the quaker goes deaf

Better Look Behind Those Eyes (Yeah, I'm back)

2010-03-14T14:08:00.001-07:00

I've been gone for ages. Sorry sorry sorry. If you are reading this, and you like it (or hopefully love it :) encourage me!!!!

Play Together-Chew Lips

Chew Lips are due to blow up this year....and based on this track, I can see why. Its a very cool slick electroish track...definitely gives off a Gossip vibe. It has a neat Art Of Noise "Moments In Love" sort of breakdown in the middle. The FC Kahuna mix (where have they been?) is way cool too...

Dixie Storms-Lone Justice

Let me just say it: Maria McKee is easily one of the most underrated artists of the last 25 years or so. She is gifted with a massive voice--clear and strong. This in and of itself would be wonderful. I venture, however, that there are not many artists who can act a song like her.

In any event, who knows why she is critically loved and still relatively well known...maybe because she occupies that netherworld where country, folk and rock mingle.

I don't believe this was ever released as a single, but its a stunner. She could easily be outside singing while the storm rolls in. Its that beautiful. Seriously...

Bad Romance-Lady GaGa....the Chew Fu remix

In my mind, the song that confirms that she really deserves the hype. This song is one massive hook and a brilliant pop radio song. Not surprisingly (because she is popular) a number of the mixes lose both the drama and the GaGa. Not this one....massive!

All Over The World-Pet Shop Boys

I recently saw PSB in concert (3rd time) a few months ago. What's fascinating about them is that for a band constituting a singer whose vocals are somewhat limited (not a knock....Neil is no belter, but I love his voice) and Chris, who is cool by virtue of his remove, their live shows are insane and beautiful. At this show, the mix of dancing and video made it one of the most amazing shows I've seen.

Not a single (yet) but one of my favorite songs off the record.

Elegibo-Margareth Menezes

If I ever DJ, I will play this song. Brazilian intoxicating tribal wonderment.

I know where beauty lay

2009-03-01T16:29:00.000-08:00

Swissex Lover-Fight Bite

I first heard Fight Bite a couple of months ago doing a very lo-fi Cocteau Twins-esque cover of Madonna's "Live To Tell". Didn't know much about them, nor had I heard from them since.

With "Swissex Lover", there is again a very Cocteau Twins-vibe. Its certainly not a copy, more of a reference point. Its a stunner, that's for sure...it has that beautiful rainy day lying in bed vibe. Melancholic and relaxed...its not like anything on the radio, unless your radio is tuned to 1988. Get it before Sophia Copolla uses it for a film soundtrack.

Quisquose-Cocteau Twins

Speaking of, the Cocteau Twins is definitely one of my favorite bands of all time. I don't know if this is my favorite track...that is probably "The Spangle Maker". But when Elizabeth Fraser's voice comes in at the beginning....oh lord, really, nobody sounded like her. When she used her sweet voice, she was beautiful. But when she sang in her wild voice, which I frankly wish she had done more of, only Lisa Gerrard or Bjork-in-the-Sugarcubes could touch her.

En Hand I Himlen-Jonathan Johansson

Insanely fucking good. Think of Jens Lekman and Thom Yorke's love child fronting Hot Chip-as-the-house-band in a gay bar circa 1987. Yup, that good. And yes, its in Swedish....

Poker Face-Lady Gaga

I really really thought "Just Dance" was good once. But I didn't like it...it sounded like a Fergie B-side. At any moment, I felt the risible Will-I-Am (an-asshole) would pop up. And the remixes could not save it

This is better...reminds me of a good Christina Aguilera song...has an 80's vibe, a little more reflective. In fact, as I get farther in I like it more...and it definitely reminds me of a lost 80's track. Improvement...this one actually deserves to be a hit

Love Is Overtaking Me

2009-02-09T15:06:00.000-08:00

I Couldn't Say It To Your Face-Arthur Russell

Its country-ish, and he's a bit off key. And of course, because its Arthur Russell its almost painfully beautiful. Off of the latest record Love Is Overtaking Me, which is just an amazing collection of unreleased tracks.

Whachadoin'?-N.A.S.A. featuring Santogold, M.I.A. & Spank Rock

Fantastic driving club track. Pretty brilliant and fun...and comes from that long tradition of tracks that use a phone dialing as part of the track (M.I.A. already brilliant employed a typewriter on "Paper Planes"). Its not gonna change the world, but its pretty slammin'.

Parisian Goldfish-Flying Lotus

Believe the hype. Flying Lotus was all over the Best of the Year list with his Los Angeles album. This is my favorite track from the record...very percussive yet laid back at the same time. To me, its a record that creeps up on you. Most of the tracks are instrumental and vague and hazy and smokey. Only afterwards do you realize that the track stays with you. It works beautiful as a complete work, and its hard to pick a favorite, although this is mine.

Lay All Your Love On Me-Susanna Wallumrød

Why is that some singers record complete albums that slide by without you even noticing, and then some singers could sing the phone book. Susanna Wallumrød is one of those singers (her first two records are as Susanna & the Magical Orchestra). She isn't afraid to cover anything...and its all rendered in glacial Norwegian chill. She has a stunning soprano voice...and frankly, what I think is the most amazing thing about her...she covers songs that don't need to be covered, that shouldn't be covered (say "Love Will Tear Us Apart") and still brings something new to the table.

This album will end up as one of my favorites of the year. Again, its all slow, very chill, piano soaked. Sad long winter night soundtrack here. I had a hard time picking a song. She strips "Lay All Your Love On Me" of all its sexuality and makes it a plea. "Can't Shake Loose" is pretty brilliant (but not as well known) and she makes it a sad song about not letting go. And I honestly wouldn't think anyone could cover "Don't Come Around Here No More" and pull it off...Tom Petty (huge guilty pleasure) must be thrilled with this version. When Tom sang it, you actually thought that he meant it...he really doesn't want her to come around anymore. When Susanna sings it...its very resigned...she knows that no matter what she says, he'll come around. And she'll let him in.

But honestly, the song which kinda blew me away is "Without You". Yes, this is the Dan Hill 70's schmaltz ballad (you know it, trust me)....rendered as a beautiful duet between her and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. Its fucking stunning...and again, it changes the tenor of the song. Where the original is almost embarassing in its neediness, this one I kind of imagine as a duet between two drunks at a bar.

Buy the record...now! (Flower Of Evil).

The Waiting-Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

I am a huge sucker for Tom Petty. Seriously, he's right up there with Bruce for me...he's an American treasure as far as I'm concerned. And this is my favorite...edging out the aforementioned song and his duet with Stevie Nicks.

dancin' like you never danced before

2009-01-17T15:59:00.000-08:00

Twerk-Basement Jaxx

One of my favorite things about Basement Jaxx is how their sound is crisp while at the same time sounding like everything and the kitchen sink has been thrown into the song. Like Prince playing a concert with a Brazilian carnival going on in the background. This is just their latest track (simply a 3-track single which includes the also fun "War" and the even better "My Turn", which has a lovely 80's vocal and could be a pop hit). But "Twerk" is the single and its pretty fabulous. Dubby funky-as-shit party house....simply more brilliance. Perhaps one of the most underrated bands in dance music--they really should produce Prince. And the Michael Sembello "Maniac" riffs are fabulous.

I Know I'll See You-A Place To Bury Strangers

Haven't heard the album, but if you told me that this was a long lost Jesus & Mary Chain or Flesh For Lulu single, I'd totally believe you. It has that same scuzzy sound, same processed vocals, same isolated feeling to it.

The Clapp mix moves it right out onto the dancefloor, ala Severed Heads or Nitzer Ebb (think "Fun To Be Had" era). Great fun.

16th Stage-Osborne

I love this song. Its has this cleared-blue-eyed feeling to it. Its something very hard to put down in words...almost easy listening crossed with disco and maybe a television theme thrown into boot. Its builds beautifully, which I think is the way the most dance songs really getcha...they keep morphing and changing and drawing you in...I kinda melt with the plaintive vocals fade into the song. Stunning and one of the best singles of last year

Grace Fucking Jones

2009-01-11T14:04:00.000-08:00

We're The Pet Shop Boys-Robbie Williams with the Pet Shop Boys

Ah, ok...this is fun. While we wait for England's unsung treasure to release another record, this will do. This is the best Robbie Williams has sounded in awhile. It is also a very fun dance record. Lyrically its a bit odd...it sounds like he's talking about a relationship and then the chorus hits (hint: it's the title). So it is both fun and funny. This is better than the "I'm In Love With A German Film Star" cover that "features" them. I can't hear them on it....and i was so psyched that they were covering this song (they don't...it's a female vocalist and it seems kinda pointless to me) because I think its an unsung classic of the 80's.

Epilepsy Is Dancing-Antony & the Johnsons

Apparently the second single off the latest record (I am sure it'll be huge LOL). Yet another truly beautiful song--yet another song that words will not do justice to. His Nina Simone-Jeff Buckley voice is stunning as usual....nobody does torch like this. And when he sings "Cut me in quadrants, leave me in corners" your heart will break. Fucking genius. The title alone...I love the way you read it and you get a jolt...it really is all a matter of perspective, no?

Corporate Cannibal-Grace Jones

I feel this is an accurate tie in with both the Pet Shop Boys and Antony. How do you remain relevant when you are 60ish and haven't released a record in about 20 years? Um, release a single that Massive Attack would be happy to produce (did they?). In any event, lyrically, this is perfect for Grace (which pop music has never really known what to do with)....I mean "man eating machine" for sure...who else can pull this shit off? She's a legend, much of it self-created underneath the radar. In any event, its a pretty amazing song and the video is suitably terrifying. Lyrically its also both timely and scary...the title says its all.

Frankly, Madonna could learn so much from Grace. Enough with the children's books and England and "Miles Away" bullshit. And that loser Guy. Candy Shop indeed...the most impressive thing about her latest is that she didn't already release it...I had to check...didn't she have a candy song already (She didn't....its the last sexual metaphor she hasn't appropriated). Stop trying to talk about the war (oh lord, when she raps the word "latte" in "American Life"....words cannot do justice to the travesty) and start channeling Nina Simone and Black warrior princesses and bisexual Bowie and Josephine Baker and start giving us something interesting. Cause Grace Jones did...

Legend....nothing I can write can say it better than this: nobody ever did what she did, nobody ever does. Genius

Silent Revelry

2009-01-10T16:27:00.000-08:00

Angel-Sarah McLachlan featuring Emmylou Harris

It isn't much worth reviewing this song, as you have an opinion already. It's one of those "Every Breath You Take" songs in that I've heard it played on those late night romance shows as a love song. (It is actually about a heroin addict sitting alone in a hotel room). Its a beautiful song and shows of McLachlan's voice beautifully.

I first heard McLachlan in 89 or 90, when I bought the first or second magazine version of Alternative Press. She was on the cover (Sinead was just out...and she was compared to her and Kate Bush). In any event, if you think you know what she sounds like, check out one of her first two records. They are more new wave/electro than her later work and show off her ability to write a hook, even at a very young age. In particular, "Vox" off of Touch is pretty gorgeous.

Well, the live version of this song is pretty amazing. Sarah sounds stunning and well, when Emmylou comes in, its painfully beautiful (she evens sings the second verse).

I just love the fact that the song has been used for the new ASPCA ads. There was an article about it in the NY Times. Apparently, with this song, and Sarah in the ad pitching for the organization, they have raised about 25-30 million this year....far in excess of what they expected and usually raise. So its a very worthy cause.

Touch Too Much-Hot Chip

The original is a great song...very funky yet laid back....basically epitomizes all of what is good about Hot Chip, who somehow fuse ELO and Steely Dan with Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys. The two mixes are pretty great. The first, the Kollectiv Termstrasse mix, has the potential to annoy, as it is one of those remixes that does not use a ton of the original song. This can be good, this can be bad. In this case, this works perfectly. Its funky and laid back and melancholy--and when the vocals come in, the song just lifts up.

But oh lordy, the Ewan Pearson mix. Well, readers of my blog (both of you) will know that last year I raved about Ewan Pearson's 13 minutes of heaven mix of Cortney Tidwell's "Don't Let The Stars Keep Us Tangled Up". This is just about as heavenly, just 4 minutes shorter. I could probably listen to it 4 times on a dance floor and not get bored (it would make a great replacement for the inevitable Madonna mixes of her latest (and they aren't good). The chorus is impossibly funky and these cool clanging noises. Can't explain it...just get it!

