since today is the solstice and the first official day of summer and the sun is set to drop at 9:58 pm in my middle-of-nowhere corner of the world, i thought i’d finally throw together my playlist for the summer. i typed this twice on a manual typewriter. a. manual. typewriter. TWICE. my index fingers are furious.
totally top five jamz for summer 2k13:
5. ace hood feat. future & rick ross, “bugatti” – if you don’t wake up thinking “i woke up in a new bugatti” every morning after you hear this, i don’t understand you.
4. austin mahone, “what about love” – this CHILD. i can’t watch or look at him because i get the motts (secondhand embarrassment) so bad that my teeth feel like they’re going to fall out of my mouth, but this is a good-ass song.
3. fake shark real zombie, “paint it gold” – put me on a raft in the middle of a pool and leave me there to die. this is filling the void for pool jamz in my heart, since i don’t have new lana del rey to do it.
2. robin thicke feat. pharrell, “blurred lines” – if i was putting cash money down on the song no one will be able to escape for the next three months, it’d be this one. S U C H A J A M.
1. ariana grande feat. mac miller, “the way” – i legit thought this was a mariah carey song the first time i heard it because it just felt like one. that’s a compliment. straight-up “honey”-esque vibes.
Live Through this was released on April 12, 1994. I was nine years old and just about to finish out third grade at a new school. I was tall for my age, fat, smart, and already just a little bit angry at the world around me. I’d started my school year at a brand new school and my big sister had just moved out of our house. I was just starting to become someone and music was the thing — the thing I loved first, the thing I loved before books or movies or television — that was helping to make that person.
Nineteen years later, I am twenty-eight years old and just about to finish up my first year in a new state. I’m no longer tall for my age, but I am still fat and smart(ish). Music is still the first thing I ever really loved, but I’m in a serious relationship with television at the moment. My idea of what “someone” is has changed dramatically and I’m okay with how I turned out most days.
Nine years old seems insanely young to me now, impossibly young — too young for Hole probably, too young for anything, honestly. But I grew up with wonderful, involved but permissive parents and KROQ and the Los Angeles alt-radio culture of the mid-90s, so young or not, I first found my footing as a human being in Green Day and Candlebox and Nirvana and Tori Amos and The Offspring and Alanis Morrissette and Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. And Hole.
I remember standing in my bedroom screaming into the handle of a sponge mop to every single song on Live Through This. I remember scrawling lyrics out on binder covers and backpacks. I remember listening to it in the dark with my best friend Marian. I remember burning candles and shadowing my eyes with black eyeshadow and slicking my mouth with red Wet & Wild lipstick and screaming those songs like the words were being exorcised from me, like I’d die if I left them in for too long. I remember staring at that album cover, at young and barefoot and probably-not-all-that-far-from-my-age-at-the-time and still kind of unbelievably cool Courtney Love on the back. I remember the cracks in the plastic CD case.
I remember being angry — so angry — at so much, at everything. Angry at nine and at twelve and at fifteen and at twenty. Angry at myself for being fat and weird. Angry at the kids who were mean to me and at myself for being impossibly meaner back. Angry at the people who didn’t listen when I was hurting, angry at myself for getting hurt, for letting other people hurt me. Angry at the world in the most uncomplicated ways, the most individual. I was angry because I was hurt.
I remember.
I couldn’t have told you in 1994 when I bought it on cassette at Tower Records at the West Covina Plaza or a couple years later when I bought it on CD at the same Tower Records or a year after that when I had to rebuy it because I’d worn my first copy out or when I rebought it digitally because I couldn’t take the skips from my ripped copy any longer — I’d have probably just said I liked it a lot because Green Day was my favorite band and I would’ve felt like a traitor — but Live Through This was the most important album of my youth. And nineteen years later it means more to me than ever.
I didn’t call myself a feminist in 1994, partially because I was nine years old and I didn’t really know what that meant and partially because I was raised by a father who called feminists “feminazis” and if there was one thing I wouldn’t have wanted to do in 1994, it was disappoint my father. I didn’t call myself a feminist in 2004 either because I was raised by a culture that taught me that feminism meant female superiority and that I should strive for something my conservative poli-sci professor called “equalism” but was actually code for the patriarchal bullshit status quo. I call myself a feminist now and I try very hard to be a good one, an intersectional one, an engaged one.
