Uniquety

Hey remember Mr’s music posts? Well here’s a new one. Beware; it is long. Two years since the last installment of music posts by the Mr. there were a lot of favorite songs saved up since then. Here we go.

My wonderful and talented wife asked me to do another guest post with music that I have been listening to lately. This is basically what I listen to for the ride to and from work, as well as some of the time I need to buckle down at work and do some heavy software stuff. I find that a good mix of musical styles is best for me when working. It makes it so that my mind can focus on what I am doing, but still be stimulated by the change in styles. These are in no particular order, just what I like to listen to right now.

This song has been in my playlist for a while now. I still REALLY love to listen to this song. There are so many awesome things about it. The lead singer of fun. was the lead singer of The Format, which is a band I really liked. They had a great sound and I think he brings a lot of that to fun. This song is one of those songs that I can listen to over and over. I had not seen the video until I wrote this post, but I really like it.

This is one of the songs that I heard on the amazing radio station I discovered on a business trip to Germany called 1Live. I still listen to the stream every now and then and I really liked this song. Tracking down some of the songs so that I can purchase them in the US has been difficult. I’ve been pondering getting a VPS in Europe so that I can purchase through the local Amazon variants there for cases such as this. I just find this song to be really catchy. The background beat is great. Plus, monkey orchestra.

When I first started watching the video above, I was wondering if it was really The Village People and not the Sugar Hill Gang. This is just some good classic rap. I also like the Sir Mix-a-lot sample and the Missy Elliot sample of this song (I couldn’t find a clean version We Run This on YouTube, its well worth it if you want to look further and find one for yourself). One can also not overlook the amazing dance that occurred on Fresh Prince of Bel Air, which now that I look at it again seems to have the predecessor to the Gangnam Style horse dance!

Honestly, the video to this song isn’t that great. It reminds me of Duke of Hazard for some reason. I really dig the song though, the part where it goes up a step is great. Apparently, many songs from the 90’s and early 2000’s had this full step up part, it was a really popular thing to do. I guess that makes it trendy in its own way.

After hearing “We Are Young” I went in search of other fun. songs that I might like. This was the one I liked the most (though there ARE others if you are interested). I think I even like this song MORE than “We Are Young,” if that is possible. The video is blah, but the song is great. I might go as far as to say it is epic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPHvxv2mepI

Not only is X-Men:First Class an awesome movie, the soundtrack is pretty dang awesome as well. This is probably my favorite song from the soundtrack. I think it really pulls out some great emotions. Very deep and dark, very much like what Mageneto is becoming.

Don’t try and explain the video to this song, its not worth trying. It is a GREAT song though and very good for doing some programming to. It has a great beat and some great samples.

Yes, I actually like this song. I like it even if I am not watching the video. If you want to hear another song by PSY that is good from this album, go find “Year of 77,” its kind of a nice slow rap type song with a nice groove to it. “Gangnam Style” is great, there is nothing else I need to say. It now has over 1 BILLIONDY views on YouTube, which is pretty amazing even in the internet age.

The video to this song makes it. Who doesn’t love Mr. Rogers? Who incidentally has the middle name McFeely. I linked to Wikipedia right there just in case you didn’t believe me. Mr. Rogers is just awesome. Quit reading now if you don’t agree. This song brings back a lot of good memories from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood along with some good tunes. I like the idea of auto-tuning TV shows like this and turning them into songs. Good beat, good melody, good song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIbnlvjF5PY

Weezer’s first album came out almost 20 years ago. Let that sink in a little for those of you who remember when it first came out. TWENTY YEARS. TWENTY. TWO-ZERO. My brother likes this song more than I do, but its been growing on me a lot. The only negative thing about it at this point is that they use sirens at the beginning. This should be outlawed if songs will be played in the car. What’s worse than hearing sirens while driving?

Adam Savage once said that you could tell how nice Beyonce’s legs were just by listening to her sing. I was listening to this song before he said that, but found it amusing. Voices are interesting, sometimes a voice fits a person and sometimes it doesn’t. My wife’s voice is amazing, I love to hear her sing songs to our kids at night. I sneak down to the middle of the stairs and listen to her sing the songs our kids like her to sing. Her voice (and herself) is hot. That had nothing to do with the song Halo, which has a really cheesy video, but it had to be said.

