iTunes Celebrity Playlists – Reviewed!

November 8, 2006

It’s been a while since I’ve looked through the playlists sections of the iTunes Store, but I saw some interesting ones on there today and I’ve picked out a few to review (in a section I call iTunes Celebrity Playlists). While I do that though, let me tell you some of the categories of iTunes Celebrity Playlists that I enjoy reading the most. As always there’s two sample tracks that I’ve selected from each of the participant’s playlists.

The first is the aging celebrity who wants to show everyone how hip he is throwing in some indie bands (Anderson Cooper anyone?). Sometimes this can look really fake and attention grabbing, but in the case of Samuel Jackson saying that he gets down to The Arcade Fire and My Morning Jacket you believe him, and not just because he’s a BAMF and can do that kindof thing. He balances it out by including some more standard affair songs from Sly & The Family Stone and Alicia Keys as well as some of the better billboard hit songs from Gorillaz and Gnarles Barkley. His descriptions are really short and meaningless but he’s a busy man so I give it a solid B.

Read Samuel Jackson’s playlist

MP3 Arcade Fire – Wake Up
MP3 My Morning Jacket – Anytime

Another kind of playlist you’ll see often is the “what the hell was this person thinking” type which is usually from a celebrity that obviously knows nothing about music and I’m guessing is on here for comic relief. Everyone remembers Jennifer Garner’s hilarious workout mix, and a recent one that fits nicely in this category is Miss Universe 2006 – Zuleyka Rivera.

You know the mix is band when within the first three songs you have both Mariah Carey and Ricky Martin. It get’s worse when you read the description Shake Your Bon-Bon – “This song just makes me want to dance…even if we can’t all dance like Ricky!” She evens out the rest of the mix with some Usher (who’s lyrics she calls “Pretty deep”), Jessica Simpson (”soulful”), and Justin Timberlake (who she’s had on a crush on since his ‘N Sync days). D-

Read Miss Universe 2006’s playlist

MP3 Ricky Martin – Shake Your Bon Bon
MP3 Shakira – Hips Don’t Lie

The third type of playlist that I enjoy is the shocker, the kind where you pick someone hoping you’ll be able to make fun of them and then they make some really intelligent choices for all the right reasons (Mandy Moore is a good example). This time the shocker was OK Go, the punk treadmill dancers from Chicago. Their music isn’t unbearable but I’m tempted into throwing them into the same category of Fall Out Boy and Panic at the Disco especially since they’re often seen touring together.

OK Go’s playlist features tracks by Mew, Guided By Voices, Metric, and The Pixies, and their song descriptions are often funny and insightful. On Phoenix – “Justin Timberlake has been captured by a French Indie band and they’re trying to convert him to the cult of T-Rex.” On Wilco – “Sometimes someone else’s lyrics are so good you want to recall everything you’ve ever written, and maybe everything you’ve said too.” Then there’s entry concerning a Daft Punk song where they explain the relationship between computers and humans. A

Read OK Go’s playlist

MP3 Mew – The Zookeeper’s Boy
MP3 Wilco – Hell is Chrome

Posted by Taylor in Film