Arbitrary Numbers: Top # Triumphant Songs

A new year's resolution for me in 2015 was to become happy with my body image.  I'm not shooting to lose weight, I'm not shooting to be "sexy" or any of that.  I just want to be happy.  So I'm eating a little better and working out a lot more.  Not like the gym or anything, I have never been able to strive in a gym environment.  I got myself DDPYoga, and have charged myself to do it and to walk/job 30+ minutes MWF every week.  My success rate as of this article being written is 50%.  That is way more than I have done in the past year, though, so I'll take it.  And I'll keep striving.

Because of doing a lot more walking, I listen to a lot more music than I had in the previous year.  I put in short shorts, a long sleeve shirt, do my DDPYoga routine, then head out into the 30 degree weather and just start walking with my mp3 player as my only company.  And every now and again a song come on that helps me work and fight and push on.  I am not the most athletic dude, but I am a persistent one.  Once I start working out, I generally keep going way past you would think a guy my size and shape could.  Some of those songs ... they give me a feeling.  I feeling I want to talk about.

These emotion playlist videos have been fun for me, and I thought I'd try to make sure I do one a month.  And this one, I knew I needed something to strive for, just like with working out.  So I'm going to pump myself up, get myself ready to fight, to win, to be a hero.  I'm going to do the ...

TOP 8 TRIUMPHANT SONGS 

(on my mp3 player)

[currently]

>> CLICK HERE for the playlist to listen along<<

"Hero of the Day" - Metallica

This is the song that started my mind along this path.  Well, kind of.  But it is the one I searched for to start the playlist.  Yeah, normally I just random until I find one and go, but this song to me is the exact song I mean when I want to talk about triumphant songs!  It is driving, engaging, but not just "epic."  It is a very personal song.

Oooo, I can tell you all the first time I heard the song, too.  In my freshman year of college, my new group of friends and I had somehow gotten into Dragonball GT.  Not Dragonball Z, but the next one in the series.  But there is a AMV for Gohan or Goku or Gowhatever with this song over it.  It was excellent, and it absolutely resonanted with me.  Not the lyrics, not the video itself with whatever character it was, but the music, put over those images.  I see a heroes striving, pushing, fighting, never backing down, never losing, never failing.

"Perfect Cell Theme" - Dragonball Z

Huh.  Well, that's just kind of funny right there.  I love randomized music and how it all works together.

This theme song for me has nothing to do with Dragonball Z.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I never heard it in context of Dragonball Z.  I only ever heard it in context of a fight my best friend in high school and I created between two of our own characters.  I don't know who came up with the fight, or who brought the music to it, but the whole this is forever entwined in my brain space.  Check it.  Play the song, and read along with me.

Imagine a warehouse.  Boxes around, crates, covered in tarps.  The air is dusty, the light outside the man windows is bright and it makes the shadows longer and darker inside.  At one end of the room is a man who looks a combination of Dave Bautista and Andre the Giant.  A Behemoth of a man, enormously muscular, wearing the tightest grey jeans and a mesh tank top over his enormous frame.  He grinds his teeth and stares across the warehouse to a young man.  He's toned and muscular like a gymnast.  He has short platinum blonde hair, kept at an even buzz with his slightly darker beard.  He wears a navy long sleeved athletic shirt and matching tights, without gloves or shoes.  He shifts his weight, and you can see sparks come off the concrete as his skin scrapes across it.

Suddenly they both bolt towards each other, a massive Behemoth and an explosive gymnast ready to Crash into each other.  Every time the gymnast slaps his hands on the Behemoth, a small explosion is created.  Every pounding footstep creates small holes in the floor as he pushes himself forward.  Backsprings and flips as he tumbles around the Behemoth, landing a few blows, before the enormous fashionable man smashes him across the face and the Crashes backwards into a crate, exploding.  They keep fighting, and fighting ...

He and I spent hours, days, months creating characters like this and pitting them against each other.  We played online chatroom roleplaying games with other characters.  But this song, and this fight, was the most realized one in my brain.  And man, does it get me pumped to feel like Crash as I walk quickly in my workouts.  Come on, I'm not going to run full tilt, I gotta work up to it, sheesh.

"Playing With Fire" - Paula Seling & Ovi

Eurovision is awesome!  Do you know what it is?  It is basically a Europe-only Olympics for songs!  It is fantastic, super fun to watch, and a thing I want to review this year if I can, because the years I've watched it I've loved it.  One of the best things about it is the rules and the voting, but that's for another day.

A song I LOVED from the 2010 Eurovision was this one.  It was fabulous, rocked my socks off, made me want to dance and fight and run and win!  I feel like a champion, for really no reason, especially because the song did not do Romania very well that year, mostly because of a boring live performance.  But I don't care, I love this song!  More people need to listen to more Romanian pop songs, I think.

"Dark City" - Machinae Supremacy

Goodness, how do I start talking about Machinae Supremacy?  They are a ... electronic heavy metal band?  They are fantastic, is what they are.  I've loved heavy metal for the longest time.  The driving rhythms, the dueling guitars, the fervor of the music, the pulsing and generally surprisingly heartfelt lyricism.  But Machine Supremacy did something a lot of heavy metal bands I listen to never did: it made me think.  I've loved Rhapsody of Fire and older hair bands like the Scorpions, I've enjoyed Dragonforce, and I've gotten into DreamTheater, but Machinae Supremacy's music really forced me to sit down and think about what they were doing musically.  They weren't all double bass pedals pounding or wailing guitars.  They always did something musically ... significant.  And that was always awesome.

