-dozen times I read Watchmen
      3. Old school Justice League/Justice Society team-ups
      4. The Squadron Supreme

      5. The Kessels' Hawk and Dove run
      6. M.O.D.O.K.
      7. Projectra's execution of Nemesis Kid
      8. The art of George Perez
      9. Blue Devil as weirdness magnet
      10. Ms. Marvel
      11. Ambush Bug
      12. The New Mutants watching Magnum, P.I. 
      13. Steve Ditko's Dr. Strange
         
      14. Kurt Busiek's Astro City 
      15. John Ostrander's Suicide Squad 
      16. The reveal of who the Thunderbolts really were
      17. The Green Lantern Oath
      18. Spider Jerusalem's filthy assistants 
      19. The Great Lakes Avengers
      20. Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew
      21. Constantine conning the devils to cure his cancer
      22. Steve Gerber's Defenders
         
      23. Havok's original costume and power signature
      24. Ronnie Raymond/Professor Stein as Firestorm
      25. Alan Davis
      26. Babe the Blue Ox's fantasy life in Jack of Fables 
      27. Ralph and Sue Dibney
      28. "We have become like unto tiny refreshing gods!"
      29. Tim Drake as Robin
      30. The original Spider-Woman series, in all its oddball glory
      31. The Dark Phoenix Saga
      32. Gail Simone.
      33. "One punch! One punch!"
      34. Bill Willingham's Elementals 
      35. Vril Dox.
      36. Learning more about WWII from All-Star Squadron than I did in history class
      37. Songbird
      38. Tony Isabella's Justice Machine 
      39. Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol
      40. Beast and Wonder Man's bromance
      41. Scourge taking out a whole bar of villains in one fell swoop
      42. Barry Ween, Boy Genius
      43. Phil Foglio's Angel and the Ape mini
      44. Peter David
      45. Pamcakes
      46. Stupid stupid rat creatures in Bone
      47. "Church and State" arc in Cerebus 
      48. Wolff & Byrd: Supernatural Attorneys at Law
      49. Mark Gruenwald's Quasar
      50. The reinvention of Machine Man in Nextwave
      51. Reinventing Arthurian legend in Mage: The Hero Discovered 
      52. Joe Hill's Locke & Key 
      53. Amadeus Cho
      54. Alan Moore's Supreme
      55. Paul Grist's Jack Staff
         
      56. Star Trek loving demon Glumph in Boneyard 
      57. Micronauts
      58. Alternate timelines
      59. Red Kryptonite
      60. Legion of Super-Heroes tryouts
      61. Tony Chu's interesting talent
      62. James Robinson's Starman
      63. Deadpool traveling back in time to Amazing Spider-Man #47
      64. Parodying Dune and Harry Potter at the same time
      65. Improbable team-ups
      66. Frank Miller's Daredevil
      67. The fact that Marvel decided to team up their Blaxploitation hero and Kung-Fu hero, and it actually turned out to be even more awesome than it sounds

      68. Wise-cracking heroes
      69. Dan Slott's She-Hulk 
      70. Christopher Priest
      71. Nova, the Human Rocket
      72. Shared universes and continuities
      73. Delirium of the Endless
      74. T. Campell's Fans!
      75. The sound effects in The Incredible Hercules

      76. One-Who-Knows
      77. Dynamic Duo
      78. Warriors Three
      79. Frightful Four
      80. Fatal Five
      81. The Secret Six
      82. Salem's Seven
      83. Offical Handbook to Marvel Universe
      84. The Vision losing his temper
      85. Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
      86. Herbie Popnecker: The Fat Fury
      87. The Tarot issue of Promethea 
      88. Tenzil for the defense
      89. Kitty Pryde
      90. Barbara Gordon using her library and information sciences abilities to fight evil
      91. Clan Apis
      92. Thinly veiled hero/villain analogues
      93. Unstable molecules
      94. The Foot Soldiers
      95. Warren Ellis' Global Frequency 
      96. Marvel's "Cosmic" books
      97. Aaron William's PS238 
      98. Alan Moore's From Hell
      99. Phil Hester's The Wretch
      100. Avengers assembling.