The Top 17 Songs of 2005!

Hello bloggie friends! - Hope you all had a happy Christmas holiday... I've finally recovered from my mild scotch-induced holiday cheer and got down to business trying to make this godforsaken "best of" list.

It has been one full week of the new year....

2005 was chock-full of decent music and I have honestly been fucking-about trying to decide since Christmas Eve.

It's been tough to narrow it down to 10 best songs so I've made it the best 17 as that's how many I could fit on a CD.

Yes, a Connielingus "Top Songs" CD will be available to the first 5 people who email me with your address to helloconnielingus AT gmail.com..... hurry! Limited time offer!

So anyways here is the highly-coveted listing....
Like I said, not only did I have a hard time narrowing it down to just 17 songs, I had a hard time picking the best song from each artist... Many of these precious little numbers come from fantastic full albums as well.

#1

"Your Ex-Lover is Dead" - Stars
Technically the Album "Set Yourself on Fire" was released in 2004 but took a choke hold on my soul in 2005. Excellent all- round album from the bustling Montreal scene, with "Your Ex-lover is dead" being the lead off track and one of the best. Hard to pick out just one. Lovely orchestral guy-girl sing-songs.
Jenn also loves it too....
Buy this Album. Simple as that.

#2

"Rebellion (Lies)" - The Arcade Fire

Can "Funeral" possibly live up to the most hypey hype since OK Computer???
- Uh yeah, I'm thinking so.... I like Rebellion but honestly this Album is best experienced as a whole unit from start to finish.
If you haven't heard this yet, where the hell have you been all year????

#3

"Chicago" - Sufjan Stevens

Once again, love the whole album "Come On Feel the Illinoise" but Chicago reminds me of late summer at the Lake.
Happiness surrounds.

#4

"Gideon" - My Morning Jacket

How proud I have become of MMJ over the last 4 years. Excellent band that have now added some funky keyboard action on the latest Album "Z". They only get better and better....

#5

"This Modern Love" - Bloc Party

Up for awards in the UK, not too well known overhere in Canada - excellent stuff nevertheless.... sorta along that "Killers, Franz Ferdinand type genre" but kinda with its own style.

#6

"We Are Nowhere and it is Now" - Bright Eyes

From the highly acclaimed album "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning".... A voice only a mother could love or the next coming of a Neil Young/Bob Dylan hybrid?
Well, like so many before ol' Conner Oberst, talk-singing harmony with Emmylou Harris can effectively smooth over the rough edges.... It also helps being a brilliant songwriter too.

#7

"Over and Over Again (Lost and Found)" - Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah

I just recently heard this band.... I know nothing about them except I love the name and I absolutely am addicted to this song.

#8

"Love is a Deserter" - The Kills

I don't know what it is about The Kills... I only really like their music when I'm driving really fast on my way into work..... "get the guns out get the guns out..."
From the album "No Wow" - This stuff will get you in the mood to rivet aeroplanes all night long!

#9

"If I Am a Stranger" - Ryan Adams

Like I've said many times, I love Ryan Adams and I always will.
Maybe his 3 released albums in one year could have been trimmed down into one perfect album. "Cold Roses" is the better choice if you were to try just one. This song is officially my time-tested favorite.

#10

"Stay" - The Ladies and Gentlemen

Cool Canadian Computer Blippy Music that makes you happy from the album "Small Sins".
Brilliant!

#11

"Factory" - Martha Wainwright

The kinda trashy diva-like songstress that was the toast of the Edmonton Folk Fest and might I add, the only-sister of Rufus.
I have a special love for this whole album. The summer-road-trip-picking-up-young-lady-hitchhikers-singing-at-the-top-of-yer-lungs kind of memories.

#12

"In My Leisure Suite" - Feist

"Let It Die" is a perfect album.
I listened to this song on a Sunny blissed out February afternoon in Cozumel, Mexico sitting on our patio over-looking the Caribbean Sea... My leisure suite indeed.
That beautiful memory is all I can think of when I hear this song.

#13

"Galaxies" - Laura Veirs

Laura Veirs is so cool. - Beautiful Spacey tune for a spacey day...
"Year of Meteors" is another great collection of songs.

#14

"Fake Palindromes" - Andrew Bird

"The Mysterious Production of Eggs" is full of cool middle-eastern tinged songs. This one especially reminds me of Saturday mornings eating tater-tots and basted eggs that Jenn prepared whilst I fiddled around making the perfect Saturday morning playlist.... This song seemed to always be on it.

