Song of the Day

As mentioned in my previous post, my computer was stolen a little over a month ago. About a month before that, my hard drive crashed and I lost all of my music and photos.

I don’t have very good luck with computers.

But an up side to these technical difficulties was that, not being able to rely on my faithful ITunes library, I started to venture out and discover some new music, soliciting mix CDs and downloads from friends and listening to a LOT of Pandora.

I should interrupt programming here for a brief public service announcement: If you do not use Pandora.com to listen to music. You should start. Immediately. It is BETTER than sliced bread. Maybe even better than Gmail (wrap your head around that!).

Basically, how it works is this: you type in an artist or song that you like and it generates a (Free!) radio station based on the musical qualities of your selection. For example, it is summer now, so I could pretty much lie around and listen to James Taylor all day. So I just type in “James Taylor” and Voila! I have a whole station of folksy, acoustic goodness. If you like variety, you can add other artists to the same station, or, my personal preference, you can create new stations with completely different genres and use the underutilized “quick mix” button which will make the player jump from station to station. Currently, I have my quick mix set to rotate from Ghetto Fabolousness (Kanye, Girl Talk, Beyonce), to Girlie Poppiness (Kate Nash, Ingrid Michaelson, Lilly Allen), to Indie Rockness (Arcade Fire, The Strokes, Modest Mouse), with a little Explosions in the Sky and Sufjan Stevens thrown in for good measure. The result: musical euphoria!

My office is completely open… we don’t even have cubicles. Just desks. And, if you haven’t noticed by the fact that I am posting this in the middle of my work day…I have ADD. And my job requires me to sit at my desk and research and write all day. So. To tune out the distracting work environment, I rock a pair of headphones and Pandora at all hours. Of course, now instead of being distracted by the people around me, I spend about half of my day going, “ooh, what’s this song….” But, at least I’m not blankly staring into space, right?

Speaking of ADD. I should get to the point here. Which is not Pandora at all (remember, that was just a PSA).

So, when I lost my music files the first time, my friend Michael Zanchelli started sending me a Song of the Day via Gmail. It fizzled and now it’s pretty much a song of the month, if that (hint, hint, zanchema…). BUT. The idea was pretty freaking awesome, and I have decided to employ it here.

I should forewarn you all that I am not very hip. I don't know who's big in music right now. Or who sounds like who with traces of whoever else. Or who was big like 2 years ago and is SO overdone now. I just know what I like listening to. Today. Take it or leave it.

So, that said, I now present without any further freaking ado...

LadyGoWest's Song of the Day, June 2, 2009: "Hometown Glory" by Adele

Why it's SOTD:

Are you kidding me!? Listen to that freaking voice. If I could sing like that, I would tell this place to shove it, stand on a corner and sing my little heart out. ( i'd probably make more than I'm making now, too)

Also the lyrics just SCREAM "Hey, y'all, it's June in DC"

"I like it in the city when the air is so thick and opaque
I love to see everybody in short skirts, shorts and shades
I like it in the city when two worlds collide
You get the people and the government
Everybody taking different sides."

Oh hey, 90 degrees and humid. Adele kinda makes you seem sexy.