Happy Birthday to Me

My 30th birthday is the 30th of December this year. In honor of that, I present the current version of my most personal playlist, "The Definitive Me", or in other words, the "Top 20 Songs in My Lifetime." Granted, I have many favorite songs from before I was born, but I had to cut my full list of favorites down to fit on a single CD somehow. I used to make mixtapes for all my friends entitled "The Definitive Me." If you were one of those people, do you still have yours? Each tape is actually different because I was always finding new favorites and this current version is very different from those I did in high school.

1. "Steppin' Out" - Joe Jackson (1982) It took me exactly 25 years to find out who did this song. I never knew any of the lyrics, but I would hum or whistle the chorus line to people who listened to adult contemporary radio stations and they all said they recognized the tune, but couldn't place the title or artist without the hearing some lyrics. This year I was browsing on iTunes Essentials and this is one of the last songs on their '80s Pop playlist. I almost cried when it started playing. Now I must confess, I quickly listened to Joe Jackson's other most popular songs and I didn't like ANY of them. So, one hit wonder in my book.

2. "Too Pieces" – Yaz (1982) I always wanted to use this song for a movie scene, after the main characters break up, when one of them realizes they made a huge mistake but for some reason it’s too late to change it. “Too Pieces” to me means irreconcilable damage. After Vince Clarke left the original Depeche Mode lineup, but before he formed Erasure, he started Yaz to combine seemingly lifeless synthesizer sounds with the emotional blues vocals of Alison Moyet. This song stands in for all the Depeche Mode and Erasure songs that won’t find on this playlist.

3. "Belly of the Whale" – Burning Sensations (1983) "A short-lived Los Angeles area rock band. The group is best known for its MTV hit "Belly of the Whale", and for covering the Jonathan Richman song "Pablo Picasso", which was included in both the 1984 film and soundtrack of director Alex Cox's Repo Man starring Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez. Burning Sensations formed in 1982 and disbanded in 1987. The founder and leader of Burning Sensations, Tim McGovern, was previously a member of The Motels. He is currently fronting the classic rock band Knucklehead in the Pacific Northwest. Burning Sensations lone self-titled LP was produced in 1983 on Capitol/EMI Records and was produced by Tim McGovern and David Jerden." (from Wikipedia)

4. "Axel F" – Harold Faltermeyer (1984) My first favorite song, and my introduction to electronic music. This guy started off writing disco music for Donna Summers before switching to movie soundtracks like Beverly Hills Cop and Fletch (my favorite) and producing a Pet Shop Boys album. If I had a million dollars to blow on producing an original album, I would ask Harold Faltermeyer to record some new stuff, just so I could (hopefully) watch him work in the studio, never caring if anyone else heard it or not.

5. "I Feel for You" - Chaka Khan (1984) "A platinum-selling album launched by its title cut, an Arif Mardin produced, Grammy Award-winning, hip hop-based rendition of a Prince album track with a cameo appearance by Stevie Wonder on harmonica and rap by Melle Mel. (from Wikipedia)

6."Tenderness" – General Public (1984) Undeniably one of the happiest songs ever written, and yet it might be a break-up song. General Public is one half of The (English) Beat, which is one of my top five bands of all time. Interestingly, the other half of the post-breakup (English) Beat is Fine Young Cannibals, featured below.

7. "Don’t You" – Simple Minds (1985) The version on The Breakfast Club features a never-released solo drum intro. This song has the best beat – nothing fancy and steady without sounding mechanical. The perfect texturing of synthesizers and guitar. See also my "Nonexistent Ferris Bueller Soundtrack" post.

8. "Human" – The Human League (1987) Despite the lyrics, this is the one of the most romantic songs of all time to me; totally '80s and it also sounds close to the song played during the kiss scene in Airborne.

9. "She Drives Me Crazy" – Fine Young Cannibals (1988) The most feel-good song I know. It’s also one of a few songs with an extended remix that rivals the original version.

10. "Jennifer Lost the War" - The Offspring (1989) I include this more to bring up all the bands I first heard in skate videos: 311, Digable Planets, Fugazi, Sepultura, and Sublime. I hate The Offspring for their later work, and most fans who only know them from the radio will never know the haunting beauty of their non-goofy stuff.

11. "One" – The Bee Gees (1989) It took me over 15 years to find out who does this song. I recorded it off the radio on one of my first mix tapes back in fourth or fifth grade. Last year I happened to be reading about an attempted Bee Gees comeback a decade after Saturday Night Fever and it just clicked. It doesn’t sound like anyone else but them.

12. "Pacific State" – 808 State (1989) I first heard this as a sample on a P.M. Dawn song. When I finally got the whole song on the 24-Hour Party People soundtrack (a docudrama on the formation of New Order’s record label), I played it over and over. I still play it nearly every day.

13. "Disappear" – INXS (1990) My mom thinks I learned to sing from and try to sound like Andy Bell (from Erasure), but the truth is that I never heard him until I was sixteen. When I was a little kid (and somewhat to this day), my favorite vocals belonged to the either the lead singer of INXS or Simple Minds.

14. "Obscured" - Smashing Pumpkins (1993) The b-side of "Today" featured on the compilation album, Pisces Iscariot, which is one of my favorites of all time and definitely my favorite Pumpkins. Funny that it's all the stuff not considered good enough for previous release. It's all about jazz drummer, Jimmy Chamberlin, for me. I don't recognize any Pumpkins releases without him.

15. "Reflections in the Window" - Faith Assembly (1996) Here's a sample of the post-'80s synthpop I follow. The band's record label, A Different Drum, sends me a weekly e-mail and keeps me up-to-date with other bands like my favorites: Backlash, The Echoing Green, Freezepop, Frou Frou, Imogen Heap, Junior Boys, The Postal Service, and Venus Hum

16. "Beautiful Day" – U2 (2000) I thought the intro sounded kind of like Nine Inch Nails the first time I heard it. But then everything gets so happy and upbeat that you can’t help but smile.

17. "Smile around the Face" - Four Tet (2005) I love anything with Kanye West-style chipmunk vocals, but the parts that give me chills on this song are the fax machine noise toward the beginning and the cascading bells toward the end. It's my greatest discovery from XLR8R magazine.

18. "Ponytail" - Panda Bear (2007) One guy and a laptop, overdubbed to Phil Spector perfection, with a twist of Beach Boys. It was my #1 song of 2007. I found it on Spin magazine's "Top 40 Albums" list for that year.

19. "Wooden" - Simian Mobile Disco (2007) This is my greatest discovery from an iTunes Essentials playlist, next to "Steppin' Out" by Joe Jackson. Check this song's build and climax, but compose yourself.

20. "Move For Me" - Kaskade (2008) Also on my "Top Twenty Songs of the Last Two Years" post (click here), so I'll just copy what I wrote there: "great, shallow lyrics that acknowlege their own shallowness; the most hypnotic beat of the last two years."

OUT TODAY ON DVD: AMERICAN TEEN