I'm a sucker for pick-me-up songs. I love them for pregaming, for early in the morning, roadtrips, etc. etc. Additionally, my roommate often gets, shall we say, *cranky* when she's at work, and I get lots of emails that say something along the lines of "Work sucks today, give me a fun song to listen to." So I'm always on the lookout for songs of the upbeat, usually cheesy variety. Here are my favorites from the last year or so. Note: as always with me and music, just because they were my faves from the year, doesn't mean they come from this year. Many don't even come from this decade.
What I Am- Will I. Am...I know it's from Sesame Street, and that it was, in effect, recommended to me by a 2-year-old....but I don't care, it's awesome.
A Love Bizarre- Sheila E: funk music is a weakness of mine, and although he's not in the youtube version, Prince and the Revolution make a cameo in the version I have on my ipod.
The Rainbow- Ween: there are many colors in the homo rainbow. Yes, that is Chef from South Park who contributes a verse at the end of the song.
Give It Up- KC & the Sunshine Band: somehow I had never heard of this song until a couple of months ago. One of those moments where you hear it playing in a bar and you're instantly smitten. Back in the day, you'd have to sprint to the jukebox and hope you could figure out what was playing before the song ended. Now you can just Soundhound it on your phone. Technology rocks, brosef.
Tom Hark- The Piranhas: NOBODY I've recommended this song to likes it very much. Most actually hate it and get pissed when I like to play it multiple times in a row. So I don't know what to think, except that it gets me super fired-up to crack a beer, drive 750 miles, punch a stripper, that kind of thing. I'm sorry, I'm not sorry.
We No Speak Americano- Yolanda Be Cool: first heard this song in a drunken haze after a Royals game last summer, and it quickly became a staple of our softball team's pre-and-post game parking lot drinking activities. Now it's showing up on commercials and stuff like that and it makes me giggle every time.
Walking on Broken Glass- Annie Lennox: this is a super gay song, which is usually the sign of a good pick-me-upper.
Joy- Apollo 100: an almost perfect song to walk down the aisle to immediately after being pronounced husband and wife, in my humble opinion. I'm pretty sure this song is on a movie during a wedding scene, but not a serious one. Like 40-Year-Old-Virgin or something.
Livin' in America- James Brown: if you saw me mowing my lawn in 2011, there is an 80% chance you saw me singing this song loudly and dancing like Apollo Creed, not really caring if anyone heard me or not. (Note: this is a terrible idea, since most of my lawn is on a pretty severe downslope. So if you ever hear about me cutting my foot off in a freak lawnmower accident, you can go ahead and blame The Godfather of Soul and Rocky IV equally.) It only takes me about 20-25 minutes to mow, so I usually just listen to this song on repeat about 4-5 times and call it good. "EYE TO EYE!!! Vision to vision!"
