janelle monae

The Dunce Cap: August 30, 2010

in: heavy rotation

The Dunce Cap, Vol. 22: I guess he’s an X-box and I’m more Atari. (click on link to listen to mix via 8tracks)

1. “Fuck You” – Cee-Lo Green
2. “Teenage Dream” – Katy Perry
3. “Walking the Dog” – fun.
4. “All Hail Dracula!” – Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin
5. “House of Cards” – Butch Walker
6. “Cold War” – Janelle Monae
7. “I Want To” – Best Coast
8. “Shutterbugg” – Big Boi
9. “Magic” – B.o.B.
10. “Love the Way You Lie” – Eminem

Happy 9/02/10! That’s right: Today is 90210 day! That’s right. It’s September 2, 2010, and it’s time to celebrate those crazy kids in California’s wealthiest zip code. Dylan McKay? Brandon Walsh? Yum-my. I won’t speak too much to the original teen primetime soap, as People does it best. Also, New York Mag. Win.

Regardless, last week I missed a Dunce Cap. I’m sorry, y’all. It was a week without wifi, and it was a week without music. Or, at least, chronicled and playlisted music.

But, alas, I’ve returned! It’s Labor Day weekend and the unofficial end of summer, so The Dunce Cap is back in full force with the ten best tracks of the summer. From Big Boi to B.o.B, these are ten tracks which have truly captivated my attention this summer. There’s the recently released Cee-Lo track, the ’60s girl group sweet sing-along kiss-off “Fuck You,” which is making me unceremoniously giddy. There’s the Someone Still Loves You vampire track from Let It Sway. There’s that infectious and delightfully irritating Katy Perry title track, “Teenage Dream.” There’s Butch Walker! There’s fun.! There’s Best Coast!

Hell, I’m feeling the heat in stereo.

Arguably, the last track on this mix, Eminem’s collaboration with Rihanna, “Love the Way You Lie,” doesn’t quite fit with the rest of this happy-go-lucky (if you can count Cee-Lo’s own “Since U Been Gone” anthem as such), but it’s been quite a force this summer and aligns the mix with my current state of emotion. By bookending this Dunce Cap with the aforementioned Cee-Lo and this Eminem track, it makes for a great summer sayonara to all of the boogie oogie feelings of a breakup.

What are your favorite tracks from summer 2010? Post ’em in the comments.

Happy listening.

P.S. I owe you a fair number of Third Year Thirties. Coming soon, hopefully.

The Dunce Cap: August 9, 2010

in: heavy rotation

My name is Simon.

The Dunce Cap, Vol. 20: New York is pretty heavy. Girl, I hope it doesn’t crush you. (listen to mix via 8tracks)

1. “Open Happiness” – Butch Walker, Travis McCoy, Brandon Urie, Cee-Lo, Janelle Monae and Patrick Stump
2. “Dirty Dustin Hoffman Needs a Bath” – of Montreal
3. “Many Moons” – Janelle Monae
4. “Funny Little Frog” – Belle & Sebastian
5. “Magazines” – The Hold Steady
6. “Titus Andronicus” – Titus Andronicus
7. “When I’m With You” – Best Coast
8. “Lucky You” – The National
9. “Summer Babe (Winter Version)” – Pavement
10. “The Dress Looks Nice on You” –Sufjan Stevens

Playlist number 20 for the week of 08/09/10. Couldn’t have ended better if I’d planned it. And the countdown to Evanston has fallen now into weeks. I’ll be back in town in less than a month, and I’m pretty thrilled. Fall is always a blast in Chicago, even when the weather turns colder and then frigid. And with fall comes the onslaught of concerts which seems to ebb as the year winds down. This is a mix to celebrate the concerts headed to The Windy City in September and October which are making me antsy, excited and broke.

So far, I have tickets for The Hold Steady and of Montreal/Janelle Monae, and I’m itching to buy a ticket to The National. My bank account is cursing me with its constant reminders of dwindling funds, but it’s all worth it, no?

This Dunce Cap features the artists I’d most like to see this year, including Pavement (who will play Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion Sept. 13), Belle & Sebastian (at the legendary Chicago Theatre Oct. 11 – be sure to look out for my pal Modibo, who you may have heard in our Chicago Public Radio audio piece!) and Sufjan Stevens (his first official tour in nearly four years, I believe, also at the Chicago Theatre Oct. 15). It’s going to be quite the concert season.

And, for good measure, I included the Butch Walker-written and produced track “Open Happiness.” The song features a whole load of artists, including Gnarls Barkley’s Cee-Lo Green, Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump and Gym Class Heroes Travis (now “Travie”) McCoy and was the basis of the Coca Cola advertising campaign of the same name last summer. It’s an incredibly hypnotic summer song fitting to close this one and welcome in autumn.

Happy listening.

(editor’s note: I’m watching Jersey Shore – no apologies – and Pauly D just said “From here on out…” His pronunciation, thought? “From hair on out.” Too funny. Also – how is Mike Posner MTV’s Artist of the Week? Unbelievable. I don’t even think I know anyone who even likes Posner.)

The Dunce Cap: August 2, 2010

in: heavy rotation

Yarmulke Poodle!

