- City Guides:
- New York
- San Francisco
- Chicago
- London
So you’re laid up in bed with the flu like everyone else, with nothing to do but chug Emergen-C, ride the NyQuil train, and gaze glassy-eyed at hours of DVR’ed shows that you’d usually let languish. When even keeping your eyes open starts to hurt, queue up this mixtape and zonk out to the best in architectural jams.
The tracklist, after the jump.
Architecture is great metaphor material. Buildings are ostensibly simple, everyday background constructions, but haunted with significance — memories, emotions, stories. A world in a grain of sand? No, a world in an apartment. Maybe that’s why they have a starring role in so many songs. There are more, we’re sure — add your favorites in the comments.
1. “Government Center” by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers
The only anthem to bureaucracy — and the architectural altar at which all lesser bureaucratic buildings worship, Boston’s Government Center— we’re aware of. Richman and Co. confirm that, even with “a lot of great desks and chairs,” the best way to animate a space is with a dance party.
2. “Don’t Worry About the Government” by the Talking Heads
Architecture as savior: “My building has every convenience, it’s gonna make life easy for me.” If the Bauhaus had a theme song, it’d be this one.
3. “Brick House” by the Commodores
Yes, architecture can be sexy. Brick houses might not really be the hottest buildings out there, but we admit it’s hard to rhyme anything with Guggenheim.
4. “Who Do You Love?” by Bo Diddley
That’s one creepy house.
5. “Norwegian Wood” by the Beatles
A song about hipster apartments, falling in love, and bad seating arrangements (hasn’t she heard of Ikea?).
6. “White Room” by Cream
A song about loneliness in a crowd and loneliness alone — and, OK, maybe cocaine? — this one moves between the train station and Clapton’s empty apartment.
7. “Little Room” by the White Stripes
The room in question is definitely a modernist affair. White walls, surely, with maybe a red-trimmed window in the corner. The song’s about how any room can be a prison, and how the grass isn’t always greener, real-estate-wise, no matter what Craigslist says.
8. “Our House” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
A love song to suburban domesticity. Bo-ring, but that’s the point.
9. “Mansion on the Hill” by Hank Williams
Architectural envy. Also a metaphor for McMansion soullessness, before it really existed.
10. “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash
The problem with architecture altogether: It doesn’t change, and when it’s bad, you’re stuck inside like Jonah. Outside on the train, “Those people keep a-movin’, and that’s what tortures me.”
Flavorpill covers cultural events, art, books, music, and world news. Join now.
Email to a friend
Tweet
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
70 Responses
here i dreamt i was an architect–the decemberists
london bridge – fergie
respect the architect – guru
inside – Lil' Wayne
"now let me show you upstairs, got the glass house floor to let me know who upstairs"
great selection
heart of the city – jay-z
interesting list- but I always go for Enya's music to relax me when I am sick
"Hoover Factory" – Elvis Costello. "Must have been a wonder when it was brand new."
"Architecure and Morality" – Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.
Add 'In every dream home a heartache' – Roxy Music
what a delightfully dorky theme, haha
AT&T by Pavement
rad list! i wanna nominate the band architecture in helsinki, even though i'm not sure they've got any actual "architecturey" tunes…
silver jews – pet politics
"I could see through the sleeve of her blouse
the plans of her architect lover
a tattoo of a boarded-up house
and ink door that belonged to another"
and pavement – the hexx; dark captain light captain – parallel bars; emiliana torrini – next time around…
we've a pretty incoherent grabbag of poetic associations.
How about Simon and Garfunkel's 'So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright'?
'Architects may come
And architects may go
And never change your point of view…
We harmonised till dawn…'
little boxes by Malvina Reynolds
agreed… anything by Simon & Garfunkel since Garfunkel studied to be an architect!
"through these architects eyes" – david bowie. actually mentions richard rogers and philip johnson
Brick House – The Commodores
Through These Architect Eyes – Bowie
[big, heavy, oversized sound and beat]
Stomping along
on this big Phillip Johnson
Is delay just wasting my time
Looking across at Richard Rogers
Scheming dreams to blow both their minds
It's difficult you see
To give up baby
To leave a job
When you know
You know the money's from day to day
[CHORUS]
All the majesty of a city landscape
All the soaring days in our lives
All the concrete dreams
in my mind's eye
All the joy I see
Thru these architect's eyes….
New Town by Life Without Buildings on the album Any Other City
Our House by Madness
…our house, in the middle of the street….
C'mon guys. Gotta have "7 Rooms of Gloom" by the Four Tops.
[...] Pill has posted a list of their top 10 favorite songs about or referencing architecture. Our favorites on the list is a tie between The Talking Heads and Johnny Cash. Though we think The [...]
ditto pavement…grave architecture….not sure how these work together from a mix tape point of view….thematically great, but I wouldn't appreciate these songs together in one mix.
Pavement – grave architecture
Fair Play, by Van Morrison.
Fair play to you
Killarney's lakes are so blue
And the architecture I'm taking in with my mind
So fine…
dEUS – The Architect
Okay – "We Built this City" by Starship, anyone?
