Bah, and a request.

[saxikath]

Bah: What the hell did I do with my eyedrops? My left eye's all dry and irritated and I can't find my drops.

Request: I'm going to be working a lot over the next couple of weeks -- big deadline. I need good music to keep me going. In the comments, recommend something for me to add to my iTunes that will be energizing and motivational.

Comments

[meranthi.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, find techno remixs of stuff. They tend to be very bouncy and I find them extremely energetic. (or DDR music, though that's often very strange)

[bookishfellow.livejournal.com]

True music buffs on your friendslist will mock me, but lately I've been taken with Fountains of Wayne's Out of State Plates. These are singles and other songs of theirs that hadn't yet made their way onto albums. (NB: I haven't actually listened to any of their other albums; maybe I should look into that...) They're poppy, energetic, not too heavy, but with a really good feel for melodies and turns of phrase.

[(Anonymous)]

My "keep going" music is Vivaldi's L'estro Armonico (I like the I Musici recording with Pina Carmirelli on Philips) and Mendelssohn's Elijah (I like the one conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch with the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra, also on Philips).

Well, that and "Little Shop of Horrors." :-)

[stevie-stever.livejournal.com]

Checkmarks of approval on both Vivaldi and Little Shop of Horrors. Great stuff. Although if you need something just in the background, some trance ain't a bad thing, if that's your fancy.

[hahathor.livejournal.com]

I'd recommend creating a new station on Pandora.com and seeding it with some of the music that works for you. That way you'll get suggestions based on your own taste. Plus you'll be able to listen to a lot of stuff without spending money (except on the songs/alubms you know you'll want to listen to again).

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

let me second this! pandora got me through hours of christmas knitting and wrapping and card addressing and so on. and i'm counting on it to get me through the next few weeks of brochure-making-deadline crunch...

still, i also came to your comments here hoping to get some new ideas of stuff to feed pandora, so keep it coming, gang...

[hahathor.livejournal.com]

OK - I've got pretty danged idiosyncratic taste in music but here's some of the stuff I listen to when I need to get myself going in order of how they occur to me:

• Brave Combo's "No No No Cha Cha Cha"
• anything by Louis Jordan (esp his duets with Louis Armstrong)
• The New York Dolls' "Too Much Too Soon"
• The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Fever to Tell"
• anything by Beck up to Midnite Vultures
• anything by Ozomatli ever
• Southern Culture on the Skids' "Plastic Seat Sweat"
• Jim Carroll's "Catholic Boy"
• anything by African Head Charge
• Cafe Tacuba's eponymous first album
• KLF's "The White Room"
• any Chuck Berry
• any Jerry Lee Lewis

[saxikath]

Okay, so what should I feed to Pandora? :) It doesn't seem to have some of the songs that I'd want to use ("Postcards from Mexico," for instance.)

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

But it does have the second Girlyman album, which may be useful as a starting point.

(Note: if you give it two very different songs--e.g. "Oops I Did It Again" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water"--it won't find songs that match them both, it'll find songs that match either one. So you'll end up with a Jekyll-and-Hyde station, rather than a happy medium.)

[crossfire.livejournal.com]

Thirding for pandora.com. Great place for streaming music, if you can get it at work.

[dharklady.livejournal.com]

I found the Wicked broadway soundtrack to be very cool and addicting. Give it a whirl if you get the chance.

[saxikath]

Oh yeah, "Defying Gravity" is already on the list. :) I also like "I'm Not That Girl," but that's for melancholy moods.

[wesleyjenn.livejournal.com]

If you don't know them already (which I imagine you do) I have found that much of Great Big Sea is great energizing/motivational music. "Ordinary Day" and "Sea of No Cares" are two of their songs that always do it for me. Good luck with deadline craziness.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

Great Big Sea! Great Big Sea! Great Big Sea! Besides the ones Jenn recommended, I like "Old Black Rum", "Bad As I Am", "French Perfume" and the cover of "Everything Shines" that is on their live album. I can lend you these if you want, although I'm not sure I know where my copy of the live album is...

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

"Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?"

[lunacow]

Some artists I really like who have a lot of songs I'd call energizing: Dar Williams, GrooveLily, Christine Kane, and Kris Delmhorst. Though the last three are a lot more obscure than the first one, I'm pleased to see they are all available on iTunes (don't know about Pandora, though). I can give you specific song/album recommendations if you're interested in any after some sample listening.

[crossfire.livejournal.com]

My favorite genre for work music is instrumental soundtracks from movies. The soundtrack from "The Last of the Mohicans" is one of my favorites.

Aside from that, an album I've always thought you would like is Moodfood by Moodswings. It's downtempo house music (if there can be such a thing) with slight industrial undertones. It's great background music for just about anything.

"Red Hot + Blue" is another favorite album for working (special favorites: "In the Still of the Night" covered by the Neville Brothers, and "Did You Evah?" dueted by Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop!).

I also like U2's "All That You Can't Leave Behind" for working music.

[hahathor.livejournal.com]

Seconded for "Red Hot + Blue," esp if you can track down the video. I have it on VHS, which is kind of pointless since I don't have a player, but I'm sure it's available on DVD. The videos for "Did You Evah," "Miss Otis Regrets/Just One of Those Thing," and "I Love Paris" are especially awesome. And Sinead looks gorgeous in a long blond Veronica Lake wig in "You Do Something to Me."

[lemurtanis.livejournal.com]

All Cake albums, particularly Comfort Eagle. The next time I see you I'll hand you some fair-use backup copies. Also Paul Simon's Graceland, the greatest album of all time.

Covers!

[cnoocy]

Add the podcast "Coverville" (and add copy_right to your friends list.)

[mixedborder.livejournal.com]

Soundtrack to Pirates of the Caribbean
"Lord of the Dance" (The Michael Flatley show)
The Ride of the Valkyries
Strauss waltzes
Sousa marches
Mozart: "Ich möchte wohl der Kaiser sein" (a baritone concert aria in the "Turkish style"), and the finale of die Entführung asu dem Serail (I'm using the German title not to be snobby but because the English one is inaccurate & bugs me. It's not an abduction, it's a RESCUE>)

[mixedborder.livejournal.com]

Oops, that should be "aus," not "asu."

[fizzixrat.livejournal.com]

Don't know if it would be your thing, but I've been horribly addicted lately to Matisyahu - Live at Stubbs. (Matisyahu is a Hasidic Jew who sings reggae with a sprinkling of rap/hiphop.)

[andyt.livejournal.com]

For me, energy songs would include things like
* Cornershop (particularly "Brimful of Asha" -- I have a couple of their albums but this was the first song I heard from them and the only one that's really bubbled up in the random weighted playlist that feeds my iPod and iTunes listening)
* Blue Man Group
* Crannog
* 12 Girls Band
* Bond
* Cybertribe (though that's more mid-level than high energy in some ways)
* E.S. Posthumus (who did the theme to the tv show Cold Case -- again, not necessarily high-energy but good for long hauls)
* The Echoing Green (synthpop)
* Fatboy Slim
* Ganga Giri (fairly high energy didgeridoo)
* Head Full of Drums
* Jade Redd (another in a similar vein to E.S. Posthumus)
* Neuropa
* Tomoyasu Hotei ("Electric Samurai")

That's what jumps out today from a quick scroll down the 5-star playlist. I'd also second the votes for Great Big Sea and the Pirates of the Carribean soundtrack.