Decimal Deathless

Post by **Mike** » Sat Jan 07, 2023 8:11 am

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #25

What I Got, Sublime
I bought this album way back in the day, at least a decade or two before I heard (much less understood) the words cultural appropriation. (Why yes, it WAS around the time I was all into Tragic Kingdom. What a weird question.) I can hear any song off that album nowadays, and it will have me singing along, but What I Got is the very best of them. And it's the only one that still comes up regularly.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Sat Jan 07, 2023 8:44 am

And circle gets the square.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Jan 07, 2023 10:21 am

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #24

Stacy (Acoustic), Quinn XCII
If I had heard the original of this first, I never would have given it a second listen, but the strings in this acoustic version are just the right amount of mournful to give it that emo, teenage-dirtbag feel. Sadly, the dad in me is just a little concerned that depending on their jurisdiction and exactly when their birthdays fall, this could be a little statutory, but I have to let that go.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Sat Jan 07, 2023 11:21 am

No whammy, no whammy and....stop!

Post by **Mike** » Sat Jan 07, 2023 12:16 pm

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #23

So Fast So Maybe, K.Flay
I don't know if I've mentioned K.Flay before, but she's great. Still can't believe I didnt go see her in concert in October when I had the chance. Dammit.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Sat Jan 07, 2023 1:05 pm

Gonna crash soon as the steroids start to wear off. But its been good to feel good (or at least to not feel like hot, raked-over garbage).

Post by **Mike** » Sat Jan 07, 2023 2:09 pm

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #22

This is America, Childish Gambino
Simply one of the greatest songs ever. The video makes it even better. Every bit of analysis of this song that I come across makes it even better. It is a song that gets in my gut. I've played the video so many times on YouTube that if I go a few months without watching it, YouTube will gently suggest, "Hey buddy... looks like you need a little Childish Gambino." And YouTube may be wrong about many many things, but it's never been wrong about that.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sat Jan 07, 2023 2:29 pm

I'm enjoying your reviews and top song list. Just wanted to mention I think YouTube skates under the radar far too often when it comes to public debate about social media and politics. Of all the media sites I've encountered, YouTube was rivaled only by Twitter in the speed with which it took a new user straight down into the rabbit hole of increasingly extreme suggestions. If you get anything even close to the sack in which the bottle of red pills is being held, pretty soon they will be sprinkling the contents of that pill right on your head. I imagine it goes other directions too... Sometimes very weird directions I don't understand like the videos where someone is reading a book to kids or making a silly entertainment for them. That's maybe the creepiest thing I've encountered on the site - It has a horrifying vortex of creepy videos that no child should ever watch even though they seem to be intended for children. It's like the videos aliens who want to destroy the planet would make if they were trying to make content for kids.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Jan 07, 2023 3:53 pm

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #21

Me, I Get High on Reefer, The Two Man Gentleman Band
And here the algorithm goes out of its way to embarrass me: "Mike sure does like This is America. It's a powerful song by an artist who is a voice for this age. Awesome awesome song, speaking right to the heart of racial inequality and exploitation. But guess what song Mike likes just a liiiiittle bit better...? That's right: a joke song about weed. Good job, Mike."

Fuck you, Spotify. Just fuck you.

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Sat Jan 07, 2023 6:01 pm

Good evening!

Post by **Mike** » Sat Jan 07, 2023 8:05 pm

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #20

Captain (Whistle), Nutcase22
I don't know. I don't get it either. I don't remember finding this or adding it, but here it is. And it's fine. It's got that distinctly British rap sound. I like it well enough. I don't mind it being in the mix, but it's also not a song I'd go looking for if I hadn't heard it for a while. I don't understand how it got enough plays to be top 20. I can only imagine that it's the equivalent of elevator music for my playlists--something that just blends in and is so innocuous that I don't notice it in the background. I'm just baffled.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Sat Jan 07, 2023 10:40 pm

Mhmm, mhmm.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Jan 07, 2023 11:38 pm

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #19

Tougher than Leather, Run DMC
As I was digging around for new music, I found a Run DMC song I wasn't familiar with. I like the nostalgic feel of it without it actually being a thing from my past. And it's a solid song. Very quintessentially Run DMC with a little extra edge that I like. The rhythm of it really works for me. Cuz seriously a lot of the old Run DMC rhymes feel just slightly elevated above the stereotyped generic "bad rap" of "My name is _________ and I'm here to say..." Tougher than Leather is reaching beyond that. Of course, it was still 1988, so don't expect magic, but I dig it.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Sun Jan 08, 2023 4:02 am

Good morning!

