You my electrical lip balm flava
September 9th, 2005 @ 21:18 by NormMonkey
From the energetic-music department:
If you’ve ever played Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 then you know what I’m talkin’ about: “Fever for the Flava” by Hot Action Cop. I heard it in one of the American Pie movies, grepped the name and artist in the song list after the credits, and the next thing you know I recently got hold of the song itself.
I don’t know what it is about this song. Something about the beat and the tune just energizes me. It’s like an automatic thirty attitude pluspoints just for listening to it; sixty if I listen to it on a Friday right after work. Maybe you have to be introduced to the song through playing the game, to feel the rush of taking corners at 100mph with your friend half a second behind you and gaining, while listening to this song to build the energy association with it. Maybe it has this effect on everybody, or just people who “get” it.
As soon as I got it and listened to it a couple of times I knew that I just *had* to play it on my Friday drive home (ASIDE: anybody who knows me knows what Friday right after work means to me. My drive home is about 45 minutes. During that time I unwind and change from work mode to life mode. Friday right after work doubles the positive effect on my attitude. See the first paragraph of this post). I had a couple of other songs on my music player that also happened to have some energetic-ness to them, and the total effect for my Friday drive home was pretty amazing. By the time I got to the grocery store I was bouncing on my feet.
That got me thinking of making a special “energy” song playlist. Here’s my take: it’s no good to simply take a bunch of high-energy songs and string ‘em together; too much of a good thing would just become a familiar numbness that fades into the background. A sequence of songs needs to lift you up to a high energy level and then slowly ebb back in a series of song-energy waves to keep your attention and have the right effect.
I naturally lean towards slower, sappy/cheesy music so my baseline music — the lowest or “normal” point of the wave — needs to reflect this. So far, here’s what I have for the lineup. If you:
* like 80’s/sappy/cheesy songs (for those playing at home in the Ottawa area, think Majic 100)
* occasionally turn up the volume on a slow song as well as the fast ones;
* appreciate older music as well as newer;
* appreciate cover songs for their merit even if you love the original version
… then you might enjoy this lineup:
Evanescence - My Immortal (the full band version)
Aerosmith - Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing
Hot Action Cop - Fever for the Flava (Hot Pursuit 2 version)
Goo Goo Dolls - Give a Little Bit
Uncle Kracker - Drift Away
White Snake - Here I Go Again
Hot Action Cop - Fever for the Flava (original)