#15

"Even Tho" - Joseph Arthur

I just love this song... It brought me through a strange part of the year in the early fall that was tinged with lots of overtime, drinking and a bizarre co-workers suicide....Very emotional and "Our Shadows Will Remain" filled that need.

#16

"High School" - Jeremy Fisher

One of the few Canadian Top 40 Radio Song that I actually liked From the Album "Let it Shine". Nicen'cheesy happy-go-lucky throwback retro-grunge song about being a teenager in the 1990's.
I was one and this song is catchy... It's all good.

#17

"Love Is Just a Game" - The Magic Numbers

Ah yes, love IS just a game isn't dahlings....
The Magic Numbers are a kind of a Mama's and Papa's For the younger set. Cute melodic Brother and Sister act outta England. Classic with a new spin.
I like it... Another great full album.

.... So anyways, that's my basic list. I keep remembering other good songs but this is the frigging list that has officially made me crazy.
If anyone would like to share some of their faves of 2005 I would be greatly interested to hear all about it.

----> Heavy librarian kisses to you all and best wishes for 2006.

jaaayyy - zzuss egg nog tastes good!!!

with the wee bit of christmas rum.

yee haw.

top songs of 2005 coming soon..................

Time, Music and Breasts

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of."
- Benjamin Franklin -

You know, I was just saying today, - as many find themselves blabbing to make workplace small-talk as the year winds down -
"My god this year has gone fast...where has the time gone...."

And really, I guess the year did slip away quite quickly... but then I think of my own personal microcosm one year ago and some things feel like ages.

How about the Great Boxing Day Tsunami?!





After a year FULL of disaster and strife it feels like eons ago. Tsunamis, Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Dead Popes and yet another 365 days of the relentless George W.... It's been a rough go.



Huh.

This time last year I was anxiously awaiting my next visit to Edmonton (with it's ungodly $369 "Christmas Week Flight" pricetag) with my darling Jenn, whom I had only physically spent less than 2 weeks-all-together with beforehand.
I was just excited to be in love and get loving.... The rare kind of exciting love and loving that goes with the newness and time apart.
At that point I was not even contemplating the big move or commitment and how my life could be so content and fufilled one measly year later....



Sometimes time is your harshest critic, and sometimes time can bring the greatest rewards.

Anyways,
That brings me to music....
A fabulous swing around the sun in tunage it has been indeed.
It's been nearly a whole year since I bought myself the EPIC album - "Funeral" by The Arcade Fire.
everyone's talking about it you know.

-----> Being Canadian, naturally we were fans first....

In traditional year-end fashion I believe I will attempt my own personal TOP 10 of best songs of the year over the next week or so.

My Christmas Wish is for everyone out there in blogland to have a brainstorm over the next week about their own personal "Top 10" and we can have a drink and a little sharing session of music tastes over the hollies.

ALSO



If you are not too into music you can always submit a "Best of the Breast XXXmas edition" photo...
-----> Tits under the tree, kissing breasts beneath the mistletoe.... "the moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow"
you get the drift, HO HO!

It's been a while since the last knockeriffic Best of the Breast Challenge....

I figure it's about time for some cold weather nipple stimulation.
It'll be fun.
Egg Nog and Mammaries - oh yes!

"....Clams on the half shell and Roller skates, Roller Skates!... Good Times, These are the Good Times... Leave your cares behind..."

Oh Aas!

Thanks to the photoshop wizardry of the fabulous Aasmodeus I can now help a half-naked french lesbian-lover and build her a plane....

- perhaps I will be able to buck her rivets and she'll allow me to buff her leading edges....

I can learn quickly and I will be working to win after all.

Stumbling Podcasting Whores Unite!

I've been kinda branching off into the brave world of internet exploration lately.....

Maybe it's just the time of year, or maybe it's just the time of man.
---- I've been so blog-oriented for the last however many months I guess I just got briefly bored with the whole "this is me doing my me-things over here in my me-world and here is a sweet picture that will give you insight into my little bit o' me-chaos"



Hmmmmm.....

I even got bored with corrosion.
I have a stockpile of rotted out ol' aeroplane bits in my toolbox waiting for a connielingus showcase.
I am not even joking about that.... I have a small group of "fans" at my work who actually give me corrosion specimens in the hope I might "blog" about them.

