Showing posts with label Metallica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Metallica. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Workout Megamix Liner Notes - Part IV: the Final Liner


NOTE:  This post is rated R for mild strong language and vulgar humor.

Update

Hear my entire Megamix (200+ songs) on Spotify - click here!

Introduction

This is the last installment of my Workout Megamix liner notes:  a list of, and commentary on, the music I play while riding indoors.  Click here, here, and here for installments I, II, and III respectively. (Update: I added two more over the years. The full list, with links, is at the bottom of this post.)


Let me be clear on something:  I do not condone riding outdoors with headphones.  I was once coming home from a ride and was passing this other biker when he started drifting to the left.  I yelled at him but he kept coming, until we were almost in the left gutter.  Dude almost took me out, and I couldn’t figure out what his problem was until I saw he was wearing headphones.  I strangled him with the cord and dumped his body in a well.  (Mentally.)  It’s one thing to lose yourself in music while riding indoors—in fact, that’s kind of the point—but on a public road, you need to be in the real world.

In other news, I realize my Megamix is pretty heavy on a relatively small number of singers/bands (in fact it comprises just 35). The thing is, there’s tons of good music out there but not all of it is good for riding the trainer.  Nothing takes the wind out of your sails like a low-key song.  I’ll bet a Coldplay song—even a good one—would lower my heart rate by 20 bpm.  And then there are fast-paced songs that work for a while but start to get old.  I’ve worked hard to pick only the best-suited tracks for this Megamix.

(No, I don’t actually think you’re going to go buy a bunch of CDs based on these recommendations.  But you could get some from the library to try out.  Remember libraries?  I’m a card-carrying member! And if you are more modern than that, click here for my Spotify playlist.)


Liner Notes – Dana’s Ultimate Superfly Workout Megamix Part IV – The Final Liner

Take It or Leave It – The Strokes

Takeover – Jay-Z
         This song, which started a feud between Jay-Z and Nas, features  Jay-Z bagging on Nas for not being more successful.  Nas has had five number one albums and has sold over 25 million records, which is pretty amazing until you consider Jay-Z has had ten number one albums, selling over 100 million.  That said, Nas is a way better rapper.  Sales aren’t everything; consider that Herman Melville sold only 3,200 copies of Moby Dick during his lifetime, while Danielle Steel has sold 650 million novels.
         All this aside, “Takeover” is a pretty good track.  In one extended motif, it makes fun of (or pays homage to?) the David Bowie song “Fame,” substituting “lame.”  Good beat, easy to dance to … I give it a 7.

Take, Take, Take – The White Stripes

Tango – Lady Sovereign
         Continuing the “hater” theme, this song is a very funny, if vicious, attack on … who?  what?  Someone orange, to be sure:  “And you always know where she’s been,/ And you always know when she’s had a pee,/ Cause the toilet seat ain’t clean/ Cause the toilet seat has an orange sheen!”   After years of being mystified by this song, I finally did some research.  Tango, in this context, refers to an orange-flavored soft drink (surely as artificial as a fake tan) hawked in the UK by a spokesman in an orange bodysuit.  The chorus of this song:  “Slap, bang, goes on your fake tan/ Bitch, you look like the Tango man.”
        Turns out Lady Sovereign is bagging on a one-time pop-star-wannabe named Jentina who, as near as I can figure, is the British equivalent of Vanilla Ice, but without the fifteen minutes of fame.  Whether or not Jentina deserved such vitriol, this is a great song, perfect for the trainer.
         (By the way, I know somebody who once tried on a spray-on tan.  It made her almost as orange as a carrot!  Yikes!)

Tarantula – Bob Schneider
         I saw this singer live, at a small San Francisco venue called The Independent, in the early aughts.  Some friends had come all the way from San Luis Obispo to see him, so my wife and I tagged along.  It was a great show.  This guy’s music is all over the place; at the concert he did a totally straight, non-ironic cover of “You Make Me Feel (Like a Natural Woman)” along with a rockabilly version of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give It Away.”  Not much of Bob Schneider’s repertoire is suitable for indoor workouts, but this song is.  You should check it out.

Tell Me Why – M.I.A.

That Was Just Your Life – Metallica
         Years ago my family was house-swapping with a family in Glasgow, and I found this Metallica album there called “Death Magnetic.”  The apartment belonged to a couple of professors and was full of great books, so I decided they must have good taste.  I wasn’t wrong:  this album totally rocks, and “That Was Just Your Life” is one of my favorite tracks on it.  If you’re getting sick of the dark, cold days and indoor workouts, the lyrics can see almost eerily apropos:  “Like a misery that keeps me focused though I’ve gone astray/ Like an endless nightmare I must awaken from each day.”

The Air Near My Fingers – The White Stripes

The Day I Tried To Live – Soundgarden

The Day That Never Comes – Metallica

The Girl Tried To Kill Me – Ice-T
         This is one of the rare rap songs that has a whole lot of electric guitar.  Very high-energy stuff, and also funny.  It’s about a guy who meets the girl of his dreams (“Hype, super-dope body and face, her mini-skirt tight/ Talkin’ ‘bout legs and lips, mindblowin’ hips/ Had to cross my legs just to look at her tits”).  Unfortunately, she turns out to be psychotic, which is bad enough news before her husband shows up.  A rap classic.

