friday random ten, 2001 edition

1. Nickelback, "How You Remind Me." One sign of getting old: I'm never quite certain why I'm supposed to hate certain songs. I mean, I know enough to hate Journey, but songs like this, that sound good on shuffle play? When they inspire wrath, I'm too tired to care.

2. Alicia Keys, "Fallin'." I don't know what was in women's oats in 2001, but there are gonna be a lot of belters on this week's list.

3. k.d. lang, "Crying." I think the audience in the video likes her.

4. Basement Jaxx, "Where's Your Head At?" Shuffle play doesn't care ... from Alicia to k.d. to Basement Jaxx without blinking. Sometimes you hear songs in a new way via shuffle ... this time it's just odd.

5. Rufus Wainwright, "Hallelujah." At last count, there were only 473 people left on the face of the earth who had not yet recorded their version of this song. How nice that Leonard Cohen snuck back into mainstream pop culture via Shrek.

6. Manu Chao, "Mr Bobby." Manu Chao: the AC/DC of his day. They use the same three power chords in every song, he uses that same pinging noise in every song.

7. Mary J. Blige and Natalie Maines, "At Last." It's not just that we have two more belters, covering a song by O.G. Belter Etta James. It's that Mary J and Natalie fit together like ... well, make up your own metaphor. Fans of either singer will appreciate the work done by the other on this one.

8. Pink, "Don't Let Me Get Me." This song fascinates me for many reasons. There's the theme: I don't want to be who I am, I want to be somebody else. That this resonated with Pink is very believable, but by the time she records it, she's already a star, and that adds a different element to what she's saying. Then there's the remarkable video, which ends with Pink going onstage and morphing into various Pink fans who sing "don't let me get me!" Or what happens when she sings this in concert, and the people in the audience singing along want to be someone else ... specifically, they want to be Pink. Who, of course, wants to be somebody else.

9. Gorillaz, "Clint Eastwood." If you don't know Gorillaz, their videos are always of interest.

10. Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya, Pink, "Lady Marmalade." Shuffle comes up with the perfect finish to a list full of women belters: four women belters belting a belter's classic by another bunch of O.G. Belters, LaBelle. Hell, Patti LaBelle practically invented American Idol Belting. Xtina shows that she's the Queen Bee Belter of her day, Lil' Kim shows how to rap and belt, Pink does her off-the-cuff belting (my son told me recently that he thinks Pink coasts, because she's talented enough to get by with half-assed efforts ... he knows I love Pink ... I do see his point, even if I'm not totally convinced). Oh, and whatever happened to Mya?

Bonus track ... this one's actually from 2001 for a change. Ian Hunter, backed by, among others, Ringo, Greg Lake, Howard Jones, and Sheila E, singing the Mott/Bowie classic: