Let’s remember this week together.

[…remembering…]

Did you remember it too? Good! If you’ve missed stories this week, please use the scrolling scrolly thing to your right and your clicking clicky thing to read whatever you have missed, for I am ready to move on to music.

Music!  I have a confession to make:  if you pay attention to the weekly Random Ten, you know that my taste in music is fairly broad, can be obscure, and is generally very defensible, even if it is not Your Thing.  Yes, there are occasional guilty pleasures that show up, and I own those, completely.  But my confession is that I am a huge Josh Groban fan.  Like, huge.  Like, goes to the record store to buy it at midnight the day it comes out huge.  And this is not a guilty pleasure, either, for I am willing to fight for why being a huge Josh Groban fan is completely 100% defensible, even for a music snob.  For instance, his new record came out this week and he cowrote a song with Rufus Wainwright and his mother, the late, great Kate McGarrigle.  And he did a Nick Cave song.  He might not be Your Thing, but he’s not some manufactured artist.

Ahem.  Also, Josh Groban is probably the one thing my mother and I agree on.  Oh, and that puppies are adorable.  We’re on the same page there.

Anyway, so as I mentioned, his new record came out this week, and it’s all great, but this song, “If I Walk Away,” is the one that’s jumped out at me and taken me on a journey.  So we’ll start with that, hit shuffle on the iTunes machine, and see where we are ten songs later, ‘kay? More videos after the jump.

How can you say no to that voice?

1. Alexander Scriabin: Prelude in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 15, No. 5, played by Gordon Fergus Thompson
2. Roxy Music – “2HB”
3. Ani DiFranco – “Smiling Underneath”
4. Morrissey – “On The Streets I Ran”
5. Tom Waits – “Lucinda/Ain’t Goin’ Down”
6. Brandi Carlile – “Cannonball”
7. Roxette – “The Rain”
8. The National – “Slow Show”
9. The Sundays – “When I’m Thinking About You”
10. Peter Gabriel – “Heroes” [Wildebeest Mix] [David Bowie cover]

What a fantastic mix. Don’t miss The National’s “Slow Show” if you haven’t heard it. One of my all time favorites of the moment.

And I usually only post five songs, and this totally doesn’t go with the above progression [have you ever noticed that there’s a rhyme and reason to the songs I post, if you’re paying attention?], but maaaaan, it’s Tom Waits, so here:

And if you “don’t get” Tom Waits, ask somebody to explain it to you.  And if you’re still skeptical about the Josh Groban thing, Tom cancels that out anyway, so shush.

Oh hell, this mix is just too good, so here’s The Sundays too: