music, books, love and kindness

...what a decade for music...



One website magazine called the 00s "the naughties" (at times, it was)...Time magazine called it the "decade from Hell" (sometimes,), but one thing it wasn't was boring...

Each year from the past ten years is etched in my brain more distinctly than each one from any other decade I've lived and though I think I liked the 90s better (surely it wasn't as contentious as this one has been!) and liked the 80s far, far less (please, I hope when we die and discover our Fate, Hell isn't the 80s and Buster Poindexter isn't there singing "Hot, Hot, Hot"!!) I finally found out what it meant to truly enjoy other people and love working and thriving.

On a universal level...I found this to be the best decade ever (in my personal lifetime, at least!) for music...I fell so hard for music, discovered how much it could heal a person, make her think and feel more clearly than ever before...

Lots of much more qualified people and my favorite British music magazines do "best of" lists and after a while the lists all blur together and don't mean so much, especially (!!) if they're not YOURS ('cause YOUR list IS yours, after all!), but still, I (humbly) hope it's okay if I do share my favorites from the past ten years...(in no particular order!)

A lot of the music I discovered through magazines like Paste and Uncut and also through tv shows like "Grey's Anatomy" and "Ugly Betty," which aren't as good as when they first started airing, but still feature awesome singers and musicians.



--"Look What You've Done To Me" by Iko--such a beautiful and absolutely devastating song, only rivaled in exquisite sadness by Gary Jules' "Mad World." (from the mind-boggling film "Donnie Darko.")

--"Dream" by Priscilla Ahn--such a sweet and innocent song...I'm not a very religious person at all, but I always feel so spiritual after hearing this...Ahn is just a lovely, lovely singer...her album "A Good Day" is breath-taking and magical with such an intimate feel to it, like she's right there!!

--"Someone Great" by LCD Soundsystem...the words are amazing and capture grief better than anything I've heard in...well...ever! ("The worst is all the lovely weather/I'm sad, it's not raining./The coffee's not ever bitter/because, what's the difference?") If you get a chance to listen or already know this one and you've lost someone dear, you'll probably be all-too-familiar with its surreal sense of loss and disbelief.

--"That's Me Trying" by William Shatner (not kidding!) I think my favorite Wise Ass is trying to be funny here, but underneath it all (and backed by the awesome Aimee Mann and Ben Folds) is a despair and regret you can't believe Shatner is a part of...

--"Cologne" by Ben Folds...the first time I heard this song I was totally caught off guard by how much I wanted to cry listening to it...it is both full of despair at a broken relationship ("And now I'm wondering why the floor has suddenly become a moving target") and desperately hopeful to move on ("I'm letting you go/I will let go,If you will let go")

--"Lullaby" by the Dixie Chicks...heard this for the first time on my favorite episode of "Medium" ("Twice Upon a Time") and it fit so perfectly with the scene!...In the scene it goes with the main character (Alison Dubois played by Patricia Arquette) is resting on a beautiful field of green grass and dreaming...she soon finds out what it would have been like if she had never married her husband and how sad and empty her life would have been with any other man...I tear up every time I hear this song...and the episode is all the better for having this track play in the beginning and when she realizes the man she DID marry was always her destiny...gorgeous, gorgeous song!!!)

--"Anything I'm Not" by Lenka...she sounds like Ingrid Michaelson (who got her big break through being featured on "Grey's Anatomy") but she sounds even more vulnerable and sings about serious things in a light-hearted manner...this is all about being yourself and yet wanting to be someone else completely...

--"The Trapeze Singer" by Iron and Wine...previously mentioned this one, I know!:)...oh, it's SO not fair how absolutely fragile and stunning their music is...undoes me EVERY time!!

to be continued, with dates added...plus my favorite HAPPY!!! songs