Titanium Expose-Sonic Youth

I am not worthy yet to write about Sonic Youth. This is 4:33 minutes of beautiful skronky punk noise. Stunning and fucking brilliant.

Polish Poem-David Lynch & Chrysta Bell

I did not love Inland Empire. It kind of annoyed me when I watched it (I so wanted another Mulholland Drive). Yet it is one of those movies that stayed with me--on occasion I think about it. Its a haunting film and so i guess it works in that I feel it kind of stays with me. It beautifully conveys claustrophobia and mental illness and this weird feel of unspecified dread. Problem is, I was never sure I was supposed to feel that!

In any event, this haunting song plays throughout. Its gorgeous Dead Can Dance-like ambience with a beautiful clear vocal by Chrystal Bell. It isn't quite as heart stopping as his work with Julee Cruise or the out of the blue insane beautify of Rebekeh Del Rio's Spanish version of Roy Orbison's "Crying" from Mulholland Drive, but its impossibly lovely.

Earth Intruder

2008-12-31T14:05:00.000-08:00

Nattura-Bjork featuring Thom Yorke

I've said it before, I'll say it again. I adore Bjork. She can do no wrong. I loved her since I was 18 and I saw the Sugarcubes with my friend Jenny. However...

The last album, which I mostly loved, I did not love the collaborations with Timbaland. They were cool, but like some good ideas, I don't go back and listen to them again. Basically I thought Volta was stellar, but I felt the album lacked strong rhythmic tracks.

This track makes up for that shortfall. "Nattura" was released, I believe, to raise awareness of environmental concerns threatening Iceland (Nattura is nature in Icelandic, I'll hazard a guess).

In any event, what does it sound like? Well, it isn't "I've Seen It All", her amazing duet off the The Dancer In The Dark soundtrack. In fact, at first listen, it isn't immediately apparent where Thom Yorke is. But if you turn up the volume....OK, basically, Natura is Bjork wailing over a free jazz drum workout while Thom Yorke's disembodied voice haunts the song. In other words, its pretty much insanely beautiful and perfect.

Happy New Year-ABBA

Wistful and sad, I think the sentiment speaks for itself....can anyone make me cry like Agnetha?

Giorgio Moroder would be so proud

2008-10-30T15:01:00.000-07:00

Casper The Friendly Ghost-Daniel Johnston

In honor of Halloween, I thought I'd review a Daniel Johnston song. If you haven't heard Daniel Johnston, well, you are seriously missing out. There was a documentary out about a year ago, and he is much loved in the music community.

I won't go into his whole back story (its on the Internet) in a million different variations. I will say that I love him. There is something oddly beautiful about his voice. Can he sing? Does it matter? I think there is just something fragile and incredibly honest about his voice. Particularly on this song (it is not a cover of the song from the cartoon).

And his songwriting skills are pretty amazing.

The Daydream-Tycho

Autumnal beauty...this song sounds exactly like its title. It is a 'day' song...there is something slighly light about it, like shafts of sunlight coming into a room. Yet there is something melancholy about it. One of the great things about instrumental tracks is that they leave so much for interpretation...its so much about the mood you bring to the song

This is a serious beauty...lovely music to reflect by. I don't know much about Tycho...this is from a compilation called Do That: Rare Birds From The Terrorbird Vault.

I'll Be By Your Side (Tensnake Remix)-Sally Shapiro

Sally Shapiro is a much raved about Swedish singer whose 2006 record Disco Romance hearkens back to the 80's and Italo-Disco and Pamela Stanley and Lime and Eurobeat. Its a beautiful record, stunningly so. As far as I know, this isn't her real name and she has never performed live.

Almost like Robyn, Lykke Li or even Justin Timberlake, this is a record that has generated an online buzz among music blogs. I've seen it reviewed in magazines that wouldn't normally touch this kind of music (shame).

In any event, the original is a lovely pop hit. You hear it, and, like Lykke Li and Veronica Maggio, you think "wow, this is what the last Kylie or Madonna record should have sounded like". Lyrically, the song is about devotion to a lover (perhaps not surprisingly, given the title).

Some time after the album came out, she has remixed Remix Romance Volume I and Remix Romance Volume II with, yup, all sorts of remixed versions of Disco Romance. And, in a nice surprise, almost all of them work or are at least interesting.

But this remix...man, this remix...its massive. Tensnake are doing the whole "NuDisco" thing (think Lindstrøm) and this mix is 10 minutes of Italo-disco heaven. Her vocals just weave in and out of the song...in dance music, this type of record is often referred to as a journey. It is certainly transportive.

They say when "I Feel Love" was played out (it was finished, put on vinyl and walked to a club) the reaction was so strong they just kept playing it over and over. This song gives me that feeling. You really don't want it to end. Giorgio Moroder would be so proud.

What Do You Want Make Those Eyes At Me For?

2008-10-21T15:10:00.000-07:00

3 A.M. (Fucked Up)-Stars Of The Lid

Well, honestly, I could review this. Stars Of The Lid comes out of the Mogwai/Godspeed You Black Emperor (place exclamation point accordingly). And its a beautiful song.

However, the title says it all.

What Do You Want Make Those Eyes At Me For?-Emile Ford & the Checkmates

OK...kinda creepy! Not even kinda. Its a Joe Meek production (I've been listening to his work lately). The production is very good...and its campy and fun. The lyrics....well, basically its a guy threatening a woman for leading him on...and that he'll jump her later. Oh sure, its meant innocuous I am sure (I hope) but it has a dark side as well.

One Song Not So Glory

2008-10-10T16:56:00.000-07:00

Searching For Mr. Right-Young Marble Giants

I hate to speak ill of the dead but....

When the Broadway musical came out, there were some heavy allegations that Jonathan Larson had plagiarized significant parts of Sarah Schulman's book People In Trouble. It never went to court...from what I understand, she didn't want to pursue after his death.

Um.....ok.....listen to this song. The Young Marble Giants were from Cardiff, Wales and were around in the early 80's....I guess they were a post-punk band (whatever that means anymore). In any event, I am sure they were big with the L.E.S. artist crowd.

It's a great song...it has a cool trick where it continues to build tension, threatening to explode....but never does.

Have you heard it? Jonathan Larson did...I am 90 percent sure of it. Yeah, the beginning is similar (but as the person I played it to said "lots of songs start that way")....but then there is the part of the song where she sings "teaching myself to be, the young untold".

I'm not crazy...I caught it on my Ipod while sitting on the bus...I kept thinking "hmmm....I know that song..."

Now listen to "One Song Glory" from Rent. THEN tell me I am crazy. I just listened to it again...and it freaked me out.

Acid Tongue-Jenny Lewis

Yeah, I know I already wrote about this song...but whatever. I decided today that if I ever star in an HBO show, this is going to be my theme song. "You know I'm a liar..."

The Clock-Thom Yorke

OK...yes, it is kinda hard to accuse any Radiohead/Thom Yorke/Johnny Greenwood endeavor as being underrated. But I kinda feel The Eraser was underrated. To me, it felt like the other fork...this record is the natural progression from Amnesiac. If anything, it sounds more insular, paranoid and fucked-up.

This is my favorite track on the record....its very jittery...has a real sense of foreboding. And, like many a song, I thought, when I heard, it'd be hard to improve on that version. The original is well, delightfully nervous.

Well, check out the Surgeon remix of this song. It is the original version of the song, post-nervous breakdown, post-hospitalization, post shock treatment. Weird, scary...play it on your headphones and walk around a city. You will feel like you are the only person that knows that there is something eminent about to happen....it sounds like a pending emergency.

Listened to Exotic Creatures Of The Deep by Sparks today. Can we just call them a National Treasure and get it over with? Also, they are the gayest straight men alive. And frankly, I do mean that as a compliment.

Spank Rock Bump (Mochipet Remix)-Mochipet

How is a song like this not a huge hit? I don't get it....I expect Missy Elliott or Kanye West to come swooping in at any moment....

The Daydream-Tycho

Wow...talk about a song that sounds like its title. Minor key autumnal loveliness....like the sound of a heart breaking (my favorite, cheesiest and overused euphemism...but fuck it, it works). This is superbly beautiful...not in a Lisa Gerrard kinda way...not hugely gorgeous. More subtly gorgeous....maybe for my HBO series, this'll close out the series finale?????

Bad Babysitter-Princess Superstar

Try to listen to this and not crack the fuck up. Its brilliant...

The Cave (Part 1)-Gary "Spider" Webb

OK...one of the 3 gay High Holidays approaches....this year I finally put together a bunch of Halloween mixes. This, well, it harkens back to the 50's and novelty records. Its so weird....I love it...its funny and odd and frankly, strange. Probably only a hip-hop artist could do something like this now...and in a skit (think Prince Paul). Its basically spaghetti western guitar, a drum beat, this guy screaming "Julie", the girl yelling "Jimmy" back...drum solos...and then she screams. Frankly, its insane and kinda stupid and brilliant. Perfect for Halloween.

Big City (Everybody I Know Can Be Found Here)-Spacemen 3

Pre-Spiritualized swoony music to take drugs to and watch John Hughes flicks to. On drugs..."we are not alone" and all that

Lonely Teenagers

2008-09-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

Requiem For Lonely Teenagers With Passed-Out Moms-Atlas Sound

Sad, woozy, and lilting...this is simply late-night gorgeousness. Has a vaguely psychedelic feel. Its an interesting side project of Bradford James Cox, the lead singer of Deerhunter. Kind of surprised me that it is a side project, cause I could see this being on a Deerhunter record.

No matter...reminds me of Galaxie 500 a bit. Off of the Another Bedroom EP.

Seal Eyeing-Animal Collective

Starts out with all these underwater sounds, and then this gorgeous piano comes in. Its hard to describe after that. Either you know how creative Animal Collective is...and you get them. Or you don't.

And about 2 and 1/2 minutes in, the song gets even prettier.

I really like the band, and have since Sungs Tongs. I will say that sometimes I think they pack too many ideas into a song. Not on this one...again, like Atlas Sound...very late-night and beautiful. And to think, this is a "B-Side" of new single "Water Curses".

On Your Shore-Enya

Enya gets kind of a bad rap. I mean, some of it is deserved. She essentially makes the same record over and over. If you buy one, you have them all.

But, well before Beck, she was a bedroom artist herself. She plays all the instruments, records all the backing tracks, etc. And she is from the extremely talented Clannad family (huge in Ireland). I think she bailed on them because she was the youngest. Like Andy Gibb.

That said, with all the studio tricks she layers her songs with, it is this song, that always chokes me up, always gets to me. I've put it on mixtapes and people always tell me that they had to check, that they didn't know it was Enya. Its off her first (and best) record Watermark. Its just her singing about finding yourself always on someone's shore. Ignore what you are supposed to think and realize its beautiful.

Under The Ivy-Kate Bush

I could devote an entire blog to Kate Bush and how much I love her. So to say I am way more than biased about her entire recording output is well, a massive understatement.

This song always makes me cry. There is something just so simple and beautiful about it--plaintive and visceral...its just arresting. I don't know, the imagery...I can't explain it.

Deliver Me-Robin Holcomb

When I make mixtapes, I have songs which are old standbys--I always come back to them, always put them CD's. This is one. Robin Holcomb has released maybe 3 records in the last 15 years...and this is from her first. I bought in Chicago in '93--i found it in the 99 cent bin. I think I had a read a review or something...I honestly cannot remember. But I know I bought it for around a dollar.

Its worth 99 dollars (and you can get this song in ITunes, as well as the whole album, simply titled Robin Holcomb). The whole album is great...but this song, man, this song.

Its just her singing very quietly over a piano. Again, like the Kate Bush song, its so beautiful its hard to put down in words. Maybe like a sunset...a perfect sunset.

Which might be a cheesy image (guilty) but it works. In the song, she keeps repeating "deliver me, the light is only perfect, for a very short time." So I guess it alludes to the concept of the Scottish gloaming (in a literal sense) and about a relationship in a figurative sense.

Whatever, its fucking gorgeous. You know what, it sounds like a prayer...there is something religious about it. Insanely beautiful.

In the depths of the godsick blues

2008-09-26T06:18:00.000-07:00

I'd Rather Walk Than Run-Herman Düne

I am a sucker for this kind of song. Very sweet, could easily have come of the soundtrack to a movie like Juno or some other similar independent film. Don't know a great deal about Herman Düne, although I do know they are from France and have worked with the Moldy Peaches as a backup band.

