Violent Femmes: Blister in the Sun

“Blister in the Sun” is a song that everyone here had better know. It’s one of those tunes that, no matter what genre you’re into, you should recognize immediately just by the riff. “Blister in the Sun” never made a dent on the charts, but who cares… a song’s worth is not based on where it lands on the … or 1,000,000 for that matter.

Since we all know the song, it’s moot to say that you can find it on the Violent Femmes’ self-titled debut album, right?

I know that I usually post some excellent cover versions here, but there are times when I just can’t ignore the terror of a bad cover.

I’ll get right to the point [...]

Finals Week Playlist Highlights

The past couple of weeks have been pretty intense for me. It’s been one test after another… and to make matters worse, I haven’t been as focused as I should have been. I have no excuse for this except that I’ve hit the books pretty hard for the past year and I guess I started to ease up a bit too soon. I’ll admit that I didn’t finish quite as strongly as I wanted to, but I don’t expect my grades to take a hit because of this.

I don’t know about you, but whenever I study, I listen to music. There are times when I have my iPod on “shuffle,” but for the past week or so I’ve been sticking to a simple playlist titled “Study S**t.” [...]

This Week’s Top 5 Most Played Songs From Swap’s iTunes

I had an interesting week… in one of my classes, a fellow student actually said these words: “My paper argumented.”

ARGUMENTED.

Wow. Another student went on to say that her suggestions would make things “more better.”

Egads. Puts the EEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! back into “teaching,” does it not?

Here are This Week’s Top 5 Most Played Songs From Swap’s iTunes… I sincerely hope this week’s list is more better than last weeks. [...]

Indigo Girls: Acoustic Show Circa 1999/2000

I’ve been a fan of The Indigo Girls since 1989, when their first single, ”Closer to Fine” hit the radio. Although the song was quite catchy and fun to hear, the main thing that grabbed me were their harmonies… their beautiful, beautiful harmonies. For 1989, their sound was so distinct and really unlike anything else in the mainstream:

Madonna was showing us how she was ”Like A Prayer,” Richard Marx explained how he was ”Right Here Waiting,” Phil Collins was living ”Another Day in Paradise,” and [...]

This Week’s Top 5 Most Played Songs From Swap’s iTunes

Looking at this list, I guess it was a pretty upbeat week for Ol’ Swap. Nothing too depressing on this list… veeeeeddy interesting.

I first discovered Rage Against the Machine when I heard them cover Bruce Springsteen’s song “The Ghost of Tom Joad.” I remember seeing the video of this cover and saying to myself, “Self, THAT is awesome!!!!!” Rage blends hard grooves, metal, rap, hip-hop, and massively political lyrics… most of which I don’t understand. [...]

This Week’s Top 5 Most Played Songs From Swap’s iTunes

The Rules: I reset the play counters for all the songs currently on my iTunes. Then at the end of every week, I check to see what the top five most played songs are. Whatever happens to be in this top five are then presented in order here from most played [...]