Blind Prophecy

So, based on various sorting and smart playlist filters on iTunes, I can put together a list of the songs and albums I apparently listened to the most in 2008.
Albums, in no particular order:

• Xanadu (Original Broadway Cast)
• In The Heights (Original Broadway Cast)
• Young Frankenstein (Original Broadway Cast)
• Dreaming Wide Awake: The Music of Scott Alan (various artists)
• Youth Novels (Lykke Li)
• Juno (Soundtrack – various artists)
• Were the World Mine (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
• Lucky (Nada Surf)
• Exile On Mainstream (Matchbox Twenty)
• Pushing Daisies (Original Television Soundtrack)

Specific songs/singles that got the most play in 2008 (again, no particular order):

• Falling Slowly, Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova, from Once
• Now, Jonathan Groff
• Just Not Now, Farah Alvin, from I Love You Because
• Accidental Babies, Damien Rice
• I’m Alive, Original Broadway Cast, from Xanadu
• 4 Minutes, Madonna and Justin Timberlake
• Tonight, Lykke Li
• The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning, Smashing Pumpkins
• The Clock Strikes Three, Michael Arden, from Forward
• Love Remains the Same, Gavin Rossdale
• We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder, Bernice Johnson Reagon
• Yes We Can, will.i.am
• Harder Better Faster, Daft Punk
• All These Things That I’ve Done, The Killers
• Wanting Memories, Sweet Honey in the Rock
• No More Gas, DJ Earworm
• Hotel Chelsea Nights, Ryan Adams
• Rose’s Turn, Patti LuPone, from Gypsy
• Coin Operated Boy, The Dresden Dolls
• Chelsea Hotel No. 2, Rufus Wainwright

I don’t think it’s a perfect list, and all this really points to are the songs/albums that happened to be on when I hit an OCD “earbuds-in play on repeat until it becomes white noise” phase at work, still, it’s an interesting snapshot of the music that mattered to me this year.

It’s more revealing to discuss music in relation to what I was doing at any given time.

Lykke Li and the Juno soundtrack – Early 2008, before I started studying for the LSAT and my whole world changed.

I will always associate the actual studying with Scott Alan’s album Dreaming Wide Awake. I had a 35 minute MP3 I mixed myself that included proctor instructions for running an entire section of the LSAT and Alan’s music featured prominently in the 35-minute mix. I listened to that same mix 4 times a night, 3 or 4 nights a week, for two months straight.

I had a playlist labeled “anthems” that helped me get on the road and move across the country. Songs included music that spoke to the civil rights movement (Sweet Honey in the Rock), big and bright musical celebrations (“I’m Alive” from Xanadu, “96,000″ from In the Heights), and other stuff meant to be celebratory and as far from maudlin as possible.

Ryan Adams, Rufus Wainwright and Nada Surf were big in my New York vacation playlist.

Were the World Mine and Pushing Daisies are associated with the holiday season.

You get the idea. My brain tends to associate music with certain moods or places, even if there’s no emotional connection between them. To this day, I still associate the larger bay area (outside San Francisco) with Alanis Morisette’s Jagged Little Pill because of a family vacation when I was 18, and Annie Lennox reminds me of driving a very large van.

Anyway, for a much more pop-centric look back on 2008, check out DJ Earworm’s mashup of the year’s top songs: United States of Pop 2008

Filed under: 2008-review, music by Jere Keys