Thursday, January 13, 2011

Celebrity Playlist: Jen Long

So to reviving an idea that briefly ran in the days we could sync it with Muxtape when that was something anyone could compile streaming playlists with before the usual authorities got in the way. Celebrity Playlist is simplicity itself - someone we like lists ten songs they like. Our first candidate for 2011 is Cardiff's renaissance woman Jen Long - writer, promoter, DJ, blogger and as of last week the new host of Radio 1's BBC Introducing In Wales, from midnight on Sundays (streamed live on the site if you're outside the Principality). This is what she came up with for us:


Sonic Youth – Drunken Butterfly
This is my favourite Sonic Youth song of all time. Apparently the lyrics are all taken from Heart songs and song titles but I still think it’s great. I think it’s just how violent the guitars are when the drums break and how throaty Gordon’s voice is. This song is so amazing I got a bit of it tattooed on my arm. I’m such a loser.

Fol Chen – Cable TV
I can’t remember the first time I heard this song, but I pretty much listened to it on repeat for about seven months thereafter. I love the ping ping ping ping ping melody, and the lyrics are super sweet. Fol Chen are such heart-melters.

Kanye West – Monster
Yeah, so I’ve been listening to this song non-stop since December. It’s amazing. The beat, the production, the moment when everything drops out under Jay Z, oh, and that Minaj verse. Yes.

Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights
When I was in school we had an English lesson where the teacher played us Alanis Morissette’s Ironic since we were learning about irony. Which is kind of ironic, because none of it’s ironic, you get me?

Anyway, we had a different, far cooler teacher the year after who played us Kate Bush when we were reading Wuthering Heights. I loved it so much I learnt to play it on guitar and then I got made to perform it for GCSE students to try and convince them to do A Levels.

I say ‘got made’...

ISN’T IT JUST THE GREATEST SONG THOUGH?

The National – City Middle
Also in my English class at school, we studied A Streetcar Named Desire and I kind of really loved it and had a bit of a book crush on Tennessee Williams. I love the line in this song that goes ‘I think I’m like Tennessee Williams I wait for the click, I wait but it doesn’t kick in’. Like, love it enough to get it tattooed on myself (such a loser).

I love The National, they’re epic and desperate and majestic and beautiful and emptily hopeful. I feel like this song kind of embodies that.

The Smiths – How Soon Is Now
When I was a kid I remember watching The Craft and there was this song in it that was also the theme tune for Charmed, but a different version. It intrigued me a bit, mostly because I had nothing better to do with my weekends. I first heard The Smiths when I saw the video for this track on MTV2 and then everything kind of clicked into place.

I went online to download the guitar tab and I kid you not, at the top of the page it read ‘Dear Jennifer, I’ve been trying to figure this tab out for a while…’ It was almost like fate.

Amy Adams – That’s How You Know
I think this is in the forefront of my mind right now because Enchanted was on TV over Christmas, but I LOVE this song. I always get really annoyed because there are not enough songs in films anymore. Maybe I’m just getting old, but the Mary Poppins soundtrack is amazing, and don’t get me started on The Sound of Music.

Anyway, I loved Enchanted and if you don’t feel a tug inside your chest when the chorus soars in this song then you, my friend, are dead inside.

Deftones – My Own Summer
Welcome to the greatest opening riff of all time. Every time I hear the sound of that snare popping, something in my mind snaps and I’m fourteen again, moshing in my bedroom alone to Around The Fur.

I spent well over a year wearing nothing but my Deftones hoodie, with the hood up, even in summer. They called me ‘hood girl’ in my local record shop. I miss that hulk of black cotton.

Andrew WK – Party Hard
Imagine if you saw the world through his eyes. Just imagine.

Death From Above 1979 – Romantic Rights
If I’m drunk in a disco and this song comes on then you had better get out of the way… because I am going to dance like a complete loser and you really won’t want people to think you’re associated with me, basically.

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