Music time! I was about to start this Random Ten with something else entirely, but then I read something and changed my mind. Maybe we’ll use that song next week! Anyway, I’ve been listening to Stars a lot this week. If you are not familiar with Stars, all the people in Stars are either ALSO in Broken Social Scene, or have worked with Broken Social Scene quite a bit. If you’re not familiar with Broken Social Scene, well, get thee to the YouTube and stuff. Amy Millan’s voice is quite special, and her solo work is stellar as well. Anyway, blah blah blah, these two songs are the ones I’ve been listening to on repeat all week. First up is “Dead Hearts” and then we have “How Much More.” Then we’ll hit shuffle on the iTunes, post the first ten songs that come up, post some videos for some of those songs, blah blah, you know the drill. Ooh, something shiny! GO!

1. Lissie – “Wedding Bells” [Hank Williams cover]
2. Speck Mountain – “Some Sweet Relief”
3. Imogen Heap – “Aha! [Instrumental Version]“
4. The Beatles – “Rain”
5. Port O’Brien – “Is This Really What It’s Come To?”
6. The Sundays – “You’re Not The Only One I Know”
7. The Killers – “Read My Mind”
8. Joan Osborne – “4 Camels”
9. Palestrina: “Canite tuba” [Voices of Ascension cond. by Dennis Keene]
10. Carly Simon – “Lili Marlene” [made famous by Marlene Dietrich]

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Let’s remember this week together.

[...remembering...]

Did you remember it too? Good! If you’ve missed stories this week, please use the scrolling scrolly thing to your right and your clicking clicky thing to read whatever you have missed, for I am ready to move on to music.

Music!  I have a confession to make:  if you pay attention to the weekly Random Ten, you know that my taste in music is fairly broad, can be obscure, and is generally very defensible, even if it is not Your Thing.  Yes, there are occasional guilty pleasures that show up, and I own those, completely.  But my confession is that I am a huge Josh Groban fan.  Like, huge.  Like, goes to the record store to buy it at midnight the day it comes out huge.  And this is not a guilty pleasure, either, for I am willing to fight for why being a huge Josh Groban fan is completely 100% defensible, even for a music snob.  For instance, his new record came out this week and he cowrote a song with Rufus Wainwright and his mother, the late, great Kate McGarrigle.  And he did a Nick Cave song.  He might not be Your Thing, but he’s not some manufactured artist.

Ahem.  Also, Josh Groban is probably the one thing my mother and I agree on.  Oh, and that puppies are adorable.  We’re on the same page there.

Anyway, so as I mentioned, his new record came out this week, and it’s all great, but this song, “If I Walk Away,” is the one that’s jumped out at me and taken me on a journey.  So we’ll start with that, hit shuffle on the iTunes machine, and see where we are ten songs later, ‘kay? More videos after the jump.

How can you say no to that voice?

1. Alexander Scriabin: Prelude in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 15, No. 5, played by Gordon Fergus Thompson
2. Roxy Music – “2HB”
3. Ani DiFranco – “Smiling Underneath”
4. Morrissey – “On The Streets I Ran”
5. Tom Waits – “Lucinda/Ain’t Goin’ Down”
6. Brandi Carlile – “Cannonball”
7. Roxette – “The Rain”
8. The National – “Slow Show”
9. The Sundays – “When I’m Thinking About You”
10. Peter Gabriel – “Heroes” [Wildebeest Mix] [David Bowie cover]

What a fantastic mix. Don’t miss The National’s “Slow Show” if you haven’t heard it. One of my all time favorites of the moment.

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What can be said about this week that doesn’t involve either Christine O’Donnell or Lady Gaga?  Very little, so let’s not try.

Lady Gaga went to the VMAs with soldiers discharged under DADT;  then she carried it further by calling on her “Little Monsters” to call their Senators, so they did; then she taught everybody a civics lesson, explaining to an uninformed American public what a “filibuster” is; and then she talked directly to the Senate via a recorded video, and encouraged people to continue calling their Senators.

