- Start your music machine.
- Let it shuffle.
- Describe the first five songs that come up
- ???
- Profit!
- Beck - Tropicalia. In which Beck dabbles in Brazilian pop - with great results. Like all of Beck's best stuff, it's groovy, clever and just a little weird: it's got that tropicalia vibe in the guitar and percussion, but it also has Beck's space-age sound effects and his deadpan vocals. I'm not quite sure what the lyrics are about - something to do with tourists and the decadence of Carnival.
- Rush - Big Money. iTunes lost its library last week, so I had to re-populate my iPod from a new playlist. I was a little sloppy with the albums I chose. Gack. This is not a great song. Rush really went a little crazy in the mid 80s - the huge synth sounds, the lush 80s chorus on the guitars, electronic drums. Though it's still possible to appreciate Rush as musicians on an over-produced wanna-be hit single like this, I'd really rather hear them do their thing on a good song.
- Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man - Drake. A low, dark song. Brushed drums, a stand-up bass, some muted guitars, a choir of ghosts. She's barely above a whisper here. It's pretty, on a rainy day like today.
- Belly - Witch. Tanya Donnely and her guitar. The words are like a small fragment of a grim fairy tale, dreamily delivered as if it was a lullaby. Disarming. It's very short, and on the album, it seems more like an interlude, sitting between the two catchy and exuberant pop songs, "Gepetto" and "Slow Dog". But, on it's own, it shines. There very are few albums (14) I like as much as this one; songs like this are the reason.
- Liz Phair - Love Song. This is one of her early "girlysounds" songs. A self-recorded demo, really. Compared to Gibbons's sultry witch and Donnely's bewitching sprite, Phair's voice is raw and unpolished. But maybe that's not entirely fair; it is just a demo, after all. And, really, listening to Phair isn't about vocal technique or timbre - her songs do the real work. Though, at six minutes, this one is a bit long for what it does. With a little editing, it probably could've worked on Exile - it has that same mixture of bitter lyrics and unusual and melancholy chords.
OK, Go!
Changed the clocks this weekend. It was still light here until almost 8:30!
I was a Rush-head before I found punk and I still like everything prior to like ’84 and after ’94. They went synth happy, like so many in the 80’s. Big Money would have been a better song had they recorded it in ’80.
Belly…swoon.
1. The Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays
Classic song. I love the piano in this song. What sucks is I didn’t know anything about this song until the 90’s, on a flashback show. I now consider it one of my favourites (I guess installing Ubuntu here and choosing English defaults to British English spellings) from the late 70’s post punk. This is a really good rendition in the video with just Geldof and a piano.
2. David Byrne and Brian Eno – Strange Overtones
I really liked their recent album, sort of gospel meets 80’s electronica. This is the most blatant 80’s song on here. As I understand it they made this record without being in the same room, just sending audio files to each other. I find that actually kind of cool.
3. The National – Anyone’s Ghost
One of the finest songs from perhaps the finest album I bought all last year. I just really love this band. From the busy drumming to the at times Editors/Joy Division guitar but most especially his voice which reminds me of Nick Cave if he was a much better singer (not that I can say anything bad about Cave.) And they keep getting better and better.
4. Foo Fighters – DOA
Everything I want from a Foo song: speedy, nice thick guitar, fantastic chorus in that almost brit-pop way they have. I remember a reviewer once said there was a lot of complaints that the Foo’s don’t change, just the same old album after album after album. And the reviewer said, sure, but so long as they keep churning out singles like this, who really cares? Totally.
5. Don Henley – The Sunset Grill
Wow, this is so dated. I like (good) 80’s music but seriously, this sounds so over-produced, over-synthesized, total 80’s overload. It is nice to hear the fretless bass work of Pino Palladino though, who will always remind me of Paul Young. And I had a cheeseburger at The Sunset Grill once. It is(was?) a little shack next to The Guitar Center on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. It was a fantastically greasy, gooey burger cooked by the oldest dude ever, who I think sold it later. Worthy of a song.
Have a nice week, cleekonators!
First SYiP!
The playlist I chose to shuffle is not strictly my collection — it’s from a shared drive between me and two other co-workers. Strangely, though, four of the five are my contributions, so I’m going with it.
1. Kool & the Gang – Jungle Boogie
Yep, it’s from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. In fact, I had never heard this particular song before that movie.
(Tarantino is really good at that: he picks forgotten or obscure gems to feature in his films, and they become wildly popular. Just ask the 5-6-7-8’s how they like that Vonage licencing deal.)
2. Garmarna – Viridissima Virga
Swedish ensemble Garmarna combines Scandinavian folk instruments with electronic beats. On this album, they add to the mix songs by medieval composer Hildegard von Bingen. Hypnotic; this one was on constant rotation in my playlist when I first got it.
