Musical Three-Minute Eggs

Lately I've been listening to, as much as I can, all the songs in my iTunes library that I haven't played all year. (Oh, good lord, another year is almost down the tubes...) In order to get as many as I can out of the way, I put them all in a playlist and then put it in order of time (length of the track). That meant a lot of very quick tracks, such as those little interludes (musical, spoken word, whatever) that artists like Janet Jackson put in between songs, or old WAV files such as lines from cartoons, went first, in very rapid order.

The other day I got to the 3:00 mark -- all the songs that, according to the mp3 info, are exactly three minutes long. (We interrupt this story for a DISCLAIMER! With mp3s sometimes being obtained from various sources, there can be a bit of blank space before or after a song, so you may not hear exactly three minutes of music. We now return you to our previously scheduled programming.) This reminded me of something my former boyfriend used to do. He told me that, in order to make soft-boiled eggs, they had to boil for three minutes. So he would play the song "When Will I See You Again" by the Three Degrees, because it was exactly three minutes long. That gave me the idea for this post: the list of 3:00 songs in my iTunes library. And while I don't have that Three Degrees song, I do have a cover, as you can see...

When Will I See You Again - Erasure
You've Really Got A Hold On Me - The Miracles
Children Of The Revolution - Bono, Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer
Hello - Kelly Clarkson
Sing - Kristin Chenoweth
The Way You Look Tonight - Olivia Newton-John
Dance To The Music - Sly & The Family Stone
Every Little Bit Hurts - Brenda Holloway
She Tracks My Tears (mashup) Smokey Robinson & The Miracles/The La's
Darts Of Pleasure - Franz Ferdinand
Christmas in Hollis - Run-D.M.C.
Paid To Smile - The Lemonheads
Burning Man - Third Eye Blind
The Fool On The Hill - The Beatles
Shoplifters Of The World Unite - The Smiths
Do You Know The Way To San Jose - Dionne Warwick
Shiver - Maroon 5
Your Wonderful, Sweet, Sweet Love - The Supremes
The Right Thing To Do - Carly Simon
Vacation - The Go-Go's
The Ballad Of John & Yoko - The Beatles
Now That You Got It - Gwen Stefani
Promises, Promises - Dionne Warwick
The Christmas Waltz - Kristin Chenoweth
Favorite T - The Lemonheads
Candyman - Jason Nevins feat. Greg Nice
The Christmas Song - Ella Fitzgerald
It Takes Two - Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston
Kill The Pain - INXS
Liar Liar - Debbie Harry
For One Night Only - Bodyrockers
Everything Is Everything - Phoenix
Rushing - Moby
Gimme Some Lovin' - The Spencer Davis Group
Give A Little More - Maroon 5
Never Can Say Goodbye - Gloria Gaynor
Airplanes - B.o.B (feat. Hayley Williams of Paramore)
Santa Stole My Lady - Fitz & The Tantrums
Somewhere Along The Way - Nat King Cole
Give Love On Christmas Day - The Jackson 5
Little Of Your Time (Of Montreal Remix) - Maroon 5
Sleigh Ride - Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra
Somebody To Love - Jefferson Airplane
Baby Come Home - Scissor Sisters

My iTunes Shuffle Baker's Dozen 7-10-13

It's been a while for one of these, soooo...

It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) - R.E.M.
Simple - k.d. lang
The War Is Over - Kelly Clarkson
She's Comin' Out Swingin' - The Simpsons
Changes - David Bowie
Say Goodbye - Dave Matthews Band
You Take Some Lentils and You Take Some Rice - Eurythmics
Here You Come Again - Dolly Parton
Two Hearts - Stephanie Mills with Teddy Pendergrass
You'll Never Get To Heaven (If You Break My Heart) - Dionne Warwick
This Love (Tricky Stewart Remix) - Maroon 5
Kill The Pain - INXS
Life Can Be So Nice - Prince and the Revolution

My 2012 In Music

Last year at this time I was lamenting the lack of new music (as in, new in 2011 or new to me) added to my iTunes library. I figured that 2012 would be better since I had gone back to work. Since May I've been out of work but at least I got some unemployment out of it. So, indeed, my 2012 acquisitions are up. (A note, which is mainly for my own reference: the figures below include a couple of CDs I got during 2012 but only got around to adding to my iTunes tonight, so I need to remember for next year's wrapup not to include them again.)

I added 567 tracks to my collection by my count (it's a complicated story but I may be off by one or two because of duplicates), compared to 271 last year. Christmas music comprised 26 of those 567 songs. There were a lot of downloads of individual songs, as well as the first song in my next project - converting my vinyl collection to mp3 format. I have maybe a few dozen 45s and many more 12-inch dance remixes, probably in the hundreds. I'm so excited about this.