The God That Failed – Metallica

The Hardest Button to Button – The White Stripes

The Man Who Sold the World – Nirvana

The Monster – Eminem with Rihanna
         This is a great song.  I suppose I could go on and try to say something interesting and original about it, but I just glanced at the Wikipedia entry and it’s just vast.  There are 121 footnoted references on that page.  It’s tempting to say that somebody (i.e., the amateur Wikipedia writer) needs to get a life, but then that’s a dangerous proposition for a blogger.  Glass houses and all that.
         Suffice to say, this is the Eminem song that everybody likes, even those who hate Eminem.  Rihanna is another famous musician.  I think she’s famous because she sells a lot of records, but for all I know, she’s famous because she has a tortured “private” life or something.

The Real Slim Shady – Eminem

The Righteous & The Wicked – Red Hot Chili Peppers

The Unforgiven – Metallica

The Unforgiven III – Metallica
         This is another of my favorites.  (I love the original “Unforgiven” as well, though it’s slightly marred by the silliness of a line in the chorus, “I dub thee unforgiven.”)  Toward the end of this track there’s this minute-long guitar solo that will have yourself pedaling like a madman.
         Case in point:  I was pedaling along to this recently, on the rollers, and started going harder and harder.  That often happens with great music, but then it dawned on me that my increased effort wasn’t entirely voluntary.  The pedaling itself was getting harder, and my heart rate was climbing.  What’s more, the bike was getting harder and harder to control.  My back was starting to hurt.  Finally I realized the problem:  I had a damn flat tire!  Who gets a flat tire on the rollers, for cryin’ out loud?  Me, that’s who!

Through Being Cool – Devo

Time To Get Ill – Beastie Boys
         Back in 1990 I was working at a bike shop with a couple of illegals from London.  On a hunch I asked one of them if the Beastie Boys were big in England.  “Absolutely huge,” he said.  I can see why.  Though they may seem as American as apple pie, these guys are quite the Anglophiles.  This song is a case in point:  it’s a tribute to “Binker,” a poem by A.A. Milne published in 1927 in the book Now We Are Six.  Skeptical?  Compare these passages:
Binker’s brave as lions when we’re running in the park;
Binker’s brave as tigers when we’re lying in the dark;
Binker’s brave as elephants.  He never, never cries…
Except (like other people) when the soap gets in his eyes.
I’d have the pedal to the metal if I had a car
But I’m chiller with the Miller cold coolin’ at the bar
I can drink a quart of Monkey and still stand still
What’s the time? It’s time to get ill.
         It’s easy to tell which is the Milne poem and which is the rap song, but the similarities are striking.  Of course the rhyme scheme is identical, and the meter very nearly the same as well, but beyond that, there’s a thematic resemblance, almost as though MCA would like to see himself as a modern-day Binker.
         By the way, I made all that up, except the bit about my bike shop pal and these guys being huge in England.

Truckdrivin’ Neighbors Downstairs – Beck
         There’s some dialogue at the beginning of this song (“You lousy puke!”/ “Why don’t you call your mommy?!”) that will jar you to attention if you start to slouch during your workout.  It’s an odd song, somewhere between a ballad and a dirge, but faster, that catalogs the squalid details of some horrible neighbors; for example, “Whiskey-stained buck-toothed back woods creep/ Grizzly bear motherfucker never goes to sleep.”  Very funny, and dark … it should have you pedaling your ass off to get away from these people (though as usual, this being the trainer, you’re going nowhere fast).

Trunk – Kings of Leon
                                                                                                               
U Wanna Be Me – Nas
         One nice side effect of all this trainer music is that you have a wider variety of songs that might pop into your head during a road (or trail) ride.  Click here and search on “wanna” for an account of a total dork who tried to school me by blowing through a stop sign and keeping his momentum for an uphill.  This song became the anthem of his comeuppance.  “You suckers, you weak, you flunkies, you fake/ You couldn’t come close on my worst day.”

Ultraviolence – Lana Del Rey
         This song is the title track from the album “Ultraviolence,” which is apparently very popular.  I’d never heard of it, nor of Lana Del Ray, when I came across it in the “Lucky Day” section of the library.  It looked pretty cool, and I figured maybe the title was a reference to Clockwork Orange, so I checked it out.  Kind of a nifty sound, different, and there was a sticker the librarian put on the jewel case saying “TEEN,” which helps me pretend I’m not old and lame.  I liked this album enough to buy it, though most of the songs aren’t quite right for the trainer.  This one does the job.

Unorthadox Daughter – No Lay
         That “Unorthadox” isn’t a misspelling.  It’s really spelled that way.  I don’t know much about this song or about No Lay, other than to say I got this from a grime compilation album called “Run the Road.”  (Wikipedia is no help here; the entry is so sloppy it spells Marshall Mathers “Mashall Mathers.”  Stylistic misspelling is one thing; typos are quite another.)  This song is good and fast and I have no idea what No Lay is saying.  But that’s good … you’ll have plenty of time to puzzle this out as you flail away at the pedals, week after week, until spring.

