This song was quite literally the only reason I could wake up and crawl out of bed those icy December mornings. The only way I could force my legs to keep mechanically moving down the uncooperative street, trying to breathe in the stinging air. 

That beat. That chorus. The part that goes, “Make that money/watch it burn/sink in the river/the lessons I’ve learned.” (One of the catchiest bridges ever.)

How to recognize a great song: when, at 5 AM, half way to your destination, you're grinning like an idiot and practically dancing down the slick pavements. This is a great song. 

My perception is that OneRepublic is one of those bands that people relatively enjoy, but viscerally label as being “too pop” or “too top 40” to take seriously. It's not the kind of band you name-check at a party. There's this old episode of Gilmore Girls where the aforementioned Gilmore girl, at her friend's indie-rock band's gig, kindly makes conversation with her ex’s new girlfriend, who isn't really enjoying the music. "So what kind of music do you like?" 

“I don’t know,” says the sweet, dull, blonde girl, vaguely, "uh, Michelle Branch, Matchbox 20?“ 

“Geez,” mutters a James-Dean-wannabe character, and there follows a half-hearted attempt of the main character to pacify, though our intrepid heroine clearly agrees with the greasy-coiffed-leather-jacketed fellow.

The point of this tangent being: if that scene had been set in the present, I have this feeling that OneRepublic would have been one of the names slipped into that list.

But you know what? Ryan Tedder knows his way around some good music. 

He spins some incredible melodies and counter-melodies, soaring choruses, and frankly, I’ve never heard better use of dynamics by any other band.  The music is consistently epic, anthemic; it always sounds like it’s reaching upwards towards an ideal. It’s unusually positive for our post-modern culture, but it's just as thoughtful and well-crafted, if not more so. 

(More than, for instance, this eloquent line from Afraid by The Neighbourhood, whose actually poetic Sweater Weather I do like: “It hurts but I won’t fight you / You suck anyway / You make me wanna die.” Nice, guys.)  

And they are both charming and electric live. I had the pleasure of seeing them at their concert in Terminal 5, a really underrated venue, in which they were continuously delightful. The highlights: 

• - their cover of Take Me Out, 
• - the duet with surprise opener Sara Bareilles, 
• - the part where they charmingly passed a bottle of champagne to the crowd and said, "We kind of got in trouble for this at the last concert because there were people who were underaged - so pass this around and only drink it if you’re over 21,"
• - the shirtless gay guy in white pants who was sinuously dancing around in a 2-square-foot space with his hand in the air like it was a nineties' rave, and went around telling everyone that everything was fabulous
• - the cello. Any band with a string instrument is worth a listen.

So, leather-jacket-wearers of the world: I will gladly admit to listening to OneRepublic (you know what, I used to listen to Michelle Branch, too). And now, in the words of Elizabeth Bennet, despise me if you dare!

Mirrors:  

Oh JT. The 20/20 Experience was generally something I didn’t need to experience again, with the exception of Mirrors. The melody is epic and catchy, the beat light and nicely self-contained.The mirror metaphor gets overworked to the point where no songwriter, present or future, can ever use it again, but the lyrics are clever enough to be entertaining:

“Aren’t you something to admire/‘cause your shine is something like a mirror/

…If you ever feel alone and/the glare makes me hard to find/
Just know that I'm always parallel on the other side.”  

Aw. (Those are the perfect forgot-our-anniversary-but-get-out-of-jail-free words, right there.)

It’s also the first time in a long time that JT isn’t singing exclusively in falsetto. That’s kind of exciting. 

And at 5:45, where the part of the video most worth watching begins, he gets to show off some Gene-Kelly-Channing-Tatum moves in a wonderfully and tightly designed set. Will anyone ever say no to watching a good-looking man dancing in a black trench and turtleneck?

The dancers in the video are a bit weird (they’re what I imagine Capitol citizens would look like in a slutty, ill-fitting-hosiery version of The Hunger Games). And, like most of his songs these days, it’s a bit long. JT dear, not everything you perform has to be the musical equivalent of Beowulf.

But the probable reason I actually like and remember this song is because it reminds me of this exchange, one epic August night when two of my far-off friends descended into Philadelphia to rock the town:

[“Mirrors” starts to play in the background]

AH: (looking up upon hearing the song) You know, it’s a commitment.

Me: Oh, yeah. I heard that it was for his wedding to Jessica Biel.  

AH: …no.  I meant that listening to this song is a commitment.

Truer words have never been said.

I'm finally getting around to my memories of 2013! I was starting to forget...