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Sun Jan 08, 2023 4:08 am

Good morning back at ya!

Post by **Mike** » Sun Jan 08, 2023 4:15 am

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #18

There Stands the Glass, Pierce Webb
Here's what I said a year and a half ago...

The combination of Hawaiian guitar and Pierce's mournful warbling gets me every time. I feel his pain.

First heard this a few months back, because some country performer sampled and distorted it on their own album. I was intrigued enough to look for the original and am glad that it's even better than I was expecting. Certainly better than the song that sampled it.

Still gets me.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Sun Jan 08, 2023 5:21 am

So when your throat is covered in puss filled blisters, its good to start recovering from that. However, my throat chose to start sloughing those blisters and their contents while I was dead asleep last night. Which led to a half dozen occasions where I would wake up in a panic, coughing hard and unable to breath, and having to run to the bathroom to cough out black/gray puss into the sink. At 3:30, after an hour of this, I just got up so as to stop disturbing my wife's sleep. I mean, I feel a lot better and its great to be physically working this infection out- my fever is gone and my throat doesn't hurt- but this sleep deprivation is real. Hopefully I'll be able to get a nap in one I work these blisters out.

Post by **Mike** » Sun Jan 08, 2023 10:37 am

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #17

Collard Greens, ScHoolboy Q
Monday, July 25th, 2022... about 7am. My wife and I are at the Voodoo Doughnuts on Broadway in Denver. We immediately fell in love with the place. It was all pink and edgy, like if one of those stereotypical perky goth girls from TV were transformed into a donut shop. It was just a happy place.

We were placing our order and commenting to each other how much we like the atmosphere when I said something about they even had great music. After a few moments discussion about how we didn't know the song, Lisa asked the perky goth girl behind the counter what song was playing. She had no idea, but quickly ran to the back room and reappeared a second later to tell us it was Collard Greens by ScHoolboy Q.

We listened to it several times on the drive back to Nebraska, and tried a few of his other songs as well. The song is from 2013, from around the time that Ye was claiming he was a god, and Childish Gambino was claiming he was a greater rapper than either ScHoolboy Q or Kendrick (who is featured in Collard Greens, FWIW). And I'd never even heard the name ScHoolboy Q until that day. Shameful.

Epilogue: So the next week, I'm back at work regaling them with my pics and stories from the trip, and when I tell this story, I get to the payoff, and the say the song was Collard Greens. That's when the new guy, Matt, perks up. He normally pretty low key, but this got his attention. "ScHoolboy Q? Hell yeah!" Nice. Scored a couple of cool points with the Millennial.

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Sun Jan 08, 2023 12:47 pm

Post by **Mike** » Sun Jan 08, 2023 4:42 pm

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #16

Stroke Me, Mickey Avalon
See, the genius of Mickey Avalon here is that he takes a classic Billy Squire song where getting a deal from the music industry is equated with a dirty back-alley handjob, and then Avalon reworks it with some slick rap verses and removes the sophisticated double entendre so he can club you over the head with his massive single entendre.

It's mostly a song about handjobs.

But I like it a lot. It's got a great hook, (and not just because it borrows an incredibly famous riff to play over... although that doesn't hurt.) I definitely played it enough to put it at #16.

And it does bring me to a problem I have with Mickey Avalon, and I don't know that I should. Lots of performers have personas that they put on. Some are closer to their "real" selves. Some are based on real life experiences. So almost every Mickey Avalon song is about him being this overly horny lothario. It's a bit creepy. But you know, Yung Gravy is all about his sexual prowess (and banging your mom), and I have no problem with Gravy. But I fully understand why Pete does. I don't know, when do "problematic" lyrics cross the line from part of a story or part of a persona and into a range where I should feel bad about supporting it and seek to change my behavior? I don't know. As much as I like a couple of Avalon's songs, there's at least one I've had to stop listening to. As much as I love Sublime, they have a song I've had to stop listening to. But I don't have any definite line in the sand.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Sun Jan 08, 2023 7:57 pm

Well, I hate Wagner because he was an anti-semite and I think his music shouldn't be played anymore even though it is, quote, genius, unquote. Also because he was an egotistical, self-important dickwad.