Untutored Youth – The Hives
         I love this song.  It’s very hard to make out the lyrics but I’m pretty sure part of it goes, “And when people tell me what is OK and what is not, it should not be unexpected when I extend my middle right hand digit and say ‘Hey, would you like lemon or lime with that piece of advice, mister?’”  The Hives are great for the trainer because the songs are really short, so you can commit to absolutely hammering through them the whole way.  A Hive Interval, you might say.

Use Somebody – Kings of Leon

W.T.P. – Eminem
         A fair bit of this MegaMix is somewhat dark, so it’s nice to have some lighthearted, funny songs on there, and this is one of them.  Throughout his oeuvre Eminem has turned his humble trailer-trash roots into an asset and this song is perhaps the pinnacle:  “So let’s have us a little bash/ And if anyone asks, it ain’t no one but us trash.”  And talk about a cheap date:  “Now honey, don’t let them pricks trip, we should make a quick dip/ And go do some doughnuts in the hospital parking lot.”
         When I was in high school, a friend had this old Volvo wagon with a bad muffler, so it sounded like a muscle car, and every time we drove anywhere, he’d swing by the high school to do doughnuts in the parking lot.  It was a dirt lot, which is pretty amazing because this was Boulder, Colorado which has since been so gentrified the roads are mostly paved with teak or mahogany.

What I Got – Sublime
         I’d never heard of this band until a friend said I should check them out.  So I bought their eponymous album, tried it out, and immediately recognized several songs I’d heard a lot on the local alternative rock station (whose deejays can’t be bothered to give the name of a song or artist—we’re just supposed to know, duh!).  Three of Sublime’s songs made the cut for this Megamix.
         I’m actually not that curious about musicians, so I never looked these guys up on Wikipedia until just now.  Dang, it’s actually a very sad story which I’ll spare you from … you can always go look it up if you want.  The fact is, their subject matter is often pretty dark and trashy, but in a kind of jovial way, so it never used to bum me out.  Now I’m not sure I’ll ever hear their music the same way again.

What’s Wrong With Them – Lil Wayne
         This is another one of those rap songs where the chorus is sung by a woman with a great voice.  In this case the chanteuse is somebody called Nicki Minaj.  I won’t necessarily check out her music; sometimes these guest appearances are better than the contributing artist’s own work.  For example, I liked Amy Winehouse’s contribution to the Nas song “Cherry Wine,” so I checked out one of her albums.  Alas, I couldn’t get into it … I just didn’t like the style (though she had a great voice).  Similarly, Dido is great on Eminem’s song “Stan,” but her own songs wouldn’t work for the trainer. 
         So many pop songs featuring women have such cloying lyrics.  I asked my teenager who the hot female pop singer is and looked her up:  “I go on too many dates [chuckle]/ But I can’t make them stay … My ex-man brought his new girlfriend/ She’s like “Oh, my god!” but I’m just gonna shake.”  You know what?  I really don’t care about the romantic foibles of some drippy fool-for-love.
         Whatever Nicki Minaj typically sings about, I like her belting out, “This is times up/ Put your signs up/ They done picked my dude/ Out the lineup/ Baby what the fuck’s wrong with them/ What the fuck’s wrong with them?”  Okay, maybe this lament is about her dude (i.e., Lil Wayne), but at least it’s not just the typical unrequited love … this seems to be a commentary on dubious incarceration and the questionable practice of having eyewitnesses look at police lineups.  The way this critique is delivered, it’s got a nice kick to it.

When I Come Around – Green Day

Where Did You Sleep Last Night – Nirvana

Where Is My Mind? – The Pixies
         I love this song.  You may be tickled to learn how it came to be written.  The lead singer, Black Francis, is credited with this explanation:  “That came from me snorkeling in the Caribbean and having this very small fish trying to chase me. I don’t know why; I don’t know too much about fish behavior.” (Hey, Black has the same approach to research that I do!)
         Incidentally, there’s a great M.I.A. song called “20 Dollar” that borrows heavily from this one.

Wherever I May Roam – Metallica

Whip It – Devo

Wrong Way – Sublime

XR2 – M.I.A.

You Ain’t Got Nuthin – Lil Wayne
         The fact is, Lil Wayne’s lyrics, though good, aren’t nearly as clever as, say, Eminem’s.  But somehow Lil Wayne makes his words sound so great.  “Uhh, I get money like a muhfucker/ Shades darker than a bitch, but I can see/ I got everything, you got nothing/ But you ain’t got nothing on me.”  On the page the words fall pretty flat … but when you’re hammering on the indoor bike, heart rate at like 160, all that adrenaline and everything, these simple words seem so profound!