Dark City has been a soundtrack song in my life for a long time.  I've wanted to use it in many places, and it was the original intro to my old IHAO videos before I switched to something a little more easily parced down.  I found the song by ACCIDENT when I was looking for the score to the film Dark City.  And I was blown away.  This song absolutely has always resonated with me as a heroic triumph.  As a theme song.  As a way to enter the battle, to fight my enemies, to declare myself the victor.  It absolutely is awesome to have on this list.

"Kick Ass" - MIKA

I saw Kick-Ass in theaters.  It was ok, a little better than that, really.  I've soured on it since then, but never on the soundtrack!  That movie had a rocking soundtrack.  And this song, which I thought was amazing, was the winner!

MIKA is awesome.  I had heard so many of his songs and never realized they were all the one guy because they always did so many different things.  But his soaring falsetto makes me want to SING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS as I race towards my goal!  I may not be that "young" anymore, but the song the rest of the song absolutely hits me in such a great way!  Look, here's just the chorus lyrics.  Sing them in your brightest falsetto and keep running ... metaphorically or not!

We are young

We are strong

We're not looking for where we belong

We're not cool

We ARE free

And we're running with blood on our knees

"Nothing Left" - Delain

Hey, remember heavy metal, me talking about it before?  Well, let me mention that Delain is probably the BEST heavy metal band, period.  It is a super-group, made up of the former keyboardist/song-writer from Within Temptation, the bassist from Nightwish, the drumer from Epica, guys from Orphanage, and the amazing jazz singer Charlotte Wessels.  If any of those band names mean anything to you, then you know just how rocking Delain absolutely is.

"Nothing Left" is probably not the first Delain song I would have picked if I wasn't doing this via random.  I'd probably pick The Gathering or April Rain; but I'm glad the God of Random did.  The song is fantastic, and has a lot of really cool bits and pieces to the music.  I love the name, and the metaphor the song strives to use as its central message in the lyrics.  It gets me pumped and pushes me farther and farther.  I will strive, I will work, I will win!  LET'S DO THIS!

"I'm on a Boat (explicit)" - The Lonely Island ft. T-Pain

Ha!

This brag-and-swag rap song by comedy MCs the Lonely Island is PERFECT!  It straddles that bragadocious attitude you need to push yourself, it's funny, it's REALLY well produced.  The song rocks.  Everyone knows it.  It also curses a lot, which for me is awesome.  I may not curse on this site, but I like cursing.  It's like when you stub your toe.  Cursing reduces the pain, that's actually scientifically proven!  So working out, pushing my fat body to keep doing the hard yoga stuff or just keep running ... yeah, cursing helps push me farther and harder.

"We Are One" - 12 Stones

Let's talk about wrestling!  Specifically, a thing I talked about before, the Nexus.  This was their song, as they shook up wrestling for ... like, a week before getting completely derailed.  But I was all in!  I was ready!  I was one, I was rooting for this new crop of characters all ready to murder John Cena.  That didn't happen, but that doesn't stop the emotions, man!

This song is a driving rock song about solidarity!  Even though I am listening to this song alone, I feel myself running alongside all my heroes, all the guys I love, ready for battle, ready to win.  There's an awesome drum beat that is simulated marching steps, and it gives me a rhythm to move to, to stay in time with.  I love that stuff.  This song, and so many of the other ones on this playlist, are what keep me going after it feels like my thighs are going to burst into flame and my lungs around going to completely deflate.  I'm gonna do it.  I am one, I am one, I'm the chosen one!

(( 0-0 ))

I bet I could find more and more songs like these, songs that get me going and keep pushing me to exceed my limits and excel.  But for now, this is an awesome mix, and I'm happy to leave it as is.  As I've done the past few times, you can check out the playlist here whenever you want.  See you next month with another Arbitrary Numbers Playlist ... February will be love songs!

Arbitrary Numbers: Top # Super Sentai Theme Songs

Go go Power Rangers!

You just heard the guitar riff, didn't you?  I am pretty sure everyone, no matter who they are or what their taste is in entertainment, gets a rush of pure unadulterated AWESOME when the original Power Rangers theme plays.  It is one of the greatest theme songs of all time.  Theme songs do a lot for a show.  Ducktales, Rescue Rangers, Talespin, Disney has it figured out.  Lots of shows did, I mean come on, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

But today, I'm going to talk about another show.  A show that has lasted for 39 years, with the newest 39th Super Sentai series starting THIS YEAR!  It is about ninjas, the third Sentai about ninjas in fact, and my excitement over watching ToQger currently and watching Gokaiger with my wife that has gotten me all atizzy about the other Super Sentai themes.  Why?  Because they are flipping awesome, that's why!  But how can I share that with you?  Well, with an arbitrary list that counts down all my favorites I wanna talk about!  I am going to countdown my favorites sentai themes, and even better, link them to you, then create a playlist so you can listen to my favorites ... or just listen to all of them, because they are all on youtube!  I have them running on my computer as I write articles, as I begin my new exercise regime, and even on CDs I made for the car!

There are 39 main themes because I'm not going to include the additional themes, mostly because then ToQ #6 awesome harmonica theme would win downright; and while I could rank all 39 of them, that would take forever, and that's not really a list ... I mean, it IS a list by the strict definition of what a list is, but it isn't an internet list, which is about giving you a smattering of information so that you are titillated enough to check the stuff out yourself.  So here is my criteria for how a song gets on my list:
 - Catchiness, or as I like to call it Get-Stuck-In-Your-Head-itude
 - AWESOMENESS, or pure power and sheer musical might
 - a lack of lameness; or the "no little kids singing"
 - Great on its own, or the "you don't have to like Sentai or this series to like this song"

Ok, here we go, my ...