There's so often a song playing in the canopy of my mind that I might as well have an internal soundtrack to my life. I've come to realize that I consist of 80% music, not water; from day to day, many of my life's moments and emotions are defined by and saturated in rhythm, voices, and melodies. As follows, much of 2013 was reflected in the music I heard and loved. Here's one:

Wicked Game - James Vincent McMorrow

About 45% of the new music I “discover” is from watching TV, usually bad TV. This is no exception. But if there’s good-bad TV, So You Think You Can Dance would be it, and since in my alternate universe life (where polar vortexes don't exist and I always make wise and perfect decisions), I would have become a ballerina instead of a doctor, I not-so-secretly love this show, and I very secretly try to learn the choreography. 

But how could you not? Watch the video above, listen to that beautiful song and watch this exquisite interpretation. 

If your heart doesn't ache a little after watching that, you don't have one. (Doctor says.)

I downloaded this song the next day and listened to it for about 8 hours straight. I kid you not. (I am one of those people who greedily latch on to melodies and suck each nuanced pause and instrumental riff dry until it's memorized in my own veins; a musical vampire.) 

What's more: one day later, while looking for other versions of this song, I realized this song was itself a cover of an 80s song. I still loved it - and given my disdain for the eighties, that means something.

This lovely cover was a gateway drug to the rest of JVM’s beautiful music: lush, lavish, and quiet melodies laced with that touching, broken voice. Undeniably rooted folk, but with some intriguingly r&b touches: addictive, evocative, and extraordinarily harmonic. 

And he has a wonderful new album out: check it out. (spotify/amazon)

It’s that time of year, yes, when the world falls in love, but also, for reminiscing about the last 365 days.  

And what 365 days!  It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone inevitably says that the year “flew by” (can we use another expression please?) - but that was true, at least, of the last 6 months.  The first 6 months of my year were occupied by finishing OB/GYN residency and surviving my oncology rotation without threatening myself with bodily harm.  That passed by about as quickly as Tiny Tim hobbling through Times Square during the holiday/tourist season - with the equivalent amount of pain, exasperation, and disproportionate, barely masked anger.  

[One of the notes attached to a lovely farewell gift from my equally lovely interns:  “I hope that when you get to Philly you won’t be such an angry bird!  We love you!”]

Certainly a lot has changed in the last few months.  

I switched from:

•  a major city with short streets and long avenues, to a slightly less major one with long streets and short cross-streets named after tall trees in lieu of aforesaid avenues
• a studio to an apartment with an actual room (and a washer and dryer, oh joy!)
• 24 hour calls almost every weekend to having a weekend, as a human being should
• a PC to a Mac (hello, rest of the civilized world!)

I travelled across country and globe to places previously unknown (above the Arctic Circle to get mauled by 8 impossibly adorable husky puppies, to arid Vegas to ride more limos than I have ever in my life).  I met a lot of new, strange, amazing and lovely people, everywhere.

I had about 50% - nope, 65% - of my friends get engaged, saw some of them have children (not literally - I feel that needs to be clarified), and probably because of this onslaught of diamond rings and babies on Facebook, finally reached an age where I feel I should probably get serious about life.

[Although, feel ≠ do, especially with my particular brand of avoidant personality disorder]  

Often, I don’t feel as though I’ve accomplished anything from year to year.  (Slogging through always felt like an apt depiction of years past.)  But if I really think about 2013, it's been a particularly packed year, not necessarily or particularly life-changing, but filled with a lot of little, subtle things that actually add up to quite a lot.  It’s a lovely and pleasant feeling, this sense of minor accomplishment.  

Also, it was one of my New Year’s resolutions last year (“actually go DO something, you reticent, daydreaming bum!”), so that’s at least one resolution that I actually accomplished.  

I have not, however, learned to write short, succinct sentences.  

(I will never be Hemingway, for better or worse.)

So in the beginning of this next year, before anything gets 'resoluted,' I’m going to write about the best of 2013, and the worst - things that inspired, things that really made me question humanity - not because I think my opinion is that valuable.  But we live not in flesh and blood and bone, but in music, memories, and fleeting thoughts, and passing experiences, and as the year flees by, so do my recollections.  Our tendency is to forget.  That’s something I don’t ever want to do. 

Maybe the fragility of the last year can be crystallized into words, last a little longer, be reflected on and pondered for a little while more.  Maybe it’ll - eventually, inevitably - fade away (although evidently anything ever published on the internet can never be fully erased).  

But I hope that either way, it’ll be interesting, entertaining, maybe thought-provoking, and as we pass from memories of the year past to the hopes for the new year, you’ll be along for the ride.

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve - Zooey Deschanel & Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Welcome to my yearly rant on Christmas songs - and my yearly blog post, I guess.  Is a blog really a blog when one only posts once a year?  Does this count as persevering in my attempts to be a writer/cultural commentator (and maybe some day work for NYMag/Slate/NYT/New Yorker, in ascending fantastical order)?  What is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything?   

All unanswerable questions, that.  

