Your Velvet Heaven.

The chilling vocals of Dave Gahan and the eerie synthetic instrumentals merge to manufacture one of the greatest songs that everyones' playlist has at least played a couple good hundred times.

Originally Composition of Sound, this one band will always be the public guilty pleasure that I will find myself listening to. Sure, call me the gothic boy from NJ because I listen to Depeche Mode and The Cure. Go ahead, but I also listen to other bands like London After Midnight, Stabbing Westward, Gravity Kills --- oh, I just proved your point. Well, let's counterbalance that with the fact that I'm also a Clash, Dire Straits, Relient K, Skillet, Jimmy Eat World, and a ton more of other bands that aren't gothic/stoic/etc.

So what makes Depeche Mode's "Only When I Lose Myself" so pretty special? The eerie reality that it brings to the listener. It's a song about someone you shouldn't love but you do. It's a song about that person you want to forget but you cannot bring yourself to. It's about loving someone who is out of bounds. It's love at its truest form.

I think Depeche Mode knows the definition of love in this song so perfectly well. This song is about love, taking all the associated risks involved with love, losing control, and giving yourself to another person. Sure that simples but you cannot always try to be in control of everything; including who your heart goes out to. Depeche Mode recognizes that part of this song perfectly well and then adds in another part that makes this song even more amazing; the fact that there is a complete happiness when you fall into this hypnotizing state. It's like you're giving up all control and happiness should be the exact opposite feeling that you're experience but yet, for some reason, you're fine with it all.

I can feel the emptiness inside me fade & disappear

There's a feeling of content that now you are here

I feel satisfied

I belong inside

Your velvet heaven

It's those moments like this that make life worth living for. The eeriness of this song is hypnotic; like you're paralyzed by the trance of the songs meaning. 

I'm not in love at the moment. But it's an experience I believe I had a couple times before and hope to share again. Will I? Hopefully. Will you? It's something to aim for.  And so should you with this sensual song. 

Also, watch the video! 

WARNING: Tangent ahead. 

So what brought on this lovey dovey stuff today? I put on Depeche Mode on my iTunes and got a couple remixes of this song and decided to listen to all of them since each remix/remake/etc captures this message. 

Truth be told: I'm feeling very very Oingo Boingo!  

That's How It Starts...

I'm reading JR Moehringer's astoundingly good The Tender Bar right now. It's the story of a young man whose father abandoned him. In addition to his strong and loving mother, he found refuge in the unlikeliest of places: a bar in Manhasset, New Jersey. The regulars (most all male) taught JR the lessons in life that would have normally come from a father. As the product of a single-parent environment, the book obviously strikes a chord. What's more astounding is that Moehringer, despite some horrendous economic hardships, managed to snag a scholarship to Yale and eventually graduated.

It's the sumer. I should be attempting to read Infinite Jest or try to plod through a Norman Mailer book. As a journalist, I've been told repeatedly by English professors that journalism is disposable and on a lower level than literature. If it's easy to read, then it's not challenging and somehow, that lowers its status. But as a journalist, you're taught to shape your story so that a person with an eighth grade education can easy grasp your story. To me, if you can make a high school dropout understand an article about nuclear waste disposal, you've done your job.

The best type of journalism reverts back to storytelling. And not by coincidence, so does some of the best songwriting. I'll concede that Kurt Cobain was a good songwriter. As was Elliott Smith. But there's something transcendent when a song unfolds like a novella. Be it Jarvis Cocker's story of a school age boy's crush on a girl who doesn't feel the same way, some of Nick Cave's Biblical-focused songs or John Prine's goofy anecdotes.

For today's song, it's James Murphy's (LCD Soundsystem) "All My Friends". Its themes of futilely halt the advancement of age have been addressed in countless other songs. But few songs have been able to encapsulate the feeling, the moment, in such a concise way.

The song begins with a simple piano chord that repeats through the six-minute duration of the song. Eventually, a few other instruments show up, mainly drums. Then Murphy says "That's how it starts / we go back to your house."