Christine O’Donnell:  Supports ex-gay ministries, hates diddly fingers and pocket pool, dropped a friend like a hot rock when he stopped pretending to be “ex-gay,” and is generally insane in a bunch of other ways, but don’t worry, one self-loathing gay man hearts her.

Otherwise:  Charlie Crist is trying to be gay for gay rights now.  We had a long discussion about whether “homosexual” is a good word or a bad word.  John McCain is a homophobic phony.  Every Catholic congregation in Belgium has been affected by child molestation, which should give Bill Donohue pause before he starts mouthing off about Hitler being an atheist.  Hitler was of course, Catholic, like Bill Donohue.  Cindy Jacobs saved the lesbians AND the internet, before lunch.  South Carolina Republicans:  still racist.  Wayne explained why we’re still not winning the War on Terror.  Bryan Fischer is trying to explain how he’s not anti-Muslim or anti-gay by being MORE anti-Muslim/anti-gay.  Lou Engle’s IHOP is finally being sued by the pancake IHOP.  Some coach in Kentucky likes coaching basketball, as long as his girls aren’t lesbians.  And later tonight, the wingnuts at the Values Voters Summit are going to have movie-time!

Music this week comes from Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, for two reasons:  A. Sharon is awesome. If you like neo-soul/blues/whatever, and ladies with big voices, you will like Sharon. B. I’m going to see her live this weekend, and I’m giddy with anticipation. The songs we’ll start with are “How Long Do I Have To Wait For You?” and “Tell Me.” The first one has shown up in a Late Friday Random Ten before, and I try not to repeat things, but I don’t care, because I make the rules. So let’s listen to these two amazing songs, and then we’ll hit shuffle on the second one and see what the iTunes [which crashed this week, which caused me to have about three panic attacks as I rebuilt the library] does. More videos after the jump.

1. Mount Eerie – “Between Two Mysteries”
2. The Smashing Pumpkins – “Widow Wake My Mind”
3. Loretta Lynn – “High On A Mountain Top”
4. We Were Promised Jetpacks – “Roll Up Your Sleeves”
5. The Sundays – “24 Hours”
6. Suzanne Vega – “Frank & Ava”
7. Alicia Keys – “If I Ain’t Got You”
8. The Silent League – “Yours Truly, 2095 [Memory Tapes Version]“
9. Suckers – “Easy Chairs”
10. The Morning Benders – “Excuses”

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The song I’m starting the shuffle with is “Sore” by Annuals, simply because it’s truly one of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard in months.  The only tangential relationship it has with anything that’s gone on this week is that I moved this week, and I am Still Sore.  So, here, introduce yourself to an amazing band while I try to get rid of this pain in my aching, elderly back. If you listen to the words and watch the video and tear up a little bit, then you are normal.

More songs/videos after the jump.

1. Thom Yorke – “Atoms for Peace”
2. The Drifters – “Save the Last Dance for Me”
3. Fever Ray – “Now’s the Only Time I Know”
4. Band of Horses – “Blue Beard”
5. The Sundays – “Here’s Where The Story Ends”
6. Jamie Lidell – “Compass”
7. Sarah McLachlan – “Time”
8. New Kids on the Block – “Hangin’ Tough” (Shut up.)
9. Wilson Phillips – “Reason to Believe” (Continue to shut up.)
10. Tori Amos – “Flying Dutchman”

A less honest blogger would have pretended #’s 8 and 9 weren’t there and skipped them, but no, that is not how I am.

Seriously though, one of my favorite things to do, when the weather is nice and I have somebody in the car with me (when I am cruising with my bros in my Trans Am), is to crank “Hangin’ Tough” as high as it will go at stoplights. If the people in the car next to you laugh and start dancing and singing along, you know that they have a sense of humor about life, and that they are fun people. If they start exchanging condescending looks with each other and saying, “Oh muh guh, Jennifer,” then they are obviously unworthy.

Okay, videos:

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