those songs are second-hand, but something’s missing

I like memes, especially music-related ones. They are a great way to generate plug-and-play posts when I’m too lazy to do my own thinking. This meme comes courtesy of Bully, by way of Kevin Church.

Total amount of music files on your computer:
Currently 46 gigabytes, but the totals are always in a state of flux as I’m constantly shifting things in and out of my archives.

The last CD you bought was:
A used copy of Metro Stylee’s self-titled album from 1998, purchased from a seller on Amazon. It’s enjoyably quirky fem-vox ska from NYC. I made the effort to track the disc down after hearing “Destroy”, the band’s contribution to the Girls Gone Ska compilation album.

What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
“The Test” by the Chemical Brothers (with Richard Ashcroft), from Singles 93-03 (2003). This track regularly makes it onto my driving music mix CDs, although I’m not sure if my wife is cool with that. (As official co-pilot, my wife has limited veto power over my song selections, and I make sure to always include a minimum allotment of tracks by “her” bands.) I can usually tell if she likes a song by whether or not I overhear her singing along to it under her breath. I’ve yet to hear her sing along to this song.

Write down five songs that you often listen to or mean a lot to you:
As of this moment?

Black Box Recorder – Child Psychology (from England Made Me, 1998) – Luke Haines is a genius. Here’s a song that possesses all the ingredients (including spoken word segments) needed for an overly precious Prozac Nation pity party, and yet he makes it work beautifully. Sarah Nixey’s vocals are ethereal and sweet, but with an undercurrent of weary detachment to keep things plausible.

Teenage Head – Bonerack (from Teenage Head, 1979) – The best punk rock band you’ve never heard of.

Electric Light Orchestra – Hold On Tight (from Time, 1981) – Jeff Lynne doing his best Roy Orbison impersonation. It must be the always-wearing-sunglasses thing. Lest anyone fear that the band has turned its back on their prog rock roots, there’s a verse sung in French, thus meeting the required pretentiousness quota.

Ladytron – International Dateline (from Witching Hour, 2005) – My favorite track from my pick for the Best Album of 2005. Gorgeous and haunting.

White Heat – Nervous Breakdown (from a 1980 single, collected on Shake Some Action, Vol. 5) – Featured in a KBD Records post a few months back, this song is damn near perfect, at least by my esoteric standards. The killer hooks, angry/angsty lyrics, the shouted choruses…it’s power pop’s Platonic ideal, of which all other power pop songs are mere shadows.