birdhouse in your soul

I'm feeling strangely fine. Strange that I would open up a post with a TMBG title by quoting a Semisonic song. But I digress.

AP tests went as well as could be expected. We needed more practice doing multiple essays in one sitting, but that's fairly minor. I didn't see anyone banging their hand on the desk during it, but I wasn't looking all that hard. I was too busy trying to keep my hand from cramping up and my brain from initiating Auto-Destruct Sequence, Authorization: Troi Gamma Six Five.

I swear I'll do some more "greatest song ever" posts when I get some good writing time (i.e., when I'm in the mood).

I've listened to so many albums this week, some good, some great, and a few which qualify as absolute clunkers.

TMBG - A User's Guide To - Great if you like geeky pop-rock, or you used to watch Tiny Toon Adventures. Otherwise, it's likeable, but largely forgettable. Fair warning: this is what I'd probably sound like if I ever had a band that actually played gigs.

Alice in Chains - Greatest Hits - Landmark grunge songs here, such as "Man in the Box" and "Would?". Also contains one of the best songs about Vietnam, "Rooster". Some of these songs are covered in the Unplugged set, and if you can, find it too. AiC - GH gets a recommend from me.

Kings of Leon - both albums, Youth and Young Manhood and Aha Shake Heartbreak - Honestly, if you've heard "Molly's Chambers", you've heard all you need to hear. What pisses me off about them is that they could be good if they wanted to, but they just don't seem to care. First album is better by far, as the second suffers from the sophomore slump (the first album is stuff they've had time to work on since they first became a band, whereas the second is what they threw together in the maybe-year-and-a-half they get from the label to make a follow-up).

Outkast - Aquemini - Good to great hip-hop. If you like Crunk as a genre, you'll probably like this because it set the stage for what we now know as crunk. If you like gangsta rap, it's a half-and-half deal, because it is so quintessentially Southern that it takes a non-Southerner a couple of tracks before they get into it.

More later when I have time. I should so do a separate music page, but I have a tendency to lack motivation when confronted with multiple projects (poetry, NFTM, at least two message boards).

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Meet James Ensor - They Might Be Giants

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Meet James Ensor
Belgium's famous painter
Dig him up and shake his hand
Appreciate the man

Before there were junk stores
Before there was junk
He lived with his mother and the torments of Christ
The world was transformed
A crowd gathered round
Pressed against his window so they could be the first

To meet James Ensor
Belgium's famous painter
Raise a glass and sit and stare
Understand the man

He lost all his friends
He didn't need his friends
He lived with his mother and repeated himself
The world has forgotten
The world moved along
The crowd at his window went back to their homes

Meet James Ensor
Meet James Ensor
Belgium's famous painter
Dig him up and shake his hand
Appreciate the man

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