I have been falling behind.



So I got quite addicted to the Firefox Extension "StumbleUpon".

Yeah, that's right I am a stumbler.

You get a button, much like the Blogger "Next Blog", that says "Stumble!" and you are instantly and randomly transported to a "favorite" and "recommended" website or blog in the genre from your own predetermined personal list of interests. Some are so-so and some are wonderful... Then you can judge them if you please.

---------> Jenn and I stumbled hardcore for about 3 hours this morning.

It just really drives home the fact that the World Wide Web is REALLY TEEMING of fucked-uply interesting tidbits of fabulously artistic nonsense like Fly Guy or heartwarmingly twisted little animated movies like Karma Ghost.

These things make me happy.
I'm a simple girl in a complicated world.

Don't get me started on the sick fetish of podcast collecting.....




Jaysus! when did I turn into such a fucking computer nerd?........

I'm a hardcore tradeswoman!
My tools are rivet guns and hammers in my hand not some frivolous downloadable extension pack.....

Arrrrrrghhhh.

(lol.)

Raymi The Minx

I am a secret lover of Raymi The Minx
- aka Lauren White. -

I look at her blog everyday.
I can tell she has an English Mum like me because she spells Mom "Mum" like a good english kid would.

- I bought the book, Marketable Depression because like most celebrity worship you just can't get enough.

Marketable Depression is a dirty-feeling diary.... A spew of uncomfortable in-depth-ness.....
Scary - but not really - when you consider the circumstances in which you came across it.


Why the fuck are we all so addicted to blogs anyways?!?
The unknown, the Peeping-Tom factor, getting inside someone's average life and analyze whether or not you agree or approve. For a laugh or for a cry....Just like you judge people in the real world, you judge blog people.
Lameness is universal and in various forms of HTML as well.
Maybe, if yer lucky, you will see an enthralling and artistic picture or two.

Blogs are a way to vent, to advertise, to have a voice, to be fucked up without consequence. We all wanna be something beyond our stupid lives we lead in the real world. It's all a secret little world inside your computer that eventually you begin to trust and worry that you may not satisfy....

You should appreciate blog writing not unlike you appreciate poetry...
Here is a little quote from Dylan Thomas that should apply to blogs as well as a poems.

"Read the Poems (blogs) you like reading. Don't bother whether they are important, or if they will live. What does it matter what poetry (blogging) is? after all. If you want a definition of poetry (blogging) say : Poetry (Blogging) is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle or what makes me do this or that or nothing." and let it go at that.... All that matters about poetry (blogging)is the enjoyment of it, however tragic it may be. All that matters is the external movement behind it, the vast undercurrent of human grief, folly, pretension, exhilaration, or ignorance, however unlofty the intension of the poem (blog)."

Maybe I am looking too deep into this.....

Nevertheless

Now there are Blog Bullies and Spam Nazis.....
But hey, Blog-reading is like a reality show that you can comment on.

Raymitheminx.blogspot.com is an honest to goodness guilty pleasure with an edge. I live vicariously through her antics. Enjoy the simpleness. Re-live a miss-spent youth. Hear about what movies are worth seeing and where to get drunk at live shows that are good in Toronah.
....... Maybe at the very least you'll see Nipples and some great fashion statements.

Lauren White is a personal web-log Pioneer you know.

Here is my favorite story from "Marketable Depression".....





Buy her Book. Buy it here. It's on sale for Christmas.
It's not pretty, but when you are 87 you might want to remember your secret blog-life as if it was a real source of human interaction.
So all in all,
A satisfyingly depressive memento into the human-blog life you now live here in late 2005.

So 2004......

I was just thinking today about how my whole gaytastic lesboriffic lifestyle got so average.

- A blessing or a curse?-

Jenn and I were at a "friends from work" gathering last weekend and we actually just blended in with the other 30 something couplings of the het-er-oh variety.

Much to the shock and awe of my dear Jennifer - I was truly comfortable showing my girl on girl affection in public!



Stunning relation-shit revelations aside , I simply realized that maybe I'm not so "shocking" after all.
Tongue lashing lesbians aren't such the "party favor" they were a couple years ago.

Christ on a Crutch! We can actually marry....

Ellen D Gee is all mainstream now.

The L Word is on Showcase at 10 PM on a weeknight for godsakes.........



Lesbians are SO 2004.

Bah.