Explore
Forums
Join Listal
Movies
TV Shows
DVDs
Music
Books
Games
Lists
Reviews
Images
Thirty Questions about Music
 88  8 1. Your favourite song. Beirut - Elephant Gun Almost an impossible question, the answer for me would change from week to week. Over time even my absolute favourites can become stale, and then there are songs which only work depending on your mood. I'll go with Elephant Gun because it is a great song filled with happiness and humour, despite the thinly veiled sense of hopelessness that runs through the lyrics. It's also stood the test of time over repeated listens, too. The Flagship's rating:
 
9 9 2. A song from your favourite band/artist. Do Make Say Think - A With Living Do Make Say Think have long been my favourite band and they're my most listened to artist according to Last.fm. Despite being renowned for purely instrumental music, this was their first song to contain lyrics and I was instantly impressed with the result. It's long, but it's the ultimate chill-out tune. Seeing them play this song live was one of the highlights of my life. The Flagship's rating:
53 6.9 3. A song that makes you happy. The Hives - No Pun Intended I like songs that start like a punch in the face. The Flagship's rating:
 
1 8 4. A song that makes you sad. Ryuichi Sakamoto - DNA This is quite literally the saddest song I've ever heard. After watching the film, the song becomes even more depressing. It is a song of solitude. The Flagship's rating:
 
88 7.9 5. A song that reminds you of someone. Sigur Ros - Staralfur This song reminds me of my ex-girlfriend. I watched The Life Aquatic with her and it instantly became one of my favourite films. The use of this song in the film is quite amazing. After that scene, she admitted to crying when she saw Sigur Ros play live, then seemed embarrassed by the fact, but I thought it was the most adorable thing ever. The Flagship's rating:
 
64 7.9 6. A song that reminds you of a place. At The Drive In - One Armed Scissor One Armed Scissor is pretty much an anthem of my youth. I didn't have much of a life until I left school at 16, and during that time we all started hanging around at the only local club that would let us in and serve us beer at that age. I went every fortnight for two years solid and this song emerged as one of the staples that all of us liked and danced to together. This song reminds me of that dingy squalid Working Man's Club and the freakshows who frequented it. The Flagship's rating:
126 7.4 7. A song that reminds you of an event. The Offspring - Not The One This song reminds me of the 9/11 terror attacks in America. I remember getting on my school bus after college and wondering why the radio was playing, before trying to drown it out with my own music. When I took my headphones off to listen to the commotion I was absolutely bamboozled by the story. Suddenly I felt a real worry that my generation would now have to put up with a war and I felt a real fear that the carefree style of life I'd enjoyed to this point would come to an end. The lyrics were also profoundly relevant. The Flagship's rating:
12 8.3 8. A song that you know all of the words to. Bob Dylan - Hurricane No mean feat, there are plenty of words in it. But it's difficult not to learn them when it's such an interesting story. 
228 7.3 9. A song that you can dance to. Rage Against The Machine - Guerilla Radio 'Dance' is a strong word, but I've torn it up to this track on numerous occasions in any place I've been lucky enough to hear it played. The Flagship's rating:
15 7.3 10. A song that makes you sleepy. Explosions In The Sky - The Only Moment We Were Alone Easily, I used to play EITS albums on repeat when I was trying to sleep at university. 
15 7.1 11. A song from a movie you love. Moby - God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters A perfect end to the film Heat. The Flagship's rating:
3 10 12. A song from your favourite male vocalist. Nat King Cole - O Holy Night Nobody knows it, but I'm a big fan of Nat. If everyone had his voice the world would be a better place. 
82 8.1 13. A song from your favourite female vocalist. Joanna Newsom - Emily An acquired taste. The Flagship's rating:
99 8.4 14. A song that nobody would expect you to love. Nas - Represent I generally have nothing but disdain for modern hip-hop, and don't hold much sympathy for old school stuff either, but this song gets me every time. 
107 7.8 15. A song that describes you Talking Heads - Once In A Lifetime I used to eulogise a lot about how lucky I was in life, everything seemed to just fall into place for me. I don't feel so lucky these days so those songs I once considered theme tunes don't really strike a chord with me any more. This song, however, remains extremely poignant. Two lines in particular: "Well, how did I get here?" and "My God, what have I done!" ring profound. I often wonder how I got to where I am today, seemingly with very little effort. I'm ridiculously overqualified with a decent job, yet I've never applied for anything in my life and I've never even take the time to consider anything else. I'm coasting. Which leads me to asking the second question, what have I done?. Is this really what I want to be doing? If so, why do I feel so empty? The Flagship's rating:
156 7.4 16. A song that you used to love, but now hate. Daft Punk - Around The World Hate is a strong word, and while the beat to this tune remains pretty infectious, I couldn't care less if I never heard it again due to the sheer amount of times it has been played in my life. To be honest, the same could be said for most of the follow up album, Discovery. The Flagship's rating:
 
