Theme Thursday - Sadism

Today's theme is (drum roll please): songs for sadists. That has a good ring to it. Should be an album title. If I hadn't just changed my blog name, maybe I'd consider it. No, it wouldn't really fit with most of the stuff I post.

It's already kind of a song title: Songs for Sadists Without a Place to Sit Down, by Charles Bukowski from "70 Minutes in Hell." Too bad I can't find a working sample of the song to listen to anywhere, so I have no idea what this song actually sounds like...

The bands that came up when I Googled "songs for sadists" were unimpressive so I'm not going to put them on here. If you're that curious, you can Google them yourself.

But the point of this theme is not to find songs that have sadism in the title. The point is that some songs just have a sadistic nature. This is actually surprisingly hard. There are tons of songs about masochism out there (hell, every song about unrequited love but the person just can't stop loving them and keeps going back for more rejection has a hint of masochism in it), but not as many on the sadistic side - I suppose those are more controversial if you're talking about getting pleasure out of other people's pain.

Let's start with the song that inspired me to pick this theme -

Smile [mp3] - Lily Allen - "Alright, Still" (iTunes). Now, this jolly-sounding tune may not strike you as sadistic sounding, and it is a song about smiling and recovering from being dumped, but listen to the lyrics: "at first, when I see you cry, yeah, it makes me smile." Definitely a little sadistic. Or at least full of schadenfreude. So maybe our theme is sadism/ schadenfreude because sadism has that kinky sexual undertone, and I'm not sure how many songs I could/would want to find about that.

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) [mp3] - Eurythmics - "Greatest Hits" (iTunes). I know I already used this song for the first Theme Thursday, but with lyrics like "some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused," how could I not use this song? And it's a great song. It deserves to be used twice.

I Can't Decide [mp3] - Scissors Sisters - "Ta-Dah" (iTunes). Another song I've already posted... Damnit, I should've thought of this theme earlier so I wouldn't be reposting these songs for this theme. Oh well. Choice lyrics: "I could bury you alive but you might crawl out with a knife and kill me when I'm sleeping that's why I can't decide whether you should live or die..."

The Cell Block Tango [mp3] - Chicago, the Motion Picture Soundtrack (iTunes). Ah yes, a song every girl loves and every guy gets uncomfortable listening to. Very fitting. Very fitting indeed. "You know some guys just can't hold their arsenic." He definitely had it coming... *evil laugh*

Schadenfreude [mp3] - the original broadway cast of Avenue Q (iTunes). Yet another musical. Not my favorite number from Avenue Q, but still a good number nonetheless. And obviously it fits with the theme.

Enjoy. And, as always, feel free to leave me ideas for next week's Theme Thursday. Tata dahlings.

Theme Thursday - Dreams

So I'm going to start something I am going to call Theme Thursdays - an idea I will admit that I kind of stole from the University of Minnesota Radio Station, Radio K. So Theme Thursday is going to work as follows: I'm going to pick a word or a concept and find three songs (or so) that relate somehow - either by title, artist or album.

Today's theme (we're going to start off with an easy one) is Dreams. And I think I'm going to try to hit up a few different decades for this one.

So first we have the 80s classic Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (mp3) by the Eurythmics (iTunes). This song like, IS my childhood and I still love it to this day.

Next we have the 90s hit Dreams (mp3) by The Cranberries (iTunes). Man, some great music came out of the 90s. In fact, we're going to do three 90s songs, because Dreamlover (mp3) by Mariah Carey (iTunes) is another great one. And to represent the later 90s, With You in Your Dreams (mp3) by Hanson (iTunes). Not gonna lie - I didn't appreciate Hanson in the 90s, but I do now. Especially after everything they went through to get their newest album released (I got to see the documentary, Strong Enough to Break, about it and meet them. They gave everyone free CDs and autographed them. Way cool.) Yes, they are indeed Indie now. They left their label. Go Hanson. In fact, the just released a new CD, "The Walk," two days ago. It's pretty good. I think I liked "Underneath" better though.

I kind of want to put up a song by the short-lived girl band Dream, but I will resist... I'm not going to sink that low today. But their songs were pretty hilarious.

And now for this decade, Fever Dream (mp3) by Iron & Wine (iTunes), and Dreams (mp3) by TV on the Radio (iTunes) - who I sadly don't get to see for free on Sunday at McCarren Park Pool because I am going to be in Connecticut... boo...

And let's do one foreign song, since it's such an easy theme: Dreams Come True (mp3), by Korean group SES (iTunes unavailable). And yes, this is the Korean version (though some parts are still in English). I don't like the English version because my favorite part of this song is the rap part toward the end, which was excluded from the English version. It reminds me of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Listen to it. You'll understand.

Ok, happy Theme Thursday! Sorry if I'm a little flaky about posting over the next few days. I've got some craziness coming up. But I will do my best to keep the posts coming. Tata dahlings.