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Anthology

On the occasion of my first anniversary of working at the Field Museum, a playlist of songs. Fair warning, though: I make no claims to elevated taste or standards. What I listen to at work is mostly intended to help me concentrate by shutting out the world while keeping me from really noticing the music too much.

Oct08 Frou Frou – Must Be Dreaming
Most of these songs were holdovers from what I was listening to during those last few boring weeks at the hospital.
Yelle – A Cause Des Garcons (Tepr Remix)
Made friends with a girl at work over this song, right when I started.
The Gaslight Anthem – Old White Lincoln
Ladyhawke – Another Runaway
Nov09 The Killers – Human
Absolutely hooked on this song when it first came out. Listened to it continuously for a couple days, at least. The same with its remix. Unquestionably the soundtrack of my first month at the museum.
MIA – Paper Planes
Van She – Sex City
Ingrid Michaelson – Creep
The Sounds – Hurt You
Liking this song provided a social entry with certain others that would have otherwise been impossible. Seems silly now in retrospect but was a huge deal at the time.
Dec09 Thomas Newman – Define Dancing
The start of my enduring Wall-E fixation, particularly with EVE. It’s one of the reasons why most everything I make is mostly white with grey and blue accents.
Adele – Right as Rain
Jan09 Miley Cyrus – Breakout
Extraordinarily catchy and mindless, perfect for blasting through headphones while concentrating on other things. Left it on for hours while designing BioSync’s website. Sorry, Audrey.
Feb09 Kelly Clarkson – My Life Would Suck Without You
See above.
Johann Strauss – An der schönen blauen Donau
I had a brief obsession with 2001.
Mar09 Beirut – My Wife, Lost in the Wild
Very vivid memories of my hotel room, being lost in DC, the cute brunette, feeling completely overwhelmed professionally, eating questionable Chinatown food.
Coldplay – Viva La Vida
Needed the cheery optimism to balance out the slow, tumor-like growth of bad vibes.
Apr09 Andrew Bird – Anonanimal
Best Concert of the Year.
Culture Beat – Mr. Vain
Mostly to annoy Ryan.
May09 The entire Braid soundtrack.
Of the game’s many merits, the music was probably the best.
El Ten Eleven – Central Nervous Piston
I was pretty obsessed with Helvetica at the time.
Jun09 Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Zero
The song of the summer: frisbee lunches, interns galore, league games, my sister’s wedding.
Pains of Being Pure at Heart – This Love Is Fucking Right!
Jul09 Weezer – El Scorcho
“I’ll bring home the turkey if you bring home the bacon” remains to this day my favorite lyric ever.
Bruce Springsteen – Tunnel of Love
Falling back to an old favorite, during what was perhaps the nadir of my work experience so far.
Aug09 Au Revoir Simone – Anywhere You Looked
Went to their show with Matt, on a whim. He and Kim moved away shortly thereafter, but the music stuck with me.
Gin Blossoms – Hey Jealousy
Described to a new friend how my love for this song was both 100% ironic and 100% earnest.
Sep09 Kings of Leon – Use Somebody
Alone in my room in Paris, late at night, over and over again.
Brian Sharpe – She Drives Me Crazy
Oct09 The Format – The First Single
Jason Robert Brown – Stars and the Moon
This one’s completely the fault of my brother, the composer/songwriter.

2 Comments

You didn’t have to list Miley Cyrus, you could have just lied. I mean you’re not held to some sort of journalistic integrity here. Although, it does make the Kelly Clarkson selection following it seem not so bad…

Congrats on one year!

Posted by Colyn on 28 October 2009 @ 1pm

Well, objectively speaking, I think the Kelly Clarkson song is the inferior song in every way, except it features some pretty awesome synth lines. The Miley song is a pretty obvious pastiche of the Go-Gos—which is both good and bad. Which is sort of the theme of this list: both good and bad, at once.

Posted by David on 28 October 2009 @ 6pm

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