TOP 9 SUPER SENTAI THEME SONGS

Dairanger

The song starts out with this crazy old school theremin sound until it gets into its groove and the "whoa whoa whoa whoa."  This song isn't one that's going to murder you with awesome, no, and that is why it is on the bottom of my favorites list, but it is absolutely a catchy piece with this fantastic groove, silly drumkit beat.  It is a nice lead-in and gets stuck in my head every now and again.  I'll just be wandering around Wal Mart or Kroger or wherever, doing mundane nothing like grocery shopping and I'll just start going "whoa whoa whoa whoa."  That's how I knew it had to be represented on this list.

Gokaiger

You never forget your first.  This song is bright, happy, and fully orchestrated, which I always love.  It is simple and catchy and fun.  Watching the show I wanted it to be more pirate-y sounding, and that is probably my biggest critique of the song, that it fits as a great Sentai theme, but not as a great Sentai theme for the only pirate Sentai there has been.  This is the kind of thing you can expect from most Sentai, just a bright and happy song.  Until we get into the more awesome and the catchier ones!

Denjiman

I would be remiss to not put a theme song from the early years, and Denjiman is absolutely the one!  With its trumpets and real cool bass beat.  It is also another great one to sing a long with.  It reminds me of "Where There's a Whip, There's a Way" which is a fabulous song in its own rights.  It has this wonderful 70s feel to it, and while that is dated, as I almost always saying, dated =/= bad.  This is a time capsule of a cool groovin' song.  Denji-, denjiman, denji-, denjiman!

GoGoV

I love feeling like a hero!  In fact, stay tuned, because next week there will be a new playlist review just like the Saddest and Happiest songs I did not too long ago, based on Triumphant songs!  And I would be shocked if some of these didn't make the list, because this one and one a few steps higher absolutely take the cake for feeling like a HERO!  The swell of the music, the orchestra moving at a fever pitch, the lead singer belting out his heroic intentions!

One of the things that makes me happiest is a nice epic build.  And GoGoV has an incredible build up to the second chorus: SAVE THE EARTH!  SAVE THE LIVES!  I sing that at the top of my lungs and it makes me feel just absolutely epic.  Not as epic as other songs, but it does the job for me.  I considered starting the list here, but the other songs kept getting stuck in my head, so I had to include them.  And I wasn't going to not mention this one.

SAVE THE EARTH!  SAVE THE LIVES!

Go-Onger

I talked about Power Rangers RPM not too terribly long ago, and how much I hated how ashamed the show felt of its silliness, trying to hide the inherent silly nature of the Sentai they used with its "dark and mature" story, which I ultimately felt failed.  Go-Onger

If you need more proof, a friend walked in as I wrote this article, and she immediately started dancing.  Immediately.  Because of just the song.  She doesn't know anything about the source material or the style of show, but she does know she liked this song.  Boom boom bom bom, Go-Onger!

Timeranger

Remember how I talked about epicness with GoGoV?  Timeranger is on this list because it is supremely epic.  It murders epic, buries its corpse, and yet a bigger more awesome Groot tree rises where the seeds of epicness were buried, alive and well, bring awesomeness and epic brilliance to everyone around him as his epicness saves the entire galaxy!

Timeranger's theme is also the only song with a female lead, and it starts in English, which helps me get into it as an American.  It isn't a requirement, as the next three will show you, but it really does help.  I love the swell of the music, the amazing choir, the squealing electric guitar, the amazing organ music ... it is just a smorgasbord of great music!

Hurricanger

We have now entered the super fricking fun and catchy section!  The top 3 are all the most ridiculous energetic and catchy songs I've heard as themes.  They are right up there with Ducktales and Rescue Rangers.  These are themes that transcend language and show.  They are songs we should be listening to all the time for fun, to work out, to cook, to clean, to sleep, to do everything!

Hurricanger is an inherently more hilarious song, with its silly beat and sound effects, sounding like the scoring was created in Mario Paint, and just an incredibly bubbly song and lyrics that are super singable, it is a great song.  I really cannot get enough of it.  The reason it does reach the top is it doesn't get me as pumped as the next to, and is nowhere near as serious with its ridiculous apprentice DJ soundboard music.

ToQger

RAINBOW TRAINS POWERED BY IMAGINATION, WITH A BASICALLY SKA SONG AS THEIR THEME SONG!  It doesn't fail like Gokaiger did, not sound like its theme, as you can always here the train track-styled rhythm all throughout.  It has some seriously great music going on, too, like a really great second verse that is actually different sounding than the first.  I know they are different words in most of these themes, but musically they all tend to be V-C-V-C-B-C, and that's all.  But the second verse for ToQger has this amazingly cool kinda punky-ska drum breakdown before it gets back into the chorus.  I really truly love this song.  There is only one reason that it isn't number 1, and that's because of a language barrier that I'll eventually conquer.  But what if there was a song just as hype and rocking, but I actually get the schtick of the Japanese without it having to slip into English for me to understand it?  Hmmm .....

