Showing posts with label Scissors Sisters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scissors Sisters. Show all posts

Thursday, August 16, 2007

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.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Running with Scissors

At the 2006 Siren Music Festival, I was blessed to get to see Stars, whom I love and adore. However, playing at the same exact time on the other stage was another band I would've loved to see: the Scissors Sisters. While I don't regret my choice (life is to short to spend time regretting things), I really hope that I have another chance to see them live (for free would be nice since it would've been free at Siren...), as I'm sure they were tons of fun and put on a great performance.

Hopefully, most of you have heard of the Scissors Sisters. I realize that they haven't released an album this year/recently or anything, but I still feel like writing about them because they've been coming up via shuffle on my iPod with unusual frequency lately and it is making me quite happy. So I thought I would share a little bit of that happiness with you guys.

One thing I love about the Scissors Sisters is their disco influence. When I was little, I was convinced that I was a disco queen in my last life because of my unusual love of this genre for someone my age. Scissors Sisters are really the closest thing I can think of to disco that exists right now. Artists like Mika, Jamiroquai, or (occasionally) Honeycut might show a little disco influence, but Scissors Sisters embody the genre more. At the same time, Scissors Sisters definitely have a more modern tone that makes them stand apart from disco tunes from the 1970s. Then there's songs like Intermission, which reminds me 1920s silent movies. Along that line is also I Can't Decide, which also has a little country banjo twang and electronica (plus it's just an awesomely morbid song). Or Transistor, which is very electronica. Or the kind of grunge rock/blues/disco/electronica Music is the Victim. As you may know, I'm all about eclecticism and my favorite artists are those who utilize a cornucopia of different sounds. So here you are kids - some songs for your enjoyment:

Filthy Gorgeous (mp3) - Scissors Sisters ("Scissors Sisters") - iTunes
Music is the Victim (mp3) - Scissors Sisters ("Scissors Sisters") - iTunes
I Can't Decide (mp3) - Scissors Sisters ("Ta-Dah") - iTunes
Paul McCartney (mp3) - Scissors Sisters ("Ta-Dah") - iTunes

And some music videos because I'm feeling extra generous today:

I Don't Feel Like Dancing


Kiss You Off


Tata dahlings.

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