This is a beautiful lilting folk tune--reminds me very much vocally of Jens Lekman, which is a huge compliment.

Acid Tongue-Jenny Lewis

I have always liked Rilo Kiley and Jenny Lewis, but I never thought they quite lived up to the hype. In some ways (and this will be a weird comparison, so brace yourself) I have felt, at times, that there songs didn't quite match up to Jenny Lewis's voice. Like Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam, who after Ten, always kinda bored me. I really liked the last Fleetwood Mac-esque record and I loved "Silver Lining"...but never quite up to the hype.

This song changes that analysis. Its incredibly seductive, with clever lyrics. For example, I love this section

I went to a cobbler
To fix a hole in my shoe
He took one look at my face
And said, "I can fix that hole in you"
I beg your pardon
I'm not looking for a cure
Seen enough of my friends
In the depths of the godsick blues

Her voice sounds marvelous on this track. Honestly, this reminds me so much of a Maria McKee song. They don't sound exactly alike, although they both have very clear voices. And there is a definite lyrical resemblance, although they are both very distinctive. And i think Maria McKee is a national treasure (and woefully underknown and underappreciated), so that is high praise indeed.

Can't wait for the album

Carnies

2008-09-25T06:58:00.000-07:00

Hammerheads-Danielle Dax

I can't even really begin to describe the genre this song falls under. It is an odd odd song. Odd in a great way, though. To me, it kinda sounds like it could be right off of the soundtrack to "Nightmare Before Christmas" (perhaps a distaff resemblance to "This Town Called Halloween"). Or maybe evil honky tonk sung by a muppet?

And the lyrics, well, Danielle Dax, who was a member of the avant-punk band the Lemon Kittens before going solo, they are creepy. I don't exactly know what she is talking about...but its creepy, in the best way.

All of her stuff is totally worth checking out. Its highly original and very random in its range. If only all artists had the vision and guts as her...

Carnies-Martina Topley-Bird

First single off of her latest. She will be forever known as the voice of Maxinquaye and Pre-Millenium Tension. So I had high hopes. Err....don't love it. Its good, but doesn't showcase her voice as well. I was hoping, with the song title and her voice, that this would be eerie. Not so much. Well, as least not as much as...

I Lost My Heart In The Fairground-Glenda Collins

A Joe Meek production, this song is freaky. Its a 60's song, and very cheerful and happy....early 60's. However, she talks about losing her heart to the guy who runs the ferris wheel.

Ok...where I come from, you didn't speak to the carnie folks, let alone date them. Obviously high camp value, but great production and incredibly fun

42 More Things To Do In Zero Gravity

2008-09-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

Mind Your Own Business-Delta 5

Way cool song by a legendary all-girl post-punk band. This is probably their most famous track. I heard it on the very cool way-worth-your-while Girl Monster compilation. Very edgy, with very distinctive guitars. In fact, so distinctive that I have to ask: Is the guitar eerily similar to "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes. Or am I just hearing things....? I feel Jack White has to have heard this track. You could pick way worst artists to be influenced by.

Void-Frank Murder Und E.V.A.

Found on 42 More Things To Do In Zero Gravity: An Icelandic Ambient Compilation, this reminds me so much of the Brian Eno track I wrote about yesterday. Eerie and beautiful, this is based on a simple guitar loop that is simply repeated over and over. There is something to be said for Phillip Glassian minimalism--it always gets me. Over that, the track just adds very cool (literally, as in chill) flourishes. I can easily imagine hearing it over the end credits to a Bond film.

Don't know anything about Frank Murder. I will say the compilation is well worth picking up, as all the tracks are worthwhile. The most famous act on here is Mum, although Trabant and Worm Is Green make appearances as well (among many other artists I have never heard of).

This

2008-09-23T17:33:00.000-07:00

Happiness-Church

I don't think its THAT Church. This isn't the Australian band that has been around for 25 years and had a big hit in the 80's with "Under the Milky Way". That's The Church. This is Church.

And that's all I know, except this is very reminds me quite a bit of "Gobbledigook" by Sigur Ros. Or Animal Collective. Its definitely 2 minutes of a freak-folk party. Makes me want to hear more, which is always a good thing. I tried Googling them, but all that brought up was Christian rock band after Christian rock band. Which I'll avoid. Although I do have a very cool Stryper t-shirt I picked up at a resale shop....

Spiralling-Keane

Boy, did this catch me off guard. In a good way, a great way. I'd always relegated Keane to the C level. They are not Radiohead. They aren't even Coldplay, who has seemed to make an entire career recyling "Fake Plastic Trees" and "High And Dry". They do it well, but they kinda bore. Keane was even more boring...until this.

With the "whoops" and dancey groove, this sounds like nothing I've ever heard from the band. I could see hearing this in a club and going up to ask the DJ who it is. And then, like I was when I heard, I'd be floored that it was mopey ole Keane. I thought they would just spend the rest of their career scoring substandard WB shows. Congrats!

This-Brian Eno

Off of Another Day On Earth, his last solo record (he and David Byrne have a new one out, a followup collaboration to their widely influential Life In The Bush With Ghosts). What can I say....its Brian Eno (its a blog, so I guess i should say something). Insanely brilliant...not much there, but beautiful, haunting, kinda creepy even. Just a weird skittering beat, somebody reciting "This" over and over....and Brian Eno singing. Don't ask me why it works, or why it works better than most anything else out there. Again, he's Brian Eno. You gotta hear it to understand...

you make me feel like i'm in a film

2008-09-22T17:00:00.000-07:00

Cling Film-The Sea Urchins

Don't know much about the Sea Urchins, except that I cannot believe nobody swiped this name earlier (or afterwards). I guess they are from West Bromwich, England (thanks Wikipedia!) and were released by the very esteemed Sarah Records. They didn't have many hits..."Cling Film" wasn't even released as far as I know.

Still, this is a minor key beaut. Reminds me so much of college, of fall, of a time when it was actually kind of cool to be melancholy. Like you want to be in love, but aren't. And you think you are, and somebody breaks up with you, and you think you really hurt. You were only later, as an adult, to find out what that really meant. Its like that...that same kind of naivete, innocence and possibility all swirling about in 3 minutes of a pop song (if that makes any sense).

White Winter Hymnal-Fleet Foxes

If you haven't heard of Fleet Foxes yet, man, did you know Obama is our nominee? Where the hell have you been. They are kind of everywhere!!! You might want to catch up, before they appear on what will easily be a million end of the year best. Deservedly so, I might add, although I will caution that they are not that crazily original. I mean, they are...but only kinda. If you've been anywhere near the Polyphonic Spree or the Hidden Cameras in the last 4-5 years, there are some similarities. They certainly aren't the first band to resurrect 60's sounding harmonies. But they definitely do the Animal Collective/Panda Bear/Spree thing unbelievably well.

But they are certainly one of the best. And they have songs to match the stunning harmonies. Again, very autumnal....must be the solstice. If you haven't heard anything by them, I'd start here.

And honestly, one reason alone, if you listen to this song, you'll be happy. Yes, for 2:23, but still, you can't beat that.

I Need Another World

2008-09-21T16:07:00.000-07:00

Hold On-Hot Chip

Pretty snazzy in its original form-"Hold On" is one of the danciest tracks off of Hot Chip's latest record Made In The Dark. If this band had come out in the 80's....or in some alternative insanely cool universe....they remind me so much of the OMD if they got beat up by ELO.

Not surprisingly, Ewan Pearson, like he did for Cortney Tidwell's "Don't Let The Stars Keep Us Tangled Up" last year, turns "Hold On" into 9 minutes of dance floor beauty. Again, like the aforementioned track, you want it to go on and on and on.

L.E.S. Artistes-Santogold.

I know....could i lag farther behind. Well, I didn't write on my blog for ages. Frankly, the moment I heard this song, I thought an ESG song sung by Dale Bozzio of the Missing Persons (since I am all about band vs. band clashing analogies). Yeah, that good. Early runner for single of the year. Avoid the Switch mix...typically too loud and banging, ruining all the Lower East Side nuances of the song.

Say So-Uh Huh Her

One of the songs that if you heard in a car, you'd roll down the windows and let the wind rush across your face. Stunningly beautiful gorgeous pop. Despite being named after a PJ Harvey track, it reminds me a bit more of a Go-Go's track...with maybe the Cocteau Twins on the chorus. No, not a fight between the two...

Humpty Dumpty-Aimee Mann

OK...this is kind of a dedication. Like if this was a radio show, I'd dedicate this song to my friend Lisa. Basically I've been missing her alot lately--we've been talking alot via email and text, but neither of us can get out to see the other. Anyways, she can listen to this song...and she'll get it. Its not a song that necessarily reminds me of our college days together (that'd be either Nirvana, "Fascination" by the Human League or...gulp....Colour Me Badd).

When I hear Aimee Mann, I always think that if Lisa wrote music, this is who she'd be. Vocally yes, but sentiment and lyrics even more. And frankly, that is a huge huge compliment. Anyways, love you Lees.

Another World-Antony & the Johnsons

Made me weep each of the three times I listened to it. Although I adore Antony, I didn't think that any of the songs on his last record matched "I Fell In Love With A Dead Boy" or "Cripple And The Starfish". I loved them all, but I wanted an out and out torch song.

And I've missed his Nina Simone/Jeff Buckley voice so much. Sure, hearing him duet with Bjork is amazing. And his work with Hercules & Love Affair is superb.

But this. Oh this. Utterly and completely gorgeous. Reminds me a bit of "Song Of The Siren" by This Mortal Coil, which is the highest compliment imaginable. When he sings "I need another world, this one's nearly gone. Still have too many dreams, never seen the light", I utterly choke up.

Ethereal sadness, yet oddly hopeful. I think that might be a humpback whale song 3 minutes in. Slays me.

Heartbreak Beat

2008-08-26T07:16:00.000-07:00

Kim & Jessie-M83

My immediate reaction, from the opening notes of this song, is that it instantly reminds me of "Heartbreak Beat" by the Psychedelic Furs. Ok...I love this song, although it is not my favorite Psychedelic Furs song (tough call there....easily one of my favorite bands from the 80's....The Ghost In You, Torch, Get A Room, Heaven) but "Heartbreak Beat" is a very sexy song (in particular, in its first 30 seconds). It always reminds me of going out, of all the possibilities of a great evening and what that means. And of course, for me, at my age, it is imbued with a sense of nostalgia.

Well anyways, the beginning of this song reminds me so much of that song. The 80's reference is strong throughout (as on much of M83's latest record). Whats cool about this song is how it cleverly alludes to its references without copying them. Love the whole album as well...

When I Wake-The Changes

Superb 3 minutes of power pop. Reminds me of Nick Lowe or Marshall Crenshaw. This is a very very good thing. If it isn't summer, it will make you feel like it is

dark in the city night is a wire

2008-06-02T06:31:00.000-07:00

Hungry Like The Wolf/View To A Kill/Skin Trade-Duran Duran

Although I wasn't quite the obsessed fan of some (or, alternatively, a Durani i think they are called?), I definitely dug them in the 80's (and still do). Anybody even remotely attached to pop music (or who liked pop music) had to have a favorite Duran Duran song in the 80's. These are my top 3.

Dismissed as shallow and light at the time by some, many of their hits have remarkable staying power. In many ways, they represent the spirit of the 80's, as many of their songs are sleek and shallow. And I don't mean that in a bad way. To me, Duran Duran always comment on glamour and decadance with a style and panache that really nobody (save Madonna, who hoisted the "Material Girl" mantle on herself) could match. Their songs are accurate reflections of the consumer-obsessed 80's, and Duran Duran cast on ironic eye on the high-life (I mean, "Girls on Film" and "Rio" if you need more evidence). What is so interesting about them, in retrospect, is that they were able to be fey and vulnerable and get away with it--because they were straight and all dated models. Something that would trip up Culture Club, their only real rival band-wise on the single chart.

"Hungry Like The Wolf" is the first Duran Duran song I ever heard. Consequently, as often is the case with 80's bands, it is also my favorite Duran Duran song. Consider it Exhibit A in a case to sum up the band (both in its sound and lyrically). When I first heard it, i thought it was wild and scandalous and amazing. For a 12-year old (or 13) boy from Indiana, this song was dangerous and sexual and almost a bit frightening. Which of course made me love it. I think it might have been banned in Utah. Or the video was only shown late night on MTV. Oh, the scandal!!!