The video above was the first introduction I had to Daft Punk. What better way to introduce a song like that than with characters from River City Ransom and Ninja Gaiden? This was back before YouTube and the video was a simple flash animation that I downloaded to watch later. It was played (and watched) over and over. I still really enjoy listening to the song. There are several other videos which are fun (Daft Hands) but this one will always be my favorite.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_W3Ni03RP0

Die Ärzte are probably my favorite German rock band, they have a great sound and especially in this song. It’s just nice to sit back and to listen to.

This is one of those classic rock songs that I used to hate, but within the last couple of years, it really grew on me and I really love it now. The chorus is really relaxing. I used to think the harmonies were really off and weird, but now they meld together really well for me.

This version of this song is fantastic. It’s a bit different from what is on the soundtrack and I think this version is great, especially the end of the song where the guy gets all excited about the song that was played. Just so you know, its not really George Clooney who is singing, in case you wondered.

My four year old loves this song right along with me. She likes to sing it to me and be extra sweet when she does. She gets a sweet little look on her face and sings “I will wait, I will wait, I will wait for you.” It melts my heart. This is another one of those songs that I can listen to over and over and it doesn’t get old. I love those kinds of songs.

My wife LOVES this song. Which when we first started listening to it kind of surprised me. She didn’t seem like the kind of girl that would like that kind of music. By “that kind of music,” I mean music that has a little edge to it. I thought she wanted to listen to show tunes and such all the time,but I was wrong. We like this one together and jam out.

The same buddy at work who introduced me to the X-Men:First Class soundtrack before I had seen the movie introduced me to this song. The guy’s voice is pretty weird. His accent seems to come through a lot when with other singers their accent kind of gets swallowed up a bit (think Adele).

I don’t remember where I heard this cover, but it is fantastic. The horns make this song in my opinion. It’s got a great funky sound.

Country. Yes, country. I have sworn off country for a long time (though my wife says several songs that I liked previously are country, but Kid Rock is not country, even if he is a hillbilly). I don’t know what I like about this song, but it is a good one.

This song has been floating around in my collection for several years. I don’t know what introduced it to me, but I think its fantastic. It builds and builds and builds and then releases. The singer’s voice is really nice and mellow even with the building background.

I’m not a huge Muse fan, there are some songs I like, but others just seem like the exact same song over and over. I do like this one, along with the Queen remix of it. It doesn’t have much noteriety until it gets near the end and then it’s epic.

Warning: this video might give you nightmares. The video is really odd (but then again so is Rammstein!), but the song is incredible. The dude in the video looks like Mel Gibson to me. I don’t mean Mel Gibson as any sort of character, I think he just looks like Mel Gibson as is. Mel Gibson has really gone downhill. I really like both the piano version of this song as well as the normal version

Most of the time I introduce my brother to new songs, but this one went the other way. I listened to this song for about 3 weeks straight and still like it. Usually if I listen to a song that much I stop liking it; not so with this song.

This is another one of those songs that I don’t remember where I heard it for the first time. It may have been on a recruiting trip I made back to my Alma mater, but I could be wrong. I don’t like any other song that I have heard from this group, which makes it nice that it is so easy to buy just one song from an album now.

My oldest plays the cello. She went to the Arizona Cello Association’s Cellobration for the second time this year. At the concert, the Arizona State University Cello Ensemble played Requiem for 3 Cellos as a tribute to the president of the ACA who had died the previous year. I was near speechless when they were done. What an amazing piece of music. This is one of those songs that can almost immediately calm me down if I am worked up about something.

This is another one that my brother introduced me to. The video is cool.

Yup, another Weezer song. They have been and probably will be on my playlist for many years. This has always been one of my favorite songs.

I like the driving beat on this song. It’s one that I like to run to (when I do go running, or wheezing down the street if you prefer to call it that). This song has a nice tempo (half-time) to run to.

Wow. That’s about all I can say about this song. Wow.

Well, I am running out of steam writing something about all these songs. I’ll leave a few more down below for you to check out as well. They are not any less favorite than the ones above, I just ran out of things to write.