Shinkenger

A cool traditional Japanese sound evolves into the most blood pumping, sweat inducing rock song, just ... ever!  With its background chorus of "chan-bara-chan-bara" I can always sing along even when I don't quite know the words, I can sing every word of the chorus because it is simple enough and catchy enough and even better clear enough that I learned it no problem.  This is the song I leave on repeat over and over as I do my new workout regime.  I feel like a rocking hero all the time and just work and work and never grow tired as this song blasts along!  It is a dense song musically, with a lot of melodies, counter melodies, and really tight harmonies all throughout, some of it modern rock, some of it updated traditional sounding Japanese musical.  It keeps its themes of the show, reinforces them, and is fantastically musical in nature.  I love the song.  I loved the song before I started caring about Sentai at all.  And that absolutely means something to me!

There we are!  All nine.  I could talk about so many more, like Go-Busters or Kakuranger, but these are the ones I'm limiting this article to.  And like I promised, here is a fantastic playlist, in order, or my nine favorites!  Give it a listen, and enjoy these songs, which truly are for everyone, Sentai lover or not.

TOP # Super Sentai Theme Songs Playlist

Arbitrary Numbers: Top # Christmas Movies (in my collection)

Holiday times are upon us!  As I run around shopping for presents and planning parties and getting ready for Christmas wrestling this weekend, I find I am running out of time to just sit and watch films, even less to head to the movie theatre.  So I though I'd look about my collection, and the holiday spirit hit me!  I have so many wonderful things I own and want to watch in time for Christmas, and I know I won't have enough time!  So I decided I'll go ahead and just do an Arbitrary Numbers so I can talk about as many as I can as soon as I could so that you all can try to find them and add them to your shopping carts and get them just in time for the Holidays!  So let's begin this special Christmas task!

The Top 7 Christmas Movies 

(in my collection)

((that I feel like talking about))

Twas the Night Before Christmas

I really love Rankin and Bass cartoons.  Their claymation stuff gets a lot of attention, but their cartoons are especially ... special for me.  The Hobbit, the Last Unicorn, these were for me the first forays into my favorite genre, just as I was reading the Hobbit and the Belgariad and the Dragonlance books.  The Rankin and Bass Christmas stuff is probably even more well known, but I want to talk about my favorite one, which like I said, is animated.

Twas the Night Before Christmas is a fun musical addition to the poem, talking about a clockmaker trying to help the town but everything gets screwed up because of the mice in his house, who are anthropomorphic (big plus for my viewing as a kid).  The entire special, which is not long, ends with the poem itself.  I love this little thing, and am so happy to have it in my collection.  It isn't perfect, it's short, and the animation is probably too off-putting or "ugly" for some I suspect.  But like I said, I love it.

Grade: B++

It is very sad to know that Arthur Rankin Jr. had passed away this January.  I didn't even hear about it until recently.  Thank you very much for this little special, and so many others that touched my heart, as well as basically everyone else's.  RIP.

Ernest Saves Christmas

I talked about this in my machine gun style review RIGHT HERE.  Go check that out, because this is great.

Grade: B++

Mickey's Christmas Carol and The Muppet Christmas Carol

I bunched these two together because they are my favorite Christmas Carols on film!  These are filled with music and characters and wonder.  But they also do not miss the tone of the book, the ghost story and morality story.  You see Mickey cry for goodness sakes!  I love them both and watch them both every year.

I should also point out that I have the blu-ray of Mickey's and the DVD of Muppet.  Why?  Well the new blu-ray of Mickey's has a bunch of other winter and Christmas specials that make the whole thing a wonderful collection piece to own, only missing one Donald Duck short I remember from my childhood that I wish I had, which is hardly a knock for all the other things it adds.  But why didn't I upgrade Muppet Christmas Carol?  Because the blu-ray is missing a song!  A beautiful song sung by Michael Caine and Scrooge's lost love.  It is amazing and heartwrenching and beautiful and necessary in my eyes for the story.  You see, it isn't in widescreen, so the blu-ray just didn't include it.  But it is in fullscreen, which I can watch with an option on my DVD.  So there you go!  I'm sure you were all curious.

Grade: A+++ for both

Rare Exports

Wanna watch a weird quirky adventure film about Christmas and demons and hunting and little boys and Norway?  Rare Exports is a beautiful film.  It is a touching film.  And it is an exciting film!  Most people talk about Die Hard when they need a Christmas action movie, or Gremlins for a Christmas fun comedy horror.  But both of those films are really only kind of Christmas-y.  Rare Exports hits all the buttons those two films do, but it is all so much more about Christmas.  Rare Exports should not replace either, but it should sit beside them!

Included on the blu-ray are the two original shorts that brought the full film into being.  Both shorts are great, with the second being my absolute favorite, and are both a little more tongue-in-cheek and crazy.  As an entire package, it has become a yearly tradition, and I love sharing it with people.  So I'm sharing it with you.  See it!  Find it!  Do it!!

Grade: A++

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street

I feel like I talk about this special all the time.  There are actually two versions of the Sesame Street special for Christmas that came out at the same time.  THIS one is perfect.  The other one is garbage.  This one is about a sweet story of Big Bird worried that Santa can't fit down the chimneys, it is filled with wonder, it is filled with amazing music and great jokes, it has Bert and Ernie being ridiculous and doing the Gift of the Magi, it has Oscar singing a song about hating Christmas, it has the most amazing pratt fall sequence just ... at ALL.  *sigh*

I love this little special.  Even better, it is on DVD, and I'm pretty sure it can be found at Best Buys just around.  So take a look!  You will not regret it.

Grade: A++

Now, I could talk about a lot more movies and specials I own that mean something to me and I love watching, like Jingle all the Way or National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation or Reindeer Games, which are all great and different for a bunch of reasons.  And who knows, I may just write reviews for them anyway later on this month.  But I really want to talk about a cool documentary I bought for my wife as a gift instead to close this little article out ...