Young Lust – Pink Floyd

Zero Chance – Soundgarden 

More reading

Here are links to the rest of my series of Workout Megamix liner notes:
The complete Megamix list (updated December 2022)

For your convenience, here's the complete list of tracks on my Workout Megamix:

‘Till I Collapse - Eminem
16 Shots -  Stefflon Don
20 Dollar - M.I.A.
212 - Azelia Banks
8 Miles & Runnin’ - Freeway/Jay-Z
911 Is a Joke - Public Enemy
A Punchup at a Wedding - Radiohead
A Thousand Days Before - Soundgarden
A.K.A. I-D-I-O-T - The Hives
Adrenaline Rush - Obie Trice
Airbag - Radiohead
Alive - Sia
Ass Like That - Eminem
Average Man - Obie Trice
Bad Girls - M.I.A.
Bad Guy - Eminem
Be Somebody - Kings of Leon
Beautiful - Eminem
Beautiful Pain - Eminem w/ Sia
Best Rapper Alive - Lil Wayne
Black Hole Sun - Soundgarden
Black Saturday - Soundgarden
Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos - Public Enemy
Blow Up the Outside World - Soundgarden
Bones of Birds - Soundgarden
Borders - M.I.A.
Born Free - M.I.A.
Brain Stew - Green Day
Broke as Fuck -  YBN Cordae
Bucky Done Gun - M.I.A.
Burden in My Hand - Soundgarden
Cash Money Millionaires - Lil Wayne
Celebrity Skin - Doja Cat
Cha Ching (Cheq 1-2 Remix) - Lady Sovereign
Charmer - Kings of Leon
Cheers - Obie Trice
Closer - Kings of Leon
Come As You Are - Nirvana
Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd
Cool Cats - Obie Trice
Cops Shot the Kid - Nas
Creep - Radiohead
Cry Now - Obie Trice
Deja Vu - Eminem
Desperation - Eminem
Discombobulated - Eminem
Don’t Shoot (I’m a Man) - Devo
Down In It - Nine Inch Nails
Easy to Crash - Cake
Enter Sandman - Metallica
Everlong - Foo Fighters
Eyelid’s Mouth - Soundgarden
Fell In Love With a Girl - The White Stripes
Fell On Black Days - Soundgarden
Fight the Power - Public Enemy
Follow My Life - Obie Trice
Free Bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd
Fresh - Devo
Galang - M.I.A.
Get Free - Lana Del Rey
Girls LGBNAF - Ice-T
Give It Away - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Gnat - Eminem
Godzilla - Eminem
Got Hungry - Obie Trice
Hands On You - Eminem/Obie Trice
Happiness is a Warm Gun - The Breeders
Heart In a Cage - The Strokes
Heart Shaped Box - Nirvana
Heartbeat - Ice-T
Hustlers - Nas
Hypnotize - The White Stripes
I Am Not a Human Being - Lil Wayne
I Could Have Lied - Red Hot Chili Peppers
I Go To Work - Kool Moe Dee
I Will - Eminem
Icky Thump - The White Stripes
If I Had - Eminem
I’m Back - Eminem
I’m Your Pusher - Ice-T
It Takes a Muscle - M.I.A.
Jack My Dick - Obie Trice
Jesus Christ Pose - Soundgarden
Just Lose It - Eminem
Killing Lies - The Strokes
Knives Out - Radiohead
Know It Ain’t Right - M.I.A.
Last Nite - The Strokes
Legacy - Eminem
Like Suicide - Soundgarden
Little Acorns - The White Stripes
Loco-Motive - Nas
Lollipop - Lil Wayne
Longview - Green Day
Look In My Eyes - Obie Trice
Loot My Body - Man Man
Lose Yourself - Eminem
Love Me - 50 Cent
Love Me or Hate Me - Lady Sovereign
Love the Way You Lie - Eminem
Matangi - M.I.A.
Mockingbird - Eminem
Money Over Bullsh*t - Nas
Mother - Pink Floyd
Move Your Body - Sia
Mr. Brightside - The Killers
Mr. Carter - Lil Wayne
Mrs. Officer - Bobby Valentino/Lil Wayne
My Dad’s Gone Crazy - Eminem
My England - Lady Sovereign
My Mom - Eminem
My Name Is - Eminem
My Wave - Soundgarden
No Love - Lil Wayne/Eminem
No Regrets - Eminem
Non-State Actor - Soundgarden
Not Going Back - Nas
Not the Same Anymore - The Strokes
Nothing Else Matters - Metallica
Offend In Every Way - The White Stripes
On the Other Side - The Strokes
One Mic - Nas
One Time 4 Your Mind - Nas
Outshined - Soundgarden
Overfloater - Soundgarden
Paint It Black - The Rolling Stones
Paper Planes - M.I.A.
Personal - Ice-T
Pony - Ginuwine
Pump Your Fist - Kool Moe Dee
R.A.K.I.M. - Rakim
Rabbit Run - Eminem
Radio Suckers - Ice-T
Rap God - Eminem
Rewind - Nas
Rhinosaur - Soundgarden
Richard - Obie Trice
Roughnecks - Obie Trice
Safe From Harm - Massive Attack
Santeria - Sublime
Searching With My Good Eye Closed - Soundgarden
Seduction - Eminem
Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes
Sexodus - M.I.A.
Shoot Me Down -Lil Wayne
Shooter - Lil Wayne
Sick Of You - Cake
Sing For the Moment - Eminem
Smack That - Eminem
Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
Smile Like You Mean It - The Killers
So Human - Lady Sovereign
Soul of a Man - Beck
Spoonman - Soundgarden
Stan - Eminem
Stop - Jane’s Addiction
Suck My Kiss - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Sunshowers - M.I.A.
Superunknown - Soundgarden
Survival - Eminem
Sympathy For the Devil - The Rolling Stones
Take It or Leave It - The Strokes
Take, Take, Take - The White Stripes
Takeover - Jay-Z
Tango - Lady Sovereign
Tarantula - Bob Schneider
Tell Me Why - M.I.A.
That Was Just Your Life - Metallica
The Adults Are Talking - The Strokes
The Air Near My Fingers - The White Stripes
The Day I Tried To Live - Soundgarden
The Day That Never Comes - Metallica
The Girl Tried To Kill Me - Ice-T
The God That Failed - Metallica
The Hardest Button to Button - The White Stripes
The Man Who Sold the World - Nirvana
The Monster - Eminem with Rihanna
The Real Slim Shady - Eminem
The Righteous & The Wicked - Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Unforgiven - Metallica
The Unforgiven III - Metallica
Thrift Shop - Macklemore
Through Being Cool - Devo
Time To Get Ill - Beastie Boys
Truckdrivin’ Neighbors Downstairs - Beck
Trunk - Kings of Leon
U Wanna Be Me - Nas
Ultraviolence - Lana Del Rey
Unorthadox Daughter - No Lay
Untutored Youth - The Hives
Use Somebody - Kings of Leon
W.T.P. - Eminem
What I Got - Sublime
What’s Up Danger - Black Caviar & Blackway
What’s Wrong With Them - Lil Wayne
When I Come Around – Green Day
Where Did You Sleep Last Night - Nirvana
Where Is My Mind? - The Pixies
Wherever I May Roam - Metallica
Whip It - Devo
Why Are Sundays So Depressing - The Strokes
Worse Dreams - Soundgarden
Wrong Way - Sublime
XR2 - M.I.A.
Yah Yah - Eminem
You Ain’t Got Nuthin - Lil Wayne
Young Lust - Pink Floyd
Zero Chance - Soundgarden