"View To A Kill"--there are bands/artist who should sing Bond themes and there are artists (though they may be quite talented) going head to toe with James Bond. I love a-ha and Sheryl Crow is just fine, but both acts subtle charms would be lost on a Bond theme. Sheena Easton was great, partially because she was young and cute and could have been a Bond girl.

Think of this way, once Shirley Bassey has occupied the spot, you have very big shoes to fill. Tina Turner fit perfectly, KD Lang (whose song was in the credits but was not the theme during Sheryl Crow's year) was also great. You need the talent or the look (or preferably, both) to pull of something of this cultural magnitude. Madonna, Bjork, Goldfrapp...all great candidates. Jewel, Ashley Simpson, please dear God, no.

Oh, and Duran Duran. It's a great song (from a not-so-great film, though it did have Grace Jones) and there is no better band to pull it off. A match made in heaven.

"Skin Trade" Not one of their biggest hits, but in my mind, actually, one of their best. In many ways, it shows how they evolved into a one-trick pony (OK, 3 tricks tops) to a much more stylized and smart band. To hear Simon LeBon criticize (in Prince-esque falsetto, no less) the very same shallowness that launched Duran Duran is post post-irony (or just one post...you get my point).

All She Wants Is-SCSI 9

No amount of writing could convey why I think Kompakt is one of the most genius labels on the planet. It just is...trust me (I will say that I am not alone in this assessment). Time after time, artist after artist, compilation after compilation...brilliant stuff. The quality control there is amazing

And this, off of Kompakt Total 5, is typically sly and yet brilliant. Its an odd quiet cool-as-ice cover of Duran Duran's minor hit from the 90's. One thing I love about the Kompakt label is that when they do issue a cover, it tends to be very subtle and pushes the song in a new direction. This is the perfect song to ride around on the metro to...with the simplicity and beauty of the best pop and yet the intricacy of architecture.

...or something to remind me...

2008-05-22T17:45:00.001-07:00

Wishing (I Had A Photograph Of You)-A Flock Of Seagulls

OK...its a month away from 20th, so i figured I maybe write about some of the songs of my formative years. This is by no means there biggest hit (they are most famous for "I Ran (So Far Away)" and "Space Age Love Song"....the first was a top 10 hit, the latter a club hit (one of their many) but its their most beautiful. It sums up all that's great about the 80's. I am sure metal and grunge were reactions to new wave, but frankly, well, grunge was highly overrated and just gave people excuses not to shower (Nirvana aside) and metal, well, I always got a kick out of my Indiana classmates that called Duran Duran faggots for wearing makeup and then dug Kiss. Er, ok...

And nobody feminized music more than Prince (from the male standpoint)...but I digress

Billy Idol, when he wasn't embarassing himself with "Mony Mony", a career-stopping moment so risible he should seriously have been host, sang about "Dancing With Myself." This is the companion piece to that song...its got an odd metronomic beat that would be simply be impossible to dance to with anyone else. It takes romantic vulnerable to pathetic (and glorious) heights..."I wish I had a photograph of you, or something to remind me. If i had a photograph of you, i wouldn't spend my life just wishing."

To me, highschool is more about being in love with the idea of love than having the maturity to actually be in love. And this song sums that all up in a hyper-romantic glorious melodic messy 5 minutes.

It's My Life-Talk Talk

OK...if Gwen Stefani/No Doubt's cover of this moved any old Talk Talk records, then I can forgive her for ska. Can i say it...all ska sucks.

Talk Talk is one of the most underrated and underappreciated bands of the 80's, especially among bands that worked in the pop idiom (this would exclude say a Sonic Youth). There weird career trajectory didn't help. First album The Party's Over was great fun, while second record It's My Life got darker and more melodic (and featured this massively beautiful stunner, which was their biggest and only Top 40 hit...but it also featured gorgeous new wave songs like "Call In The Night Boy" and "Such A Shame",) particularly with "Renee", which would hint at where they were headed. Their first masterpiece (at least in the conventional sense) was The Colour Of Spring, which featured beer commercial minor hit "Life's What You Make It."

And then, totally out of the blue, came Laughingstock and Spirit Of Eden, which were odd distaff lonely icey jazz-hued records. And giving credit where credit is due, Thom Yorke has talked about how much these two records influenced him...and you can hear many echoes of Talk Talk in Radiohead (particularly on the stunningly beautiful b-side "It's Getting Late In The Evening"). These are two underrated classics...and their last recordings. Mark Eitzel (lead singer) did a similarly beautiful solo record....and then nothing.

But this was what I heard first, and the song I love the most. But if you think its cool to 'discover' a band only to find out that they have a huge back catalogue...here's a band for you.

Forgiveness-Yeasayer

In the last 4 weeks no song has impressed me more. I'd read about them...I think they are out of Brooklyn and that "scene", but I wasn't prepared for how fucked-up, off kilter, drunk and beautiful this is. Right from the get go...the song sounds like a needle was just dropped into the middle of the record. Its a genius move...you have no choice but to pay immediate attention since you are transported to what sounds like 30 seconds into the song.

And the song...honestly, what's so great about it is that I almost can't describe it....pagan chanting, Bjork, Animal Collective, ESG, Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" all come to mind. Yeah, i know...high praise...and I hate to damn it with such praise. But I don't lie. Beautiful and fucking brilliant. So far, song of the year.

How Swede It Is....

2008-05-11T16:05:00.000-07:00

Subtle Changes-Sambassadeur

The perfect springtime song, with lush Bacharach-esque strings and gorgeous sweet melancholic vocals. And oh yes, from Sweden. No, its not "Lovefool" by the Cardigans....its less 60's, more 80's (for some reason it reminds me of an 80's pop hit). Think the Sundays with lush sexier less lonely vocals. I haven't listened to the rest of the Sambassadeur (they are named after a Serge Gainsbourg record, interestingly enough), but based on this, I am looking forward to hearing it (its called Migration--and released on the excellent Labrador records, which is based in Sweden). Saint Etienne, summer at the beach, drinks early on a hot evening...this evokes all of those. Let the swooning begin

Vi Kommer Att Dö Samtidigt-Säkert!

Equally gorgeous, with a 60's pop bent. I have no idea what she is talking about....and I don't imagine that Swedish rolls off the tongue like other languages....yet prepare yourself to hum Annika Norlin singing "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" all day. As far as I know, she's released one self-titled record. All in Swedish. Perfect after a long midsummer's night. Agnetha and Annifrid would be proud.

Not Revenge, Not Electronic, Not Monaco

2008-02-11T16:35:00.000-08:00

Selfish-The Other Two And You

New Order (one of my favorite bands of the 80's, which is probably why I've stayed away from them, although at some point I will have to write about "Love Vigilantes") had a number of side projects. Maybe more than any other band. Perhaps the most famous (and successful) was Electronic, which was a supergroup (or duo) as it included Johnny Marr of The Smiths and sometimes vocalist Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys. Revenge and Monaco (which came a bit later) were not as well known.

Though, in my opinion, this is the most interesting of the side projects. And least recognizable...although a New Order fanatic could probably spot the resemblance. The Other Two And You had two records (I believe) and a couple of singles. The band was made up of Gillian Gilbert and Peter Hook and interestingly (and deceptively, this'd be the reason people probably couldn't stop that it was New Order) featured Gillian on vocals. Oh, and in the band, Gillian was the keyboardist, while Peter Hook was the percussionist.

It was a shame that Gillian didn't sing more. While she doesn't possess the greatest range, this is blue-eyed hug-yourself-while-you-dance beautiful. It'd be tough for me to pick a track that I love the most, but "Selfish" beats the others to the post. Its sweet and simple and yet the way she sings each phrase without much of a break just adds to its charm. And when she sings "No sense of reason, you think its true, why did you have to believe them" you'll swoon. Even the worlds greatest cynic would swoon...and if he doesn't, well then, he's selfish. If I hear this in a club (and sadly, its a rare occurence) it will lift my spirits instantly...its guaranteed to cheer the hardest of hearts.

Don't Let The Teardrops Rust Your Shining Heart-Everything But The Girl

I'm writing this out of a sense of condolence for a friend of mine, who is nursing a broken heart. Though a broken heart certainly cannot be fixed by a 3:18 song, well, maybe fixing isn't the point, as its just something that everyone goes through (and often, more than once in their life). Its the down side, I think, to all the upsides. But as much as that sorta thing hurts, well, if you avoided being hurt, you'd miss out on all the beauty and splendor out there.

Probably there are few songs that speak to that (and say it way way WAY better). This is one. It was never released as a single and isn't anywhere near one of their most famous songs. Its an older song...EBTG were not yet in dance/electronic mode. Yet, I remember buying the cassette at 17 and crying the first time I heard this song. Its truly beautiful and lush and poignant and honest and well, uplifting. Its a letter to a lover--its definitely got a dark side, as you can't tell whether they are together anymore. And its about an affair. But its a song about fleeting moments of joy and appreciating those, as they are fewer and farther between than we'd like. And yet, its somehow happy and heartbreaking at the same time, and frankly, well, you can't get a better reflection of life than that. And sung in Tracey Thorn's gorgeous, sadly underrated world weary voice...

So Los, my dear friend, feel better, take care of yourself and remember this...

Sorrow is a lonely road
Where the rain like your tears
Beats heavy on the roof above your head
Tomorrow is a lovers' town
That's been beaten down
And the hands of winter holds the life we've led
Instead of drowning in despair
For I find small comfort in a bottle
When we're apart
Don't let the teardrops rust your shining heart
I used to drive all night for you
While the children were asleep
And as the dawn broke on your room
Back into my house I'd creep
Where my husband slept alone
Of course he must have known
But we always hide the truth
For fear of losing what we own
So don't forget the words that we choose
And constantly misuse
They were written down every time we were apart
Don't let your teardrops rust your shining heart

Best Of 2007 (in no particular order, kinda)

2008-02-04T17:29:00.000-08:00

Children Running Through-Patty Griffin
The fact that I haven’t seen this on any best list is both a surprise and a shame. It’s simply a beautiful record. Not surprisingly, the lyrics are stellar (Patty Griffin was successful as a songwriter, most notably for the Dixie Chicks and Emmylou Harris). C’mon, there is a Martin Luther King tribute song…and it works. Worth the price of admission alone for “Heavenly Day,” which, no matter when you play it, will cheer you up.

Volta-Björk
This isn’t on many best lists. Why? Because it didn’t appeal to critics and fans. In some cases, I think that was because it wasn’t Homogenic or Debut or Post. But its charms reveal themselves after more listens. Who else would even record a song called “Earth Intruders,” let alone it being a collaboration with Timbaland? Despite the presence of drums, it’s as inaccessible and insular as its predecessor, Medulla. Yet it rewards. The song that I was most excited to hear, “The Dull Flame Of Desire,” a ruminative ode to love featuring Antony (of Antony & the Johnsons), is an absolute stunner.

In Rainbows-Radiohead
The quality of this record almost got overshadowed by its marketing. In some ways, it’s their most accessible record in ages. Gone is the paranoia and the loneliness. It’s almost a…dare I say….happy record. OK, that’s Radiohead happy. My favorite part: the ballads. This is worth 50 dollars for “All I Need” alone.

Kala-M.I.A.
Along with Radiohead, let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Yeah, her dad is a Tamil Tiger, a member of the Sri Lankan revolutionary group. Yeah, she’s namedropped by everybody…don’t be shocked when Justin Timberlake collaborates with her. Sophomore slump…no way. Political, driving, fun-as-shit. As cool to listen to on your headphones as it is to dance to.

Neon Bible-Arcade Fire
Speaking of sophomore slumps…this was a big one. Moving away from the Talking Heads references to Bruce, Arcade Fire made a great record. Maybe better than their last…I can’t tell yet. Worth the price of admission alone for the whoops on “Keep The Car Running.” The Killers wish they made this record. So do the Smashing Pumpkins.

Oblivion With Bells-Underworld
Let’s call it. Underworld kicks the shit out of the Chemical Brothers. Nobody else can make epic soundtrack house like this. This is a record to get lost in…maybe the record of the year in my opinion. It doesn’t even include one of my favorite singles of last year, “Peggy Sussed.” If you want to be really cool, see if you can find their 10 minute bootleg of “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” by the Police. (Sting so wishes he were that cool.)

