DAY 19 of the 30 Day Song Challenge, alternative music styles!
This one is a thinker…. get it? ha!
Each day I’ll post the challenge and you share some of your favorite alternative & indie songs that meet the challenge!
Almost all of Swans’ and Radiohead’s output plays chess with my brains, but Sonic Youth’s Diamond Sea manages to ask more and more questions with every listen (and there have been quite a few).
I mean the whole Aeroplane album from Neutral Milk Hotel, but one song, Holland, 1945 always gets me thinking…
Neutral Milk Hotel - Holland, 1945
https://youtu.be/XLaFLztnL84?si=CEWmp_bT_upPG1mb
Even got some lyrics tattooed on me, “And she was born in a bottle rocket…” love that imagery.
I’ve always loved the line “how strange it is to be anything at all.”
Magnetic Fields - I wish I had an evil twin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5uJn0McoVo
I don’t know why, but I get lost in my thoughts when this song comes on. Hypnotic rhythms, deep voice. Yah.
While the song is about passivity and needing to stand up when it’s appropriate, for me it’s a song that helps me keep perspective when dealing with loss.
TW: death
!Starting a bit over 10 years ago, I’ve lost 2 uncles, a cousin, my grandfather, and just last week, my grandmother. Each time, this is a song that I have found comfort in.!<
In the chorus, the listener is invited to reflect on how they live their life. At the same time, lines about starlight and sunbeams remind us of the greater world and universe out there and maybe our own insignificance.
Something about Coffee & TV by Blur does this to me… It makes me feel very introspective .
The video is awesome as well.
It’s off their new album. The lead singer said this about the subject matter: “‘Jaws’ is a song about the expectations that come along with adulthood: marriage, buying a home, having kids, white picket fences. I have to wonder if we all truly want those things or if we follow suit out of fear and peer pressure."
For me, it makes me think about the overall experience of being female and the expectations and pressures that come along with that.
It’s a very recent one. I’m not religious, but while listening to this song I always ask myself if all of my friends are going to hell…
It’s not easy on the ears, but the only thing I can think of is “The World’s Gonna End” by Mike Krol