Mix Tape Monday - Chelsea Edition

Chelsea is my blogger best friend and book loving cohort. Apparently she keeps her addiction in the closet.

For this Monday Chelsea picked out her 5 favorite songs. We will get to those in a moment, first I wanted to know if she had been reading any good books about music lately. Here is what she recommends:

Well, I read an ARC of Audrey, Wait by Robin Benway a few months ago and really liked that. And I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone by Stephanie Kuehnert -- it's about so much more than music, but it's a key factor. LOVED that one. Ooh, I read a book called Guitar Girl by Sarra Manning a whiiiile ago and remember liking that one, too.

What about you bloggers out there, read any good books about music lately? A few months ago I read Getting Over Jack Wagner by Elise Juska. It is an absolute MUST for any music lover.

Chelsea is a self proclaimed semi-hippy with an independent taste in music. Her interests are lyrically driven, but it has to have a good melody because she likes to sing along.

I sing along all the time. Drives my family insane. But I listen to it on the computer. Or on my cellphone/mp3-player but it only works half the time.

How does she know what she likes?

Lyrics. That's how I know when I like a song -- I just can't listen to a song with crappy lyrics. It bugs me. Especially because I listen to a song over and over and over again, and then I tire of it. And have to find more. Listen to those for a while, go back to the old ones, etc,etc. But these here are songs that I've listened to for a while and STILL aren't sick of. That's a pretty big feat.

Anyone playing a particular song on repeat? Tell me which one in the comments!

If you know Chelsea at all you know that musically she cares about two things The Beatles and Jason Castro. Wait, is this a sign of a drug problem in the making? No, no probably not. Therefor it was no surprise when the first song that Chelsea picked was "Imagine" by John Lennon. Why?

The lyrics! They're fantastic. It's about a perfect world, where everyone can live together in peace, but, as the song title suggests, that can only be imagined. There's too much hate in the world.

I was interested to learn how Chelsea got interested in older bands like The Beatles and the Rolling Stones (coming up next.)

Ahh! I don't know. I just remember hearing them all the time. And I love a lot of their songs -- they just kind of grew on me. None of my family really likes them. You know, it has less to do with the age of the song and more to do with the lyrics/music. I'm finding that a lot of older songs have better lyrics than, um, contemporary music.

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Next up, "Paint It Black" by The Rolling Stones. Chelsea says:

I like this song when I'm in a grumpy, hate-the-world mood. (Which is about 60-70% of the time. Coffee always helps, though.) When I'm in one of those moods, I can definitely relate to the song.

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"Trouble" by Coldplay was Chelsea's third pick.

I love the lyrics of the song. And the singer has a really unique voice. But what I really love is the piano. There's an acoustic version too, but I love this specific piano version because it's so different and melodic.

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Coming up next is "You Only Live Once" by The Strokes. Chelsea says she loves the first verse of this song in particular.

Ooooooooh Ooooh Ooooh
Some people think they're always right
Others are quiet and uptight
Others they seem so very nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice...(oh-ho)
Inside they might feel sad and wrong (oh no)

Twenty-nine different attributes
Only seven that you like (uh oh)
Twenty ways to see the world (oh-ho)
Twenty ways to start a fight (oh-ho)

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Finally we end with Chelsea's boyfriend.

Jason Castro singing "Clumsy" a pre-idol song which he sings to Chelsea while he looks longingly at her (see above.)