Chromophobia-Gui Boratto
Architectural techno via Germany…and yet, you can dance to it. I kept waiting for this to disappear up its own ass…and it doesn’t. This could make the list for “Beautiful Life” alone, which is, essentially, a 2007 update of “If You Were Here” by the Thompson Twins. Which is the song that Molly Ringwald kisses Jake Ryan over the cake to. And, to be honest, if I equate a song with Jake Ryan, it’s making the list.

The Reminder-Feist
Ignore the commercials. Ignore the SNL appearance. Actually, ignore what you think about the first 2 singles. And give it a listen. Did anybody do this better this year? With PJ Harvey exiled to a haunted house, Fiona Apple languishing in some dirty bathtub somewhere and Tori Amos so desperately in need of an editor, the answer is…no. Smart, funny, beautiful, painful. Its worth-the-price-of-admission moment: “The Park.”

23-Blonde Redhead
Honestly, if I had to give a Grammy for “Record of the Year”…and I hate the Grammys (and have hated them ever since “Don’t Worry Be Happy” won…not convinced?…two words: Milli Vanilli)…this would be it. All the others aside, I don’t know a record that references 50’s and 60’s pop and Sonic Youth and still sounds so beautiful. It only makes sense…this isn’t Blonde Redhead’s first record…it’s like their 6th or something. That allows a band to mature and explore and expand…and then you get this. When I first got it, I walked around the city and played “Silently” over and over and over…

Music For Tourists-Chris Garneau
Dare I say...Jeff Buckley. There…I said it. I hate to saddle him with those comparisons….it’s a beautiful voice on a sad quiet record. A stunner…in the race to be the next Jeff Buckley, it’s between Garneau and Patrick Watson…

Ma Fleur-Cinematic Orchestra
…who features on this record (Patrick Watson that is), along with Louise Rhodes (from Lamb) and Fontella Bass. Is there a band out there whose name represents their sound better than Cinematic Orchestra. “To Build A Home” sounds like it could be from a Broadway show (and yes, I mean that as a compliment). For some reason, the phrase “chamber music” always comes up. Don’t ask me to explain…just buy this. And yes, if you like Minnie Ripperton, you will like this.

Out Of The Woods-Tracey Thorn
Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. Almost makes up for the fact that Everything But The Girl records a new record, oh, I don’t know, every 5 years. Beautiful languid melancholia one moment, gorgeous house the next. What I love most…nobody else does this, nobody sounds like this…she’s Gilberto and Dusty all in one.

Loney Noir-Loney, Dear & Káta Hornið-Teitur
I’m lumping these together. They don’t sound alike, that’s not it. Both of these artists are out in the States in a myriad of different incarnations, but I don’t think these records were recorded this year. I heard them this year. Teitur is a singer-songwriter with beautiful quiet songs and your new favorite artist from that bastion of pop, the Faroes Islands (look it up). Loney Noir is Norwegian and sounds like Sigur Ros kicking the shit out of Chris Martin of Coldplay (shouldn’t someone?).

Goodbye-Ulrich Schnauss
Think the Cocteau Twins. Think lush and romantic. Think heartbreak and smoking drunk at the age of 17 and wishing that you were so in love that you could actually get your heart broken. Then go buy this.

The Runners Up (in no apparent order)
Walls-Apparat
And Their Refinement Of The Decline-Stars Of The Lid (lump-in-throat beautiful)
Night Falls Over Kortedala-Jens Lekman
Sound Of Silver-LCD Soundsystem
From Here We Go Sublime-The Field (coolest house record of the year)
Ulual Yyy-Islaja (like stumbling onto some pagan ceremony in the Finnish forest)
People I Barely Know-ST (insular bedroom pop that sounds like a breakup…instead of tormenting your ex-girlfriend by blogging on MySpace, make a record!!!!)
Mirrored-Battles (yeah, everyone loves it, but hey, its cool)
Stateless-Stateless (“I think I might have inhaled you, I can feel you behind my eyes, you’ve gotten into my bloodstream”...sexiest song of the year with "Bloodstream")
Bloom-Louise Rhodes (its all about the voice)
We Are All From Somewhere-Exploding Stars Orchestra (its jazz, which I know nothing about, but I dig it)
Night Drive-The Chromatics (frankly, this record is very dirty. In a good way)
In Our Bedroom After The War-Stars (literate, smart, charming and romantic…they just keep getting better)

Mix albums and compilations you absolutely need
Fabric 34-Ellen Allien
Please Please Please-Tobias Thomas
Prins Cosmo Galactic Prism-Prins Thomas
Kompakt 8-Various

OK, anything by Kompakt is required listening. These are amazing records and easily could have made the above list…these go well beyond the average DJ record. It’s between Ellen Allien and Prins Thomas for the best. Prins Thomas is “space disco” and it’s F-U-N-K-Y and weird and dubby and made 5 people at my old job come by my office and ask: “What the fuck is this?” And these were not cool people.

For the Ellen Allien record…imagine the coolest club in the world, now imagine it 30 feet underwater. That is what it sounds like.

now this is what we call haunted volume I

2008-01-02T16:00:00.000-08:00

Everything Is Low-The Go Find

The Go Find's second record, Stars On The Wall, was a bit of a letdown on the first listen. I just didn't find it as immediate. The songs off his first disc, Miami, were understated and austeer, yet very catchy at the same time (and all minor key and heartbreakingly romantic in many spots, most notably on "What I Want"). On my first listen through Stars, I have to confess, I was a bit disappointed. I think it was an expectation thing...I basically a sequel to Miami.

After many listens though, the charms of Stars On The Wall have been revealed. The record is quieter, more acoustic, and for me, sadder. This, "Everything Is Low", is my favorite track on the record. The Go Find vocalist, Dieter Sermeus (who sings with the band Orange Black, this is a side project), doesn't have a huge range vocally, but he does a lot with a little.
Its a sad sad song...the part that gets me...when he sings...

Would you break me up
Would you let me know
If I try to run
Send a car across
What a wreck I am
Your eyes
Would you let me out

I'd start with Miami, however. Its a beautiful insular lonely record. The moment...for me, far away, is on the aforementioned "What I Want." It's a love song...the narrator is simply telling someone how much he cares for them, how much he loves him/her. And on the chorus he then says, "...it's what you want....too....I can tell." Its almost as if he is talking someone into getting back together, talking them into admitting they love him.

And the song kinda stays there for the first 2 1/2 minutes....and then, it just simply lifts up and he starts singing "I can tell, too much is never enough, when it comes up to you" and the music swells and and...well, you'll fall too...its a heart-melting moment.

Anyway-Tulipomania

The first time I heard this band it was on a Wire compilation from last year ("Same Ole Song" I believe). They definitely stuck out (first of all, they were melodic...I love Wire magazine but its a little pretentious at times and I've heard stuff they adore that sounds like a hair dryer being dropped down the stairs. Merzbow, you know who you are). Whatever the case, it was a very cool song...definitely made me want to hear more...somewhat of a Cure-like feel to the beat, funky and danceable. And the vocals, well, they stuck out then...I can't remember what I wrote about them last year but anyways, this song...

When I was a kid, my favorite Disney ride, far and away, was Haunted Mansion. I remember being entranced by its beauty and begged to go on it again and again. Actually, its still my favorite ride hands down. One of my favorite scenes was the ballroom scene, where all these ghosts are flitting in and out of view and off and on the dance floor. I believe there's music playing during the scene, but for the life of me, I can't remember what the song is.

This should be the song. Talk about haunted. A dance party for the ghosts of lost loves, if you will. The music is somewhat driving, somewhat dirgelike, taking all the best parts of the Cocteau Twins and Ride without sounding derivative (the backbeat actually reminds me of a song by a kinda unknown shoegaze band Chapterhouse and their lone hit "Pearl"). So thats all good.

Going back to the haunted house analogy, there's a scene on the ride where a female ghost is standing in a lonely room a bridal gown with her red heart beating. There's also a scene where a disembodied head is speaking from inside a crystal ball. (I'm really loading up on the analogies here, no?). Anyways, the female vocals sound like they are being sung from the head in the crystal ball. They flit in and out off the song, just like those dancing ghosts (are you with me still ?)

And those male vocals? Yup, the ghost bride with the bleeding red beating heart, she'd be singing them. And yes, that's a huge compliment. To say that Tom Murray's vocals are distinctive would be an understatement. If Anthony of Anthony & the Johnsons and Liz Fraser of the Cocteau Twins had a child and signed it up for vocal lessons with the ghost of Jeff Buckley, he would sound like this. Unlike those influences however, the vocals are more contained within the song...the seem to move with the narrative and though distinctive, are almost instrumentation. Wraith-like, eerie and stunningly beautiful...his voice is a voice that probably divides a room. I'll go on the haunted ride again...y'all can go ahead and ride the ultra annoying Space Mountain ride.

trembling star, just reminds me

2007-12-09T15:35:00.000-08:00

Black Cherry-Goldfrapp (Lawrence Mix)

More and more I go back to song. It was always my favorite track off the record...its so lush and romantic. (To me, its foreshadowing for "Time Out Of This World" off of Supernature). But when Supernature came out, I kinda forgot about (Supernature contains both my least favorite Goldfrapp song, "Ooh La La" and then my favorite "Number 1").

Its such a sexy beautiful song (and amazing live, the definite highpoint in fact) in its original incarnation. I always think it sounds like its being sung from bed.

The Lawrence mix doesn't do much with it...it isn't a radical overhaul. Still, its beautiful...almost the equal to the original. At once more grand and yet more intimate sounding with the bubbling Kompakt background. It sounds a bit more lonely, like its being sung in starlight. Cold but not chilly. Makes no sense I am sure...its more orchestral and less beat-oriented and frankly would be on the demo tape that should be made to get Goldfrapp a James Bond theme (she sounds made to sing it).

It isn't always worth seeking out the remix of a song (unless you are a dork like myself). This is well worth finding. You can go outside in the snow some winter's night and sway sway sway. Gorgeous.

The Best Dies-The Raveonettes

Frankly, and I know I've written this before, but I am completely unsure how the Raveonettes are not enormous. Take the Shangri-La's, mix in Psychocandy by the Jesus & Mary Chain, add a dash of Tracey Ullman's "They Don't Know" and brew it all in Denmark. You know that part in Joan Jett's "Crimson And Clover"...the first 4-6 seconds where Joan goes "ahhhhhh". Its the pinnacle of her entire career...my all-time favorite moment. The Raveonettes have stretched that moment out to encompass their entire career.

This is the first single (I think) off of their new record, Lust Lust Lust. Its typical Phil Spector/Ronettes Wall of Sound gorgeousness. If lipgloss made a record, this would be it.

I mean, they get press, they do. But nothing like the White Stripes, Radiohead, etc. And when you hear them, you'll understand. Maybe their sound is from the wrong era, I can't figure it out. They are just one of those bands that way too few people know about. Which is a huge enormous shame, I mean, who doesn't like lipgloss....

I'd blame it on teenagers...

2007-11-27T16:31:00.000-08:00

Debut-ST

First single, hey...it's the debut single of ST, who is actually Stefan Ternemar. Its beautiful airy romantic pop...reminds me of the love child of the Postal Service and the Pet Shop Boys. I don't know yet if this is actually my favorite song off of the record yet (the album in question is "People I Barely Know". The song is all hug yourself lovey dovey. I could go on and on and on (I have before) but I know I'll write about him again...anyone who writes the lyric "if I had to pick a reason, I'd blame it on teenagers."

Homecoming-Teenagers

"On day two, I fucked her, she was such a slut." Oh how we've all been there (switch around the gender as necessary...). Pretty hilarious and pretty great...again, I always say this, but this time, I mean it...if we lived in a better world, this would be all over the charts and radio (with lots of gaps where they edited out stuff). Imagine if Sonic Youth (her voice on the spoken word reminds me of Kim Gordon) was asked...ok, forced to write their version of "Summer Lovin" from Grease. And Joy Division maybe did the backing track....and no, I am not kidding. The Teenagers have been around for a bit...this is off their debut record, helpfully titled "New Songs And Demos". They've also done quite a few great remixes, most notably for Au Revoir Simone and the Black Ghosts. Lots of buzz buzz buzz. Off of this alone, they live up to the hype. Had I heard this as a teenager, I would have had a way better childhood.

