Best of 2010: 12 Favorite Blog Posts

My blogging pal Brendan did a post in which he highlighted his favorite blog posts of the year. I meant to do this last year, but life got busy and by the time got around to it, the ship had sailed (oddly, that is the case with SO many posts that never see the light of day.)

Inspired by his post, I have spent a good chunk of the morning scanning through the year's posts. There were fewer this year than in any year since 2005. Not sure why that is - I chalk a lot of it up to Facebook. Things that used to get a post now get a sentence and a link there. Some of the posts clearly did not stand the test of time. They seemed brilliant at the time, but not so much 12 months out. Still, as proud as I am of this space, I found 12 (+1) that really stood out for me. Here they are, again, taking a cue from Brendan, in chronological order.

• Give It Up: One of those album posts that come out of nowhere - this time about Wilson Phillips' Shadows & Light. God, I loved that album more than I really should admit anywhere.
• Monolith: Social media is here to stay. It's changed how we interact with people, and not necessarily for the better.
• Easy Bake Pam: A not-so-great day ends with an impromptu baking of chocolate chip cookies in an Easy Bake Oven with Anna while she jams out to a song about a May-December relationship.
• And Now for the Audio Portion of the Program: My friend Jeff and I try our hands at podcasting. This was our first and only attempt and ended with us rambling on for nearly an hour about Madonna - like that should surprise anyone. The podcast is still available to download if you're interested.
• This Sweater is Old and Faded: I actually wore this sweater to work once this winter so far. For being a nearly 10 year old sweater, it's in remarkably good shape and not that out of style.
• A Mere Heart Attack: Misheard lyrics - the subject that launched a thousand blog posts.
• The (Non)appendicitis Was (Not) Rumbling: I'mincluding this post not because it was particularly witty or well-written - it's not. It was kind of a throwaway post. It has become, however, my most visited post of the year (next to the Madonna remixology posts.) Seriously folks, I don't know any more about rumbling appendicitis than Wikipedia. Move along.
• Come Down Here for a Minute: This was one of many Stevie posts I did this year. It was also the one that came the most out of nowhere.
• Get Out of Her Way: Kylie's "Get Outta My Way" video, as I have said before, reduced me to a screaming fanboy in the way that only Kylie can. My favorite song and video of the year.
• Zen and the Art (and Calculus) of Dishwashing: Probably the nerdiest post of the year. And that's saying something. Who knew calculus would EVER apply to the washing of dishes?
• Look Who's Evil Now: An account of my trip to Kansas City to see Evil Dead: The Musical - the bloodiest musical I have ever seen.
• Private Dining: Probably my most personal post of the whole year. I was surprised to get the amount of feedback on it that I did - both in the comments section and privately to me in e-mail. It made me realize that it's not quite as awful to share those kinds of stories as I always think it will be.

And the plus one...

• Last Night a Pharmacist Saved My Life: Because I can't let an opportunity to remind everyone of how awesome I can be when I set my mind to it. ;)

Thank you to EVERYONE who reads this space. The numbers are few, but I am thankful that anyone finds it interesting enough to come back to day after day. That's the best Christmas present I could possibly receive.

Best of 2010: The "I Don't Get It" Award

As I read all my favorite pop bloggers' year end lists, one artist keeps showing up that never had a hope or a prayer of making any of my lists. That artist is, of course, Robyn. She released an album's worth of material in three chunks over the last year - an unusual and ballsy move, I'll admit. Her songs have topped the lists of at least three blogs that I read religiously. But for me...nothing.

This is rather unusual for me. By rights, I should be all over it and Robyn should at least be in my Top 20 for the year. I looked in my iTunes library tonight to see if I actually had any Robyn songs in there and there is but one - "Show Me Love" from her 1997 album Robyn Is Here. I remember always getting that song confused with the song of the same name by Robin S, but I did kind of like it. So why can I not stomach anything else by Robyn when all these folks whose tastes I admire and respect can't get enough of her? What the hell is wrong with me?

