Let's do another one of these.

1. Choose three songs you think everyone should know. These should probably be songs that most people here don’t already know (you be the judge). They don’t have to be your favorites, and they don’t have to be the Best Songs Ever. They just need to be songs you think more people should know.
2. Find YouTube vids or MySpace links or something for the songs - so that other people can hear them too! (important!)
3. In as many or as few words as you want, tell us why you think we should know these songs.

Here are my three:

1. Marah - The Closer
The first Marah review I ever read (and all of them since) said that they were the "last rock and roll band". I thought that was typical hyperbolic rock critic nonsense - like how U2 or Oasis were supposed to be the next Beatles, how Nirvana single-handedly saved rock, etc.. But, you know what? In a way, it's actually true. If you take "rock and roll" to mean the kind of loose, raw and raucous grit that 70's bands like the Rolling Stones, The Faces, or Bruce Springsteen, and later The Replacements, worked in, then yeah it's true: Marah may just be the only band still making that kind of music - and doing it well (also, all Marah reviews must mention those bands). They've got the Stones' swagger, the Faces' reckless abandon and Springsteen's underdog-worship. And even better (IMO), they've got that sorta- sad-sloppy-silly semi-apathy that made the Replacements charming - they aren't Rock Gods from days past, they're a really good bar band that's working hard but having a tough time making it big. If I was synesthetic, Marah would smell like beer. And just to be clear: they aren't pre-packaged, arena-ready, retro-novelty douchebags. They sound like a really good band who un-self-consciously plays a style of rock that few other bands are doing these days (Wilco gets close though). And that's probably why they're still relatively unknown: that sound is a bit anachronistic, and describing it as Stones + Springsteen makes it sound even less interesting: "Classic rock? No thanks." And yet, every time there's a party at my house, I slip this song into the mix and people inevitably walk up and ask me "Hey, who's this?" So, here's the first song from their "If You Didn't Laugh, You'd Cry" record (which you should own), "The Closer":

Here's that same song, live.

Word is they have one of the best live shows around.

2. Sea And Cake - The Biz
On the other hand, nobody would ever describe The Sea And Cake as "raucous" or as having any kind of swagger whatsoever. The Sea And Cake are something else entirely: cool, cerebral, jazz-tinged.

It's often difficult to figure out what Sam Prekop is singing, and maybe even harder to figure out what he's singing about - his lyrics are abstract and disjointed, flashes of images and bits of conversation without context:

I may try to stay misunderstood
And it's working

I really have no idea what this song is about, though that doesn't bother me. I'm perfectly happy hearing vocals as just another instrument, and if I want a song to mean something, I can always make up something.

Sam's vocal stylin's aside, what I really like about what these guys do is that, for being so cool and detached on the surface, there is a lot of stuff going on underneath. Prekop's rhythm guitar fascinates me. I have no idea what he's doing - his chords are always strange and the melodies unusual - but I love hearing it. He's got a very distinct style: a bit of tropicalia, some jazz, a whole lot of something else that I can't label. John McEntire's drumming is energetic, complex, and full of surprisingly-placed accents, nearly a lead instrument at times. In this song, the other guitar (Archer Prewitt) plays tight with the vocal melody; but on other songs, he's up front with a counterpoint melody or sailing over top of it all with an eBow or a long sustaining distortion pedal - the icing on the cake in a way (sorry, I couldn't help it). It's not a lead guitar as in "solo over the 3rd repeat of the verse section", it's more about adding details on top of the structure everyone else has put together. It's the kind of guitar player I've always tried to be, when I've been in bands. The bass isn't very prominent in the mix of this song (and probably gone for good after YouTube has compressed everything) - but like Prewitt's guitar, he typically alternates between counterpoint and following the vocals.

Anyway, listen for yourself. Here's the first, and title-, track from "The Biz".

FYI, the video for this is the cover of the album, rammed through some effects I wrote using ISEffects (which I also wrote). I had big plans for it, but the tedium of tweaking the effects to make them interesting just wore me down - that thing took 45 minutes to render. Even the scaled-down 15-second version I was using for testing took two or three minutes to render. Gack.

3. Matt Pond PA - Sunlight
I have no idea why these guys aren't more popular. Seriously. If I could write one song as good as their worst, I'd consider it the high point of my life. Their songs are absolutely full of hooks and wonderful melodies, the lyrics are smart, Mr. Pond has a great radio-friendly voice, it's all well-produced and recorded, etc.. Then again, other similar bands (Elliot Smith, Toad The Wet Sprocket) have lingered in relative obscurity, too. Maybe the market for smart pop-rock is smaller than I think it should be.

See for yourself:

What about you? Which songs do you think we should know?