And seriously, Ravel's "Bolero" is probably the most architectonic song I know.
its hip to be square-huey lewis and the news
The Dead Kennedys ""This Could Be Anywhere (This Could Be Everywhere)"
Cold concrete apartments
Rise up from wet black asphalt
Below them a few carcasses
Of the long gone age of privacy
It takes a scary kind of illness
To design a place like this for pay
tsk tsk tsk. that list is definitely missing the best one — NEW YORK USA by Serge Gainsbourg
so did most of pink floyd's members!
Under the ruins of a walled city
Crumbling towers in beams of yellow light
No flags of truce, no cries of pity
The siege guns had been pounding through the night
It took a day to build the city
We walked through it's streets in the afternoon
As I returned across the fields I'd known
I recognised the walls that I once made
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I'd laid
[Chorus]
And if I built this fortress around your heart
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge
For I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire
-the police
“Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect” by the Decembrists: bristling with architectural references as metaphor for relationships
Also, Pavement's "Fin'
Open call for prison architects
Send me your blueprints ASAP
Stack the walls such that I cannot breathe
Tranceport. It's like a spaceport, but for trance.
"We Built This City" – Starship
"Buildings and Bridges" by Ani DiFranco
buildings and bridges
are made to bend in the wind
to withstand the world
that's what it takes
all that steel and stone
is no match for the air, my friend
what doesn't bend breaks
what doesn't bend breaks
Hello walls- by ferlin husky
And the architectural anthem -little boxes by pete Seeger . The protest song for architects!
Jesus, etc. by Wilco
Buildings and Bridges, by Ani DiFranco (repost)
Mansard Roof, by Vampire Weekend
Caryatid Easy, by Son Volt (in title only)
Come on, no love for Barenaked Ladies' "Old Apartment"?
"Broke into the old apartment
Forty-two stairs from the street
Crooked landing, crooked landlord
Narrow laneway filled with crooks
This is where we used to live"
I guess we should add the Tragically Hip's "Apartment Song" in there for good measure.
"What out apartment does when we're not around
Does not concern us"
Obscure, but "Designer Skyline" by Owl City is really good
As for the Talking Heads, did Burning Down the House get any votes?
[...] from Flavorwire to help us wrap our mind around the idea, but now that we’ve read their Top 10 Architecture Songs we’ll be listening to Talking Heads’s “Don’t Worry About the [...]
Fugazi – Blueprint!
[...] Dubó sent us this link to Flavor Wire (Flavorpill’s Blog). It shows the very best songs related to architecture. Please, feel free to [...]
i grieve – peter gabriel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQzU-PJ_eAY
Build-The Housemartins
and Vertical Lives-Papas Fritas
tracy chapman – space between
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgldbSVEaew
dorky…but goood
Dan Fogelberg – Same Auld Lang Syne
She said she'd married her an architect
Who kept her warm and safe and dry
She would have liked to say she loved the man
but she didn't like to lie
perfect blue buildings – counting crows. 1993 baby!
rilo kiley- The Execution of all things "Leave behind buildings/ the city planners got mapped out"
Heaven 17 – "Penthouse and Pavement"
yeh great song ! Im an architect and my favorite line is ( paraphase sorry) " but the angles and the corners; even though my work is unparralleled"
David Bowie – "Thru' These Architect Eyes"; and "Home", by IggyPop.
[...] Then, right after that I came across this mixtape on FlavorPill on the 10 Best Architecture songs. [...]
Mansard Roof – Vampire Weekend
Architects Unite – Francis Friday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLRnE4qjWh4
HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS….Lene Lovich, yeah!
LEGEND IN MY LIVING ROOM….Annie Lenox, yeah!
MIRROR IN THE BATHROOM…The English Beat, yeah!
JOHNNY COME HOME…Fine Young Cannibals, yeah!
CITIES IN DUST…Siouxsie + the Banshees, yeah!
HAPPY HOUSE…Siouxsie + the Banshees, yeah!
"Unbearable Lightness of Buildings," by the Long Blondes.
Agenda Suicide by the Faint (be sure to watch the video)
This list is on its knees begging for "Mmm Skyscraper I Love You" by Underworld. Porn dogs, Elvis, God and skyscrapers ….
mmm skyscraper i love you. mmm skyscraper i love you.
thirty thousand feet above the earth. its a beautiful thing. and you're a beautiful thing.
will you be my big plaything. my total big disorientator.
will you be my big plaything. my ninja power. my number cruncher.
yes. yes. yes. no. yes. yes.
yes. yes. yes. yes. no. no.
and i see elvis! and i hear god on the phone.
mmm skyscraper i love you.
Well, what about "Hot Love Comes From Buildings on Fire"?
Bullshit – under the bridge by the Peppers is a love song between a man a city – which is what all architects strive for an environment that can facilitate emotion.
Surely anything by "Architecture in Helsinki", the Australian band?
Yes
The Architect by dEUS – Vantagepoint album
Inspired and contains voice samples by architect and engineer Buckminster Fuller
"To the window (TO THE WINDOW), to the wall, (TO THE WALL)
To the sweat drop down my balls (MY BALLS)"
-LIL' JON & THE EAST SIDE BOYZ , get low.
yep thats some architecture for you.
Bob the Builder (Can We Fix It? Yes We Can!)
Seconding and thirding and fourthing Pavement’s The HEXX;
“Architecture students are like virgins with an itch they cannot scratch. Never build a building til’ you’re fifty, what kind of life is that?”