I've watched some Robyn videos in preparation for writing this post and I think I know what it is. The music is good and right up my alley, but it's her voice that I just can't handle. It's squeaky and annoying and like nails on the chalkboard to me. It's the same reason I couldn't get into La Roux when everyone was creaming their shorts over them - the voice was so harsh I couldn't enjoy what would otherwise have been good music.

Who knows? I'm fond of saying that there's no such thing as bad music - just music that doesn't appeal to you. Even the stuff that makes me the most insane and crazy makes someone somewhere feel like I feel when I hear new Madonna or Kylie or even something more bittersweet like Mary Chapin Carpenter or Tracey Thorn. I try not to judge, but I know that Robyn, at least at this point, is just not for me. Perhaps at this time next year I'll be eating massive helpings of crow, but right now, I can't imagine it happening.

Honestly, I just don't get it.

Best of 2010: Retro song of the year

I started writing this post on December 14th and it has seen a lot of versions. It's been much harder to write than I initially thought it would, but what the hell. Anyway, when I round up the best of the year, I'm fond of including a song or two that didn't have the good fortune of being released during the year but still contributed heavily to my personal soundtrack. This year, that award belongs to a single song and that song is Kim Wilde's "It's Here." While released 20 years ago, I simply can't imagine 2010 without this song. It was a huge part of my summer soundtrack and as the year has come to a close, the lyrics have taken on even more meaning. The fact that it is a classic pop song with a killer hook and fantastic bridge is just icing on the cake.

First, listen:



As I wrote earlier this year, Kim Wilde is terribly uneven. However, when she's good, she's fantastic. How can you resist that soaring chorus? That keyboard work is a relic of the late 80s and early 90s but somehow still sounds fresh. It's the music that drew me in on this song but what kept me and has turned it into 2010's retro song of the year are the lyrics. Like most good pop songs, the lyrics seem almost throwaway but the more I listened to them, the more they seemed oddly appropriate. Let's just take the first verse and chorus:

I've been looking all around the world
To see what I could find
Just a lot of broken promises
And people left behind
Oh and the - pain of being lonely
Is what everybody fears
Yeah, it took a lot of time for me to realize

It's here, looking me in the eye
It's here, here all the time
It's here, I've always tried to find a way to go
But now I know
It's here

I'm fond of telling the story about how a college friend of mine, after a bad breakup, was talking to me and said "a pop song shouldn't know how I feel!" My response to her was that if it doesn't, what's the point? "It's Here" really makes that point well for how 2010 has played out. In many ways, it was a watershed year in which a lot of the work I've been doing in life came to fruition, so much so that it could be the theme song for the year.

And it's funny because truthfully, I almost lost this song as soon as I gained it. Really though, it was too good to lose and in the end far, far to relevant to my life up to this point. Longtime readers will know how the lyric "the pain of being lonely is what everybody fears" resonates with me. As a Gemini and an Enneagram 4, that's kind of just how the ball bounces for me. Even surrounded by people, I can still feel lonely, sometimes painfully so. But what Kim Wilde and this year has taught me is that it will never go away, not until I realize that what I'm really looking for is a better, more honest relationship with myself.

She says it so clearly - "it's here/looking me in the eye/it's here/here all the time." It's kind of like when Dorothy Gale says "if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard, because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with." I suppose this is pretty par for the course for someone in their late 30s. I think when you start bumping up against 40 things change for you, whether you like it or not.

If you haven't figured it out, I have taken the advice of this song to heart. Even before I heard the song at about mid-year, I was already trying to cultivate a better relationship with all the versions of me - the scared kid, the lonely college student, the hopelessly nerdy adult, the ubercompetent pharmacist, the father and husband that feels like he's flying blind most of the time. My Christmas gift to myself this year is to listen to and take better care of all the parts of me. I've already worked hard on it and only when both sides of the Gemini are in balance can there be a little bit of calm.

Who knows, maybe there will never be complete calm - would life be boring if I stopped thinking about this kind of shit? Probably. But at least we'll have this great Kim Wilde song to remind me of what's important when the going gets tough. (I won't whip out that Billy Ocean song even though it's probably in my iTunes somewhere. Update: Just checked. Yep, it is. And I'm playing it in spite of myself.)