--~--~--~--~--~--~--~---~--
For a complete index of albertnet posts, click 
here.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Workout Megamix Liner Notes - Part I


NOTE:  This post is rated R for mild strong language.

Update

Hear my entire Megamix (200+ songs) on Spotify - click here!

Introduction

A couple friends asked me for recommendations for music to listen to while riding the stationary bike or indoor trainer.  I’ve been crafting the all-time #1 ultimate Workout Megamix for about two decades.  My quest began back in the mid-‘90s when I tried to ride the trainer while listening to The Cranberries.  Nothing against them, but it wasn’t helping me get that heart rate up.

Around this time I e-mailed all my friends for recommendations and was shocked at the dearth of fast, hard, rockin’ good stuff.  People were suggesting albums like “Buena Vista Social Club” and Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue.”  As you can see, I really needed to find some cool friends, but that’s hard to do, so I started experimenting with different music and I think that’s gone pretty well.

So in compiling my Workout Megamix, I thought to myself, Why stop at a mere list when I could be describing the song and/or the band and/or the reason I think it belongs in the list?  And so my Liner Notes idea was born.  Because this is a lot of work, I’m extending the distribution of these notes from 2 persons to 3.17 billion (the number of souls on this planet with Internet access).

The full list comprises 165 tracks, which at roughly 4 minutes per track gives about 11 hours of music, which should last for about 15 indoor workouts.  If you do 3 workouts a week this will last you 5 weeks before you get your first rerun.  That ain’t so bad.  These tracks are in alphabetical order by title because that’s the order they play on my MP3 player.  This post covers A-G and I’ll get to the rest in subsequent posts.

Before I begin, a quick caveat:  I’m not saying I know anything about music.  Whenever I find myself in the position of expounding in detail on a thorny subject (i.e., most of the time), I find myself winging it.  I hope that’s good enough for you.

One last thing:  particularly if your trainer is on the loud side (or even your rollers—mine have aluminum drums that tend to “sing” at high speed), please do yourself a favor and spring for noise-canceling headphones.  Indoor cycling is supposed to be good for you—don’t slowly deafen yourself in the process!


Liner Notes – Dana’s Ultimate Superfly Workout Megamix

'Till I Collapse – Eminem
            This is a perfect one for the trainer, thematically.  It even talks about your legs getting tired:  “Till the roof comes off, till the lights go out, Till my legs give out, can’t shut my mouth.”  And you can’t ride the trainer with your mouth shut, either.  How true that is.

8 Miles & Runnin' - Freeway/Jay-Z
            This is from the soundtrack to “8 Mile,” which was the movie that got me back into rap after more than a decade of nothing … the wilderness years, if you will.  “The New Yorker” gave “8 Mile”  a good review, which I hadn’t expected.  When that movie came out I knew almost nothing about Eminem, other than what I’d gleaned from an outraged editorial quoting some of his crude lyrics.  I remember thinking, “Man, this guy is really foul ... for him to be popular, he must have talent or something.”  The movie convinced me.  Go see it if you haven’t, or even if you have.

911 Is a Joke - Public Enemy
            Public Enemy was one of the first rap groups I ever got into.  I kind of burned out on them eventually, but that’s not their fault.  Chuck D is the main guy, with Flavor Flav kind of his court jester.  Nice combo.