The Dunce Cap, Vol. 19: It sounds impossible but, man, it’s true. You are the bad, the bad seed of this town. (listen to mix via 8tracks)

1. “All the Pretty Girls Go to the City” – Spoon
2. “The Village Green Preservation Society” – The Kinks
3. “Trouble” – Voxtrot
4. “King of Anything” – Sara Bareilles
5. “Meet Virginia” – Train
6. “Your Boyfriend Sucks” – The Ataris
7. “Amy” – Ryan Adams
8. “Sway” – The Perishers
9. “Wedding Song” – Anais Mitchell ft. Justin Vernon
10. “Tightrope (Wondamix)” – Janelle Monae ft. B.O.B. & Lupe Fiasco

My apologies for this mix coming around so late. It’s been a hectic week of work, car rides, stadium food and ultimate Braves domination. But the Dunce Cap is back with a brand new mix! Let the gasps ensue.

This is a delightfully bouncy soundtrack to the last month of summer. Or last week of summer, for you poor souls not on the magnificent quarter system! It’s full of wondrous songs by artists I adore (yes, even The Ataris!), including Spoon, Voxtrot (who very sadly parted ways in June after a small tour) and Ryan Adams (who released Orion, his first “fully-realized sci-fi metal concept album,” in May). There’s a track from Anais Mitchell‘s Hadestown, a folk-rock opera telling the tale of  poet Orpheus, featuring Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. There’s the Lupe Fiasco/B.O.B. remix of Janelle Monae‘s sing-a-long “Tightrope” (so so excited to see Monae with Of Montreal Sept. 25 in Chicago!). And then there’s Train… Not really much of a fit for this mix, but a fun song that I’ve long adored worthy of a place in a mix of songs to play at maximum volume on car speakers.

Happy listening!

The Dunce Cap: July 26, 2010

in: heavy rotation

High-end graffiti for a fast talker.

The Dunce Cap, Vol. 18: Man when I tell you she was cool, she was red hot. I mean she was steaming. (listen to mix via 8tracks)

1. “The Boys Are Back in Town” – Thin Lizzy
2. “Pop Lie” – Okkervil River
3. “Violet Stars Happy Hunting!” – Janelle Monae
4. “Magick” – Ryan Adams & the Cardinals
5. “Your Magic is Working” – Of Montreal
6. “Bethamphetamine (Pretty Pretty)” – Butch Walker & the Let’s-Go-Out-Tonites
7. “American Girls” – Homie
8. “Your Little Hoodrat Friend” – The Hold Steady
9. “Bastards of Young” – The Replacements
10. “Good Will Hunting By Myself” – Ludo

I graduated from college and immediately got a great job at the largest daily paper in North Dakota’s largest city; now, this actually means I got a normal job at a tiny newspaper in a small American town. But it seemed like a big deal at the time because I was writing a high-profile column for this publication, and I suddenly became a mini-celebrity in downtown Fargo.1

1 Which is kind of like being the hottest guy in the Traveling Wilburys.
 – Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself to Live

At 1 p.m. Thursday, my weekend begins. The long and not-so-lonesome highway is deserted (by Atlanta terms, at least), and I have the freedom to take a lunch and leisurely lope my way home. For the first time, I drove at speed limit. A super-long weekend could not have come at a more opportune time; I had a drag, a lull, in my step, but there’s nothing but time ahead. And cleaning, ‘cuz the Foom is coming back to town.

I’m rereading Chuck Klosterman’s mesmerizing Killing Yourself to Live for what feels like the umpteenth time, and he writes this about driving through the Deep South (in this case, Mississippi):

As I drive away from Satan’s Crossroads1, the man on 94.1 “the Buzz” tells me it’s five o’clock, and then he says, “And you know what that means!” And I do know what that means; it means he is about to play whatever song this radio station always plays at five o’clock on Friday, which will signal that the workweek is over and it’s time for everyone to drink Corona…

1 The intersection in Clarksdale, Miss., where Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the ability to play the guitar like no person before him

And Klosterman proceeds to detail the various Welcome to the Weekend songs played in various cities he’s marginally familiar with: In Cleveland, it’s Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” Fargo, Loverboy’s “Working for the Weekend.” In Mississippi, it’s Southern Culture on the Skids, the track “Camel Walk.” In Atlanta, in Handsome Dan on a Thursday afternoon, it’s, well, Thin Lizzy. It’s Okkervil River at an ear-splitting volume (Klosterman also maintains that maximum volume on a car stereo creates a cloak of invisibility). It’s these tracks.

And, god, I love these tracks. I could write a book on how much I freaking love Thin Lizzy, first of all. Irish hard rockers with a penchant for catchy choruses? Check. Of Montreal is a band optimally designed for raucously lonely sing-a-longs. And, shit. The only reason Rivers Cuomo ever produced the track “American Girls” with Homie for the Meet the Deedles soundtrack was for the purpose of belting it out with an occasional finger-snap. Though, to give Homie and their only piece of production some credit, the band also included Greg Brown from CAKE, Matt Sharp (of the original Weezer line-up) and those two guys from Soul Coughing. That’s what I call a supergroup.

This is my soundtrack for night drives and for ghost riding (metaphorically, of course). Give it a whirl and just try to not envy me for starting my weekend so early.

Happy listening.

Oh, and for the record – Klosterman, I totally get you on the Traveling Wilburys business. I mean, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Tom Petty? Together? How I want to love them. And how I just don’t. Impossible.