And that is what the retro song of the year is all about, Charlie Brown.

Best of 2010: Songs of the Year

I'll admit that I kind of didn't want to do this post this year. Reasons for that stemmed almost exclusively out of laziness (it takes forever to write these), but then I decided my year-end best of CD which I give out every Christmas was too fucking good not to share. The first round of CDs go out to close friends this weekend so I figured that now would be as good a time as any to reveal the contents. Many of these songs came from the summer which was a fantastic summer for music. This list is 17 songs long, I'll keep my comments as brief as I can. The final CD will have one more song - the retro song of the year - but that post is proving harder to write than I anticipated and will probably see the light of day next week sometime. So without further delay, here we go. (Sorry pop children, no Robyn. I just can't do it.)



1) Get Outta My Way / Kylie Minogue
Usually, these lists are in no particular order, but the #1 song on this list is the #1 song of the year for me. No other song even came close to defining 2010 like Kylie's "Get Outta My Way" did. I was obsessed with this song in the late summer and I still play it like it came out yesterday. It fit Kylie like a glove and I predict it will be a Kylie classic despite its poor chart performance even overseas. The lyrics were empowering and kiss-offish in just the right way. It also had a video that I dissected in a late summer post that reduced me to a screaming fangirl in a way that only Kylie can. Not since 2007 when Debbie Harry's "Two Times Blue" dominated my listening has a song come so close to wrapping up the whole year in 3 and a half minutes. "Get Outta My Way" did just that and for that reason, it is 2010's Song of the Year.

2) King of Anything / Sara Bareilles
I wasn't sold on Sara Bareilles' first album, although I did like "Love Song." I picked up her second album Kaleidoscope Heart on Amazon MP3 for $1.99 on the strength of "King of Anything." If there's anything I like, it's a defiant kiss-off song, and "King of Anything" delivers that in spades. Intelligent lyrics and a piano driven melody don't hurt it either.

3) Telephone / Lady Gaga & Beyonce
Is Lady Gaga backlash about to start now that I've finally given in to her charms? My daughter and I adore this song - we sing along to it in the car all the time and she knows the lyrics better than I do. It does what every fantastic pop song should do - burrow into your brain and never leave. Easily the best phone song since "Hung Up."

4) Shame / Robbie Williams & Gary Barlow
It's kind of fashionable to hate on this song, but I really really like it. I think it's the fact that it's a duet between two men which I feel is something of a rarity. The song is not going to cure cancer but it's catchy and cute and sometimes, with pop music, that's all you really want. I also enjoyed the Brokeback Mountain-ish video. Those two guys (who are, for the record, both straight) really just need to get a room.

5) Jona Vark / Gypsy & the Cat
My friend Steve is the only reason I know about Gypsy & the Cat. He thought I might like "Jona Vark" since it was "very Fleetwood Mac-ish." He was right and I've played the hell out of it in the last quarter of the year. G&tC have an album out that is only available in Australia and I think I'm going to have to figure out how to procure a copy. Cool electronic music that doesn't leave your head hurting when you listen to it.

6) Rocket / Goldfrapp
What if Goldfrapp had recorded the soundtrack to Xanadu? I think that with their album Head First which was one of 2010's first perfect pop records, you get at least an idea of what it would have been like. I heard "Rocket" very early on in 2010 and it has stuck with me all year.

7) Oh No!/ Marina & The Diamonds
Another song that Anna has really taken a liking to, Marina Diamindis is one of my favorite new artists of 2010. This isn't surprising as she has a big female voice most people are used to me loving pretty much instantly and she is classically beautiful as well (check out the "Shampain" video if you doubt me - or better the "Hollywood" video.)

8) Hormones / Tracey Thorn
"Hormones" is the most bittersweet song on this list (quite a feat considering Mary Chapin Carpenter is represented here as well.) A mother's ode to her daughter whose hormones are "just kicking in" while hers are "just checking out," the bittersweet is surrounded by a great melody and other lyrics that can cause dads to see the women in their lives with respect. As the dad to a daughter who is "only half grown up," it sure resonates with me.

