Friday Favorite

I love old Prince and Partyup is probably one of my favorite songs by him or by anyone.

This is the last song on Dirty Mind. What a fun, upbeat way to close an album! Thanks Prince!

Friday Favorite

One of my all-time tried-and-true favorite songs is Wonderwall by Oasis covered by Ryan Adams.

I am not an Oasis fan. Their music is blah to me and the egos on those brothers, ugh. I can't really say I'm a Ryan Adams fan either. I like him ok, I just don't love any of his music. A lot of his stuff is really close to something I could fall in love with, but it falls short. But put Oasis and Ryan Adams together and what do you get? This beautiful gem of a song.

Friday Favorite

One of my all-time tried-and-true favorite songs is Dropout by Urge Overkill.

This song is good and droney.

The lyric "hanging out in the parking lot at Dairy Queen" reminds me of Parker Posey as Libby Mae Brown in Waiting for Guffman. She's been working at the DQ for about . . . eight months.

Friday Favorite

One of my all-time tried-and-true favorite songs is Leader of the Pack by the Shangri-Las.

I love the music of girl bands from the 1960's in general and this song in particular is fun to sing along with, especially while driving. It's not required, but if you really scream the line "I met him at the candy store", it enhances your enjoyment of the whole song.

Friday Favorite

One of my all-time tried-and-true favorite songs is Yeah by Usher, featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris.

This is my jam.

Friday Favorite

One of my all-time tried-and-true favorite songs is Never Going Back Again by Fleetwood Mac.

You know how you have some songs that you can listen to after a bad day at work or after any kind of less than ideal situation and they will calm you right down? This is one of mine.

Not only does it always manage to calm me down and somehow right the world, but it also makes me smile when I think of how my brother Jonny likes to sings one of the lines completely wrong. His explanation is that the lyrics to this song can be sang different ways by different people, but "been down to wonton, been down to Tuscon" will never be right, no matter what. It doesn't even make any sense! How does one go down to wonton?

Friday Favorite

One of my all-time tried-and-true favorite songs is Situation by Yaz.

I loved this song in the eighties, I loved it in the nineties, I loved it in whatever we're calling the last decade (the 2000's?), I love it now.

"The 2000's" sounds horrible to me. Yuck. I don't like "the 2010's" either. I guess for the rest of my life I'm going to avoid calling decades past the nineties (ah, just rolls so easily off the tongue!) anything at all.

Friday Favorite

One of my all-time tried-and-true favorite songs is Monkberry Moon Delight by Paul McCartney.

I can't believe I had never even heard this song until earlier this year. Even harder to believe, I was introduced to this song by a thirteen year old (now a sage fourteen year old), my favorite high schooler Spencer Tweedy.

Paul's voice really packs a powerful punch here. I love songs where the lyrics are so passionately loud they're almost screamed. Not yelled like death metal, but more like it sounds like the singer just can't hold back what they're feeling. A good example would be this song, the Beatles' Wild Honey Pie, or any number of Pixies songs.

Friday Favorite

One of my all-time tried-and-true favorite songs is Saint John by Cold War Kids.

The first song I heard from their album Robbers and Cowards was the opening track, We Used to Vacation, which is a little too One Tree Hill theme song for me, so I wasn't sure about these guys. This song, however, totally sold me on Cold War Kids (*). It's so powerful that if you're not careful it will actually rock your socks off.

When I went to see them at The Pageant a couple of winters ago, I got there maybe 30 minutes past the time when doors were supposed to open and was shocked and kind of horrified to realize that I was coming in on the tail end of their set. What show ever starts exactly on time?! It was pretty disappointing, but the three songs that I did get to hear were amazing and happened to be my favorites (Saint John, Hospital Beds, and Hang Me Up to Dry) so it was worth going anyway.


* their next album was a bit of a letdown so I'm not truly 100% sold on these guys in general, but I am definitely 100% sold on this particular song. The One Tree-sounding song aside, the rest of the album is pretty stellar too.

Friday Favorite

One of my (newer) all-time tried-and-true favorite songs is Dimestore Diamond by Gossip.

1. Crazy catchy

2. Perfect for singing along to while playing way too loud in the car, or in any setting

3. Beth Ditto! That girl is all pipes and personality.

4. This is the song that constantly lived in my head during the time when I started this blog and it is definitely the reason I chose the name “Dogtown Diamond” when all my other choices were already taken.

Friday Favorite

One of my all-time tried-and-true favorite songs is So Lonely by The Police.

As I've mentioned previously, I didn't really get into music until my college boyfriend took my musical education into his own hands. We listened to music all the time, we went to see every good band that played the Blue Note in Columbia (and EVERYBODY seemed to play there in the early-mid nineties), plus he made me these amazing mixtapes filled with songs that made me fall in love with him and with music. So Lonely was on one of those mixtapes so listening to it always takes me back to that specific time in my very early twenties that I remember quite fondly.

Years later, when I lived in LA, I came across So Lonely again. Danny Masterson (Hyde from That '70's Show) had a great radio show, Feel My Heat, on Monday nights and he played awesome songs for a couple/few hours then always, always closed with So Lonely. I remember the time I spent living in LA rather fondly too. It was a time in my life when I clung to music in a big way.

I will always love hearing So Lonely no matter where I am in life or in the world.