Fannish songs of the year
Dec. 30th, 2023 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annavereThese are just some of my favorite or most memorable stuff I heard and watched this year, starting with songs embedded in the stories themselves, transforming their original meaning in all manner of pleasant ways going forward.
12 Monkeys was especially good at this task, and made excellent use of incidental music throughout. 'Arms of Mine' turned into my second favorite Otis Redding song because of it, and 'Don't You Forget About Me' by Simple Minds has been granted permanent rotation in my playlist. More impressively, this show elevated songs I hadn't found more than indifferently tolerable before, like Foghat's 'Slow Ride.' I always thought of it as a dumb hard rock song - not the worst but far from the best. This year, whenever it comes on the radio, it carries the charming image of Cole in sunglasses and a bad 70s shirt. This makes a huge difference in my outlook. Even a song I utterly loathe, 'I've Had the Time of My Life' (by... no idea, and I sure ain't looking it up), has been positively affected, in that while I still think the song is annoying, the last time it came on the radio at work I got a gigantic grin on my face in memory of Ramse.
Those were songs I already knew in other contexts. Meanwhile, Hard Core Logo introduced me to the Headstones (Hugh Dillon's band), and I went cruising around YouTube discovering that I liked the film version of 'Sonic Reducer' considerably more than the Dead Boys original (sorry) and that the Headstones did a powerful rendition of 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' in 2019 which is much faster than the original, and done with great passion and a beautiful music video (also, Hugh Dillon is remarkably handsome without the mohawk).
Second category is favorite fanvids, all deserving more praise than my original comments contained. They also tend to make me worship at the altar of given songs if the tune is on my wavelength, and that definitely happened this year with what YT Music assures me is my most played song of 2023 - Keane's 'A Bad Dream."
The lyrics are themselves a reinterpretation of the W.B. Yeats poem 'An Irish Airman Forsees His Death,' written in 1918 in tribute to the Irish flying aces, and that aspect is still there in Keane's song, but by taking half a step back, their lyrics expand the list of potential meanings to include such things as depression and the travails of a suffering schizophrenic, becoming a perfect fit for that subplot in Hard Core Logo, courtesy of sdwolfpup's vid, which I still love.
I should probably go looking for vids about the actual Joe/Billy A plot someday.
Changing it up, another I greatly enjoyed was for the fluffiest layer cake of a show: White Collar.
The show's most delightful element for me is its unabashed retro styling, devoid (from what I've seen) of any hint of modern deconstruction. There are visual cues, such as Neal's Rat Packer suits and the camera lovingly seeking out classic New York architecture to give it a fairytale feel, but it's also true that the three leads look and behave like they've stepped out of a vintage Hollywood caper, with the dutiful investigator, devoted wife and dapper thief personalities utterly intact. They also get along ridiculously well.
Consequently, the impeccable song choice to accompany this style could only be a true American Songbook classic from the pen of Cole Porter, brought to the 21st Century via Elvis Costello, who does appreciate the classics. Costello sung it for the 2004 musical biopic De-Lovely, which told the life of Cole Porter with style and (as I recall - it has been a while) strong emotion. It's fairly rare that I click on a fanvid and get a song I actually recognize, let alone when it's something this obscure, and for it to be so apropos was the icing on the fluffy cake. My favorite part is how Greensilver's editing makes Neal demonstrating a shell game into a representation of the three of them dancing around each other.
Another song that went high up my rotation this year: MS MR's 'Hurricane.' It has the cavernous, echoey quality that meshes beautifully with apocalyptic imagery, and 12 Monkeys is a feast of such material. It's also a really excellent song for driving at night. Killabeez's AO3 page.
By splitting the verses into sequential viewpoints from one of the highest-stakes shows I have ever watched, balance is achieved within the self loathing lyric, alleviating some of its pressure. Three voices share the burden, as do the women in the show. Most of the vids I've seen either have a central character/couple to follow or are an ensemble free-for-all. This is a three-piece character study that is never even slightly confusing, remaining a masterpiece of both mood and organization.