Beyond that, I got some free downloaded samplers and mixtapes (which is such an odd term to use for mp3 downloads, but...):

Will Sheridan – G.I.A.N.T. Sampler
DJ ShyBoy presents the RuPaul Mixtape (RuPaul songs mashed up with other songs)
DJ Jazzy Jeff and Mick Boogie – Summertime 2: The Mixtape
DJ Jazzy Jeff and Mick Boogie – Summertime 3: The Mixtape
Dangerous Muse – Red
Slaves to the Rhythm – Pride 2011 Sampler

And then there were the albums that were released prior to 2012:

Kelly Clarkson – Stronger
Discovery – LP
Ricky Martin – Ricky Martin
David Guetta – Nothing But The Beat
Jody Watley – Midnight Lounge
Paul McCartney – All The Best
Donna Summer – She Works Hard For The Money
Elton John – Rocket Man - Number Ones
Steely Dan – The Definitive Collection
The Gap Band – The 12” Collection and More
Nona Hendryx – Nona (as I mentioned here, the first full-length album I transferred from vinyl to mp3)
Katy Perry – Teenage Dream-The Complete Confection (this is the re-released version with bonus tracks -- the original was out in 2010 so I don't feel right counting it as a 2012 album)

In 2011 I got only four albums that were actually

My Idol Fling May Be Ending

Last night, the 9th season of American Idol premiered. For most of the early years I never watched the show. I've always held on to my view that most of the contestants aren't exceptionally talented or worthy of being referred to as an idol, that truly gifted singers who work at their craft get discovered and earn careers without such a shortcut. This isn't to say that no one from Idol deserves success; I have some admiration for Kelly Clarkson and I love Adam Lambert. But come on -- Taylor Hicks? Jordin Sparks? Kris Allen? Yawn. I just think there's too much self-serving hype from the show itself.

So, in the early years, my only real experience watching the show itself was in season 3's audition round, the one which featured the infamous William Hung. The freak show aspect was being hyped in Fox's promos at the time, and that's why I watched. However, I just didn't care after that.

In season 6 (the year of Sanjaya!) I finally watched an entire season from beginning to end. In part it was because I wanted to see what the fuss was about, and in part it was because I was reading recaps of the show online (EW.com, for one) and didn't enjoy them as much since I hadn't seen what I was reading about. I watched most of season 7, but with season 8 I didn't begin watching until Motown Week, when they were down to the top 10, and after that I was mainly interested in Adam Lambert.

While the show is entertaining on some levels, it also annoys me in a lot of ways. The editing process, as with many "reality" shows, truly warps what actually occurs in shows that aren't live broadcasts. People can be made to look good, or bad, depending on the whims of the producers. Controversies can be manufactured as needed. The emphasis on the feel-good or hard-luck stories, families, the self-congratulations about the vote totals, the product placement, Ryan Seacrest's "America has voted...and you are...not...going to..." lines...all of this grates on me.

Then there are the judges. The three originals -- Randy Jackson and all of his "dawg" shtick, Simon Cowell's acerbic crankiness, and Paula Abdul's lovable (substance-enhanced?) daffiness -- and the newbie, Kara DioGuardi, who struck me as sometimes vapid, sometimes obnoxious, always unnecessary. Often the criticism of the judges is contradictory from week to week or from contestant to contestant ("you made the song your own" vs. "you changed a great song" or "this is a singing competition" vs. "you sound fine but you look ridiculous"). At least Simon tends to be more honest, and Paula, in her way, tried to make the contestants feel good. If Randy and Kara got lost in the Bermuda Triangle I wouldn't be unhappy.

Unfortunately, the reverse is happening. Paula is already gone, and this is Simon's last year. We have to wait until we see how Ellen DeGeneres, Paula's replacement, works out. For the audition rounds they added guest judges. Last night it was Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham. Who knows what happens next year?

The whole show last night just left me kind of bored. I wasn't paying much atttention by the last 15-20 minutes. Everything about the show -- the awful and awfully strange auditions, the people who take offense when they don't get a ticket to the Hollywood round, the human-interest stuff (grandma with Alzheimer's, cancer survivor) -- it all had a "been there, done that" vibe. I didn't think anyone had a particular star quality, and with Posh Spice in Paula's place there was little coming from the judges (other than Simon) that I cared to hear.

I'm still planning to watch tonight, but I'm not sure whether or not I'll stick it out through the entire season. Certainly when Simon is gone, I think the show will take a real dive unless the producers do a major reboot. I'm not sure I can wait that long to jump off the Idol train.