Shuffle-up ten, list them. Link, if you have the energy.
Pick your favorite of the ten, tell us why we should love it.
- Nod - 500 Hurts
- Neutral Milk Hotel - Where You'll Find Me Now
- Modern Lovers - Girlfriend
- Talking Heads - Psycho Killer (The Name Of This Band... version. Whistle Test video)
- Beastie Boys - So What Cha Want
- Beck - Walls
- The Black Keys - Too Afraid To Love You
- Anat Cohen - Washington Square Park.
- The Cure - One Hundred Years
- Gillian Welch - Paper Wings. From her/their first album, "Revival". It's a sweet and sad Patsy Cline meets Cowboy Junkies country waltz, with a full band behind Welch's vocals - including an electric guitar doing those classic heavy reverb, tremolo, country whammy-bar-dive train-horn chords. The band, and that 1950's sound sets it apart from most other Welch/Rawlings songs, but it's still a pretty song, done well. Recommended!
One from ten.
Go!
Day off! And I woke up with a stinking cold! And I’ve had to deal with some work issues! Yay!
1. The Hives – Hate To Say I Told You So
2. New Order – Shellshock
3. The Boo Radleys – Monuments For A Dead Century
4. Beck – Loser
5. The White Stripes – Conquest
6. The Vines – Mary Jane
7. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Cheated Hearts
8. The Beatles – Get Back
9. David Byrne – Now I’m Your Mom
10. David Bowie – Starman
Some great tracks there but no. 10 is my favourite. I love the chords in this song and it’s from a superb album (Ziggy Stardust). It was a big step for Bowie after a few years in the wilderness (since the release of ‘Space Oddity’). Plus there is plenty of ‘la la la’ at the end so anyone can join in and sing along!
I’ve liked Starman since I first heard it, but I love it more now than ever. No good reason, it just suddenly got its hooks in me a few months ago.
1. Frightened Rabbit – Music Now
2. Ciccone Youth – Into the Groove(y)
3. The Psychedelic Furs – Shock
4. Big Black – Bombastic Intro
5. R.E.M. – Superman
6. Violent Femmes – American Music
7. Pixies – Here Comes Your Man
8. Dinosaur Jr. – Mind Glow
9. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – Bomb, Repeat, Bomb
10. Suede – Trash
A lot of great songs in this mix but I am going to for this Suede tune as my favorite. A big fat slab of bombastic Britrock. Not only is this just a terrific song but this album was the soundtrack of the summer I met my wife so it holds a special place in my…uh…heart. Yeah.
I’m gonna try to tackle the best of 2011 in the next day or so as I have some good ones from this year.
Shuffle dug up a bunch I haven’t heard in a coon’s age. Not sure I can pick one to say more than a few words about, so here are a few words about each one.
George Jones – The One I Loved Back Then (The Corvette Song)
Chicks, cars, what’s the difference right?
Tracy Chapman – Material World
Is there a melody here?
Monty Python – Accountancy Shanty
I sing this more often that I should.
Bill Withers – Grandma’s Hands
Too short.
Gipsy Kings – No Vivire
I do like these guys, but if you’ve heard one, you’ve heard them all.
Louis Prima – The Music Goes Round and Round
A dumb paean to the magic jazz-making power of a trumpet, over a bass line stolen from Prima’s better songs.
Laurie Anderson – Violin Walk
Haunting, ultimately going nowhere, but were you really hoping to get somewhere?
Van Morrison – Have I Told You Lately
Syrupy ballad that totally deserved to be covered by Rod Stewart.
Jewel – Pieces of You
I bet the heavy-handed socially relevant poetry you wrote when you were 20 wasn’t that much less embarrassing than this.
Terence Blanchard – Wandering Wonder
Speaking of 20-year-olds, this is from Terence’s debut 1991 album, with ample support from Branford Marsalis and band, and it sounds like, well, a Branford Marsalis track.
Hm, I didn’t realize I was in such a cranky mood.
1. “The Heart of Things”, Kimberley Rew (Great Central Revisited)
2. “Uncle John’s Band”, The Dead (Boston 12/30/69)
3. “Agony of Pleasure” + tuning + patter, Robyn Hitchcock (Maxwell’s 1/9/04)
4. “April the 14th”, Gillian Welch (Time the Revelator)
5. “Dirty Mistreater”, Curley Weaver (The Definitive Blind Willie McTell)
6. “Pig Meat Strut”, The Famous Hokum Boys (Big Bill Broonzy, All the Classic Sides)
7. “My Little Home in Tennessee”, The Carter Family
8. “Sleeping Lula”, The Carver Boys (The Music of Kentucky)
9. “Panama Red”, New Riders (The Adventures of Panama Red)
10. “Old Pervert”, The Soft Boys (Underwater Moonlight: Rehearsals)
Kind of hard to pick out a favorite here; several songs that I love. But my judgement at this moment in space and time is that “Pig Meat Strut” is the cream of the crop. It’s the perfect moment of honky-tonk raucosity to get you out of your seat.