But I’m also angry. Still angry, so angry. And where my anger was indistinct and personal when I was young, anger built on hurt and sadness, it is anger directed at the system now, at patriarchy and rape culture and misogyny. At the incredible violence women face, institutional and political and personal.
Before I really knew why I was angry, Hole gave me a voice for it. Before I understood what it meant when a boy with a blond bowl cut chased me and my best friend around the playground at my first elementary school and flipped our skirts up, laughing, I was angry. Before I understood why a yard aid pulled me aside and told me not to play on the monkey bars because my shirt was “too short” and everyone was looking, I was angry. Before I saw the aggressive challenges from boys in high school because “girls don’t like metal” as acts of sexism, I was angry. And even though I didn’t really know it, Courtney Love was shaping that anger, asking questions that I wouldn’t understand for years, and planting the furious seeds of something that would shape me monumentally as an adult.
As an adult, that anger raged, rages through me every day. Every time I see another woman sliced open on a television or movie screen. Every time I’ve been groped or catcalled or hit on through the open windows of my vehicle. Every story I hear about street harrassment. Every time a politician thinks they have a right to make rules about what people can or cannot do with their uteruses. Every single time I’ve heard “Nice tits” or “That mouth would look great around my dick” or “You’re fat but I’d still fuck you.” Every story about assault or rape or abuse.
Every time I remember the world I live in as a woman, the world the women I love have to live in, the world every woman has to live in, I’m angry. So angry. And at nine, at twelve, at fifteen, and nineteen, and twenty-two, and twenty-eight, I was angry and, even when I didn’t understand the forces behind the objects of my fury, Hole was there to give that fury voice and shape and color and direction. Courtney Love was there. Nineteen years later, she is no longer the sole voice of my anger, but she’s still there, familiar, always and eternal, and for that I will be forever grateful.
Every new year I think, “This year will be better!” and every year end I think, “Wow, this year was awful, wasn’t it?” and, honestly, after so many of those years I have no idea what constitutes a good year or a bad year. Years are made up of good and bad and stuff, always, and maybe this time I’ll retain that knowledge and stop holding out hope for a year that sucks less? Is this growing up? Am I an adult now?
2012 wasn’t any different. You were okay, I guess? You got me engaged early on and a sweet freelance gig at the end, but you also moved me to North Dakota in the middle, so I still kind of want to scream “Fuck you” loudly and at length into your face. Were you a person, I would strike you with a heavy hand and then probably feel really bad about it and cry while clinging to your lower legs and begging forgiveness. I’d probably be drunk at the time, if that makes you feel any better about it.
Anyway, thanks for the good times! And burn in hell for the bad ones. And thanks to my bad memory for making both kinds and all the ones in the middle pretty hazy. It’s hard to have a bad year when you can’t remember jack shit.
Peace out, 2k12. Keep it real.
– Ash
Dear 2013,
What am I supposed to say here? You haven’t even met me yet and I’m sure you’re already planning some fucked up shit to throw at me. You new guys are such dicks that way.
But whatever, I guess I’m ready for whatever you got, so bring it on, 2k13! I’d prefer if you were bringing me, like, a relocation to Los Angeles, San Diego, Kansas City, Nashville, or Seattle and a full-time, well-paying job that I am naturally very good at and have little anxiety or stress about. And all that for my girlfriend too, please. We’d even settle for Portland! But since I imagine none of that is on the schedule for the coming year, I’ll just take a whole bunch of decent days, a few good ones, and as few bad ones as possible. Please?
Thanks a bunch, dude. I’m sure you’re an okay guy, really. Being the new guy blows, especially when most of your predecessors have been disappointments. Before you get too down, though, remember that what that really means is that the bar is super low. Just aim for mediocrity, man, and you’ll have people all up your ass about how you were the best year ever.
Good luck, dude! I believe in you. I guess.
– Ash
Dear Any-and-Every-One Who Reads This,
Hey there! How are you? Are you feeling okay? The end of the year is a super stressful time for people because there are like a fuckton of holidays and lots of people around who say things that are kind of mean sometimes and you’re not supposed to get angry or weird about it because they’re usually people you love a lot and who wants to rock the boat like that? It’s all kind of awful stuff wrapped up in pretty ribbons and glitter and it sucks. It can ruin all the fun stuff! And who wants that? Nobody. Nobody wants their cool end of the year holidays ruined.