Walk On The Moon-Asobi Seksu

Um, if you leave, don't look back. No, they don't sound like OMD in any way...yet this song, I picture that moment from the movie (sans Andrew McCarthy, I refuse to picture him in anything, to be honest...for me he's an appetite suppressant). Asobi Seksu is a Brooklyn-based band with a Japanese singer, hence the name I guess, which is Japanese for "playful sex". It has a definite (and I almost hate to say this word, since it sounds so dated) shoegaze feel to it...think Lush on its poppier moments. They don't sound like Lush, just think that. I'd say there a perfect example of a band that has totally absorbed its influences, yet isn't redundant...they've done something different with the sound. This is not on the album Citrus, which is great as well...frankly, I don't know where you get this. But get it get it get it. You can wear when you imagine yourself in those "pretty in pink" moments.

2007-11-17T14:21:00.000-08:00

Nasty Gal-Betty Davis

This is hot hot hot from the opening moments. This sounds like it was recorded in a tiny nightclub where everyone is dancing and its packed and about 95 degrees. And the lyrics, well, the fact that was made in the early 70's, its far ahead of its time.

I'm gonna run it down
tell em anything you want
i ain't nothin' but a nasty gal
so you said
i was a bitch now

All sung in her gravelly deep voice, complete with alley cat skrownks (new word) and an impossibly funky dirty baseline. And all told from a place of a place of enpowerment. She's totally proud of being a 'nasty gal'. Betty Davis is a pretty remarkable character...with hits like "Anti-Love Song" and "If I'm In Luck I Might Get Picked Up" (amen sister) and the fact that she married Miles Davis at the age of 21 (that's her on the cover of his record Filles De Kiliminjaro). It's also rumored that he originally called it Witches Brew and that it was Betty who convinced him to call it Bitches Brew. She went on to work with Carlos Santana, who said that she that she was the first "Madonna", except that "Madonna is more like Marie Osmond compared to Betty." And I can see that...Madonna has always used sexuality but seems to keep it at an arms length, Betty Davis just exudes it.

I swear you could drop this in any club and they would go nuts. Its insane.

Na Cha Cha-DJ Koze

I'm a bit behind the curb on this one...its been out a couple of months. Anyways, its from the Kompakt label and is on the dancier side and its perfect illustration of the genius of the whole Kompakt venture. And it bears the Kompakt 'stamp'. Although the acts on the label are quite diverse, there's just something about it. I think its the care that goes into all the work off of the label. Its very intricate and yet sexy and funky at the same time. It sounds amazing over headphones, particularly walking around a city. It kinda reminds me of something architectural. And yet its totally organic. I can't explain. This also has a feel of early Mr Fingers house. Music made by robots. Sexy robots.

I Hear The Sound Of The Whitecaps

2007-11-14T17:59:00.000-08:00

The Platform On The Ocean-Arthur Russell

It was not easy to pick exactly which Arthur Russell song to write about (I was torn between "A Little Lost" and his song "Go Bang" under his Dinosaur L. moniker). So I went with my favorite and the one that best illustrates all his talents.

Arthur Russell was an avantgarde cellist and musician who found most of his success as a dance artist. I think know he would get labelled an electronic artist...in a more general sense. Although some of his tracks are danceable, many are not. He released entire albums that didn't contain a dance song.

I think the qualities that all his productions share are that they are incredibly introspective and contemplative in nature. To me, almost all of his productions are embued with a sense of melancholy. (I could be projecting I suppose) I find them all very insular. Arthur was painfully shy and had a hard time venturing out into the nightlife that his tunes soundtracked. He apparently was very self conscious about his looks...he had facial scarring from really bad acne. The fact that one's physical appearance means so much in a bar setting, let alone a gay bar setting, probably didn't help.

This 8 minute song is absolutely beautiful. Everytime I listen to it, I hear something else going on. Its almost classical in nature the way it is layered, although I suppose you could play it in a club (maybe as an end-of-the-night song). Its very dubby and filled with echo and fragile and melancholy. It an a career of many massive highpoints (all mostly appreciated after he died of AIDS in 1992), this is a zenith. Makes you wonder what he would have produced had he not died so young.

Being Boring-Pet Shop Boys

This is the first Pet Shop Boys song I've written about. It won't be the last. Not only do I think they are one of the most underrated bands of all-time, brilliant lyricists as well as an English treasure, they are one of my favorite bands of all-time.

I picked this song in a sort of a tribute to Arthur Russell. This is by no means the most famous Pet Shop Boys song, nor their biggest hit. Its simply one of their most devastating. In it, the narrator talks about living through different decades, the 60's, the 70's and how "we were never being boring, we had too much time to find for ourselves."

Its when he reaches the 80's that it becomes very clear what he is talking about: survival.

Now I sit with different faces
In rented rooms, in far off places
All the people I was kissing
Some are here
But some are missing
In the 1990's
I never dreamt
that i would get to be
the creature that
i always meant to be
but i thought
in spite of dreams
you'd be sitting somewhere here with me

Its a beautiful elegaic song and one of the first times that the Pet Shop Boys wrote openly about AIDS (notice the decade they skip). It's a tribute to all the people who didn't make it through, "who were never being boring, we were never being bored." Simply stunning. So I picked this for Arthur Russell.

Crimson And Clover-Joan Jett

I know its not her most famous song. Nor her biggest hit. And yeah, it's a remake. I don't know if its even my favorite. But I listened to it today and there are a couple of parts that I find simply amazing. I'm a big fan of the ending, where she sings the refrain over and over. But frankly, the song's best moments (or seconds) are in the first few....Joan sings "Ahhh" then the guitars "but I don't hardly know her"...then the guitars "but I think I could love her" more guitars "crimson and clover" and then the drums kick in and the song rocks but never betters its opening moments. The opening moments are all fuzzy badass sexiness. Its like Stephen Merritt wrote "heaven in a black leather jacket, hit me like a hurricance, heaven in a black leather jacket, I don't even know your name." Exactly.

Cause when love is gone, there's always justice, and when justice is gone, there's always force

2007-11-13T16:09:00.000-08:00

Moments In Love & Close (To The Edit)-Art Of Noise

Before the actual top 40 'hits' came...that'd be "Kiss" (with Tom Jones) and "Paranoimia" (with um, Max Headroom). Before Anne Dudley went on to score numerous films, including The Crying Game and The Full Monty (for which she won an Oscar)...before all of this...these were these two songs. Whats interesting about them, to me, is that they actually charted with this stuff in the 80's. This wouldn't happen now...its not that experimental music is not being produced. It's that it has well fled the pop medium and shooting for the charts. In the 80's, this was the charts.

The first song, "Moments In Love", is a one of the most sensual and erotic songs made. Whats odd to me, is that if you were able to actually take the song apart, like if it was a mechanical device, each part would seem, by it self, rather cold. The chilly synth, the ghostly voices, the chimes. And yet...when it all comes together its remains 10 minutes of the most seminal chill-out music ever made. Oh yeah, you've heard it...it'd be impossible for you to not have heard it in the 80's (I imagine it soundtracked some serious makeout sessions). There are a couple of versions of the song floating about, but the Quiet Storm (this version begins with the piano) and Extended mixes are the best. In a career of many high notes, this is arguably Art Of Noise's penultimate moment.

Arguably? Yes, this is the song that rivals "Moments In Love." The truly remarkable "Close (To The Edit)" remains one of the best songs of the 80's, hands down. Again, that it was even out on the mainstream charts (albeit on the fringes) is surprising enough. Featuring a stalling VW Golf as the main "vocalist", this song became a breakdance and beatbox classic. It still sounds like nothing else...hmmmm, well, ok, no, thats not true. I think Aphex Twin and Superpitcher and Funkstorung and Autechre heard this track. Its an impossibly loose track...it almost sounds like it isn't going to hold together, like it will simply just breakdown and stop (like that damn VW Golf). Yet it is continues to expand and is impossibly funky. If you don't have this on your IPod, frankly, you are not cool. Brilliant and genius.

Oh and then there's the video. Banned in some spots for "encouraging" violence in children, it featured 3 men in business suits (meant to spoof the News of Huey Lewis & the News) and a strange young girl (who looked vaguely like a miniature 14-year old Siouxsie) destroying numerous musical instruments (in stop-gap motion photography). Directed by Zbigniew Rybczynski (an acclaimed Oscar winner & HDTV pioneering director), it was, at 14, perhaps the first time I ever watched something and thought: "what the fuck?" I remember that when I first saw it on MuchMusic (no, I am not Canadian, for some inexplicable reason we got Much Music in NW Indiana) it entranced and frightened me at the same time.

O Superman-Laurie Anderson

Another "what the fuck?" moment from childhood. This has been remixed by Booka Shade & M.A.N.D.Y. for the dancefloors (its good, but no match for the original). The original is well, freaky. Its features two alternating chords and the word "ha" repeated over and over and over for 8 minutes while Laurie Anderson talks zen-like through a vocoder. Its eerie and beautiful and not just a little bit disturbing. All the more disturbing because of these lines.

This is the hand, the hand that takes
Here come the planes
They're American planes. Made in America
Smoking or non-smoking?

This was released in 1981, so it obviously is an odd and weird coincidence. (Not just noticed by me...Laurie Anderson revived the song for a concert post 9-11, recognizing the parallels in imagery). Perhaps even weirder, after John Peel played the song on his radio show in England, the song reached...get ready, #2!!! It might be the strangest #2 ever. Here it just simply continued to establish Laurie Anderson as an avantgarde cult artist. Her time has certainly come, as she was involved in creating the opening ceremonies for the 2004 games and is NASA's Artist In Residence.

Its oddly beautiful. Its not scary in a conventional sense. I think the right word is disorienting. Everytime I hear it, despite it being fairly simple in composition, I marvel at how deep the song actually is. And thats what I find so disturbing, I think. When you listen to it, its as if there are other parts to the composition that are present but you cannot actually hear them, you can just sense that they are there, on the fringes of your vision. Just out of reach.

sex without stress (possible?)

2007-11-10T13:29:00.000-08:00

Play Hurt-American Analog Set

I began loving this song at the 7th song, when the lone guitar is joined by the saddest melody you have heard. What's amazing about this song is that shows how you can do so much without histrionics and tricks. It just chugs along at a Galaxie 500 tempo while Andrew Kenny sings forlorn lonely rainy afternoon lyrics about a past lover....heartbreaking

And you don't know what you're doin'
You can only play hurt so much
When you're calling me all about him
And I can't hang up
And you don't know what you're doin'
'Cause he can't be enough
But I could even believe
That he loves you like me 'cause
It's hard when your heart's all cracked up

So sad...

Also, this is one of those bands that if you get into now, you have a huge back catalog to explore.

Barnaby, Hardly Working-Yo La Tengo

Back when I was a 19 or 20 year old college student, I found this newspaper called Alternative Press. It was based out of Ohio and I couldn't always get it every month. Just a few issues later it morphed into a magazine. And for the next 14-15 years, I was a loyal subscriber. I was a loyal subscriber long after I needed to be a loyal subscriber. I forgave them many a sin....from the endless reviews of Fall Out Boy and Rancid-esque punk bands to the disappearance of reviews of artists from all over the spectrum....long gone were the days that a band like The Gossip were covered in the early stages of their career. Too much major label, too many of the same sort of bands...I stayed on principle. Then...the Ashlee Simpson review. Oh, dare I mention a positive review. A talentless horse-like girl, oh I'm sorry, now she's had a nose job, now she looks like a talentless horse with a nose job. My bad.

So I stopped reading and subscribing (each month I'd read less and less of the issue). Maybe I just got old...maybe college kids care to read endless articles about the Distillers Rancid Fall Out Boy etc etc, but I couldn't (but I sure loved to read endless articles about The Smiths, The Cure, Sonic Youth etc etc.). It was fun while it lasted...come back to the five & dime, AP....ah, I won't go there.

During that time, I bought tons of records off of the review alone (this was pre-internet days, kiddos). AP introduced me to countless artists, as crazy diverse as Diamanda Galas, Sleater Kinney, Laika...and this band. Yo La Tengo. I went out and bought President the day after I read the interview.

And the review was right. Pretty much spot on. Its a really good record...not their best, that would come later (I've been a fan ever since remarkable album after remarkable album).

Ah but this song....4:36 of swirling gorgeous hazy beauty....its sounds like condensing Lost In Translation into one sad lonely moment. I think its still my favorite Yo La Tengo song....they've come close over the 20 approximate years they've been releasing records...but this, this is the one.

