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 |   My fourth blog. Amazing yet disconcerting. Don't worry; this'll go away in a year or so. |
 "You have a huge responsibility today, bloggers! You're going to make the playlist for the FIRST ever party in outer space. Yes, I'm serious. Have fun.  "The non-stop party people are at it again, y'all! Look at us go...fresh off yesterday's house party madness, we're takin' it now to the final frontier: Outer Space. Charlie ~  is serious, and I believe him...we're not representin' ourselves, or our respective countries, or WDC. Naw man...we're representin' all of humanity here. That ain't somethin' to toy around with...if there's intelligent life out there and we happen to come in contact with it, how are you gonna feel when their lingering image of us human beings up to this point has been french fries, selfie sticks, and Kim Kardashian's total-eclipse-of-the-moon-sized ass? I'm pretty sure that when us citizens of the world wonder if aliens exist, all we're doing is sending them a signal their advanced radar technology picks up that pushes them even farther away from Earth...sorta like that person whose phone number you only keep in your phone's contacts just so you can properly ignore their call. Wait until the day we find out we're the ugly, purple-haired aunts of the galaxy who smell like they gargled a pack of unfiltered Camels for lunch and washed them down with a pint of bourgeois gin...Hollywood has yet to discover how horrible and awkward that kind of Doomsday War Of The Worlds scenario is gonna look (hint: we're the monsters). But that's probably something I should figure out how to squeeze into a "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  prompt some other time. It's funny...when I first saw this prompt, I started making a list of songs I didn't want to use. No obvious tunes that everyone associates easily with space, which meant no "Intergalactic" by the Beastie Boys, nothing associated with Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, and definitely not that song from the movie Armageddon (because fuck Aerosmith). Then I started listing songs I thought would fit, and they were mostly pretty obvious as well. And I'm not judgin' anyone else putting out their playlists, and it's cool when we all have a duplicate track or two, but if we're all pluckin' tunes from the same thought processes then how fun is that?  And by the way, I've seen a couple people complain mention that "a ten song playlist isn't enough music", and at first I wholeheartedly agreed...but the more I thought about it, it hit me: sure, we might be getting judged for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place prizes, but it's not about that. We're working together! Five people yesterday submitted I don't even know how many songs...Elle - on hiatus  had three different kinds of playlists, and ~Minja~  listed Billboard magazine's Top 1000 tracks from the 90's, which makes my challenge requirement-fulfilling ten seem like an underachieving disgrace in comparison. I have to step my game up! I have to dig deeper into the stacks. It's not about competition; it's about combining all our knowledge and powers so we don't look like fools when the Extra-Terrestrials invite us over to their "Welcome To The Neighborhood" shindig on the Milky Way. At least, until one of us has too many cocktails, and I try using the ring around Saturn to propose to somebody light years out of my league. Ok, well, I've said enough for now. Time to let the music do the talking while I attempt to talk over it, only to find out the hard way that gravity doesn't just apply to weight or mass.  1) "Blast Off!" by Weezer Twenty years ago, Weezer recorded and abandoned a whole album intended to be a sci-fi rock opera using outer space as a metaphor for what it's like to be a successful touring musician. All I'm suggesting by its inclusion here is that it's as good a song as any to jumpstart the NASA Space Party Shuttle.2) "Set Phasers To Stun" by Taking Back Sunday We have to maintain the high energy, and we need phasers in case we have to defend ourselves from hostile forces of opposition...although the sarcasm reeking from a line like "So pace the stairs of your apartment like it's where you want to be" should be plenty enough to remind the haters that we're in space, bitch...and you're not.3) "Pump Up The Volume" by MARRS Old-school futuristic classic, right? Bet y'all forgot about this joint from '87, didn't you? Any radio station that played "club music" on Friday and Saturday nights played this at least once during their program for at least the next ten years. At least, that's what I was told . The Rakim sample, and breakdown at around the 1:50 mark, are my personal favorite moments here.4) "Planet Telex" by Radiohead Ok, the sound quality of this video is terrible (I used to have a much better recording on cd...thanks and rest in peace, Kazaa), but there's a purpose to it. Thom Yorke sings and plays his guitar like a maniac, drummer Phil Selway looks like he could hold his beat through a 200mph windstorm, and the shots of guitarist Jonny Greenwood doing damn near nothing and looking bored as fuck on a chaotic stage before the first chorus kicks in are the perfect images of a master dissertation on what's left of the world once corporations have ruined it. Will we one day be forced to flee toward space, and will we look back at the planet stoically as it explodes, knowing we might've been able to prevent it? Or are we all of the generation that's finally ready to watch everything burn? Bonus points if the video gives you a seizure.5) "Rocket Skates" by Deftones Track no. 5...we're right in the middle of everything. The high point. The heaviest of our party artillery is coming out. This ratchets up the emotion we were searching for five minutes earlier, and lets it out in blasts of wounded glory. We've never had this much fun in destruction before, but we've never been this far from Earth either. 6) "Bring Back Pluto" by Aesop Rock Settling in but still unsettled. There's turbulence in the solar system because we're not sure if we should be adjusting for eight planets or overcompensating for a ninth. I suppose the confusion is what we get for convincing ourselves that mankind is superior to unknown alien life forms. 7) "In The Meantime" by Spacehog But let's not forget why we're here, while we're here. We came to party, and party is what we'll do. We'll worry about everything else once we get to wherever it is we're going. 8) "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band I've been called a lot of things in this life, but none of them has ever been Maurice or Space Cowboy. Whatever has gotten us this far is wearing off...are we having a good time? Or will we play our music in the sun? 9) "Us And Them" by Pink Floyd It's a contemplative state of full relaxation. Life. The universe. Our decisions. We're all just laying on the floor, flat on our backs, looking up at the glass ceiling and taking in the sights for what they are...asking each other questions, without making a sound. Sharing our fears. For everything we know, there are millions and millions of things we have no explanation for. Existentialism. Why are we even here, when we don't know where here is? Will we look back on this day and ask ourselves why we've come to outer space? Or will we have forgotten Earth completely, as if we're scared to offend our new lives by keeping open trails to the past?10) "Starpainters/Vancouver Divorce" by Gordon Downie I wanted to end with "Starpainters" for its beautiful way of saying goodnight though not necessarily goodbye...but the vocals are mixed so terribly low in the original recording, and there just aren't many great live versions of it on YouTube. Thankfully, and perhaps maybe, we have existed to be reminded that we've found the end of the world of course, but it's not the end of the world, of course.There you have it...ten more songs to add to today's party. Not perfect by any means, but suitable enough at least for my tastes. And besides, between all of us in the "Invalid Item" we're bound to have almost every genre and situation covered (although no one did end up going with Chumbawamba yesterday, did they?  ). Alright...time to see what everyone else's idea of a space party is. Peace, up to the stars we go, and GOODNIGHT NOW!! |
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