What is answerable is what particular Christmas songs elicit from the depths of my soul an inexplicable, disproportionate rage, which manifests itself in that pained half-sneer endemic to all New Yorkers, a clenching of the chest, a rapid means of escape (through the skip button or the door), and headache that sounds like a continuous scream of “WHHHYYYYY?!?”

(Since residency, I’ve had a lot of anger issues.)  

Being composed of 80% music instead of water, I could probably talk endlessly about songs I dislike and like, even holiday ones.  But evidently I have to save this material for a yearly blog post.  So let’s discuss “Last Christmas.”

I can’t even type that without an involuntary grimace.

The hate probably boils down to five things:  1)  it’s typical 80s music fare, 2)  the band name is ridiculous, 3)  the lyrics are even worse, 4)  it’s pure camp, and 5)  it’s not really a Christmas song at all.

Despite being born in the (late) eighties, I developed no love for 80s music.  I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s the heavy use of synth.  Maybe it’s the straight beat.  Maybe it’s the complete lack of cynicism when the singer looks into the camera with big teased hair, and earnestly croons, “If you’re lost you can look and you will find me/time after time.”  NO. So clearly Wham! already has that not going for them.  

And this video.  The hair.  The color-mismatched eyebrows.  The breezy, open, button-down shirt.  The gross misuse of overlays and fade-ins.  You can’t look away, can ya?

Also, the band is called Wham!.  Why?(!)  Did they get slapped so hard for making horrible, cheesy music that they had to add some random exclamation point to the end of their name?  The only reason they get any sort of pardon is because this band gave rise to running joke that is George-Michael Bluth on Arrested Development. 

But probably the most infuriating part is the lyrics, the meat of any song.  Well yes, George Michael, if you just randomly give your heart away at Christmas, and then revenge-give it to someone else the following year, you will be playing this song on the world’s smallest violin EVERY SINGLE YEAR.  I’m sure you thought that last year’s girl was “someone special” too.  Another unanswerable question:  how much of a dunce can one person be?  (At least he admits to “what a fool [he’s] been.”)

I’m also pretty sure we can banish “fire in his heart,” “soul of ice,” and “once bitten, twice shy” from the song lyric compendium for now and forevermore.  

Also, if anyone can explain what “A face on a lover with a fire in his heart/A man under cover but you tore me apart,” means, you're a better man than I.  Even my extraordinary talent for BS-ing my merry way through classes involving poetry and prose analysis have failed me.  My guesses:  he’s wearing a mask or attempting a scene from Faceoff?  the woman he’s in love with acts heartless like a man or is a transvestite? 

    

I don’t think there is a single arrangement of this song where someone is not singing this without eighties’ style melodrama.  There’s sentimental, and there’s saccharine.  It’s not a surprise, then, that most people who choose to cover this song are of an overly dramatic bent (Savage Garden, Taylor Swift, Lea Michele - though it’s a given that if she sings anything, it’s automatically going to be on histrionic overdrive), but it is seemingly impossible for even serious singers not to act like total hams while singing this.  Every singer will inevitably develop that baby whine of a catch in his or her voice during the course of this song, usually during “gave it awwa-ay“ or “someone spe-shul” 

Florence maybe gets away with it simply because she is Florence, and this is just how she sings: awesomely.  

Not even dub step is going to save this, Ariana Grande, although I guess bastardizing the verses might temper it slightly.  

The xx are not a band I would associate with wallowing drama, and honestly, I don’t even know what is going on with this cover.  

Christmas songs should meet at least one of these (personal and arbitrary) criteria:  the lyrics should be actually about Christmas, and the song should “be merry and bright.”  If the word “Christmas” was not in this song, it would be just a typical eighties’ song about heartbreak.  This is just blatant holiday profiteering.  Just think of all the royalties they get every year from this festering turd of a record.  

  

And if you’re going borrow on the Christmas spirit to make some change, shouldn’t it be at least a little uplifting?  Sure, I’m melancholic, but even I don’t think regret, jealousy, and revenge should be part of the Christmas liturgy.  Granted, there are sad Christmas songs (you can’t get much more depressing than the original lyrics to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”) but at least these songs fulfill the first criteria:  they’re actually about Christmas.  

To close on a less negative note, in keeping with the spirit of the season, here’s a collection of Christmas-related good reads, interesting song renditions, and a Millennial classic that will never grow old, because

...all I want for Christmas, is you!

Snow Patrol - Just Like Christmas

Death Cab for Cutie - Christmas (Please Come Home)

Sugar & The Hi-Lows - Jingle Bells

The Civil Wars - I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day

Chris Klimek:  All I Want For Christmas Is A New Song - Why the Last Great New Christmas Song Was Written 19 Years Ago

Jonathan Fischer:  Our Best Chance for a New Christmas Standard  

Max Blau:  The Worst Original Christmas Songs of the Last 10 Years : some amazing stuff in here - I didn't even know R Kelly had a Christmas song.  

Merry Christmas, and see ya at New Years!