Post by **Mike** » Sun Jan 08, 2023 9:49 pm

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #15

WAP, Cardi B
It's WAP. It's a good song.

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Mon Jan 09, 2023 2:17 am

Wow. Wagner and WAP in consecutive posts. What a thread! Anywho, I'm off to the San Francisco area for the week, the epicenter of the coming wave of storms heading to the West Coast. Here's hoping I don't get washed away!

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Mon Jan 09, 2023 5:21 am

Good morning!

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Mon Jan 09, 2023 9:45 am

Eliahad wrote: ↑Sun Jan 08, 2023 7:57 pm Well, I hate Wagner because he was an anti-semite and I think his music shouldn't be played anymore even though it is, quote, genius, unquote. Also because he was an egotistical, self-important dickwad.

I feel like he wasn't very nice to Nietzsche. We need Akiva for this. I just don't like this music; I don't really see the genius anywhere. I don't feel like it will stand the test of time, especially when other fascinating things are being rediscovered and revived.

Sublime, I can't claim to know the author's intent or much about the author but I feel like some of the more popular yet disturbing songs are disturbing not because the author himself is bad but because he is bearing witness to the badness of the world. I get that. Maybe I'm wrong and he is bad but I have always listened to it in the spirit that, Yes, people are terrible and we know it and he knows it and he's telling us about it.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Mon Jan 09, 2023 10:53 am

Wagner also hated violists. How can you hate violists?!

Post by **Mike** » Mon Jan 09, 2023 1:23 pm

Phoebe wrote:Sublime, I can't claim to know the author's intent or much about the author but I feel like some of the more popular yet disturbing songs are disturbing not because the author himself is bad but because he is bearing witness to the badness of the world. I get that. Maybe I'm wrong and he is bad but I have always listened to it in the spirit that, Yes, people are terrible and we know it and he knows it and he's telling us about it.

And that's how I take it as well. He's telling a story or he's portraying a character. I'm good with that. But the song Wrong Way is just too over the top for me. It's a story, yes, but it's a bad one that feels needlessly extreme and exploitative to me.

Then there's also the cultural appropriation. Bradley Nowell was a white middle class kid from Long Beach who regularly sang with Jamaican or Hispanic accents, including mixing LatinX culture and Spanglish into his lyrics. Of course it was also 30 years ago, and he died before becoming famous, so maybe we should cut him some slack. It's a lot of gray.

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #14

Hayloft, Nickel Creek
And this concludes our trio of sex songs. It's another song I got from my wife--her playlist seems to pick up more country and country-adjacent songs than mine. But I like it. And that's all I have to say about that.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Mon Jan 09, 2023 3:43 pm

Good... what is it... I'm so rattled with fever.. uh... afternoon? Evening?

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Mon Jan 09, 2023 3:46 pm

We're sorry you're sick, alright?

poorpete · Post by **poorpete** » Mon Jan 09, 2023 4:02 pm

krankernörgler

Post by **Mike** » Mon Jan 09, 2023 7:38 pm

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #13

Close Edge, Mos Def
Mos Def and Dave Chappelle played Carpool Karaoke in 2003 during the first season of Chappelle's Show and he performed this song. This was a year before Close Edge was even released. And I was 100% in love with this song by the end. Mos Def's flow is incredible. In the TV performance, he was so laid back and having fun with it. He even changes a line to drop Dave's name in it, and it was just so cool.

So once it was finally available I bought it, and it's been a favorite for nearly 20 years.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Mon Jan 09, 2023 10:31 pm

MOS DEFINITELY!

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Tue Jan 10, 2023 5:14 am

Good morning! I'm in flood central for the week (San Fran Bay area, baby!).

