Tag Archives: End Of The World

Playlist for the end of the world

Needless to say, I do not believe the world is going to end tomorrow. OK, I said it anyway. And now that it’s said, let’s have a little fun with it.

I’ve put together an iTunes playlist of songs from my music library that seemed fitting in some way for the occasion:

  1. Steely Dan — Black Friday
  2. National Health — The Apocalypso
  3. Nine Inch Nails — The Beginning of the End
  4. Rush — In the End
  5. The Beatles — The End
  6. Styx — Don’t Let It End
  7. Zero 7 — End Theme
  8. Kraftwerk — Europe Endless
  9. Hall & Oates — Friday Let Me Down
  10. Chicago — It Better End Soon (1st Movement)
  11. Chicago — It Better End Soon (2nd Movement)
  12. Chicago — It Better End Soon (3rd Movement)
  13. Chicago — It Better End Soon (4th Movement)
  14. Prince — 1999
  15. Genesis — Los Endos
  16. King Crimson — Peace: An End
  17. R.E.M. — It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
  18. U2 — Until the End of the World
  19. Elvis Costello — Waiting for the End of the World
  20. Happy Apple — The World Begins and Ends in Your Combover
  21. Room 34 — December 22, 2012

Yes, that last one is my own… recorded earlier this year as a reflection on what the world will be like the day after it ends. You can get it here. (Interesting side note: every sound on that song — the whole album in fact — was produced on an iPhone.)

Album covers from the Mayan Apocalypse playlist

2012 trailer

As titillating as apocalypse stories may be, I’ve never really believed that the world is going to end on the winter solstice in 2012, as “predicted” by the Mayan calendar. I don’t think they really predicted the end of the world; that’s just as far in the future as they bothered to calculate. Any culture that couldn’t anticipate needing to account for four-digit years a mere 30-odd years in advance should surely understand that kind of shortsightedness.

And so we have this grand new CGI-fest of an apocalyptic vision, 2012. Frankly the biggest surprise to me is that John Cusack would have anything to do with such a piece of overblown shite as this, but I suppose he’s an “A-lister” now, so it’s part of his pact with the devil.

Anyway… this movie looks like a grand spectacle, with a dreadful story. As usual with movies that are grand spectacles. Never mind that it’s set off on the wrong foot from the very beginning of the trailer — the Mayans were not the world’s first civilization. It’s not about making sense; it’s about setting up whatever minimal pretense is necessary to justify the image of an aircraft carrier smashing into the White House on the world’s biggest tsunami. But I think the best moment of the trailer is the highly symbolic shot of the crack spreading across the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, right between the fingers of God and Adam. How come no Hollywood blockbuster writer ever thought of that before?!