Sex Without Stress-The Au Pairs

The Au Pairs were an all-girl band from Birmingham England. I'm not sure what they called this kind of music back in 1982, which was when the record that this song is off of came out (Sense And Sensuality). Today it'd be lumped into the post-punk category.

Its dubby and disjointed and very very sexy. If I was a DJ, I'd play this out...its somehow manages to be dirty and grimey and spacey and sexy all at the same time. Not easy to do. Maybe if the Go-Go's and James Brown had a kid....

Unison-Bjork (Ital Tek Remix)

This isn't out officially...I found it floating about on the net....if you love/like the original (I love it...think its one of Bjorks most underrated tracks) then definitely track this down. Its very dubby and clanking and sexy.

William, It Was Really Nothing

2007-11-09T17:21:00.000-08:00

This is a tribute to artists that went undiscovered in the 80's, for whatever reason.

Baby-Billy MacKenzie

I was very into music in the 80's. Yet I totally missed this singer and his band, The Associates. Not only had I not heard them, I hadn't even heard of them in the 80's. I never caught up until one day I read an article in a British magazine where Bjork was waxing and waning about what a great singer he was. I thought, hmmmm, I love her. And that time, there were a number of Associates reissues floating about.

But this was the first song I heard. Most of what I am going to tell you I didn't know at the time. That Billy MacKenzie killed himself at the age of 37, right around the time of a solo comeback. That The Cure's song "Cut Here" and The Creatures (Siouxsie again) "Say" are both in reference to him, while "William, It Was Really Nothing" is said to be a tribute by Morrissey.

Whatever the case, this song really blew me away. I have since gotten the Associates greatest hits, which I like as well as the solo record this track is off of, Outernational. The solo record is hit and miss, while the Associates record seems a good primer for them...it definitely makes me want to hear his other stuff.

But back to this song. Lush, romantic, sad...its a true stunner. His voice...wow....extraordinary--its been described as operatic, which I can see. His vocals range from a low Bowie-esque growl to an all out belt. And its at this point that the strings come in. The song is devastating (its all about a failed relationship) and all the more so once you know the circumstances of his death.

Its all rainy nights, walking the streets alone, and doomed love.

Primitive Painters-Felt

Like the Associates, this is a band that I missed entirely. And frankly, I blame my friend Molly, who was all into Goth makeup and Bau Hau, The Cure, Wire and The Smiths. How she could be constantly pushing The Legendary Pink Dots and The Jazz Butcher (Conspiracy) and yet miss this? So its her fault.

I haven't heard everything by them, but they are definitely worth checking out. There earlier stuff has a 4AD feel to it, most notably the Cocteau Twins (particularly this song, my favorite, which actually is a duet with Cocteau Twin Elizabeth Fraser). You could guess this by the title alone, which as a Cocteau feel to it. Later on there music became more jangly (still beautiful). In any event, I'm not Felt expert (they are pretty influential on a number of bands, most notably Belle & Sebastian). But this is a beautiful song.

(You Don't Know How) Glad I Am-Maria McKee

From the getgo, with the strings and piano, this sounds like a lost standard from the early 60's. Maria McKee's enormous vocals even give off a Patsy Cline feel. Its a beautifully upbeat love song...it'd make a great wedding song (dare I say that...ugh, weddings, ugh). In any event, its off her record Peddlin' Dreams.

You should hear this song. You should buy Peddlin' Dreams. But the main reason I picked this song is to tell you about Maria McKee, whose been around over 20 years. She started in the wildly underappreciated (by record buyers, not critics) Lone Justice. In retrospect, Lone Justice was probably doomed from the start, with their rockabilly and country influences. Not the way the new wave college rock river was flowing. They had one near Top 40 hit, "Shelter", which got knocked for being too synth-laden. Interestingly (and as far as I know, I'm the only one to ever notice this, but that cannot be true) Tayor Dayne basically copied huge parts of this song for her hit "I"ll Be Your (yeah, you guessed it) Shelter." Maria McKee should have sued.

In '86, Lone Justice broke up and Maria went solo. Since then she has released fabulous record after fabulous record. To underground and critical acclaim, yes...but she deserves to be heard by a much wider audience. She has one of the clearest most beautiful voices in music today and is a fantastic song writer (listening to "Breathe", "Has He Got A Friend In Me?" and "Show Me Heaven" as well as old Lone Justice songs "Don't Toss Us Away", "You Are The Light" and "Dixie Storms" will ensure that you fall in love).

A lost treasure...you'll thank me for this, trust me.

Yr Mangled Heart

2007-11-06T18:50:00.000-08:00

Love And Anger-Kate Bush

Its funny, if you asked me which Kate Bush track I'd write about first, this would not be it. But its beautiful. Just insanely so. Even before the Bulgarian choir comes in. And by the way, when the Bulgarian choir comes in, prepare to have your knees buckle.

There are some songs that I feel I should explain why I like. There are some that I think you should just listen to. This is how the song opens, with this

it lay buried here
it lay deep inside me
it's so deep I don't think that I can speak about it
it could take me all my life
but it would only take a moment to
tell you what I'm feeling
but I don't know if I'm ready yet
you come waltzing into this room
like you're walking into my arms
what would I do without you?

frankly, if you haven't reacted to that or don't get it, fuck off

Dazzle-Siouxsie & the Banshees

Purists will say, they were a band. I mean, one of the members was Budgie, Siouxsie's husband and collaborator for 3 decades. Yet, still, the person you'd remember after this band, well....let's just say you wouldn't say "god, I love the drummer"

Yeah, I know. You think she's Goth. Thats not her fault. I mean, yeah, she and The Cure started the whole shebang. The whole Goth thing. Which, like hair metal and folk and well basically any genre, there is quite a bit to make fun of. The Cure took a bit of a different path...they embraced the Goth tag and became enormous. I love the Cure, but they are easy to pick on. He kinda looks like an oompah loompah.

Siouxsie didn't embrace the Goth label. Yet that isn't why she didn't make it big to the same pop level that The Cure did. She has inspired countless imitators...ats these imitators that have gotten Goth such a bad name. Because every witch and wraith and goblin and pancaked face lead singer afterwards just didn't have the chops or talent to compete with her. Maybe thats a slap at Robert Smith (not intended), but The Cure are easier to imitate. With Siouxsie, when you hear her songs, they songs require you to also imagine her singing them. Like Bjork, the Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash, James Brown...you cannot imagine somebody else inhabiting the song in the same way. Certain artists (aforementioned) write songs that are specifically fitted for them. Siouxsie is one of those artists.

In other words, she is the My Bloody Valentine of Goth. My Bloody Valentine put out Loveless, which bankrupted a label and that made the rest of the "shoegazing" phenomenon irrelevant. Siouxsise did the same--she just casts too big of a shadow. Unfortunately that didn't seem to free the artists behind her to follow her own footstep. Thats why female Goth singers get made fun of---they aren't Siouxsie Sioux.

Male Goth singers get off easier. Panic At What Disco? anyone? Its not that the Cure aren't amazing. Its not that Disintergration isnt a remarkable watershed moment? Its just that Robert Smith always read his own reviews, followed and participated in his evolution to icon status. Siouxsie didn't...in fact, she rebelled against. And still ended up there. Much to her chagrin.

As an aside, there are two artists that remind me of her. One is PJ Harvey. Not really vocally. Kinda in the deep parts. More in the approach...in the I-can-do-what-I-want attitude

And Karen O. And yes, vocally. I'm always surprised that reviewers never mention. She can go to the same low register with power. But I digress.

Oh,and this song. Oh again, purists would say this isn't the best moment. Her biggest hit was "Kiss Them For Me"...also one of my faves.

But this was on a tape that a girl named Liz Owlsley made me. She sat in front of me in senior english in Crown Point Indiana and she looked like the lead singer of Romeo Void. A big girl, sexy, dark makeup...kind of foreboding. But she carried herself sexy, which big white girls generally do not do. One day in English, we were talking music and the bands we liked. Couple of weeks later, for my birthday, she brought me the following: Spleen And Ideal by Dead Can Dance, The Queen Is Dead and Juju by Siouxsie & the Banshees. Well, and my world changed forever.

Like "Somewhere" by Sondheim...there is a place for us LOL...well, by chance i listened to Juju first. And thus I heard "Dazzle"...my very first introduction. Is it her best moment? Well to me...yes. Its certainly my favorite. Its also her gayest moment. It certainly couldn't be more dramatic...the orchestra...the strings...then, that voice. THAT voice.

And thats when I knew there was a world outside of what I saw every day. And i got through it all. Did Siouxsie save my high school experience? No.....not exactly. But she should definitely have been invited to my open house. For fucks sake, no expense was spared. We got Bronco's chicken!

White Chalk-PJ Harvey

This is the title track of her new record. It should be called Career Suicide. Just kidding! Yeah, wow. As if she needed some other reason to elevate her to icon status. Yet, she decided to make the equivalent-for-her-fans of Lou Reeds Metal Machine Music. Ok sorority girls...u like to put my songs on break-up tapes....stay with me!

At first....the whole record...wow....I didn't know what to thinkof it. Ok...this is a woman who told an ex to "lick her injury". And its not that she hasn't had soft moments before. Its just ...well, it caught me offguard

And initially Ididn't like it. I kept wanting teeth. But, ah, on this record....well, that requires work. Its not as immediate as her other stuff. But trust me...there's teeth.

To me, this is a record that has to be taken as an 'album'. Its to be listened to as a piece of work...a whole entity. I've been swayed....I kinda think its brilliant. It doesn't sound anything like Aerial by Kate Bush...but there is a similarity in the way its structured. A whole album. But in the day of the IPod.....this isn't as friendly....this is an album. You have to flip it over.

And its a ghost story. The whole thing. Haunted. It flits in and out of your consciousness...like something you can only see in the corner of your eye, not head-on. Thats how I feel when i listen to this.

Yr Mangled Heart-The Gossip

Lest I sound old. Ok.....here we go. Wanna know who is carrying the torch (not that Siouxsie isn't still recording...or Kate Bush...or PJ Harvey)? I'll put it like this...here's a woman whose voice jumps out of the speakers, whose voice soundtracks nights and breakups and whose voice you remember the moment you hear it.

Honest. My boyfriend, who doesn't even like rock, saw The Gossip with me. He think she's incredibly honest and so herself...even if he was wowed.

Is there really a better description than that? Read reviews....they will mention the voice, the fact that she from the Seattle/Olympia Washington Sleater-Kinney sphere....that she is a big ole white trash dyke from Arkansas. Yeah ,yeah...too easy.

It really is, in the end, about her voice. There are not tricks. Just her voice...massive, beautiful, fucking angry. A way-too-much-wine anger. A sincere anger.

Oh and the song LOL. ...well, I just want what I deserve. Thats all

I like chicken wings and cheesecake, but homemade

2007-11-06T18:18:00.000-08:00

afuckingmen

Give Me The Food-Miss Platnum

No the "I" is not missing...that's how she spells it.

Finally you have the answer to oft-asked question "who is your favorite Romanian rapper?" You can just say "Miss Platnum".

I probably wouldn't have written about this song except I saw her on YouTube. She's kinda utterly charming. And yes, from Romania. Like Nadia Comaneci and. And on and Dracula.

And fortunately she isn't built like a Romanian gymnast.

The song is all about being plus-sized and liking food and dissing boys who don't like big girls. Its very fun, it'd be a great addition to any mixtape--total party song. And live, well like I said, she seems utterly charming.

Definitely check it out...it charted in Romania, so its just a matter of time til she makes it big here.

Plus, the lyrics actually say the word "chicken wings." If a song mentions chicken wings directly, I like it. Its just a rule.

Right dodge!?!?

Andromeda And The Milky Way-Me'Shell Ndegeocello

A massive underrated talent. Its shocking to me that she isn't more famous. What with that catchy name and being a black bisexual or lesbian muslim woman, I mean, its amazing people aren't calling her the next Mandy Moore?

Some artists record 25 songs and still cannot pack as much sexiness and honesty and soul into a song like Me'Shell.

There are other lyrics to this song, but all you will remember is "take me down to the river, I wanna get free with you." Look, I don't know what river she's talking about or what "get free" means but after you hear this song, trust me, you will want to go down there and find out.

Its sexy beyond belief.

