"I’m a roustabout/And I’m bound to roust you out "

It's been up for nearly two weeks, but this post on Mike Doughty's blog has some great You Tube videos of him singing some stuff off the newest record with Scrap Livingston accompanying him on bass.

They are made of awesome, so you should definitely go check them out.

Doogie Howser needs a new pair of shoes...

...or, more accurately, he has shoes to give away.

Go watch Neil Patrick Harris' upcoming appearance on Sesame Street.

Remember when he was Doogie Howser, M.D.?

I totally do.

It's nice to see him all grown up and succeeding in Hollywood.

The Pioneer woman

I collect blogs. I read a lot of them. A lot.

I've been following Ree, the pioneer woman, for a while now. Her blog, Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, morphed into a full-blown website at some point in the past year.

Ree lives on a cattle ranch. She cooks and takes pictures and home schools her punks.

She is a-maz-ing.

You should go check her out, if you haven't already.

"Electric feel" by MGMT

I hate to be so meta that I have to talk about a specific song.

But I do.

I love the song "Electric feel."

If you've ever heard of MGMT, you know that their first single off the album Oracular Spectacular was "Time to pretend." It's okay, but it isn't the best song from the album.

I don't know if I could pick one, I loved this album so much.

But I do know that I love "Electric feel."

The biggest thing it's got going for it is the fact that it's sung in falsetto. Every "pop" song sung in falsetto has this certain....feel...about it. They all seem to be seductive. Creepy, sometimes, but seductive.

This song oozes seduction. And it's lounge lizard vibe kills me every time.

I can't not love it.

This just in: New feature on the sidebar

I decided to keep my at-work playlist in the sidebar. I also decided to list the albums by the week.

So, each week brings a new playlist...

If I'm adventurous, I might even rate them at the end of the week.

Don't hold your breath.

Imogen Heap, or, Mrs. Dude doesn't like electronica

The Dude and I have notoriously different tastes in music sometimes. It's bizarre how much our tastes are either exactly the same or completely opposite.

It can, I think, be boiled down to the fact that The Dude is a music person and I am a lyrics person. Unfortunately, there are precious few times when those two aspects of an artist's work overlap.

My biggest complaint about electronica is that lyrics sometimes get tossed by the wayside in favor of cool musical flourishes. And, in my mind, that simply won't do. If, as an artist, you're more interested in music than lyrics, create instrumental music. No one will think less of you, I swear. Work it out, musically, and add some tracks with lyrics. At least, that way, you don't have to pretend that you care about creating something with lyrical integrity.

The Dude will tell you that sometime last summer, I went on a electronica buying-spree that consisted of me buying two of the albums that he's enjoyed immensely but that I haven't touched. One of them is Speak for yourself by Imogen Heap.

Two days ago, I was scrolling through Black Francis, my iPod, seeking out music that I haven't touched in a while. I wanted (nay, needed) to stop listening to the same three albums over and over again.

And then it happened.

I found Imogen Heap.

I like Speak for yourself. It's atmospheric and ethereal without veering off into the land of Bjork.

For the Bjork fans who might be offended by this statement, ask yourselves, is she not crazy musically-speaking? You know I'm right...

Heap seems to do the impossible--she blends interesting music with complex lyrics. I can listen to the entire album and not get grumpy that she's just mailing-it-in lyrically. And she gives me something interesting melodically.

Brilliant!

So, it turns out The Dude was right. Imogen Heap is something we can both agree on...