Live-blogging Last.fm

It's been a while since I live-blogged anything, in part because I'm no longer idle on weekdays and in part because we finally pulled the plug on XM.

But I'm giving Last.fm another chance. I've even downloaded the player and "scrobbled," which I still think is a hip way of saying "uploaded all of your marketing preferences and occasional accidental stumbling onto porn sites to a database shared by a giant telemarketing firm and Homeland Security." But anyway ...

Hmmm ... chose an artist or tag. I'll choose "rock." And we get ...

Alanis Morissette, You Learn: The song from which her staggeringly popular debut Jagged Little Pill takes its title, but not even the top half of the songs from that release if I ranked them. Cute song with a few good hooks, but overproduced like some old Tiffany release.

Counting Crows, Round Here: Hate the band, love this song. Adam Duritz could sing anything from Louie Louie to Close to the Edge and still come across as the pretentious college-DJ type who hooks up with a succession of the campus' most eligible women because they all think they'll be the one to rescue him from those dark clouds following him. (Yeah, those dark clouds? They're the stench of erratic bathing and pot smoke.) Except on this recording, where he gives just the right emotional lift to an enigmatic, interesting song.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Wind Cries Mary: Like You Learn, this one isn't bad, but it's a little flimsier than some of the vital work produced by the same artist. Surely a good change of pace for a live show.

The Troggs, Wild Thing: I'd much rather hear the Hendrix version. Or the Sam Kinison version.



Yes, that's Jessica Hahn, of Jim Bakker scandal fame, in the video.

OK, so where was I? Oh, right ...

Toto, Selfish: For some reason, I want to work in some sort of joke along the lines of "Kansas? I don't think we're in Toto anymore." Surely Steve Morse managed to be in both bands somewhere along the way. I have no idea where to place this song -- clearly years and years after the band was any semblance of its platinum days -- so I'm relying on Popdose to fill me in. Really, it's what you'd expect -- a vocalist screaming to try to get some sort of attention while everyone else is focusing on the endless noodling of the overly skilled musicians in the rest of the band.

Billy Idol, Sweet Sixteen: When is Billy going to pull a Rod Stewart or Brian Setzer and start paying homage to the 40s and 50? He could pull it off, and it'd be better than utterly forgettable 80s relics like this.

My Chemical Romance, Welcome to the Black Parade: I don't know. Maybe if I were 19, getting rejected by all the women who were hanging out with Adam Duritz-type DJs, looking forward to financial independence even if I had no idea what to do career-wise, reading tedious academic prose and all that, I might appreciate this with the correct level of irony. Since I'm now officially 2x19, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to feel sympathy for the unfortunates mentioned in the song or to view them with cynical detachment or what. I just maintain Natalie Merchant could kick all their asses.

I'll have to wrap there for now. Interesting mix of music, at least.