Let's try something different. Five songs, random, describe them.
- Beta Band - Dr Baker. A great, low-key tune. Many Beta Band songs have a strong dance club vibe, but this one is more of a stoner head-nodder. Well, most of their songs are head-nodders, too. This one is just missing the dance beats.
- Beastie Boys - Gratitude. One of their live-band tracks - giant fuzzed-out bass groovin on a heavy riff, organ, wah guitar, bongos! Great video in the style of Pink Floyd @ Pompeii. Look how young they were!
- Faces - Had Me a Real Good Time. Sounds like Rod Stewart, sounds like the Stones, when that sax solo comes in it sounds like a Saturday Night Live band clip (as do all mid-70s rock songs with sax solos). In other words: it sounds like the 70s.
- Andrew Bird - Don't Be Scared. A mellow-but-swelling tune from Weather Systems. Not a lot of violin on this one. Female backup vocals are a nice touch.
- Cowboy Junkies - Misguided Angel. This is the quintessential Cowboy Junkies song: a slow bittersweet country ballad - a little numb, a little dreamy. Also, like everything else on this album (The Trinity Sessions), it sounds amazing.
OK, go!
Best Kissers in the World – Pickin’ Flowers For
Usually lumped in with power pop bands, this one’s a little bit crunchy. From the ep Puddin’. BKitW left the Emerald City and are now based in Stumptown.
Eagles Of Death Metal – I Want You So Hard (Boy’s Bad News)
A band with a jokey name and a jokey look, but they crank out a poppy little tune that will have you nodding your head, even if not banging it.
As minimal as songs get with the Memphis Horns on board, Otis Redding’s Shake is about dancing, and strips out everything that doesn’t contribute to getting asses out of the seats and feet on the dance floor.
Joy Division always make me think of Saturday Night at 2am, mid-October and a chill in the air. On such a night I would run into the college radio station and play a cut like Shadowplay, knowing that the waitress at iHOP who had just filled me with caffeine would be turning the the restaurant’s music system over to my show. Studied cool, not weird enough to drive away the straights, the cool kids will love to nod along, the artsy girls will want to grab you and head for the dance floor.
With the opening line of “Sneaking Around”, Juliana Hatfield invokes “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”. Stevie’s problem was with a bad boy who had trouble in town. Juliana’s bad guy gets the cutest girl in rock & roll and won’t hold her hand in public. Won’t let her meet his kid.
A bluesy plaint that keeps shifting into a major key, the lyrics leave no doubt that she needs to lose this guy, but the music has rays of brightness that pierce the forbidding vamp. You could tell why she still stuck there even if this were an instrumental.
She’s my birthday-mate. She should call me when she gets over this guy.
Right, here goes.
1. Manic Street Preachers – Kevin Carter. From their 1996 album Everything Must Go, the first without missing rhythm guitarist Richey Edwards. Kind of run-of-the-mill Manics really – chugging guitars, tinny drum sound, and lyrics that are always hard to make out on first listen. Has a trumpet solo that hasn’t really aged well in my opinion. I’ve never wondered who Kevin Carter was until now – he’s an award-winning South African photojournalist.
2. David Bowie – Life On Mars?. Starts with THAT piano riff (which you will all know I’m sure) and which sends shivers down my spine even today after hearing this song many hundreds of times. My older brother was a Bowie fan before he was a punk so this song takes me back to my childhood in mid-70s suburban England. The guitar riff, by the horribly under-rated Mick Ronson, isn’t in the song for long but it’s bloody brilliant. The lyrics are memorable, timeless and somehow very English. The final refrain is the icing on the cake.
3. Hope Of The States – Left. Wow, what happened to this left-field show-gazing collective from the early ’00s? I don’t know but this song, with it’s plinky keyboard melody followed by surges of guitars and plus some strings is pretty good and kind of grungy. Sadly the lead singers vocals can grate after a while as he’s pretty flat, but I always liked them. According the lyrics no-one ever gets what they want unless they are prepared to give it their all. Aw.
4. The White Stripes – Truth Doesn’t Make A Noise. Lovely piano and acoustic stop/start stomper from Jack and Meg’s second album De Stijl. “My baby’s got a heart of stone, won’t you people just leave her alone?”. Some typical simple lead guitar work comes in about half-way through – Jack White seems to shit guitar riffs, really how does he bloody do it? Chord wise it’s dead simple really – 4 or 5 power chords and you’re done. Lovely.
5. Portishead – We Carry On. Bloody hell, how do I put this trance-stomp beauty into words? The guitar that fades in after a minute and a half is delicious. I can’t so this any justice so just watch the frackin’ video. Warning: Play it loud and it will fuck with your head.
“ghastly mellow saxophones all over the floor”
Nice idea! Here’s mine:
“Music For Pleasure”, Departure Lounge. This sounds pretty pleasant, yes, and lounge-y. Nothing really striking about it.