I can’t control your holiday or how you feel. Hell, I can’t control how I feel most days. But I can hope that your holidays weren’t too bad and that your year was made up of a lot more good than bad or that the good at least made up for some of the bad. I can tell you that you’re awesome and you can believe me because it’s true. You’re reading this, aren’t you? Well then that means we probably kind of know each other and I don’t waste my time on people that aren’t awesome. End of story. You’re also beautiful and special and important and you deserve a 2013 as special and beautiful and awesome as you are. I can’t promise it’ll happen, but you better believe me when I say you deserve it.
Can you promise me something though? Can you promise to take care of yourself in 2013? Like, just a little bit whenever you can. Like, have a Starbucks if it makes you happy or buy a DVD and then veg on your couch with it. Read an entire book in one sitting! Marathon a tv show! Take baths or fart when you’re alone in an elevator. Smile when you feel it and let yourself feel mad or sad or frustrated. Cry when you need to. You deserve to be happy, but when you can’t be, you have the right to feel all those things, whatever they are. Do what makes you feel good and stop being mean to yourself because you’re not living up to someone else’s bullshit expectations. Set your own bar low, reach above it whenever you can, be yourself — whoever you want that to be — and be kind to yourself. You’re wonderful.
I love you. No, really. It’s true. I do. I’m a big person, I have room for you in here, right next to my heart. It’s okay, you can all squeeze in. Promise.
5. Alabama Shakes, Boys & Girls [itunes] I’ve only had this album for like a week and a half, but it settled itself all over me and hasn’t let up since. If I’d had it a little longer or put less weight into how much I listen to stuff, it’d be a hell of a lot higher up on the list. I heard “Hold On” on Pandora a few times earlier in the year, but it never really grabbed me until I heard it at the front of the whole album. It’s a great song, all hopeful and plaintive and hungry, and Brittany Howard’s voice is p h e n o m e n a l. I could listen to her sing the phone book. “Boys & Girls” is another favorite and it showcases her voice in the same way that “Hold On” does, all beautiful and wailing.
Boys & Girls is kind of vintage-y and lo-fi and it’s the kind of album you should listen to on a hot day while the sun is setting and you’re drinking something cold and extremely alcoholic. It sounds like what a million other bands have tried to do, but it sounds utterly effortless. It’s like… This isn’t what Alabama Shakes are trying to sound like, it’s what they’re meant to sound like. Gorgeous.
4. Marina & the Diamonds, Electra Heart [amazon]Marina Diamandis’ first album The Family Jewels was one of my most listened albums of 2010 and 2011 and it’s something I put on a lot because the songs are all so solid and beautiful and even after all this time they haven’t gotten even a little bit old and I was looking forward to Electra Heartimmensely. Sadly and irritatingly, I’ve been broke-ish all year and had to settle for listening to badly ripped versions on YouTube until about a week ago. Man, do I even have to tell you how much quality matters? Like, Alabama Shakes, this’d be a lot higher if I’d had it longer.
My favorite song on the album is “Starring Role” I think. For the moment at least. And I sing the “you like my dad / you get on well / I send my best / regards from hell” part all the time. The acoustic version is gorgeous too. My other favorite is “Living Dead” which is, sadly, only on the import. But you should listen anyway.
3. Lana Del Rey, Born to Die [amazon]I did not want to like Lana Del Rey. I don’t like the kind of trash-twee floral headband, dreamy, filthy American flag aesthetic. I don’t like her socio-cultural appropriation. She is a problematic artist.
I started listening to Lana Del Rey because I was forced to. This summer was a particularly sweltering one in southern California and I have only one friend with a pool and, as you learn from birth, you never turn down an invitation to a pool, even if that friend tortures you by playing music you don’t want to listen to on repeat. I am a very chill human being though, so I tolerated it. And then suddenly I liked it and then I was begrudgingly spending money on it. Damn it. Swimming Pool Stockholm Syndrome. Favorites: “This Is What Makes Us Girls”, “Dark Paradise”, “Diet Mountain Dew”, “National Anthem”, and “Summertime Sadness”. Just put it on and float in a pool and drink something kind of fruity but too booze-y and close your eyes and point your face into the sun and give in. Just give in.
