Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Yearlong Song Challenge Monthly Roundup: JUNE 2024


I have updated the YSC landing page so that these roundups are hyperlinked right there next to the following month's playlist links. You can find them at the end/start of each month. Not that I'm presuming these roundups are essential or anything, but there have been a couple people who IRL have asked me how to find them, and so there you go.

I am here for direct feedback if you want it. Send a request via email.

MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS
(as abbreviated as possible)
  • I was about to say "we have a lot more songs to choose from now that it's summer" but I don't even know if that's necessarily true. Yes, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are on the table now, but we're only doing every other Saturday, so it's like four or five extra days than we'd have in April or October. The number of participants is holding strong, but definitely down a little bit from January, and I think if you directly compared the number of songs total in February and in June, they'd be about the same. I'm not going to count though. No purpose to that. I'm just happy people are here and I have music to listen to.
  • I feel like a lot of the weirder prompts on here were saved for the summer, just because of the extra space we have during the week. With the lemon/lemon pair of prompts, it would've been strenuous to use them on a Monday/Thursday in the spring or fall, because that's the whole fucking week, and what, we're gonna spend the whole week talking about lemons? But then as a consequence of that mindset, we're gonna run into some dumb fucking prompts this summer. That's fun, though, right? Right?
  • Big appreciation for when the repeat songs on any given day have such wildly different write-ups. That's a cool aspect to this thing. Three people chose the N.E.R.D lemon song, and no one wrote about the same subject. It's cool seeing how people's minds work.
  • It's fun seeing some people's blogging inside-jokes or references make a reappearance. E.g. Sunny mentioned that wild Ken Nordine album way back in 2020 and it shows up again for the lemon prompt. E.g. Pat's been known to have an ironic attachment to Crazy Town and they show up again for the lemon prompt (R.I.P. Shellshock).
  • Also fun to see some people follow-up on other people's posts. Nate regretted that he couldn't use "Lemonade" by Gucci Mane for his lemon prompt, but then Bridget used it the next day for the "total lemon" prompt anyway. Does this mean that Bridget didn't read Nate's post from the day before? Probably! But it still works!
  • I already commented about the asses, but I loved this prompt, because there were three distinct possibilities for an interpretation. The final count: By my count, that's six butts, four donkeys, and three dickheads.
  • No love for Buckethead.
  • I was surprised how many people for the "something someone wrote about it" prompt chose something that was written on the blog already. But I shouldn't have been, I guess. Reading about music every day is the abnormal thing. Having PoYB as your only regular music source is probably normal...?
  • It was fun listening to the childish bullshit everyone picked for the elementary school prompt. It was occasionally difficult to find the right version on YouTube. Hit me up with that link if it's a traditional song with no set artist!
  • (Sidenote: at the end of the year, when I'm doing my own personal self-audit, this will probably be the one day when I say "I did not follow that prompt correctly," since I didn't see the word "sang" until it was way too late.)
  • I guess the one of the fun parts about YSC is that people are gonna interpret shit differently, right? There are certain prompts, however, when I write it meaning one thing, and then it turns out that people are interpreting it in a way that I didn't intend. I would never say "no! not like that!" but sometimes, I think it. Like the "masterpiece/pause" prompt. I did NOT intend for it to be a "the thing that gives me pause is that this man is a rapist/racist," but, ya know, different strokes for different folks and all that.
  • Also: was anyone tripped up by the typo of "sight pause" instead of "slight pause"? It didn't seem like it, but if you did, let me know, and I will send my apologies personally.
  • The horse thing was fun, but I'm surprised that no one took the "whatever you wanna do, I don't care" part literally. Surprised, but glad. Songs about horses are cool!
  • (Sidenote: I am in Gilson's camp, disappointed that no one picked "Chips Ahoy." I didn't personally want to pick it because I had already chosen two Boys and Girls in America songs, but c'mon people! We were counting on you!)
  • Day 77's porch music was a trick question: if you're listening to music, any music at all, while you're outside, then you're winning life.
  • Still no response from Steve Hyden. Are you avoiding us?!?!
  • I tried to put the wedding song prompt close to the wedding that I knew at least a couple other Song Challengers would be attending, but maybe six days in advance was too soon. But if I had put it on the date of the actual wedding, then we would've lost the wedding -> divorce -> platonic love sequence three days in a row. Making this prompts list was hard!
  • Special shoutout to Erin, who claimed in her one write-up that her coworker introduced her to Fontaines D.C., even though she wrote a review for that band's first album five years ago. It was Erin's birthday week, though, so we were just glad to have her. Maybe I can get her to write a review for Fontaines D.C.'s upcoming album.
  • Anyone else get relieved when a perfect song gets taken off the table early? I'm glad that Bridget used "The Boys Are Back in Town," because that takes the pressure off me to pick it at some point in the future. Such a good song, but let someone else have it this time.
  • The "misunderstood" prompt was interesting, because it required you to assume that other people were wrong and you were right. No one framed it that way, but that's basically what this was, right? Still, I think the only way you could fuck it up is if the thing that is allegedly "misunderstood" was already cleared up by this blog in the past. Since everyone reads the blog. Yes. Only one person did this that I could tell, and I won't say who.
  • I was at a family vacation home during the last full week of June, so I heard all these songs either at the dining room table while the kids ran around, or out on the deck with a FIL who was trying to avoid everyone. Some songs worked better in these contexts than others. You can look at the list and make assumptions either way (was fun having the word ANAL displayed on my computer for a few minutes).
  • Didn't expect to have the "what does this prompt really mean" discussion during songs that feature laughter, but I guess there is a difference between laughter baked into the song vs. laughter in the studio captured on tape vs. canned laughter? There is probably a way to think about these prompts too deeply.
  • Real nice match-up with two songs by the Beards and two completely opposing write-ups. More of these coincidences, please.
  • Counting two men singing pro-women anthems for that day. Only one was chosen ironically. I don't think it's out of the question to have men singing pro-women anthems, though! We can be allies!
  • If I had the time, I'd make a survey for Song Challengers to fill out, to see how everyone is doing. Maybe take a temperature test as far as who is just writing, who is writing and listening, and who is writing and listening and reading. Though I feel like if you're not reading this stuff, why would you know about a survey? It would skew the data.