304 8.3 17. A song from an artist you wish more people liked. Radiohead - Reckoner I struggled with this question, as I honestly don't care whether other people enjoy what I listen to or not. I picked Radiohead, not because they need any more fans, but because I'm so sick of validating my appreciation for their music. Plus, if more of my friends listened to them, maybe I'd have someone to go to their gigs with. The Flagship's rating:
10 9.1 18. A song from an album you wish more people liked. Fuck Buttons - Flight of the Feathered Serpent As above, this question was difficult to answer. I wish more people had heard this album so that when I tell people I like 'electronic' music, I mean this kind of thing, not Tiesto :/ The Flagship's rating:
1 10 19. A song from your favourite album. Geinoh Yamashirogumi - Dark Slumber I've already cheated with so many songs from my favourite albums already listed here, so I will throw this in as a complete change of pace. I scoped these guys out after listening to the Akira soundtrack on repeat for many months. This album is relatively short, but each of the four tracks is an amazing experience. Of all of their work, I resonated with this album the most as it sounded more like a natural extension of the Akira soundtrack. The Flagship's rating:
90 7.9 19. A song you listen to when you're angry. Justice - Waters of Nazareth Nobody tears it up like Justice, their music is just full of rage. The live versions I've heard of this song sound like robots kicking the hell out of each other. I once destroyed a set of headphones by playing this song with the volume set too loud, double dose of anger right there! The Flagship's rating:
18 6.9 21. A song you listen to when you're happy. Lemon Jelly - Space Walk This song is just so innocent. It's also based on the first space walk ever conducted by a human being. Thinking about the elation involved in such a feat is just about enough to punch through my layers of defeat and pessimism. The Flagship's rating:
3 8.3 22. A song you listen to when you're sad. Goldmund - Threnody Yep, I could pretty much do myself in to this song. The Flagship's rating:
376 8.7 23. A song that you want to play at your wedding. The Doors - The End 
181 8.1 24. A song you want to pay at your funeral. The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter Your funeral song is never about a song you actually like from your own music collection, it's about trying to appease as many people in the congregation as possible. This might just about mix appeasement with appreciation from the dead man. 
11 7.1 25. A song that makes you laugh. Hundred Reasons - I'll Find You No doubt about it, Hundred Reasons suck big time. But for some reason, I had this song on my computer and it was about 3000 decibels louder than all my other songs, regardless of the external volume of my speakers. Cue some hilarious moments when my playlist would be cycling through Random and this song would be selected to follow a string of peaceful melodies, only to blow me through the back wall with its wall of noise. A running joke in all three of my university households. Apologies for the video, I have no idea. The Flagship's rating:
 
8 9.8 26. A song that you can play on an instrument. Nobou Uematsu - Cosmo Canyon Yikes, talk about clutching at straws. As you can see, not one iota of musical ability or talent runs through my veins. By the way, I can only play like one line. 
1 0 27. A song that you wish you had written. Dvorak - Symphony No. 9 I chose this song because it's a classical piece that represents the skill and talent it takes to write a piece of music for dozens of instruments. I could've chosen a pop song or any guitar-band staple, but man what talent you must have to be able to write music for a whole orchestra! And what reward you must feel when you hear it performed by so many people as one. 
23 7.4 28. A song that changed your music taste in some way. Squarepusher - Ultravisitor The albums Ultravisitor and Endtroducing are undoubtedly two that caused a massive awakening in my taste in music. Suddenly I realised that there were other instruments than guitars, and that not all electronica music was a guilty pleasure. When I first heard the eponymous first track from Ultravisitor I was amazed. It led me to ask - what if every one of his songs was actually this good? I was even more amazed that actually, he can do better. The Flagship's rating:
238 7.7 29. A song from your childhood. Squarepusher - Ultravisitor As Jacko is infinitely less embarrassing than Will Smith, I'll go with him. I think everyone in my age group was a fan back in his heyday, I was hooked on his music. Thanks to this video and years of practise, I can now operate jukeboxes from the other side of the bar and do the limbo forwards. The Flagship's rating:
5 8.5 30. Your favourite song from last year. Pantha Du Prince - Stick To My Side I am pretty terrible at keeping up with when music is released. But I definitely know that this album dropped in 2010, and I listened to this song on repeat when trying to sleep. Featuring the vocals of the dude from Animal Collective, this was always gonna be a heavy hit! The Flagship's rating:
3 9 31. Your favourite live version of a song. Radiohead - Arpeggi Before Arpeggi became Weird Fishes on the In Rainbows album, it sounded like this. Which is really rather nice. |
People who voted for this also voted for
BTW, I've added a link to your list from my 30 Days lists list. :)