I am Santa Claus

In this documentary, we follow five men, all "real beard Santas."  We see their life struggles, their regular world life, and we even get to see one man's quest to be a good Santa.  That man is Mick Foley, Hardcore Legend.  This documentary is not for families.  It is very adult.  And it is very touching.  

We watch four men, all vastly different, talk about what it means to be Santa Claus to them, all of them from different parts of the country, all from different walks of life, and all of them real people.  This isn't a "happy endings" kind of documentary.  This followed all of these guys for one year and cuts between and juxtaposes them as the film goes along.  You are allowed into their lives and get to see their hardships, their delights, just ... life.  It was a great documentary, and really touching as well as sad and poignant.  I cannot recommend it enough, and I am NOT a documentary person.

Grade: A+

There we go!  Now, I gotta go wrap more presents and other stuff.  Oh, did I tell you, I'm hosting a Dirty Santa party?  Do you wanna know what that is?  Well you are in luck, because I will be explaining it entirely and showing pictures of our game and party in ONE WEEK, on the 18th, which is one week before Christmas!  See ya then for that!  Also look forward to lots more Christmas reviews, wrestling reviews this Friday and on Monday, and a lot of great End of Year reviews!  Buh-bye!

Arbitrary Numbers: Top # Episodes of Frasier

I am not a very good sleeper.  Insomnia, depression, blah blah blah, none of that personal stuff matters.  I just wanted to make you folks aware of that detail into my life as an opening for how I came about this Arbitrary Numbers.  I wasn’t old enough to watch or care about Cheers, and Frasier didn’t have the young pretty people that I was used to seeing in Friends and the like, so Frasier has always existed on the fringe of my mind, never having watched it.  Until recently.

I took a clowning class, and afterwards, was very excited.  I love clowning, especially classic duo comedy.  Perfect Strangers is a great example of that, they even have an entire clowning episode just them doing an homage to Laurel and Hardy.  My wife pointed me to an episode of Frasier that is just a six minute, no lines, clowning comedy act by David Hyde Pierce, who I’ve always liked but never really got to watch much of.  That episode was a catalyst for me to watch the entire series.  All eleven seasons.  I told ya, I don’t sleep much.  So while it took me awhile, I’ve finally finished.  And …

Ok, so talking about TV shows is hard.  It is hard to sum it up, especially a long show.  I’ve tried a few times, but never really gotten the knack of it for a long show.  So instead of talking about the show as a whole, which is very good, I’m going to just talk about my favorite episodes.  These are the episodes that stuck with me the most, because of their comedy, their storytelling, their acting, or some other reason.  They aren’t the only good episodes, far from it in fact, and I suspect that they may not be the best episodes for other people.  But they are my favorite.  So here we go, these are my …

Top 8 Episodes of Frasier (in ascending order)

Come on, give me some credit, I watched every season!

Number 8: Three Valentines

The episode that got me to want to watch Frasier, and it is one of my favorites.  Seems only fitting to put it on the list.  Really, this is only on here for the first six minutes, which are utter comedy perfection.  Niles has a date, and in an almost dialogue-less sequence of comedy, things start with a slightly off ironing line and end with an enormous fire, Niles passed out and half-naked, and the couch covered in gnocci.  It is a must watch, and for six minutes, it is well worth your time.  Hell, here, watch it now!

Number 7: Goodbye Seattle pt. 2

Frasier is a series that last a very long time.  Frasier as a character lasted even longer.  Eventually, there comes a time to finish things, and this episode does it well.  It is only the second part of a two-parter, and both parts are fine, but the emotion and acting in this episode is wonderful.  Frasier is mostly a very solid comedy about an egomaniac and a lot of miscommunication.  But when they do the emotional stuff, it always hits hard.  I very much resonated with the emotions of this show because of the great characters and writing, and watching the show end is emotional in all the right ways.  Instead of working like a live finale some sitcoms have done, they once more hit home the miscommunication aspects of the show, making all the characters think that Frasier is dying when he is merely moving.  It is a great little episode, with a fantastic framing fiction that gives a great twist to the entire series.

Number 6: Something Borrowed, Something Blue pt. 2

Another two-parter, but this one is important.  It is very important, because it is the first time that Daphne and Niles finally become a couple.  There's plenty of fantastic humor throughout as well as seven years of their relationship as will-they-won't-they status couple of the show.  These two had surprisingly good chemistry, and they slow-burned this relationship a LOT.  Almost too much, in fact, for me as a viewer.  But, I have to say, when they finally kissed, when they finally came together at Daphne's wedding that she runs from, it was an exciting, wonderful moment.

Number 5: Enemy at the Gate

A straight comedy episode, and man is it great!  There are two major plots here.  The first is about Frasier and Niles getting stuck in a parking garage because he is being forced to pay for a parking spot he did not park in, and it is infuriates him, so since the amount of time it requires to park is 20 minutes, he waits at the gate, holding everyone up, for the full twenty minutes.  That's right, this is a real-time episode, which is awesome.  Frasier many times can play like a staged theatre performance, and this one is no exception, though we also get to see them actually filming in the garage, with real people there.  Awesome arguments and banter between the brothers.  Then, in the B-plot, Roz has to do Frasier's show alone, and accidently mentions she and Frasier had sex, and spends the next twenty minutes fielding questions about it.  This episode was a delight after a small drought of really great episodes in the past few seasons.

