One of my great passions–after the Red Sox and, of course, antiquing for vintage deli slicers–is music. And as long-time readers of this blog will painfully attest, I’m always interested in sharing what I’m listening to, and hearing about what y’all are currently down with.

So here’s the thing, hackneyed and worn-out as it may be: Get your iPod, put it on shuffle, and tell me the first ten songs you cycle through. After a off-day’s night in which I was cruelly denied the Remdawg’s sweet embrace, it may be the one thing that gets me through this day.

Hell, I’ll even go first, with bonus commentary:

1) “Stars and Boulevards,” Augustana: Okay, I firmly believe that Augustana’s “Boston” was one of the most insipid, tormentful songs ever recorded–the aural equivalent of a root canal. But this meandering, Keane-ish tune has grown on me with every listen.

2) “Vanity Fair,” Squeeze: Young girl moves to the big city, gets a job, flirts with the older businessmen in her office, longs for all the fancy clothes she sees in the shop windows, and gets herself rippingly drunk every night. Famous for pop music’s single greatest rhyme: “She comes home late with another screw loose/claims to have had just a pineapple juice.”

3) “The Sweetest Thing,” U2. This song is better than your mother. That’s how much I love it.

4) “Sunday Night,” Buffalo Tom: In the world of Buffalo Tom, it’s all guitars and noise and rain and the guy never seems to get the girl no matter how hard he runs after her and I’ve always been fine with that. Alright, that may be far too broad a way to define one of Boston’s most criminally underrated bands, but it works fine for this particular song, the perfect soundtrack for that long drive home when you’re just a bit too hungover to be driving and you know that no matter how much you want to, you can never call him/her again. How can you beat lyrics like, “And as the street lights and my prospects dim/She turns in bed and thinks of him”? Answer: You cannot. I even shot this sucker live last April when BT played the Dise:

5) “Vienna,” Billy Joel: Delivered in that signature Joel yelp, as if he was sitting on his own balls.

6) “F@#k Her Gently,” Tenacious D: Gotta love the D. And this may be the single greatest love song ever written. Honest.

7) “Amerasian,” Thermadore: Hey, remember these guys? From back when alterna-jangle-pop bands like them and The Ass Ponys seem to spring up outta nowhere every other week? Hell, yeah, they sucked. But this meandering song is a nice epitath to their 15 minutes of fame. “What about the way that she brushes her hair back from her forehead/or walks around the house with no shoes on?” Fine with it.

8) “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” Fergie: Go ahead and kick my ass. Kick it, I say!

9) “Lullaby,” the Cat Empire: Coolest thing about the emergence of indie labels and DIY bands pushing their wares on MySpace and online: Stuff like this smashingly good tune, which might have otherwise evaded my radar. Worst thing: With so much music out there, gems like this can get lost in the crowd.

10) “Conventioneers,” Barenaked Ladies: Yep, nothing more awkward than screwing a co-worker during a business trip, then having to face him/her the following Monday morning. “It’d be great/if you’d transfer out of state.” Indeed.

Thanks to Taryn for the photo.