A Punchup at a Wedding – Radiohead
            This is the only song I know of that’s about a fistfight breaking out at a wedding.  Fortunately, my wedding was free of fisticuffs, though I did consider beating down an attendee.  It was an outdoor wedding in an amphitheater, and some douchebag college kid took the liberty of sitting down to watch.  It would be one thing if it were a giant wedding, but I only had like 12 or 13 guests—plus him.  Meanwhile, the guy’s dog was getting a bit too close to the wedding cake.  Lucky for him I didn’t want to fight while wearing my nice suit.

A.K.A. I-D-I-O-T - The Hives
            The Hives is a band I discovered through the music review section of “The New Yorker.”  They hail from the Swedish industrial city of Fagersta.  As the magazine described it, “The Hives quickly became huge in Sweden, which is sort of like being the strongest person in your house.”  They have a fast, angry sound perfect for the indoor trainer.

Adrenaline Rush - Obie Trice
            I was introduced to Obie Trice by the “8 Mile” soundtrack.  Like Eminem, he’s from Detroit.  Here’s a crazy biographical detail:  he was shot in the head back in 2005 and is still carrying around the bullet in his skull.  This doesn’t seem to affect his brain—his rap is kickass.  “Adrenaline Rush” is not actually one of his best songs, but it’s a good one for the trainer.  I call it as “the motherfucka song” because he says “motherfucka” about 3 dozen times.  It’ll grow on you, trust me.

Airbag – Radiohead
            This song was inspired by a British insurance company magazine (like what you might get from AAA here) and the headline, “An airbag saved my life.”  The lead singer gave this commentary on the song:  “Has an airbag saved my life? Nah…but I tell you something, every time you have a near accident, instead of just sighing and carrying on, you should pull over, get out of the car and run down the street screaming, ‘I’m BACK! I’m ALIVE! My life has started again today!’  In fact, you should do that every time you get out of a car.”  Awesome guitar on this track.  Actually I think it’s two dueling guitars, but as I said I’m not very knowledgeable about music.

Ass Like That – Eminem
            This song has an unfortunate chorus:  “I ain't never seen an ass like that/ The way you move it, you make my pee pee go / Doing, doing, doing.”  (The “doing” rhymes with “boing,” not with the gerund form of “to do.”  I have just realized this is a heteronym I never noticed before ... but I digress.)  This song is from the weakest of Eminem’s albums, “Encore,” and I really had to ask myself, “Can I listen to, much less enjoy, a song that includes “make my pee pee go doing, doing, doing?”  After much deliberation, the answer is yes, I can and do.  If you can get past this bit, it’s really a great track ... very funny.  It has held up well.  Listen for Eminem’s impersonation of Triumph, the puppet dog, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Average Man - Obie Trice
            This one is badass.  Lots of gun-related sounds, which can so often be embarrassing, like in action flicks where cocking the gun is almost as loud as shooting it.  But Obie Trice pulls it off. 

Bad Girls - M.I.A.
            I stumbled on M.I.A. quite by accident.  M.I.A. stands for “Missing In Acton” (not “Action” as Wikipedia erroneously reports).  Acton is a part of London I know about from taking the Underground.  M.I.A. (full name Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam) is British/Sri Lankan and I’d say her genre is a hybrid of dance, grime, hip-hop, and world music.  I first learned of her through a magazine I randomly started getting in the mail called “Complex.”  I never did gather whether this was COM-plex, like the psychological conflict, or com-PLEX, as in complicated.  (Another heteronym!)  It was a weird magazine.  Not quite white, not quite black, not quite about music, just a hodgepodge.  I kind of liked it because it was so random, and featured babes.  “Complex” did a profile of M.I.A., and I bought a disc on a whim, and it turns out she’s tot’ly wicked.  This song has become one of my favorites, though I didn’t much like it at first.  Be sure to check out the YouTube video too.

Bad Guy – Eminem
            This song is fricking brilliant.  But you have to listen to “Stan” first or it won’t make much sense.  If Shakespeare were alive today, he’d be a rapper, and he’d envy Eminem.  I know that sounds crazy but trust me on this ... I was an English major.

Be Somebody - Kings of Leon
            Way back in like 2002, a friend randomly sent me a Kings of Leon a disc in the hope that I’d like it.  I did, and do.  I like their newer stuff better; originally the lead singer kind of mumbled because he was afraid his mom would hear the lyrics and be offended.  Nowadays I hear Kings of Leon on the radio, which makes me think I’m cool because I knew [of] them back in the day, man.

Beautiful – Eminem
            This song, though quite good, is admittedly just a little cheesy.  But, as the father of daughters, I can’t help but admire it, and hope that if anybody ever insults my daughter’s looks, she can remember this song and say, “You can go get f*cked.”

Beautiful Pain - Eminem w/ Sia
            This song follows what’s becoming a pretty established motif for Eminem:  he does the rapping, but the chorus is sung by some popular female singer with a great voice.  I guess there are purists who don’t like the obvious commercial motivation behind this format, but why the hell would I care?  Is it really a problem if Eminem or someone like him has more money than some robber baron or advertising exec?  I think the snarling rapper and great singer go well together.