Number 4: Daphne Returns

The actress that played Daphne, Jane Leeves, got pregnant in real life, as sometimes happens on shows.  In the story, Daphne and Niles had just started dating and being together, so they decided to run a eating disorder story that is paid off in this episode.  The actual trappings have Frasier and Niles go back through past episodes as observers, seeing the events of Niles' and Daphne's budding love.  We also learn the very very difficult conceit that Niles loves the idea of Daphne more than Daphne, and that idea must be broken from him.  This episode reminds of all the best moments of previous seasons, as well as a very very touching and realistic drama to round it out.

Number 3: Ham Radio

Frasier sometimes really does an amazing task of performing a basically stage show as a 22-minute sitcom.  This episode in particular does something that many episodes of Frasier only do a very small amount: play with the incredible ensemble supporting cast.  Gil, Bulldog, Nole, Kenny, the characters that work with Frasier and Roz are all incredible characters, and have been there since the very beginning almost.

This episode specifically deals with Frasier directing and writing a Radio Mystery that the ensemble and he put on, with all the egos flaring and ridiculous props and sound effects and acting and miming and ... it is hilarious.  One of the most hilarious episodes of Frasier, in my opinion.

Number 2: Rooms with a View

Frasier has been very good at playing up the comedy and the drama.  Mostly with Niles.  And this episode was the most heartwrenching and emotional episode of this show.  Niles has a heart attack, but doesn't realize it, and eventually is forced to go the hospital for surgery.  He very much may die, and we see our four main characters all reacting to it with him.  It is a devastating piece of acting, and beyond that we also get glimpses of the past in other rooms, where we see Niles and Frasier as children with Martin, where we see Roz's birth of Alice, and a view of the future with Niles and Daphne and their child.  I'm getting choked up thinking of it now.  Frasier is a powerful show with characters and actors you truly love, and this episode very easily could be my top episode.  And on some days, it is.  

Number 1: Ski Lodge

So why does the Ski Lodge episode take the number one slot?  Because it is the most perfect piece of comedy I have ever witnessed.  It is everything Frasier is about: relationships, miscommunication, egotism, small mistakes becoming enormous ones.  The Ski Lodge plays out like a classic farce.  Daphne, Niles, Frasier, and Martin all get to go to a ski lodge.  Daphne brings her slutty model friend, and the very attractive olympic skier stays with them.  And each person is interested in a different person in the house, with Frasier into Daphne's friend, her friend into Niles, Niles into Daphne, Daphne into the ski instructor, and the ski instructor being gay and interested in Niles.  Then you add Martin having his hearing messing up and adding more confusion, and the two incredible new characters with incredible actors who are only in this episode (which is a huge shame, as the french ski instructor is probably one of my favorite characters on the show).

This episode makes me want to perform it as a play!  It is just perfect, from top to bottom.

.:^:.                    .:^:.                    .:^:.

I love all the episodes I watched, which means all of them.  These are merely an arbitrary ranking of the eight I wanted to talk about.  There are many great characters, actors, and plot lines.  But if you don't want to jump into eleven seasons of a sitcom, I 100% suggest all of these episodes, especially the pure comedy ones.  I do not think you will be wasting your time at all.

 Also, there was a time Frasier was a Murder Clown.

Arbitrary Numbers: Top # Saddest Songs on Jessel's Playlist

Not too long ago, I put my headphones on, grabbed my little mp3 player, and listened until I found the happiest songs I could!  It was a great exercise, and was incredibly fun for me to do, and I loved hearing other people's  playlists as well, and really enjoyed the game of making this playlist through randomness.  So I decided to do it again!  And I know I can do it again and again.

Music is magical.  I am a very musical person, myself.  I have played piano for twenty years at least, and have sung for just about as long, mostly as a choir member, but also working to get better on solo performance stuff.  Music lets you jump into emotions you need to get to, to work through problems, stresses, and feelings that you have a hard time finding the catharsis for.  You see, life has gotten very stressful for me recently.  Not necessarily in a bad way, actually it will all probably end up getting better than ever after this rough patch.  But still, it hasn't been easy.

So I've decided to put on my headphones (new better ones I got for my birthday!) and get my mp3 player going (new better one from my past that I got for my birthday as well, just one of the best gifts, even if it is an old old model!).  The goal this time around is to find songs about sadness.  Not necessarily songs that make me want to cry, but songs that help me find that melancholic state, that lets me sit in my emotion and release them slowly.  Happy songs make you want to dance and sing.  Sad songs make you want to sit, and wait, and listen, and feel.  They are melancholic, and cathartic.  It isn't as easy of a criteria, but I'm going to give it a whirl.  Also, links to each song will be provided.  Just click on the linky parts.

Top 12 Saddest Songs

The rules, so you can play along and share your playlists:

1) Turn on the mp3 player, preferably on Random

2) Skip anything that doesn't immediately make me feel that sadness and melancholic state

3) Write down what it is immediately

4) Sit and enjoy, breathing calmly and deeply

5) Keep going until you get bored of making this list

Daniel Bedingfield "If You're Not the One"

Freshman year of college was the first time I heard this song.  I remember walking into my college compatriot's room, Joe's room, and he had this playing on his laptop.  We were both dealing with long-distance relationships, and were both musical guys, and were exactly what we needed in that transition from kid to adult.  This song feels like fall.  It reminds me of all those emotions, the bittersweet yearning.  I am incredibly happy to now be married to a woman that is the "you" of this song.  I do not mean to be sappy about it, but it is true.  It is just the right mood and feeling to begin this whole thing correctly.  I should definitely drop Joe a line sometime, as well.  

