Song obsessions are those songs that we listen to on repeat. I noticed that my obsessions are often a week long. I also thought that other people might have similar obsessions. I’ve collected a panel of a few like-minded individuals and gotten their “song obsessions of the week.” Quite often it’s easy to explain why the song is good; it’s much hard to explain why we’re obsessed. Maybe you’ll become obsessed with one of these.

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Adrian (me):
Arcade Fire - Intervention (mp3) (buy)

I was in Hawaii. My friend and I rented a car with a CD player; I hadn’t brought any CDs. He had brought three: Neon Bible and two Tom Waits CDs. I’m not the biggest fan of Tom Waits (and I am an Arcade Fire fan) so we just left this on repeat. It was kind of strange driving around what may be one of the most beautiful places on the planet with these dark songs coming out of the stereo. Every time this song came on, we pumped it up a bit and let the lush mountains hear it with our voices mixed in.

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Keith:
Aguaviva - Andalucian Poets (mp3) (buy)

Inspired by Paul Auster, I often randomly select albums from our voluminous record library and give them a quick spin. There’s precious little information available about Aguaviva, but I can tell you that this song was the single and that it features the spoken word voice of a young Raul Julia. Most of the album is acid-tinged late 60’s folk rock with a heavy latin influence, the language often switching between Spanish and English. The lyrics here are tremendously silly and Raul’s pompous reading is more than up to the task. But buried within is a well-intentioned, though not very practical, plea for artistic pursuit. This was pulled directly off the album so the levels are low. Turn it up!

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Dave:
American Analog Set - Continuous Hit Music (mp3) (buy)

An old standby…after a pretty horrible week, hearing this song (not to sound cheesy) kinda felt like coming home. AmAnSet does such a great job making the repetitive sound interesting and drawing you in to something you want to listen to over and over. The fact that it’s the lead-off track for an album I’ve been obsessed with in the past probably helps as well.

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Andy:
Masters of the Hemisphere - Coat of Arms (mp3) (out of print, buy other HBTM comps)

I heard this song on the first Happy Happy Birthday to Me compilation, which I got as part of a cheap promo bag when Insound showed up on campus one year. It came along with a cassette (!) copy of Superchunk’s “This is where the Strings come In,” a couple of bad zines, and god only knows what else. None of it remains, except my love for this song.

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Scott:
Hornet Leg - Covered in Blood (mp3) (from band’s myspace page)

i’ve been listening to ‘covered in blood’ by hornet leg. i happened to see them twice in the last couple weeks, once when opening for abe vigoda in sf and another time for mika miko in davis, and they were one of the best bands at each show.

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Oz:
The Acorns - Dents (mp3) (buy)

It’s hard to find a subtle use of the banjo, but The Acorn find a way to mix it in with an incredible song about human relationships changing their course.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 8:23 am Posted by adrian in SF bay area, mp3s, song obsessions. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.