So it's been over a month since my last posting of the Songs I Fell in Love with in 2007, and back then I ambitiously put Part 1 of ? thinking that I was seriously going to have time to create some complex miniseries. This past month life has definitely taken hold, and for better or worse it's resulted in me listening to less music.

Well, maybe not listening to less music, but definitely not avidly excavating for new songs everyday like I did for the past couple of months. I've settled pretty nicely with my Parliament, Rotary Connection, Janelle Monae and OutKast--for some reasons it's all I feel I need right now. There's a plethora of new music that I'm very late in the game for--I haven't given listen to a single track off the new Lupe yet. I even skipped over a new Jay-Z song that came out a couple of days ago (fareeeeeal?) but I know I'll get to them at some point.

For now, lets step back into the past. Maybe I need to finish this thing up--get some closure--before moving on. So, it's an early night. Lets get this done.

St. Vincent - Paris is Burning I never really liked musicals growing up. I thought the singing from out of context ruined good stories. And then I saw Rent live on stage and from that point on I started getting extremely interested in Broadway musicals, until I saw Rent: The Movie and decided that I actually don't like most musicals, especially if they've been turned into crappy movies. BUT one thing I've always loved about musicals are the theatrics of the songs, the expression in the delivery of lyrics. So when I first heard St. Vincent's "Paris is Burning" I was overwhelmed at how convincingly it brought me back to 2005 when iLL-Lit arrived in Paris amidst the riots, and at the same time made me recall A Tale of Two Cities. Yeah, only a geek would be in his mid-twenties and think of 10th grade literature when he listens to music. But yeah, roll both of those together and add some psycho synths and you have one of the funnest songs of the year.

MIA - Bamboo Banga MIA makes me happy because she makes Asians look cool, and anybody that makes Asians look cool is all right with me. It took me awhile to get into MIA, and I have to admit that I do like Kala more than her first album. This song in particular gets the award for the best buildup of the year. By the time the sample kicks in, you can pretty much expect your face to be exploded.

3xKrazy - Keep It On the Real A couple of days after I came back from London in September, I had dinner at Golden Lotus with a bunch of Bay folks. Twas in celebration of being back Home, seeing people I hadn't seen in over a month, and a meal that would actually fill me up that wasn't sausages and potatoes. We were all eating for about half an hour before Mr. Ise Lyfe came in, fashionably late by looking like he was in a hurry. "I can't stay for long," he said, "But I wanted to give you this. Revolution." He handed me an envelope and disappeared into the Black of the night. Inside the envelope were two things: A CD, and a phone card to Asia. The CD was 3xKrazy's Stackin Chips. That night while driving home, I listened the full version six-minute version of "Keep It On the Real" for the first time in as long as I can remember. It reminded me of why I loved Bay Area music so much back in the day. It reminded me of a particular species of music that people just don't make anymore. When the song's half over, it's really just begun. Peep it for one of the most soulful moments in Bay rap, ever.

Janelle Monáe - Sincerely, Jane. Oh Jane, how my insides melt, especially when you hit that note at 1:29. There's not much more that I can say that won't make me sound like a total goober. Just know that after her Metropolis: Suite I came out, iLL-Lit listened to this song at least 50 times throughout the entire SoCal tour. *Sigh*

TV On the Radio - Modern Romance Tonight after dinner I left Ruby's house realizing that I was done with all the work I had assigned myself for the day, and I didn't have anything else to do. Then I remembered that such occasions usually resulted with me at Jose's apartment by the lake to puffpuff and listen to old vinyl. But alas, Jose is back in Pomona, and I'm back to writing blogs at home at 11pm. Let this one be a testament then. TV On the Radio's cover of a Yeah Yeah Yeahs, as presented to me one foggy evening before heading over to the Ruby Room dive bar that I've come to love. Supa trippy music, for a supa trippy world.

Bjork - All Is Full of Love (Video Version) This was a big year for Bjork. Besides her coming out as a giant bong with feet, she also dropped the incredibly underappreciated LP Volta. I liked the album a lot, but I'm going to have to continue with the underappreciation and go with the old "All is Full of Love" as the one I fell in love with this year. Maybe it's the weird compu-percussion, or the electro-harps, or some other combination of words that can be bound together with a hyphen, but this is a great song to get lost in. And when I went to go see her earlier last year, all the barefoot hippie folk were definitely not worried about being lost. Blog down memory lane: 05.20.07: Put a Bjork in it

Elton John - Tiny Dancer In March Dahlak and I watched Almost Famous. In the movie there's a scene where one of the bandmates ditches the group and goes to a high school kid's party and ends up spazzing out and jumping off a roof and having to get carried back onto the tour bus in a towel. Anyway, it's awkward on the bus, that is, until the guitarist starts singing Elton John's "Tiny Dancer," and by the end of the song the whole bus is chanting merrily together down the highway. It's a pretty corny scene, but it strikes the nice chord. It made both Dahlak and I fall in love with "Tiny Dancer." We play it every. single. roadtrip. Ruby watched "Almost Famous" with us too, but it didn't have the same effect on her, and she doesn't think much of "Tiny Dancer." She shakes her head and looks away when I play it in the morning in the hotel rooms. Dahlak stays in bed smiling, muttering, "This is great. Great." Nico walks in with his coffee, stops to figure out what song it is, and puts on his headphones to listen to Lil Wayne.

Rotary Connection - Magical World And yes, with all the songs I loved, I had to save this one for last--snuck into my life late into the year when I decided that I wanted to get into Minnie Riperton for our LA roadtrip. Since then this has been pretty much my life anthem. Yes. One day we will all wrap our minds up in a yellow submarine.

Here is where my conclusion would go, if I wasn't tired of writing for this post.