“Clarinet Marmalade”, Fletcher Henderson. Prototypical Dixieland jazz, a stilted conversation between woodwinds and brass.
“Everything is not gonna be alright”, Homer. This song starts out sounding like The Smiths. But the instrumentation is not quite Smiths — a little too bouncy and clear — and the chorus sounds more like 80’s pop. Still, pretty much a downer of a song.
“True Love”, Patsy Cline. What can you say about Patsy Cline? She is the best singer of all. This song is sort of on the sappy end of the spectrum and not much of a beat or anything; but Patsy Cline.
“Bear Creek’s Up”, W.E. Claunch. Killer back-country fiddle with incomprehensible shouted lyrics. A short song with a clear, sweet melody.
Bonus track “Mud Fence” by W.M. Stepp & Walter Williams. More killer back-country fiddle, no lyrics though. Sort of stereotypically Irish-sounding reel.
Finally got my new laptop in place and had an internet blackout yesterday so I could watch the Steelers-Jets game on DVR (Hooray Steelers!). This is a fantastic idea for music entry.
1. New Order – Perfect Kiss
Ah New Order. At one point in the mid-eighties, they were my all time favorite thing in the whole world. This song is terrific, one of their classics. The thing that always makes New Order is that bass, where he is basically playing lead. This video, also, is fantastically directed by Jonathan Demme, who apparently has really good taste in music.
2. Foo Fighters – My Hero
Ah Foo Fighters. This is one of my favorite songs by them (can’t figure out how random gives me two of my favorite songs, but there you go). Being the same age as Dave Grohl, and having apparently the same musical influences and backgrounds, makes me appreciate what he does even more. I finally got to see them last year here in Bergen, Norway, outdoors in the cold with 20,000 other people. It was glorious.
3. Letters to Cleo – I Want You to Want Me
There were so many bands like this in the nineties, sorta rocky-grungie with a female lead. Letters to Cleo, I don’t think, was that popular, but they really wrote some fab power pop singles. Her voice and their songs will always remind me of my sister, who bought their first album before me and loaned it to me. Not sure I ever gave it back either.
4. Swans – My Birth
At some point in the 80’s I transitioned from punk to goth to synth to noise/industrial. Swans doesn’t totally fit into any of those categories. They were sort of in the New York No Wave movement. They do however deliver some punishing songs. I still occasionally get out my vinyl copies of Greed and Filth and spin them when the mood is appropriate. This song is from their reunion, which I haven’t listened to many times to be honest. Sounds as harsh and punishing as I remember them though.
5. Dave Matthews Band – You & Me
Dave Matthews gets a lot of flack and I am sure it isn’t “cool” to like him much. At my age I don’t care for cool, I care for what I like and am unafraid to admit I like stuff that will diminish my alternative street cred. I think what I like is that they are a little bit jazz a little bit folk and a little bit sorta dance-rock like INXS or something. Their drummer is just a joy to listen to and probably the best musician they’ve got. I first got into them through my brothers, both Deadheads in the 80’s. One of those brothers has moved on to jazz and has given me quite the education there. This is not the best DMB song.
We should do that more often. It would be fun to discuss some of the more embarrassing things I have in my collection.
She’s my birthday-mate. She should call me when she gets over this guy.
i always get her mixed-up with Tonya Donnely and Kristin Hersh. same era, same style.
“ghastly mellow saxophones all over the floor”
a favorite line at Chez Cleek; one of us will let it fly in response to pretty much any saxophone solo.
David Bowie – Life On Mars?
somehow, this song evaded my attention until just a couple of years ago (when it showed up on the “Life On Mars” TV show). love it now.
By the by, that is one fantastic group of 5 songs, Mr. Caldecott.
The thing that always makes New Order is that bass, where he is basically playing lead.
yup.
i don’t know if he started it or not (i suspect he did), but a lot of bands in the 80s/90s experimented with that sound. i like it.
Sounds as harsh and punishing as I remember them though.
i think i saw them back in the 90’s. loud and punishing is right. wall of sound.
A band with a jokey name and a jokey look, but they crank out a poppy little tune that will have you nodding your head, even if not banging it.
totally. EoDM are great at squeezing out catchy little bits of silly nonsense rock. “who will kiss the devil on his tongue” ahh!!
incomprehensible shouted lyrics
love it! in theory!
Portishead – We Carry On
indeed. a very heavy track. sweet. i haven’t given this album enough of a chance. will try to do better.
i don’t know if he started it or not (i suspect he did)
Legend has it that he started playing in the high registers with Joy Division because his speaker was so crappy he couldn’t hear what he was playing.
I like this new verbose-5-track-Monday style. Good job to all.
BTW that Portishead ‘Third’ album is simply amazing and was one of the highlights of 2007. If you don’t have it, you are missing out.
Life on Mars
I’m assuming everybody here has already watched the Ukulele Orchestra of GB cover this — but in case not, well, you ought to.
wow