Best Rapper Alive - Lil Wayne
            I’m not very familiar with all the hip-hop acts out there, much less pop, but at some point I became vaguely aware there was a rapper called Lil Wayne, so on a lark I bought a CD of his at Target.  Turns out he’s rather good and occasionally brilliant.  This isn’t his best song but it’s got the driving beat, and sometimes you gotta bulk out the megamix or those crème-de-la-crème tracks will get old.

Black Hole Sun – Soundgarden
            I thought the video for this was mind-blowing back in 1994.  I watched it more recently and it hasn’t aged well.  The song, though, is still great.  These guys are from Seattle which means they probably drink a lot of coffee and like to take the elevator up inside the Space Needle.  (Can you tell I did extensive research for these liner notes?)

Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos - Public Enemy
            One of the best PE tracks they is.  Sing along!  Perform it for your kids!

Blow Up the Outside World – Soundgarden
            This is the best song Soundgarden ever recorded.  I’ll confess it seemed pointless at first, but at some point its brilliance dawned on me, and I’ve now adopted it as my credo, my mantra, and my mission statement.  If you’re riding hard enough on the trainer or the rollers, and the music is doing its job, you’ll feel something kind of like excitement, kind of like fight-or-flight, and kind of like anger, as you thrash away, ensconced in your headphones and your private pain cave.  In this state it seems completely reasonable to blow up the outside world.

Born Free - M.I.A
            A workout megamix needs to include either this song or the John Barry song  written for the 1966 movie, about lions, called “Born Free.”  In the end this one won out, because a) the other one sucks, and b) if I get the other one in my head, I always substitute my brother’s lyrics, which went, “Born dead/ The baby had no head.”

Brain Stew - Green Day
            I saw these guys in concert at one of those music festivals in Golden Gate Park (WOMAD, I think) and didn’t think they were that good.  Over the next two decades my wife kept asking me to get her an album by these guys and finally I relented.  Turns out plenty of the songs I’d enjoyed on our local alternative (i.e., mainstream) rock station are by Green Day.  (I didn’t realize this because modern deejays are far too cool to ever provide the name of a song or whom it’s by, and they never use the word “whom” either.)  Green Day is not a great band—one song sounds too much like another IMHO—but the two guys who started it are from Rodeo, a godforsaken little cow town I have to ride through on some bike rides, and I applaud them for transcending such humble roots.  Plus they got their start playing at a little punk club that’s walking distance from my house (though I’m not cool enough to go there).  “Brain Stew” has a very simple but thrashable guitar line.  Can I say “guitar line”?  Does that even mean anything?

Bucky Done Gun - M.I.A.
            “Done” and “Gun” don’t look like they should rhyme, but they do.  I don’t really know what (if anything) this song is “about,” and I don’t care.

Burden in My Hand – Soundgarden
            “Burden in my hand” is just one of those phrases that sound cool.  Don’t overthink it.  That’s my advice for lots of this music.  Riding the trainer isn’t like going to a poetry reading, okay?

Cash Money Millionaires - Lil Wayne
            This song is pretty dumb, in the best possible way.  Go Weezy!

Cha Ching (Cheq 1-2 Remix) - Lady Sovereign
            This is off “Run the Road,” a grime compilation.  Grime is kind of like hip-hop, but British, and maybe a bit faster.  Lady Sovereign is a very short person and has one of those ponytails that sticks out of the side of her head like the girl in “Napoleon Dynamite.”  I wish Lady Sovereign would come to a party at my house.  If she turned out to be a smoker, I’d even let her smoke in the house—that’s how cool she is.  I hope she doesn’t smoke, though.  It’s gross and bad for you.

Charmer - Kings of Leon
            Everyone I know hates this song.  What’s wrong with everybody?  If you hate it, I don’t want to hear about it.  I like it.  Obviously.

Cheers - Obie Trice
            This is a great track.  I sometimes sing along, though that gets awkward because he uses the n-word.  He’s allowed to, of course.  It’s okay because I’m usually too out of breath to sing anyway.

Closer - Kings of Leon
            You know how with some bands all the songs sound alike?  Not so with Kings of Leon.  This one is way cool and a good track to hammer to as you fight to become a King of Lean.

Come As You Are – Nirvana
            I’m not actually sure Nirvana is a good band for working out to … the tempo might be a bit wrong.  But you can set your brakes to drag and stand up.  I kind of feel like supporting this band since as everybody knows their lead singer killed himself.  It would be such a shame if he were forgotten, like Men At Work.  At least those guys are still alive and kicking, as far as I know.

Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd
            Clearly this song needs no introduction.  By the way, I’m sick of people saying “Dark Side of the Moon” is Pink Floyd’s best album.  Of course that’s a great album but “The Wall” is better.  This Roman Meal bakery thought you’d like to know.

Cool Cats - Obie Trice
            My favorite part?  When Obie says “blaow!”

Creep – Radiohead
            Of course you heard this on the radio all the time back in the ‘90s.  This isn’t quite as strong as the other stuff on this list, but you might as well re-familiarize yourself with it so you can sing it in the shower.