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Tue Jan 10, 2023 6:39 am

Good morning

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Tue Jan 10, 2023 7:14 am

Oh, hey, Kyle. I heard you weren't feeling well. How are you doing today?

poorpete · Post by **poorpete** » Tue Jan 10, 2023 7:47 am

Yeah, do you have an update? Hope things are improving! Heart emoji

Good luck in the storm Sir Tahl. Salute emoji

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Tue Jan 10, 2023 9:11 am

Ahh it's not good. But I'll get better. No worries, y'all!

Post by **Mike** » Tue Jan 10, 2023 10:01 am

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #12

Ready to Win, Tokyo Police Club
I never think I like this song very much, and then I play it to figure out why it's on my list, and it turns out I DO like it. Every time. I like the upbeat energy. It feels very post-punk, which I like, and the sad sack protagonist feels very Violent Femmes to me. Good song.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Tue Jan 10, 2023 10:21 am

Hear me out! It might be pneumonia... BUT... I'm on super-duper strong antibiotics (because I hate biotics. I'm super duper ANTI biotics) that are supposed to eradicate this stuff over the next ten days while also murdering all the other good bacteria in my body. SCIENCE! But I'm happy to sacrifice those happy, good gut-warriors to murderlize the pneumonia, so that's the plan.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Tue Jan 10, 2023 12:59 pm

Pro, biotic, pro, pro, biotic.

poorpete · Post by **poorpete** » Tue Jan 10, 2023 1:46 pm

Pneu monia? What's wrong with the pold monia?

Post by **Mike** » Tue Jan 10, 2023 1:47 pm

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #11

Pay Day, Prof
Spotify suggested it. I hit Like. Spotify kept playing it. I never skip it or take it out of rotation. It plays enough times to be #11. I have no special connection to it, but it's fun.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Tue Jan 10, 2023 5:01 pm

Anti-biotics be running me down!

Post by **Mike** » Tue Jan 10, 2023 7:24 pm

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #10

edamame, bbno$
Christmas 2021, my oldest son comes home and he's rapping this song. He's obsessed with it and wants to memorize it. He's got about 85% of the first section down. He kept doing it over and over. I played the song for myself and became similarly obsessed. Every time I hear it, I try to sing along (I still suck at Rich Brian's parts, which is too bad, because they're my favorite.) If something interrupts my recital, I start the song over. If I think of the song out of context, I now have to play it. I can't believe it's not #1 for the year.

So now it's Christmas of 2022. We sat down with Jacob and his fiancee to play a game of Toggle. In Toggle, you get a category and a very short timer, and everybody has to think of things that fit the category and start with specific letters before their five seconds is up. The category was "body parts" and I wanted to use up the "D", so to be funny, I said dumper. At the end of the round, Katie looked at me and said, "Dumper?!" In unison, Jacob and I both launched into the first verse of edamame and stopped after the chorus of: "Whoa! I'm a big bag hunter with a bow. She got a big bad dumper--drop it low!" And then we laughed and laughed. The ladies didn't find it as funny.

All our hard work paid off.

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Wed Jan 11, 2023 5:05 am

Good morning!

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Wed Jan 11, 2023 5:25 am

Good morning! This morning is better than yesterday's for the first time in a while. So I'm crossing my fingers that my antibiotics have kicked in and I've turned a corner here.

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Wed Jan 11, 2023 7:31 am

Here's hoping you're right!

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Wed Jan 11, 2023 7:59 am

Mike wrote: ↑Tue Jan 10, 2023 10:01 am Ready to Win, Tokyo Police Club
I never think I like this song very much, and then I play it to figure out why it's on my list, and it turns out I DO like it. Every time. I like the upbeat energy. It feels very post-punk, which I like, and the sad sack protagonist feels very Violent Femmes to me. Good song.

How is this not the same guy?! Wow, it is essentially a reboot. The Violent Femmes guy, I want to say Gordon?, is much weirder though, in a positive sense.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Wed Jan 11, 2023 10:56 am

I'm not sure how I feel about netipots yet.

Post by **Mike** » Wed Jan 11, 2023 2:54 pm

Mike's Top 100 Songs of 2022 According to Spotify, #9

Boys, Lizzo
Ain't nothing wrong with Lizzo. And I wouldn't have even paid much attention if the music thread here hadn't raved about her so hard. So thank you.