friday five - 15.5.09 - random wikipedia articles

Leave it to Lea to impinge upon my recently re-acquired life position of perpetually having nothing to do by calling me up and actually giving me something to do. Her internet is still on the fritz, see, so she enlisted me to sub for the Friday Five again. So: sorry, Lea fans, but you're going to have to deal with me again. It's a temporary condition, though. I promise.

The one thing that was never fully decided upon, though, was a theme. She gave me a suggestion which I later tried on for size, but after much painful brain-racking I came up dry and was forced dismiss it. It was about this time that I decided to do something audacious: you know that "random article" function on Wikipedia? I decided to be the first person in history to actually use it. In lieu of having an actual theme, I thought I'd let Wikipedia choose one for me (which may, in fact, be the least immoral thing Wikipedia has ever been used for).

The way this works: for each random page that comes up, I will dig through the dark recesses of my music collection and attempt to find something that loosely pertains to it. Once that song is found, I'll move onto the next until I'm done. I figure, what with last week's double-suck no-posting, my current academic freedom, and the fact that I could sit and click through random articles from now until the end of time, I can stand to do ten of these. So the Friday Five x 2 it is. Let's go!



Page Result #1: The Far Shore of Time
Empire of the Sun - "Standing on the Shore" (mp3|6.29MB)
If you haven't heard Empire of the Sun, this is definitely one of the three songs you're missing out on: light, breezy electropop from two Aussies who may or may not actually be from planet earth. They write some pretty awesome tunes, though. It's kind of hard to argue with that.
(from the 2008 album Walking on a Dream)

Page Result #2: Funky Koval
Stevie Wonder - "Superstition" (mp3|4.06MB)
This is one of those incredibly awesome songs that, for one reason or another, I always end up forgetting exists. That's a real shame, because it basically deserves to be synonymous with "funky." Maybe it is, though. Who knows? It's a huge classic no matter what, and an great excuse to get your butt up out of that office chair and boogie.
(from the 1972 album Talking Book)

Page Result #3: William Dolman
The Smiths - "William, It Was Really Nothing" (mp3|1.99MB)
I've often wryly noted that if the remainder of The Smiths' Hatful of Hollow were up to the standards of the first ten seconds of its opening track "William, It Was Really Nothing," it'd be the best album ever. That's only half a joke: the song sucks me in like few others I can think of, and over the course of an alarmingly brief 2:10 justifies once and for all why these guys are on the very short list of the greatest rock/pop acts of the last thirty years.
(from the 1984 album Hatful of Hollow)

Page Result #4: Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures
Battles - "Atlas" (mp3|9.78MB)
It's math-rock. This is really the best I can do for this one (though, to be fair, the song is spiffy and gleefully weird in equal measure -- I've always likened it to a future world where humans are defeated and taken over by robots and munchkins). People don't write songs about algorithms. At least for god's sake I hope not.
(from the 2007 album Mirrored)

Page Result #5: Stapedial branch of posterior auricular artery
The Trashmen - "Surfin' Bird" (mp3|2.16MB)
'Nuff said.
(from the 1964 album Surfin' Bird)

Page Result #6: Functional weakness
Good Charlotte - "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" (mp3|2.91MB)
'Nuff said.
(from the ... eh, who really cares?)

Page Result #7: Chief Toke
Jefferson Airplane - "White Rabbit" (mp3|2.36MB)
With all due respect to whoever the unfortunately named Chief Toke actually was, of course (what, you think I actually read these articles?). I'm sure most of you will gather why this, Jefferson Airplane's second-best song ever (after "Somebody to Love," from that same album), is just about the most appropriate song I could have put here. Quoth a brilliant man: "If you remember the 60s, you weren't there."
(from the 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow)

Page Result #8: Arts et Métiers (Paris Métro)
Berlin - "The Metro" (mp3|4.74MB)
Wow. This one turned out well. Not only is Berlin's "The Metro," in my humble opinion, one of the finest synth-pop songs of the 80s, but it's also ostensibly about the Paris metro. Among other things, of course. It's a really great song, though. I'm glad I had an excuse to include it, accidental as it may have been.
(from the 1982 album Pleasure Victim

Page Result #9: Mamma
Genesis - "Mama" (mp3|6.19MB)
Fact #1: Genesis was never the same after Peter Gabriel left in 1975. Fact #2: Phil Collins is bald. So what can a balding, lesser version of a band possibly give the world at large? Well, to be fair, it's not like late 70s/80s Genesis totally sucked. They had several really great songs. Their best post-Gabriel composition by far, however, is the eerie, atmospheric, and even slightly amusing "Mama." Phil really gets his chance to shine here, and he relishes it: it's been seven years and I still can't decide whether to smirk at or be creeped out by his overzealous "HAHA! HA!!"s.
(from the 1983 album Genesis)

Page Result #10: The Real World: Miami
Peaches - "Fuck the Pain Away" (mp3|4.73MB)
This, really, is the only fitting way to conclude such an entry. It's also evidence that my inner 13-year-old will never die, because I still kinda get some sort of gleeful adolescent rush listening to it. (Plus, it was on the Lost in Translation soundtrack. That gives it hipster merit, right?)
(from 2000 album The Teaches of Peaches)

That's all for this evening! If you hang around 'til Sunday, though, you'll get a second dose of me as I make my triumphant return to the Sunday Superlative after almost a solid month of absence. Don't worry, though. I have a real theme in mind for that one.

As always, send lovemail/hatemail/anymail related to the Friday Five to fridayfiveradio@gmail.com. Requests are always considered and welcomed. See you next week!