And back around to the supreme talents of sdwolfpup, with a vid I only discovered this week, while checking to see if they had done anything else in a fandom I might recognize. I saw Spike and clicked, figuring from the title it might be set to Roxy Music (wrong, I know, because that's actually 'Take a Chance With Me') or something else that would facilitate a dreamy angst-fest. "But wouldn't it be hilarious if it was ABBA," said I to myself, and a second later I swore in amazement.
For all that it feels like a joke on lovelorn Spike, upon studying the lyrics, absolutely nothing is taken out of context for this pairing. It all works, it's all accurate and "it's magic" is quite thoroughly literalized. My favorite line in the song (where the girls sing "if you're all alone" with genuine pathos amid the relentless pep) is put to good use three times over to Buffy's various boyfriends leaving her. A little grounding in this flight of fancy. It's delightful.
Lastly, there are a few songs I found in the wild, and which I free-associated in fannish directions, a writing aid I have grown very fond of. My happiest discoveries:
For Highlander there is 'Speeding' by The Creatures (Siouxsie's obscure side project nobody but me has heard of), which has long been a favorite of mine, and this year it clicked as the purest Amanda song I have ever come across. It's got the flip of a coin and card dealing imagery, the free spirited mischief, "shut your eyes, let's hold hands" and the police sirens overtaking the song at the end. It's flirty and devil-may-care and delightful.
Another Creatures song, 'Killing Time,' is one I've long associated with the Wesley/Illyria story, but it also fits 12 Monkeys quite well, possibly better, and from the title in. An over the top apocalyptic love declaration, all manner of unhealthy and unraveling, with Budgie's ticking clock percussion and sexy brass. Siouxsie always made a fantastic torch singer. "Under dying skies."
Heard for the first time this year, Church's 'Under the Milky Way' clicked with Paul/Alva imagery, and their shared quest to investigate the unexplained. "Wish I knew what you were looking for." Visually, Miracles was very warm in tone, and this song corresponds to that quality, but it also has the suave darkness that some of the better 80s ballads dished up, and while the opaque lyrics seem to be discussing the night sky, "something quite peculiar... shimmering and white" makes me think of the ghost lights and other such phenomena they encountered.
12 Monkeys was especially good at this task, and made excellent use of incidental music throughout. 'Arms of Mine' turned into my second favorite Otis Redding song because of it, and 'Don't You Forget About Me' by Simple Minds has been granted permanent rotation in my playlist. More impressively, this show elevated songs I hadn't found more than indifferently tolerable before, like Foghat's 'Slow Ride.' I always thought of it as a dumb hard rock song - not the worst but far from the best. This year, whenever it comes on the radio, it carries the charming image of Cole in sunglasses and a bad 70s shirt. This makes a huge difference in my outlook. Even a song I utterly loathe, 'I've Had the Time of My Life' (by... no idea, and I sure ain't looking it up), has been positively affected, in that while I still think the song is annoying, the last time it came on the radio at work I got a gigantic grin on my face in memory of Ramse.
Those were songs I already knew in other contexts. Meanwhile, Hard Core Logo introduced me to the Headstones (Hugh Dillon's band), and I went cruising around YouTube discovering that I liked the film version of 'Sonic Reducer' considerably more than the Dead Boys original (sorry) and that the Headstones did a powerful rendition of 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' in 2019 which is much faster than the original, and done with great passion and a beautiful music video (also, Hugh Dillon is remarkably handsome without the mohawk).
Second category is favorite fanvids, all deserving more praise than my original comments contained. They also tend to make me worship at the altar of given songs if the tune is on my wavelength, and that definitely happened this year with what YT Music assures me is my most played song of 2023 - Keane's 'A Bad Dream."
The lyrics are themselves a reinterpretation of the W.B. Yeats poem 'An Irish Airman Forsees His Death,' written in 1918 in tribute to the Irish flying aces, and that aspect is still there in Keane's song, but by taking half a step back, their lyrics expand the list of potential meanings to include such things as depression and the travails of a suffering schizophrenic, becoming a perfect fit for that subplot in Hard Core Logo, courtesy of sdwolfpup's vid, which I still love.