Cry Now - Obie Trice

Desperation - Eminem

Diamonds From Sierra Leone - Kanye West
            I don’t know what to make of Kanye West.  On the one hand, several of his songs, such as this one, seem pretty cool.  On the other hand, somebody showed me the video of “Bound 2” and I almost vomited into my soup.  And I wasn’t even eating soup!  That video would be a crime against humanity even without Kim Kardashian in it.  But I liked “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” before I saw the “Bound 2” video; why should that change?  

Don't Shoot (I'm a Man) - Devo
            It was a little frightening buying Devo’s first album in two decades.  I really liked Devo back in the day and didn’t want to hear them embarrass themselves.  But this album, “Something for Everybody,” is great!  As is this song!

Drive Slow - Kanye West
I like this song a lot.  More than it deserves, probably.  It always reminds me of a “New Yorker” story from July 10, 2000 called “The Saturday Morning Car Wash Club” by James Ellis Thomas.  Somehow I get the pleasure of that story just by hearing this song … all while training indoors!  It’s like alchemy or something!

Déjà Vu – Eminem deja
            This song is about overdosing in front of your kids.  Pretty heavy.  But it’s a kickass song and the only rap song I know with two different French accent marks in its title.

Easy to Crash – Cake
            Cake is from Sacramento and used to play the coffeehouse circuit there.  Did you know Sacramento had a coffeehouse circuit?   Me neither.  This song is not about crashing while riding rollers, but I did do that the other day.  I was riding out of the saddle and made the mistake of shifting up and accelerating.  I rode right off the front of the rollers, hit the carpet, went flying (surfing my bike at this point), hit the fan, knocked it ass-over-teakettle right into my main road bike (which was leaning against the wall), tipping it over.  I managed to dismount my rain bike and catch my other bike by the handlebar just before it would have hit the floor.  Alexa saw the whole thing and was duly impressed.

Enter Sandman – Metallica
            I became aware of Metallica all the way back in high school when this stoner kid used to talk about them.  He had super long fluffy white hair and puffy red eyes and was oddly chummy with me.  “Dude, it’s my birthday and my dad’s throwin’ me a party.  I’m not talkin’ no birthday cake and candles either … we’re gonna get drunk!”  This dialogue didn’t involve Metallica per se, but I always associated them with that kid.  Anyhow, fast forward a few decades to when I watched “Some Kind of Monster,” a documentary about Metallica hiring a consultant to help them get along while cutting an album.  Fascinated, and dimly aware that Metallica had made music with the SF symphony, I bought their eponymous album and guess what?  It R4WKs!  It’s kind of silly as well, I have to say.  These guys are a bit on the earnest side, but heavy metal shouldn’t be tongue in cheek or ironic.  Just roll with it.  Belt out “We’re off to never never land” in front of your kids and watch them cringe.

Fell In Love With a Girl - The White Stripes
            I didn’t expect to like the White Stripes because so many people bagged on them.  But oddly, the biggest complaint I heard was that they’re overrated.  How can they be overrated when everybody bags on them?  And anyway, who cares?  They’re quite good, if a bit sloppy.  This song has a video with cats playing guitars, which I showed to my kids when they were tiny, and to this day they love this song.  Since I love them, it’s just a big love-in whenever I hear this.

Fell On Black Days - Soundgarden

Fight the Power - Public Enemy

Follow My Life - Obie Trice

Fresh - Devo

Galang - M.I.A.

Girls LGBNAF - Ice-T
            You absolutely mustn’t play this song on the hi-fi when your kids are around.  The lyrics are filthy, at least by ‘80s standards.  Also, don’t play it on your boom box out in the driveway unless you’re ready to silence it very quickly.  I was working on my bike, playing this, and a famous writer/illustrator of children’s books came walking down the sidewalk with her dog.  I had to scramble to prevent an embarrassing episode!  Ice-T is from L.A. and was one of my early favorites.  He’s held up well!

Give It Away - Red Hot Chili Peppers
            Another band from L.A.  One of my college roommates, a rich kid with over 400 CDs in his collection (yes, I counted them once) used to play this song almost constantly, along with “Down In It” by Nine Inch Nails.  They were the only two songs I ever heard him play.  I didn’t realize I liked this song (and band) until years later when I’d recovered from that roommate.  A colleague of mine once encountered this band’s bass player, Flea, on an airplane.  They were both flying first class to Europe.  Flea seemed to be on drugs and decided to climb up into the overhead bin to sleep.  (He’s not a very big guy.)  This caused a major altercation with the flight attendant.

Got Hungry - Obie Trice
             Obie hit a long dry spell (from 2006 to 2012) between his second and third studio albums.  I started anticipating his third album in 2008 and was getting mighty impatient when in 2009 he decided, probably just to pay the bills, to release a compilation of old stuff, which he called “Special Reserve.”  It was kind of unpolished, but full of highly energetic stuff like this song.  Perfect with a lactic acid chaser!

Stay tuned

Obviously I still have H thru Z to go.  I hope you like this topic because it'll be the next 4 or 5 posts at this rate. Click here for Part II.

More reading

Here are links to the rest of my series of Workout Megamix liner notes:
--~--~--~--~--~--~--~---~--
For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.