A List of Songs with Lists

 1.  ABBA, "The Day Before You Came" - a list of things Agnetha must have done the day before you came, such as watching Dallas and going to sleep at around a quarter after ten.  She likes a lot of sleep so she likes to be in bed by then.

2.  Adam and the Ants, "The Human Beings" - a list of different types of Native Americans.

3.  Paul Simon, "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"

4.  The Beatles, "Savoy Truffle" - a list of things you'll have to have "pulled out" (?) after eating the savoy truffle, including an apple tart and coconut fudge.

5.  The Buzzcocks, "Whatever Happened To?" - a list of things that have seemingly disappeared, including pickup trucks, the yellow pages, and Chairman Mao.

Here's some more music that I like!

Oh look, I'm writing about MUSIC again.  I will try to make this more intelligent-sounding and less bursting with exclamation marks than my last music review (I'm probably going to cringe when I look back on that in later years, when I am a famous children's book author [not really, but wouldn't that be an excellent retirement plan?] who eats Pulitzers for breakfast.  But for now, exclamation points at the end of every sentence are okay, especially when talking about Mika's new album.  It's just so fun and catchy!)  Anyways, there's this guy named Jamie T who makes some music that I like (you're convinced, right?  You're so convinced!).  He's from gritty North London, and a lot of his songs are about living in gritty North London.  He sounds very British.  It's hard to understand what he's saying sometimes because of how I have American ears.  But most importantly, he makes some great music and his new album is very good!

I would have raved about his first album, Panic Prevention, when I listened to it about a year ago, but I didn't have a blog in those days (can you believe it!).  It's really great, though.  I've probably listened to it at least dozens of times (so many times! [except the Lily Allen song.  It's too sad :( ]).  Here, let me show you some videos of songs from that album!  Here's one that I can embed!  It's called Salvador.

Aw, that kid has got some killer moves, no?  And there are TWO VIDEOS for his most popular song (it was so good it could not be contained in merely one video!), Sheila: one has monkeys, the other has Bob Hoskins and no monkeys.  Did you watch one of those?  Okay, good.  That was a very depressing song if you listened to any of the words, right?  North London is so gritty.  Pretty fun, though, apart from that.

The rest of the album is also very listenable; some of it is funny, some of it is sad, some is highly danceable/aerobicizable (I've listened to this song just about every single time I've treadmilled since October '08), etc.  It's not something that gets old quickly (for me, at least.  Maybe you hate Jamie T's music, I dunno!), partly because it sounds fairly different from most other things I could compare it to.  Probably the closest thing is The Streets, what with all the speed-talking/singing quasi-rap, obscure British slang, references to gritty North London, and clever use of samples.  But there's so much more!  There are bits of reggae, ska, punk, dub, spoken word ramblings, whatever.  And it's fun to try and figure out what the hell he's talking about (seriously, such a tough accent)!

Okay, you get it.  Good stuff!  Jamie T's new album, Kings and Queens, is just as good as the first one, but with one hundred percent more solemn acoustic ballads (no, that's not a bad thing!).  I like it a lot!  Listen to it, or whatever.

Mika's new album is great!

My second-favorite flamboyant British pop star who sounds like Freddie Mercury (or, as the The Times describes him, the "camp, half-Lebanese singer-songwriter cursed by an inability to walk into a crowded room without a show of jazz hands") just put out a new album, called The Boy Who Knew Too Much, and it is great!  I've been listening to it pretty much non-stop since last week.  It's very fun!  "We Are Golden" is a catchy tune!  In fact, pretty much everything is incredibly catchy and fun, except for maybe the two requisite piano power ballads.  But those are still good!

And there are plenty of songs to add to my Gaylist (did you know that Mika is actually not gay?  Just bi.  Shocker!);  "Toy Boy" and "Lover Boy" would be excellent additions!  I especially like the song "Rain," which is great and has a speaking-over-music bit that makes me chuckle because of how it sounds like the Flight of the Conchords' "Inner City Pressure".  But my favorite is probably "Blame It on the Girls."  Look, here is a video of it!

Aw, those old ladies are having so much fun.  But how fun and catchy was that!  Anyways, Mika's new album is great, yay!