9) Wonderful Life / Hurts
Hurts is so hard to figure out. I like their odd Pet Shop Boys meets Johnny Hates Jazz sound, but a little bit of them goes a long way. Their song "Better Than Love" made my summer list, but when it came right down to it, it was the more melancholy "Wonderful Life" that's had more staying power. It is kind of a cousin to Black's "Wonderful Life" in that you almost believe that it really is a wonderful life.

10) The Way I Feel / Mary Chapin Carpenter
So many good songs on The Age of Miracles, so little space. "The Way I Feel" is perhaps the most authentically Chapin song on the album in that it highlights her uncanny ability to marry her smarts and way with a lyric with a country-pop hook. This is a perfect driving song and whenever I listen to it in my truck, I just want to hit the road and drive for the horizon.

11) Broken / Madonna
There were enough Madonna leaks this year that it was almost as if we got a brand new album. Most of the leaks were of dubious quality and many were cast-offs from American Life (read: not very danceable) but "Broken" was a notable exception to this. Recorded during the Celebration sessions, this song is classic latter-day Madonna. Her voice is low and commanding and the chorus is as memorable as anything she's done in a long time. Miles better than just about anything on Hard Candy, I'm glad this saw the light of day.

12) History / Groove Armada (featuring Will Young)
Bubbling over with sexual energy, "History" is what Will Young really needs to be recording now. As has been pointed out by others, his songs seem oddly neutered. Not so with this. It was another January 2010 song that survived 12 months of really good music to earn a spot here. Here's hoping Will's rumored all-dance album takes a cue from this song.

13) Raise Your Glass / P!nk
I am oddly resistant to P!nk. Even though I like most of what I hear from her, I always feel like she's the token female artist that people that don't like female artists very much feel okay in liking. Why I let that perception keep me from enjoying P!nk's pretty good music is probably my loss. That said, "Raise Your Glass" is my favorite P!nk song since "Don't Let Me Get Me."

14) You Haven't Seen The Last Of Me / Cher
As the first new Cher song in almost a decade, it could have been 4 minutes of cats screeching and meowing and it would have made this list. Happily, it was a solid ballad the likes of which we haven't seen Cher do in a while. Complete with dance remixes, this whets my appetite for the long awaited new Cher album (no release date yet.)

15) Be My Thrill / The Weepies
I didn't like The Weepies Be My Thrill album as much as I liked Hideaway, but this is definitely a standout track that has got a lot of play as summer turned into fall this year.

16) Turn On The Radio / Reba McEntire
This is the second year in row that a Reba song has made this list. Do I dare declare that I am in the midst of a Reba renaissance? Time will tell, but this song had me at with the cheeseball line "Try to call, twitter me, text until your fingers bleed." And when the video ended up featuring Reba as the ultimate cougar, I knew this song would end up here come December.

17) Any Which Way / Scissor Sisters
Half a year after it came out, I'm still kind of warming up to Night Work. I don't know why - it's really everything I love about cheesy pop music and the Stuart Price factor which made Confessions on a Dance Floor and Aphrodite so appealing is hard at work here as well. That said, "Any Which Way" was an early favorite. It's also the only song from the year (that I know of) to mention L'Eggs pantyhose. That kind of obscure reference more than earns it a spot on this list.

And besides, I just wanted another excuse to post the picture of the Scissor Sisters' Night Work album cover - the album cover that launched a thousand "that was my senior picture" jokes.

Many of you can be expecting the CD with these tracks (plus one) so you can get your 64 minutes of Dan at any time you so desire.

Agree? Disagree? I'd love to hear it. Keep it clean. Or don't.

Summer 2010 Soundtrack

Now that we're midway into September, I figured it's about time to put a cap on summer and relive some of my favorite songs from summer 2010. I skipped this post entirely last year for a couple of reasons. The first was because I was so disgusted by last summer's music, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. The other reason is that I've determined that no one reads long blog posts any more and so mostly, I'd just be writing it for me. This year, since the music was so awesome and because I decided I don't rightly give a shit if no one reads it, I'm back for another round. I've limited myself to 12 songs.

As always, in no particular order.