Regina Spektor "Samson"

DEFINITELY what Regina was singing about, right there. ~sarcasm

I do not care for Regina Spektor.  As a piano player, I find her sometimes incredibly irritating, and as a writer, her lyrics come across as super super pretentious.  But this song ... is beautiful.  As she plays and sings of the doomed romance of Samson and Delilah from Delilah's point of view, it is beautiful.  The strings come in on the second chorus and it just moves me.  There's all sorts of simple imagery, interesting thoughts on the version of the story, and just an engaging performance in its simplicity.  It is powerful, and one of my favorite songs of yearning.

U2 "Sometimes You Can't Make It"

U2 is not a band I normally listen to.  Very similarly to my thoughts on Regina Spektor, just I find most of their stuff uninteresting and pretentious sounding.  Like Coldplay, really.  But man, does this song hit hard.  It is another simple song that has a deep longing and yearning, though now it is a pleading voice who is asking a friend or loved one to just let them in, let them help through all the fights and all the depression.  

I heard this song first performed at a church service.  The music leader for the church had philosophy I do with God and music: if it is truth, it is godly.  God = truth.  So he liked to find "secular" songs and perform them verbatim, showing that those songs' truth can be just as relevant to a church setting as anything else.  This song, and his performance live, will always stay with me.  Depression is difficult, and I've not only been going through it for many many years, but I have friends and loved ones who deal with it like I do.  And I absolutely want to let them know I'm here!  Sometimes, you can't make it ... on your own.

Poets of the Fall "Maybe Tomorrow Is a Better Day"

I see a recurring theme in some of these lyrics.  This song is more than just a beautiful song that helps me find emotional catharsis.  It is one of my favorite songs.  Just, period.  I don't remember how I found Poets of the Fall, I suspect it was a Pandora find, or a proto-Pandora find.  But I do know this was the first song by them I heard.  And it has stuck with me forever.  Heck, I could fill this list with just Poets of the Fall songs.  But luckily, this one came up.  Here, look at the chorus: 

"This day will die tonight and there ain't no exception

We shouldn't wait for nothing to wait for.

Love me in this fable, babe, my heart is in your hand,

Our time is waiting right outside your door.

And maybe tomorrow is a better day."

I don't normally like just leaving lyrics here, but this song just moves me.  And that chorus is powerful for me.  I love Poets of the Fall, and this song's chorus has become a mantra for me when stress gets too much and weighs me down.

Steam Powered Giraffe "Honeybee"

This song just keeps popping up this week.  My friends and I have a running joke that one of them hasn't heard this song, even when put on his page, emailed to him, or even played right in front of him in the same room.  This song is beautiful and incredibly simple (catching a theme?) as a love song.  It has incredible harmonies and the singers in Steam Powered Giraffe have wonderful voices, filled with emotion and character.  The gimmick of the band is that they are robots, come to life and singing songs.  But this song, more than any other song in their repertoire, is just a wonderful song.  Many times their gimmick can get in the way of the music, especially in their original album and their newest album.  But "Honeybee" is just a lovely song, filled with character and is just a joy to listen to.  Rabbit in particular, the lead on this song, has a lot of great moments.  One that always gets me, is this slight catch in Rabbit's voice before a sigh and going into the chorus the second time.  

I linked to the video above, like I do with all these playlist articles, but please, you have to watch and enjoy one of the most unique, original, and pleasant videos and songs I've heard.

Jars of Clay "Frail"

This is a song that I could just listen to over and over, allowing it to wash over me as I just listen and breath and let all my stress melt off.  It is the perfect next song on my Saddest Song playlist.

Jars of Clay, if you aren't sure who they are, are a Christian band.  They made a big splash when I was in middle school.  Their debut album, which featured Flood on it, did them very well.  But I always, ALWAYS preferred their sophomore album, Much Afraid.  Just like Poets of the Fall, I could fill this list with songs from Much Afraid.  

Frail is one of the first songs written by the group, though it was instrumental.  It got a lyrical addition and a slight change to the instrumentation for Much Afraid.  It's instrumental beginnings are easy to see, as the layering and work of the musicians is flawless.  This is a very complicated song, as opposed to many of the others on this list, as it is musical intricate and soft, masterfully crafted.  On top of all that, you have its lyrics,  The lyrics are about being broken.  Broken of the mask we where in life, and hide behind.  The walls we put up.  The song is about being vulnerable.  It is both terrifying and exhilarating, just as the instrumentation leads us on the same journey.  

Imogen Heap "Hide and Seek"

Yes, yes, yes, "oo whatcha say," Dear Sister, all that.  Got it out of your meme-y system?  Good.  Because this song is is three times longer than that meme.  

I'm not sure if you've heard this song from beginning to meme, but its opening is intoxicating.  It is just tight harmonies with an auto-tuney filter on their voices.  The song is haunting.  It is just their voices rattling around and their words, and their breaths.  The rhythm of their breath and the visceral nature of hearing them breath as they sing is intoxicating.  The imperfectness of their singing with their robotic voices creates an amazing juxtaposition.  I love this song, and hearing the actual opening 2/3's really makes the "oo whatcha say" section have a lot more weight.  Honestly, that is my least favorite section because of how beautiful and haunting the song is in its opening.  Give it a listen, and don't shoot anyone.

Incubus "Here In My Room"

Incubus.  Gotta love a mainstream, or formerly mainstream, band that really really knew how to make a complicated song.  The lyrics are visceral and heavy: "Your love is a verb here in my room."  The music is haunting and dripping with emotion.  