3. Dead Alewives – Dungeons and Dragons
From a Dr. Demento album, this is the one that isn’t from my personal collection. Kind of amusing, but a little bit too overboard in the caricatures.
Nobody wants to cast Magic Missile. It’s 1d4+1 or some weak shit.
4. Lila Downs – Semilla De Piedra
From her second album Tree of Life, a disc that has a couple of my faves and a whole lot that I tend to skip. This one falls somewhere in between: I admire it greatly, in part because so much of it is sung in Mixtec; Downs has long been an ambassador of the culture and language of the native people in Mexico. But viscerally, it just doesn’t move me to play that frequently. Interesting combination of Mexican guitar and solo harmonica, though.
5. George Fenton – From Pole to Pole: Elephants in the Okavango
From the soundtrack of BBC’s Planet Earth. Kind of slow and sweeping at first, I like the playful use of the series theme at the 2:00 mark.
Does <ol> work?
one
two
First of all, I am old (55) so don’t you judge me!
1. I Zimbra – Talking Heads – I love the African rhythms on the “Remain in Light” record.
2. Trippin’ Down The Freeway – Weezer – I was disappointed in this record when I first heard it. (Loved Pinkerton) But the more I listened to it the more it grew on me. It’s a great song to listen to when I run.
3. Medicine Hat – Sun Volt – Just added this record to my iPod so I don’t have an well formed opinion on it.
4. Medley – Todd Rundgren – From the “Wizard a True Star” record. Doesn’t work in shuffle mode though. Love the record but you have to listen to it straight through.
5. Fried Chicken And Gasoline – Southern Culture On The Skids – Every song on “Dirt Track Date” is great to listen to when working out or running.
What sucks is I didn’t know anything about this song until the 90?s
our local classic rock station used to play it every Monday AM.
Tarantino is really good at that: he picks forgotten or obscure gems to feature in his films
yup. the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack was inescapable for many years. good stuff, though. “you put the lime in the coconut…”
Does <ol> work?
hmm. odd. wonder if i can enable that…
I love the African rhythms on the “Remain in Light” record.
sometimes, that’s my favorite album ever!
“Released into the world on this day.”
Thom Yorke – Like Spinning Plates
Bootleg recording from Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit in 2002 featuring Thom playing a track from Amnesiac. The album version had Thom sing backwards … well, he recorded himself singing the lyrics, played it backwards and then learnt how to sing it backwards in the studio! Something like that. This version however is quite different – just him and a piano and a mesmerising set of chords.
“While you make pretty speeches
I’m being cut to shreds
You feed me to the lions
A delicate balance”
My wife, classically trained on the piano, really struggles with rock and pop music (“too many flats!”) but this is one of the few I keep bugging her to learn.
If you like the song then a simply awesome live version can be found on their only official live album ‘I Might Be Wrong (Live Recordings)’. Check the video above to hear it.
Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart
The only Joy Division song I really like, even though I bloody love New Order (well everything up to and including 1989s ‘Technique’). The guitar intro grabs me each and every time (though I’ve never seen a guitar like the one in the video before.) I guess most people know this song by now and the tragic history of Ian Curtis – if you haven’t seen the film ‘Control’ then I recommend it.
The Jam – Start
I’m not a massive Jam fan and can take or leave Paul Weller (an admission that some of my friends find hard to accept) but I have to hand it to the man, he could certainly bang out the tunes, and this short sharp total Taxman rip-off is no exception (2m 15s). Plus he plays a Rickenbacker so it can’t be all that bad. I was a little too young for The Jam really and by the time I was into music Weller was in The Style Council and I was all like ‘what the hell is this shite?’. Had I of been a few years earlier then perhaps I’d elate Paul Weller to the same Godlike pedastal as my older buddies (does that even make sense?)
Spoon – The Ghost Of You Lingers
I have Cleek to thank for the wonder that is Spoon’s 2007 release ‘Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga’ as he turned me onto it via this very blog. I love the album to bits. This song is basically a single choppy piano riff that is played very quickly, changing key now and again, but it has something that I find hard to explain … those ghostly multi-tracked vocals really prick up my ears.
Thanks for reading!
“Spare me all your waving flags.”
though I’ve never seen a guitar like the one in the video before
whatcha got there is a Vox Phantom.
never got into the Jam m’self. like you, i was too young at the time.
I’ll third the Jam take. First I heard of Weller in the States was the Style Council and that was just awful. The Jam is ok enough but it doesn’t really excite me like it does my best friend here in Norway, who is from Balham in London, who happens to be 44, just that much older enough to have really connected with them.
Did you see the Chuck Berry biopic Hail Hail Rock & Roll? Keith Richards comments in there that Berry played in “piano keys” as opposed to “guitar keys.” His working relationship with Johnny Johnson was apparently so tight that they tended to work within key signatures that were more comfortable for the pianist.