1) Heard It On the Radio / The Bird & The Bee
The summer started with this song and its light and breezy sound pointed to the plethora of good music to come out of the summer. It was the sole original song on The Bird & The Bee's album full of Hall & Oates covers. It was also the best song.

2) Get Outta My Way / Kylie Minogue
Although the official single release isn't until later this month, "Get Outta My Way" was the official song of the summer chez Cullinan. While my favorite song on Aphrodite has changed with the wind (it's that good), when it's all said and done, "Get Outta My Way" is a Kylie classic.

3) I Put My Ring Back On / Mary Chapin Carpenter
Chapin's ode to the day-to-day struggling that happens in even the best of marriages is currently my most-played song in iTunes. The reason for this is because every time I listen to it, I want to hear it again. The combination of her husky alto and Vince Gill's tenor in the backing vocals is pure heaven. Plus, it's just the kind of bittersweet text married to a killer hook that I've come to expect from her.

4) Ain't No Son / Courtyard Hounds
Courtyard Hounds is made of of two-thirds of the Dixie Chicks (lead vocalist Natalie Maines is MIA) and the result was pretty predictable. It lacks the fire of the best Dixie Chicks material, instead veering more toward generic Sheryl Crow AOR. "Ain't No Son," which chronicles the relationship of a father with his gay son from the point of view of the father is the only song of theirs I've heard that really has bite.

5) Your Love / Keane
Keane is so aggravatingly uneven. The Night Train EP was mostly meh for me, so much so that "Your Love" was the only song I bought off of it. Usual lead vocalist Tom Chaplin takes a break and Tim Rice-Oxley takes over for a single song. For the longest time, I couldn't tell the difference. It makes me wonder if he'll sing more songs for their next album.

6) Oh No! / Marina & the Diamonds
I would like to think that Marina is a major new voice in pop. While there's no denying THE VOICE, she'll just never get airplay or exposure here in the U.S. and since we all know that the U.S. is the world (not), it doesn't matter how much success she has overseas. (see: Kylie) "Oh No!" is one of the standout tracks from her album The Family Jewels which I would advise everyone to pick up.

7) I Was Made For Sunny Days / The Weepies
I owe my exposure to the Weepies to my friend Bess who included their song "Can't Go Back Now" on one of our DMB (Dan, Matt & Bess) CDs a while back. Their breezy California folk-pop is pretty irresistible. Their new CD Be My Thrill is not as instantly engaging as Hideaway, but "I Was Made For Sunny Days" was an integral part of the summer playlist.

8) Hormones / Tracey Thorn
The best bittersweet song of the summer (and you know I love my bittersweet.) A song from a mother to a daughter whose hormones are "just kicking in" while the mom's are "just checking out." Lyrically poignant and with a driving melody behind it, it's just about as Dan as you can get.

9) Better Than Love / Hurts
Oh, Hurts. I just don't know what to make of them. They are kind of a 21st century amalgam of Pet Shop Boys and Johnny Hates Jazz - and I mean that as a compliment. Still, after a few listens, I find their album to be a bit unsatisfying despite the fact that there are several strong songs on it. This is one of them.

10) Clap Your Hands / Sia
A late addition to the summer playlist, Sia's album We Are Born is a bit hit and miss, but I enjoy this little lightweight track. Besides, anything with hand claps in it is automatically worthy. And it had just about the cutest video I've seen in a long time.



11) Bloodbuzz Ohio / The National
The National are probably the most "one of these things is not like the others" entry on this list. Lead singer Matt Berninger's baritone is very much a love-it-or-hate-it type of thing. It was seeing The National live that won me over to their indie rock style which usually I don't have much time for. This was an early summer favorite that has waned some for me, but it's still top notch.

12) Invisible Light / Scissor Sisters
I wasn't sure what to expect from the Scissor Sisters this time around. Their last album, Ta-Dah!, left me a little bit cold. It suffered from Hard Candy syndrome in that, despite having several strong songs, the entire album was somehow less than the sum of its parts. Fortunately, Night Work doesn't really repeat the same mistakes. And album ender "Invisible Light" is probably my favorite of all of them. What puts it over the top is with its Ian-McKellan-as-Vincent-Price spoken portion.