The first thing you need to know is that there’s a blue moon coming on August 31. Mental Floss posted an article about what they are and they’re more rare than you think due to weird farmer math.

As for the song, one of my favorites, it was written in 1934. I love the idea of finding a rare blue moon love under a blue moon. Blue moons are the third in a seasonal cycle and so always fall in Indian summer or early fall — and thus they make me think of hayrides for some reason. Probably the farmers.

It’s become a standard that’s been reinterpreted by dozens of singers — from Sinatra to Ian McCullough to Billie Holiday. There are quite a lot of takeoff songs on the concept as well. Big Star, Toby Keith and Stevie Wonder all have their own, original blue moon songs. 

It is made most famous by Mel Torme. I do like this version by Cowboy Junkies. They give it a smokey feel.

Source: Spotify

Is there life on Mars? No. But NASA has officially landed the Curiosity rover on Mars to test and see if, among other things, it was once hospitable to life. I love space exploration. I love the grandiose span of the universe. I love what both impress on me about humanity. And with those thoughts in mind, I made a playlist of the songs I’d like Curiosity to blast, both in outer space and while it rolls around Mars.

It veers all over the place, from the Bowie must-have classic to dreamy electro-pop to punk rock to indie to idealistic with smatterings of official NASA recordings of the Apollo voyages sprinkled in between. Some songs are hopeful. Others are sarcastic. At least one (possibly three) is nihilistic. A few are straight out drugged up anthems. 

If Curiosity if a lonely Wall-E up on Mars, these are it’s tunes. I can’t wait to find out what it learns.

Source: Spotify

A little while back, maybe even a year ago now, I got a bee in my bonnet to find out more about where Zeppelin’s sound came from since, when they started in the ’60s, it was so different from everything else happening in music.

This playlist covers the stuff they ripped off, the stuff they’ve said was an influence to them, stuff that it blew my mind they even knew anything about. Obviously there’s a ton of blues, but there are also surprises like Ritchie Valens and Art Garfunkel. Enjoy!

Source: Spotify

Seriously, What’s Your Guilty Pleasure? : Ke$ha “Blah Blah Blah”

I knew you had a guilty pleasure.

Spotify announced today, after the uproar about all of your music going to a live list of what you’re listening to on Facebook by default (oh and you have to have a Facebook profile to get Spotify now), that they’ve introduced a “private listening” feature. Their introduction, via Twitter, said “You can now temporarily hide your guilty pleasures.” 

I listened to Ke$ha’s not quite a hit single “Blah Blah Blah” on the way to work this morning on Spotify. Before Ke$ha I listened to R. Kelly’s “I’m A Flirt.” And as I did it, I thought to myself, “I wonder if anyone will LIKE that activity on Facebook.” You see, I listened to a Helium album the other day and my friend The Playlist got so damn excited he shouted me out in a FB update about how great Helium are and thanked me because he saw it in my instant Spotify-to-Facebook feed. Who is going to thank me for listening to Ke$ha? No one, apparently.

There’s an essay in my book, Record Collecting for Girls, entirely devoted to the Guilty Pleasure (read an excerpt on the Daily Swarm). Do you know what the overwhelming feedback to it has been? I DON’T HAVE ANY GUILTY PLEASURES! I knew every person who said that was lying except Colleen Quill, the woman who inspired the essay. Spotify knew it too and had to introduce a feature to let you make your embarrassing musical secrets private. 

Cough it up. What do you not want everyone you’re friends with on Facebook to know you’re listening to?