2. Ellie Goulding, Halcyon [amazon]I would have never downloaded this album without hearing “Anything Could Happen”. Period, end of story. This song is transcendent. When I first heard it, I posted about it on Tumblr and Facebook and said, “IF YOU AREN’T RUNNING THROUGH A FIELD WEARING HEADPHONES AND SCREAMING THE WORDS TO THIS AND CRYING BECAUSE THE WORLD IS BEAUTIFUL AND HAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL AND PEOPLE CAN BE AMAZING WONDERFUL CREATURES THEN WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE GOD DAMN IT” and, were it not like six degrees outside with six inches of snow on the ground I would still be doing this. Also, I’d apologize for the capslock, but I still feel that strongly.
Anyway, the rest of the album is just as good and very worth spending your hard-earned money on. I particularly recommend “Only You” and “Figure 8”, the latter which I was just scream-sobbing into a pillow like twelve hours ago. So good.
1. Lavender Diamond, Incorruptible Heart [amazon]I ended up with this album because I was perusing Amazon’s $5 albums page (Albums should always be $5! I would buy all the albums, all the time.) and saw that it had a free single — “Everybody’s Heart’s Breaking Now” — and I bought it and I fell in love so hard. Her voice! It’s so ethereal and magical and beautiful. I feel like I’m in a movie, like I just broke up with my long-term partner and I’m walking further and further into the water on a beach and I’m wearing a linen shirt and a long white skirt and the wind is blowing my hair and I’m just sinking deeper into the water in slow motion.
“Light My Way” is also great, really dance-y and cheerful and “Just Passing By” is really pretty and float-y and sleepy. Same goes for “Come Home” which makes me feel sort of weepy in a sad, but beautiful way. Also, “Forgive”. Also, the whole album.
Did you know that 2k12 is going to be over in, like, 24 days? I know everyone’s always all, “GOSH, where did this year go?!” but no, for real, WHERE DID THIS FUCKING YEAR GO?! I moved halfway across the country this year, I can’t be held responsible for keeping track of time.
Anyway, in celebration/mourning of the year past, I’m going to to some Totally Top Five posts! Because there is literally nothing I love more than forcing my opinion on other people and then encouraging them to spend money on the stuff I’ve told them to like. I promise none of these lists will include a $45 candle or a $120 blanket or, like, Le Sang du Nourrisson Face Cream that costs $360 for an ounce. I cannot promise that these lists won’t include something you think is dumb. But, let’s be real, that’s probably just a sign that you suck.
I am starting with music because… I don’t know, it seemed as good a place as any to start. Plus it’s unlikely that I will suddenly get SUPER into something that comes out in the next couple of weeks. I’m not that on top of shit.
These five were all big summer songs for me and things that I associate with moving to North Dakota and also the first few weeks here. I was just listening to them a LOT at the time and they’ll probably be stuck with those memories forever, for better or worse.
Without further ado, my top five (by number of plays) songs added to my iTunes library this year:
Not going to lie, I’ve loved this song since I heard it in that Internet Explorer commercial for the first time. It sounds like The Black Keys did a dubstep project and I L-O-V-E it. I love his voice on this particular track and I’m glad he’s had some fame. He seems like a nice dude.
I heard this on Pandora for the first time, but it was a song that couldn’t be escaped, right? I like the original too, but this remix is pretty far superior. I’ve grown to sort of love Ellie Goulding in general in the many months since I first heard this and there are at least three of her songs I love with a far greater intensity than this one, but this is a solid holding and I apparently listened to it a lot this year.
3. Flight Facilities, “Crave You (Adventure Club Dubstep Remix)” [youtube | amazon.com]
I heard this on Pandora too, on a playlist based on The Knife, I think. It came up often, but I downloaded it and listened to it in my car a lot with the volume up really loud and the windows down. Hearing this feels like late summer and dry, hot air. I feel sort of neutral on the whole dubstep thing in general, but I like it here.
Yet another Pandora discovery, probably from the same station. I got OBSESSED with that titular line in the song and the sort of wailing desperation of it. Like, play just that section over and over again obsessed. And then the clanging out of tune piano? Out of bounds greatness.
You know how every once in a while you hear a song for the first time and your jaw just kind of drops and everything slows down a little bit around you and you’re just totally flabbergasted by the experience of it? That’s how I spent the first minute of this song the first time it passed me on my Tumblr dash. It only lasted a minute because the uncontrollable urge to dance to it hit me at about 1:08 and I actually got out of my chair and threw myself around the room to it. Then I replayed it and did it again. Louder.