I should probably go looking for vids about the actual Joe/Billy A plot someday.
Changing it up, another I greatly enjoyed was for the fluffiest layer cake of a show: White Collar.
The show's most delightful element for me is its unabashed retro styling, devoid (from what I've seen) of any hint of modern deconstruction. There are visual cues, such as Neal's Rat Packer suits and the camera lovingly seeking out classic New York architecture to give it a fairytale feel, but it's also true that the three leads look and behave like they've stepped out of a vintage Hollywood caper, with the dutiful investigator, devoted wife and dapper thief personalities utterly intact. They also get along ridiculously well.
Consequently, the impeccable song choice to accompany this style could only be a true American Songbook classic from the pen of Cole Porter, brought to the 21st Century via Elvis Costello, who does appreciate the classics. Costello sung it for the 2004 musical biopic De-Lovely, which told the life of Cole Porter with style and (as I recall - it has been a while) strong emotion. It's fairly rare that I click on a fanvid and get a song I actually recognize, let alone when it's something this obscure, and for it to be so apropos was the icing on the fluffy cake. My favorite part is how Greensilver's editing makes Neal demonstrating a shell game into a representation of the three of them dancing around each other.
Another song that went high up my rotation this year: MS MR's 'Hurricane.' It has the cavernous, echoey quality that meshes beautifully with apocalyptic imagery, and 12 Monkeys is a feast of such material. It's also a really excellent song for driving at night. Killabeez's AO3 page.
By splitting the verses into sequential viewpoints from one of the highest-stakes shows I have ever watched, balance is achieved within the self loathing lyric, alleviating some of its pressure. Three voices share the burden, as do the women in the show. Most of the vids I've seen either have a central character/couple to follow or are an ensemble free-for-all. This is a three-piece character study that is never even slightly confusing, remaining a masterpiece of both mood and organization.
And back around to the supreme talents of sdwolfpup, with a vid I only discovered this week, while checking to see if they had done anything else in a fandom I might recognize. I saw Spike and clicked, figuring from the title it might be set to Roxy Music (wrong, I know, because that's actually 'Take a Chance With Me') or something else that would facilitate a dreamy angst-fest. "But wouldn't it be hilarious if it was ABBA," said I to myself, and a second later I swore in amazement.
For all that it feels like a joke on lovelorn Spike, upon studying the lyrics, absolutely nothing is taken out of context for this pairing. It all works, it's all accurate and "it's magic" is quite thoroughly literalized. My favorite line in the song (where the girls sing "if you're all alone" with genuine pathos amid the relentless pep) is put to good use three times over to Buffy's various boyfriends leaving her. A little grounding in this flight of fancy. It's delightful.
Lastly, there are a few songs I found in the wild, and which I free-associated in fannish directions, a writing aid I have grown very fond of. My happiest discoveries:
For Highlander there is 'Speeding' by The Creatures (Siouxsie's obscure side project nobody but me has heard of), which has long been a favorite of mine, and this year it clicked as the purest Amanda song I have ever come across. It's got the flip of a coin and card dealing imagery, the free spirited mischief, "shut your eyes, let's hold hands" and the police sirens overtaking the song at the end. It's flirty and devil-may-care and delightful.
Another Creatures song, 'Killing Time,' is one I've long associated with the Wesley/Illyria story, but it also fits 12 Monkeys quite well, possibly better, and from the title in. An over the top apocalyptic love declaration, all manner of unhealthy and unraveling, with Budgie's ticking clock percussion and sexy brass. Siouxsie always made a fantastic torch singer. "Under dying skies."
Heard for the first time this year, Church's 'Under the Milky Way' clicked with Paul/Alva imagery, and their shared quest to investigate the unexplained. "Wish I knew what you were looking for." Visually, Miracles was very warm in tone, and this song corresponds to that quality, but it also has the suave darkness that some of the better 80s ballads dished up, and while the opaque lyrics seem to be discussing the night sky, "something quite peculiar... shimmering and white" makes me think of the ghost lights and other such phenomena they encountered.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-30 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 04:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-30 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 04:48 am (UTC)