And with the election behind us, we have a new crop of Genius-generated playlists in front of us for Friday random ten fun. First up is a list based on “Fall Behind Me” by The Donnas, and it’s notable in that it’s the first such list I’ve generated that can be reasonably said to do a little genre-mixing. Here’s the first ten songs as they display:
1. “Fall Behind Me” – The Donnas
2. “Cherry Bomb” – The Runaways
3. “Search and Destroy” – The Stooges
4. “I Will Survive” – CAKE
5. “The Way” – Fastball
6. “Zoot Suit Riot” – Cherry Poppin’ Daddies
7. “Tempted” – Squeeze
8. “Life During Wartime” – Talking Heads
9. “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” – They Might Be Giants
10. “Jump, Jive, an’ Wail” – Brian Setzer Orchestra
And as played:
1. “Fall Behind Me” – The Donnas
2. “Every Picture Tells A Story” – Rod Stewart
3. “Birdhouse In Your Soul” – They Might Be Giants
4. “Blister In The Sun” – Violent Femmes
5. “Roam” – B-52s
6. “We Care A Lot” – Faith No More
7. “What You Need” – INXS
8. “Marching Bands of Manhattan” – Death Cab for Cutie
9. “Life During Wartime” – Talking Heads
10. “R.O.C.K. in the USA” – John Mellencamp
I talk about genre mixing because the first time I tried to do a Genius list on something like “Zoot Suit Riot”, I got a hundred jazz songs – Glenn Miller, Count Basie, that sort of thing. Which I found boring and typical of the main kvetch I’ve had about Genius all along. So I’m encouraged to see a seed tune from clearly outside the jazz world that could reach in there for stuff like “Zoot Suit Riot” and “Jump, Jive, an’ Wail”. There may be hope yet for this concept. Beyond that, what I like about this collection is that it’s tough to categorize at all – there’s harder 70s music, standard 80s pop, some 90s quasi-alternative, and more. That’s more of what I want out of Genius, so I love these results. A good way to start off this round.