SONG CHALLENGE MOVIE CLUB
  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
  • Mrs. Doubtfire
  • Wedding Crashers
  • Holes
  • About Time
  • The Fast & Furious franchise
  • Top Gun
  • Top Gun: Maverick
  • Charlie's Angels

ALBUMS I DOWNLOADED OR AM GOING TO DOWNLOAD SOON BECAUSE OF SONG CHALLENGE
(In other words, these are the albums I'm not familiar with but that I'm interested in exploring more of, directly because of a song choice or a write-up or both. This is an important function of Song Challenge for me! Thank you to all those who gave me the recommendation!) (Also: some of the albums connected to the songs chosen are coincidentally upcoming for my Year of Blind Spots project. Those albums are not included here.)
  • something by Four Tops (Brianna, Day 73)
  • Hang-Ups by Goldfinger (Gilson, Day 73)
  • Alvvays by Alvvays (Sunny, Day 78)
  • The Used by the Used (Dave, Day 80)
  • The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner by Ben Folds Five (Allison, Day 81)
  • Anime, Trauma and Divorce by Open Mike Eagle (Sunny, Day 83)

SONGS I'M GOING TO DOWNLOAD SEPARATELY
(They were really good songs, but I'm not really interested in exploring the album their from, through no fault of the person who picked them of course.)

BEST SONGS (THAT I WAS ALREADY FAMILIAR WITH)
(Also, should go without saying that the songs that I personally chose are disqualified from this list.)

WORST SONGS
(Obviously, some prompts call for a bad song. So, for many reasons, the songs aren't on this list because of anything the writer of the blog post did. There were some truly excellent write-ups attached to some pretty dire songs, so let's keep this in mind when you go down this list! Let us separate the song from the reason the song was chosen, and let us separate the song from otherwise excellent write-ups for that song. These are just bad fucking songs, period.)

The best write-up from each individual contributor (minimum six on-time submissions this month), with a brief description of each

Allison — Day 79 — Christmas plans
Brianna — Day 76 — music with friends
Bridget — Day 86 — delivering babies
Dave — Day 70 — missed the boat
Galia — Day 77 — the crying waiter
Gilson — Day 79 — out of love
Maeve — Day 80 — family and cars
Nate — Day 80 — that guy with the best fucking friends
Pat — Day 80 — staying friends
Sara — Day 74 — hometown hero
Sunny — Day 70 — B.
Zach — Day 80 — can we still be friends?
Joe — Day 82 or 83, probably, if you're into that kind of thing (Day 75 if you're not)
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