I remember taking my jogging class in college.  I took it winter semester, and while South Carolina never got THAT cold, getting up in November every Tuesday and Thursday at 8:30 and doing a two-mile jog ... it is very very cold.  I loved it.  I love that cold, I love that feeling.  I actually like walking and jogging, my headphones on and listening to music.  I was listening to Two Crows Left of a Murder a whole lot that semester, and this song always stuck with me.  I loved it.

This song is so hard to talk about.  Just give it a listen.

Trevor Jones "Sarah"

Labyrinth is my favorite movie.  Of all time.  Subjectively, of course, but objectively too-ish.  I mean, yeah, there are some movies better made.  But ... whatever, Labyrinth is the ONLY A++++ film for me.  Lots and lots of people know it, and they enjoy to "Dance Magic Dance" and other fun David Bowie songs.  But Trevor Jones, the composer who made all the score, very rarely gets any kind of recognition.  And that is crazy unfortunate, because his score is MASTERFUL.  

This song always brings tears to my eyes as I listen.  The subtle instrumentation and slight changes each time we hear the melody flip through in this small repeat that shows the passage of time and the creeping presence of the unknown, as nothing stays the same.  There is not a repeated bar, though the motifs are constantly repeated throughout the song.  And when the final chord hits, when all is still and finally all together, and we get a major chord out of all the minor arpeggios ... this song is masterful.  I love it.  Give it a listen, folks.

Jamie Foxx "Fall For Your Type"

I had just started my divorce a few years back.  It was Christmas.  It was not a happy time, even with family and Christmas and all that.  But I had my P-Chan and ... well, that was really basically it.  And I saw this video.  

I'd put a gif, but they are all of Drake, and that's ridiculous.

I was blown away.  No, not because it totally hit home or made me think of my former marriage.  In fact, it really didn't have any emotional resonance with that situation.  But musically ... musically this song kicked my butt.  I just cried the first time I saw it on the TV while everyone else was asleep in the house.  I got a copy immediately, and listened all night.  The music is so dark and brooding, and the visuals of the music video are so expressive.  This song just hit me hard when I was already emotional.  It made it ok for me to let my emotion out.  Not because I related to the song, but because I could relate to the music.

Vertical Horizon "Miracle"

What a sad, sad love song.  Not just because of its lyrics and its music, but my memories.  Happy, sad memories.

I was a hopeless romantic, still am really, growing up.  A poor boy who dreamed of romance and didn't have anywhere near the confidence to even begin dating.  I wrote so many really really embarrassing notes expressing my feelings for girls I liked.  It ... oh man, it was NOT a pretty sight.  I have normally, when counting relationships, only counted official relationships.  You know, boyfriend/girlfriend ones.  But my hopeless romantic nature was shaped by other, non-boyfriend/girlfriend relationships.  And one of them was with Kay.

Kay and I, with my best friend and a group of other online-friends, all roleplayed a long-running ridiculous X-Men based rp we called Mutant High.  It was incredibly fun.  I've always been a writer and a storyteller, playing Dungeons and Dragons and the like, and this just fit perfectly for me.  Some of my best friendships, both in real life and online, were fostered in that game, with Deamon, Wayne, Skye, Kat, Lee, Kay, and a good handful of others.  Well, my character, Wraith, and Kay ended up in a relationship.  Which means that I and the girl who played Kay (Amanda, I think, I unfortunately don't quite remember, though I vividly remember talking about her living in Michigan) became whatever the Instant Messenger Pen-Pal/Online friend word would be.  We talked all the time, and I had wonderful, teenage, hopeless romantic-y crush feelings for this girl, outside of just our characters.  We talked about David Bowie, comic books, movies, real life things going on (of which I had plenty I needed someone to talk to about them).  It was ... very special.  As special as an Instant Messenger Pen-Pal/Online friend relationship can be.

Miracle was Wraith and Kay's song.  I don't remember how or why.  Maybe Kay found it.  Maybe I did as I found most of my music then, just downloading everything I could of Napster and listening to it.  But this song is special.  I'm happy to still have it, buried in my many, many, MANY gigs of music.  

And no story like this is complete with me sharing my silly, only slightly embarrassing picture of my character.

Kind of funny that I finally have hair like Wraith's.  I really need to buy a maroon knit sweater with a cute in the left arm, patched with black thread.

25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee "The I Love You Song"

I heard a few musical's songs as I was skipping everything that didn't fit my criteria for this playlist.  Stuff from the Wedding Singer and Chess almost made it, though it never got to that melancholy ballad that I was looking to showcase with this article.  Then ... this song.

The song is powerful.  Moving, character driven, simple until it builds to its painful chorus as our singer sings her lament of her non-existent loving home life, with both her parents showering her with love, all of it a falsehood, all of it "Chimerical."  I love this song.  I love this musical.  And this song is the perfect way to end this list.  This song is tear-jerking, and incredibly beautiful and powerful.

((-=-))        ((-=-))       ((-=-))

Eesh, twelve of them, huh.  I bet I could keep listening and keep adding songs.  I added three as I was writing up the other nine, so I should probably just force myself to end it for now.  

So what was all of you guy's "saddest" songs?  I'd love to have all of you play this game like last time and share your saddest song playlists.  Put them in the comments.  Tell me if you liked the songs I showcased here.  Tell me if they are new to you, or if you have a song that hits that sweet emotional memory spot that a few of these did for me.

Bah, emotions are stupid!  See you tomorrow for more Saw!

EDIT: Here we go, a link to the full playlist on youtube.  LISTEN TO IT ALL IN ONE GO HERE!