Love Songs We Like That Won't Freak Out Our Families

This past weekend I spent my Saturday night like a lot of twenty-something youths in hip college towns would spend it. That's right: with booze working on wedding invitations. I got engaged in May of this year and the wedding is in February 2009, a mere three months away. So we should've gotten cracking on these things a while ago, but better late than never, right?

On top of an actual invitation, we're mailing out a "wedding album", a mix-CD of some of our favorite love songs. The idea was to avoid cheesy love ballads in favor of a diverse collection of music that rocks (or bangs) and that maybe shows a little of our personality. The major obstacle in the process was trying to pick songs that wouldn't be overly offensive or off-putting to older and/or God-fearing relatives, meaning absolutely no hard profanity, no screaming or blast-beats, and nothing too weird or avant-garde. This effectively eliminated at least two-thirds of our collections, including most rap and pretty much all metal. You have no idea how frustrating it can be to pick out a song you think will be good only to hear the vocalist spit a couple of "fucks" in an area of the song that's hard to edit out without mangling it.

Despite these limitations, however, it's been a fun project. So far we've mashed out a mostly finalized tracklist, and are now trying to determine the best order to put them in. Here's what we have right now:

"Love You So" by The King Khan & BBQ Show
"Love's A Real Thing" by Super Eagles
"Keep Me" by The Black Keys
"Gimme Danger" by The Stooges
"Ambulance" by TV On The Radio
"Some Unholy War" by Amy Winehouse
"Hands Of Our Love" by The Quantic Soul Orchestra feat. Alice Russell
"E.T." by One Be Lo
"Into The Sun" by Diplo feat. Martina Topley-Bird
"King Of Silence" by Cibo Matto
"Missile ++" by Blonde Redhead
"Eres Tú" by Aguaturbia
"Start Wearing Purple" by Gogol Bordello
"All Is Full Of Love" by Björk
...and a super-cheesy hidden track thrown in for good measure. ;-)

Once we get the packaging all designed and whatnot, I'll post the final tracklist and product. I'm not gonna lie though, it's probably going to be awesome.