Like a great writer, Murphy is guiding the listener through the song, setting up some noticeable landmarks.

About a third of the way through, Murphy sings:

You spend the first five years trying to get with the plan / And the next five years trying to be with your friends again

But friends come and go. Some friends you outgrow. Other friends mature faster than your pace. Others are home with their newborns. And the pace keeps accelerating.

You drop the first ten years just as fast as you can / And the next ten people trying to be polite

Finally, Murphy repeats

Where are your friends tonight?

If I could see all my friends tonight

The topic and the ache of trying to recapture a moment that cannot be replicated sounds depressing, and on paper, it is. But the music continues, building up to an amazing finish. Getting old isn't pretty, but in this case, Murphy makes the mess sound triumphant.

Summer of '89

Kind of of back. Kind of not back. Just trying to figure out somethings. I know I owe a 65daysofstatic post but this song really hit me today. Like really hit me out of nowhere. I was listening to some Angels and Airwaves and this song popped up. I figured I'd listen to it but it turns out it's not an Angels and Airwaves song but an error with the meta tagging. Still an awesome song for the summer time and worth listening to. I think we can all go back to this era.

Great lyrics and generic rock sound but just the perfect summer sound. I'll be checking into this band now! 

The Hint For Today!

1. 

The Return of Stuck on Loop.

After spending some time to figure out the format and get some projects set up, as well as my new office equipment, it is time to bring back Stuck on Loop. 

So what song has me captivated for today? Well, it's off Collective Soul's self-titled album. "She Does."

What  makes this song so worthwhile? It's the chorus and the overall beat of the song. The lyrics are a bit lovey-dovey type but the whole song is what a hopeless romantic lives for finding; 

Who could light the sky

With no sun, no moon, no stars above?

Who could give me cause

To speak, to wish or believe in love?

Ed Roland's emotions are perfectly captured with his vocals and lyrics. 

I Put a Bullet in the Radio

The author Chuck Klosterman did a great analysis of modern country. Instead of taking the traditional indie approach of expressing disdain for modern country and taking the cliched route of saying "I hate all country, 'cept for Johnny Cash," Klosterman expresses his admiration for some modern country artists because they genuinely sing about life as a blue collar worker of today. Usually irony free, they sing about bowling on a Friday night, horrible bosses and their cars.

I admire it from a distance. Some of the best country artists of today do sing about traditional 9-5 style jobs and life in a Red State, but with a wink of irony. It won't surprise anyone to reveal the majority of my music purchases of the past ten years has been on the indie side. And if there's one thing that is in abundant supply for indie music, it is irony. As much as I like Panda Bear and have a begrudging respect for Dirty Projectors, it is sometimes annoying that some of their songs need a two-hour college-level round-table group session to identify the meaning of the lyrics. As a journalist, there are sometimes I just crave concrete. Enter Miranda Lambert.

On the song "Maintain the Pain," she opens with the frank line "I put a bullet in my radio."

Lambert is an odd character. She first achieved fame in the most inauthentic of ways - winning a reality series. But she has surrounded herself with some truly authentic talent. For her new album, she covers a John Prine song, a lyricist who's on par with Billy Bragg. The violence of the opening line doesn't solve anything. I certainly wouldn't do it. But there are days when you're in your car and talk radio, preprogrammed Clear Channel pop and classic rock stations want you to do just what the opening line says.

Maintain The Pain - Miranda La...

"Mock it up!"

Normally the song I pick is a song that has meaning and also something you can pick it up at a record store. Oh, not today. Then again, today is April Fool's Day so it might as well be a fun song.

Today's pick is "Neutra Face" by some guys on Youtube. Some bearded guys singing about a computer font that is universal. But it's a perfect parody of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" and with great lyrics and video.

Sure, it's humorous. Sure it's creepy. But hey, it's a great great listen and it cracks me up.