It also reminds me of a dear friend of mine, Dodge. Not sexually, although I know she TOTALLY wants to get with me, despite being a dyke. This song reminds me of her energy...like if her soul made a mixtape, this'd be on the soundtrack. I'll leave it at that.

This Woman's Work-Maxwell

Somewhere there is a list. Its a very important list...you must read it before you become a musician. The list is called "Artists whose songs you do not cover". If you don't read it, you suffer at your own peril. Sometimes the offense is well deserved....see the Pet Shop Boys and their take-the-piss-out-of-the pomposity of U2's "Where The Streets Have No Name?". Straight men always think their view on the world is so important, why not let the gayest band in the world discofy it?

Sometimes the sins are minor, like a misdemeanor. Like the Dixie Chicks and "Landslide". Uh yeah, they are way cool and ultra-talented. The song isn't supposed to be sung in harmony. Its a lonely song. Also, its best if you don't try to sound like the icon who previously recorded the song. I love the Dixie Chicks. Alot. But they are not Stevie-fucking-Nicks. As Sandra Bernhard once said, Stevie Nicks is one of the "big-titted bitches of rock". The Dixie Chicks are not there yet.

Then the sins are sometimes egregious. Like a felony, a capitol felony. I am morally opposed to the death penalty. Under any circumstances. Except 2. Jean shorts AND horrible covers. Kill em. Slowly. Exhibit A. The Counting Crows and "Big Yellow Taxi". Yes, the Counting Crows actually covered Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow...wait. You don't need me to go into it. That is more than enough explanation. The artist and the cover. How dare they. Joni Mitchell's song is all about the environment and our wasting of it. The Counting Crows are anti-environment...do you know how many of their CD's are in landfills right now and will never ever decompose. Think about it. A lot of people bought that record. There are a alot fratboys out there.

Guess who is on that list? The incomparable crazy-genius Kate Bush. Oh yeah, she's a nutter...all the greats are. You know who loves her and would do anything to record with her. Outkast. Seriously. Not only is that very cool and an interesting collaboration to think about but the fact that Outkast wants to collaborate with you tells you all you need to know.

So apparently Maxwell didn't get that list. So he attempts to cover "This Woman's Work" and lo-and-fucking-behold, pulls it off. Its a tribute to his talents that he does. He manages to remain faithful to the song (actually his vocals resembles Kate's quite a bit in spots) and make it his own, which is the ideal for a cover of a song like this. But then, Maxwell is pretty fucking talented. I mean, this was kinda cocky to think he could do this, I would have told him no, but I would have been wrong. His version is a beaut. Next question, where the fuck is he?

blue lights are shining all over me

2007-11-06T17:23:00.001-08:00

I Just Called To Say I Love You-Stevie Wonder

People knock his 80's stuff--most famously in the movie High Fidelity, where Jack Black throws somebody out of a record store where he works for requesting the soundtrack to The Women In Red. And this isn't his greatest track. However, I just heard it on the radio and its a tribute to his genius. Sometimes it's an artists B-sides that flesh out the picture of an artists capabilities. This isn't a b-side, but in light of his more "important" work, it might as well be.

That said, there are few artists that can do joyful and sweet like Stevie Wonder. Joyful...Bjork, Outkast, Kate Bush? Not many. This, its a minor key love song, I mean, he just called to say he loved you. He doesn't Celine Dion the person to death...he just tells it like it is. Yeah, its Lite FM. Its still good.

Beau Mot Plage-Isolee

There are some tracks I won't bother describing. OK, it sounds like jazz fucked techno with a flute solo. Trust me, you just gotta hear it. Fucking brilliant. You are insane if you don't seek this out to listen to. Loudly. With the lights out. If you dig it, well then, you are welcome. If not, well then, you are wrong.

What Led Me To This Town?-The Jayhawks

This one comes with a story. I have 2 actual sisters. Then I have Angie, who lived behind me. I've known her since I was 8, she was 7. We weren't always best friends. Like brother and sister, we often fought. I hit her once with a stick. In the leg. Hard. I mention this because undoubtably she would mention it. Yeah, well she and her friends made fun of me for dancing gay. Which I wasn't. In retrospect, now that I know what dancing gay is, I wasn't. Trust me on that one.

Mostly we got along famously. She was the first person I smoked a cigarette with. Capri's. I was the first person she got drunk with. And music...we both loved music from the get go--it was something we always had in common, something we could always talk about. I remember she had a Blondie record at the age of 11 (lest you think she is impossibly cool, I believe she owned an Air Supply record as well, the one with the balloon on the cover) and playing reggae when we laid out. Every week, I'd write down the Top 40 every week off the radio and bring it over to her house. We would then go over it. What songs we liked, what songs we didn't, what songs we were surprised charted so poorly, so highly. Its not like we knew everything about each other...she thought I was straight until I was 21. I thought she was still a virgin at 20. I wasn't. She wasn't. We both should have known. I dug the Pet Shop Boys, ABBA and Madonna. She dated super hot guys and loved "Slow Hand" by the Pointer Sisters. And back then that song was very very controversial.

And we had our own language. You hear that alot...childhood friends who have their own language. Our language, well, we spoke "dolphin". No yeah seriously, we spent an entire evening in her pool trying to communicate by making "dolphin" noises. We always bring this up when we get together...we always make fun of how young and dorky we were when doing this. Uh yeah, we were 16 when we began to speak "dolphin". Well, fuck it, its a language that you tend to develop a propensity for later in life.

So Angie made me a mixtape. A couple of years back. She's kinda more into alt-country than me. Alt-country is this weird kinda catch all genre. Wilco, Son Volt. People who tell you they like alt-country want to fuck Ryan Adams. I'd leave it that.

So this song. She made me this tape...couple of tapes actually. And this song...passed me by a good 3 or 4 times. I just never got into it.

So one night I get on a bus from NY to Providence. We leave at 5 PM Friday evening. Its raining. And there's an accident. I usually love to drive at night. There's something about it. But not this night. And of course the bus is packed and hot and loud and annoying etc etc. Lurches forward 4 feet, stops, lurches another 4 feet. You've been there, everybody in NY has a bus horror story. The people who don't are the Republicans.

I have my headphones on and this tape is in. And somehow, even with all the lurching and noise, I fall asleep. Music still on.

And then I wake up. And its totally dark. And totally quiet. All I can hear is the sound of the bus moving and the rain.

And this song. I wake up to a female chorus singing "blue lights are shining over my life." It sounds like angels. I thought it was almost impossibly beautiful. The song is about getting older and realizing you haven't turned out exactly how you thought you would. Its insanely beautiful....best part....female chorus sings "can you keep it a secret, I'm in love with you." Then he sings..."what happened to this boy, ah such a lovely mother's son" and then the chorus.

It was just one of those moments that you recognize how much music means to your life. The equivalent of seeing an amazing view....people who aren't into music never get that...it's like "whats the big deal?". These are the people who camp. They only get that "moment" by living outside and hiking 6 miles up a mountain to see an actual view. They go "wow" by climbing the mountain, we go "wow" by putting on a Sonic Youth record. We're smarter.

When we were kids, I always thought Angie was way cooler than me. Well, either I was wrong or something happened. Because I am now waaaaaayyyyy cooler than her. Especially on music...she always tells me I'm the man in the know.

Except for this...this song, she gave me this.

Hold The Line-Toto

I read that a DJ that I really like plays this at parties. Of course its in Norway, which has a much higher "irony" intelligence than us. However, I get it. Generally, Toto is way more than kinda cheesy. However, this his reminds me of "More Than Feeling" by Boston...it sounds amazing coming out of radio. And it features a piano solo. It'd probably rock a dance floor. Plus you can make that cool horn/V thing with your hand to it.

Gimme Less

2007-11-06T14:36:00.000-08:00

Ma Quale Idea-Pino D'Angino

I first heard this song on Royksopp's Back To Mine mix (Great mix...impeccable taste!). I was at the gym and this song came on over my headphones and I was like "Hmmmmmm, where do I know this from?" That, and I laughed. I don't know anything about Pino D'Angino...he doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry, which means even he isn't scribbling his own entry.Yet believe it or not, after Googling him, I found an old album, I Successi/Ma Quale. Judging by the cover, he looks like an Italian playboy who sang eurodisco in the 70's. Oh, this is Euro...no question about that.

Its also unbelievably infectious and fun and an instant party. And where had I heard it before...well, there's a song called "Don't Call Me Baby" by the band Madison Avenue. This is the sample, which was a smart choice on Madison Avenue's part and made Pino some serious cash, as the song went to Number 1 all over the world.

So search it out, turn on your lava lamp, put on some polyester and shag on your shag carpet. Viva la Pino!

I Thought That-The Migrants

If we lived in a country with decent cool radio, like in the 80's and early 90's, you'd have heard this by now. In fact, as I think this went to Number 1 in Australia (today is all about Australia, I just noticed), you'd be sick of it by now. This definitely has an 80's vibe, although it doesn't sound dated. The vocals....very distinctive....the falsetto reminds me of vintage Prince while on the verses the vocals remind me of Gang Of Four. OK, Prince, Gang Of Four...wow, that's a compliment! In any event, its impossible funky, catchy as fuck and in a better world would be an absolutely massive hit. Um, that ain't happenin', as we have to endure the new record from Ms. Department of Children & Family Services, Britney Spears. More about her later.

K...wanna hear this? Go to http://www.beatport.com/. People keep saying that they wish I put links to the tracks on here. Yeah, really...well I haven't mastered that yet. So go to Beatport (another great site is Bleep) and you get a good minute and a half of the track. If you like it, then buy it from Beatport. It might be on ITunes, but support Bleep or Beatport well before you buy from ITunes.

The mixes, which turn it a bit more electro, a bit more house, rock as well (although the UK is loving the Boris Dlugosch mix, which is too loud for me). Ah, but the original....superior.

Love Is Here To Stay-Chungking & 2Hearts-Kylie Minogue

Cher once said that she knew she made it when drag queens started imitating her. Ya know, an imitation as a form of flattery sort of thing. Well, somebody tell Alison Goldfrapp she's made it.

Chungking's track sounds like an "Ooh La La" knockoff if there ever was one. And let me say, "Oh La La" was easily my least favorite track off of Supernature. (For fuck's sake, give this woman a Bond theme...actually, make her the Bond villian). I tread lightly here, she'll kick my ass. The rest of the Chungking record is pretty good....but this is very derivative. To me, here's whats odd. The song sounds EXACTLY like a Goldfrapp track. Yet, its not interesting. Once its over, you forget it. It should register, right, I mean, if the original registers, the copy should too. But alas, its missing that something. The Kissy Sell Out remix doesn't save it from bugging me either (and his mixes usually can). Not one of the mixes could save "Ooh La La" for me either.

Please don't forward this to Alison Goldfrapp. She's a badass.

Kylie, well, kudos for her for revamping her career and recasting herself in the US (she's always been massive elsewhere, 2nd to Madonna in the UK I think). I mean, "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" was brilliant in its simplicity and the Scissor Sisters-produced "I Believe In You" was remarkable glitter pop. And "Slow", well, terribly underappreciated...sublime and written by Emiliana Torrini, who I love.

So this, well, this is the first single off her new record. The first 4 beats....guess what it reminds me of....yup, "Ooh La La" again. In fact, if this was Name That Tune and I heard only the first 4 beats, I'd think it was Goldfrapp and aforementioned song. I thought "Lose Control" was the first single (leaked to the net), which I like considerably more. In any event, its grown on me. I'd describe it this way, imagine if Alison Goldfrapp had lunch with Marilyn Manson. Not an entire dinner...they didn't hang out for the whole evening, nothing that extensive. Just lunch. And she wrote a song. And gave it to Kylie.

Its grown on me. The bad parts: well, it sounds like Goldfrapp and when something sounds so much like another artist, you compare the vocals as well. Well, Kylie isn't the same kind of singer. I mean, she has a lovely enough voice and the right track brings out the interesting qualities in it. But she's not a singer's singer. However, the good parts. Its fun, short, funky and the "woohoo" parts remind me so much of Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People." Which rocks. Yeah, no seriously! It does rock. That and "The Dope Show" and especially "Disposable Teens" rock. But I digress.

In summation, someone call Alison Goldfrapp. She's got some royalties comin'.

Gimme More-Britney Spears (featuring T.I.)

Despite myself, I like it. However (and this is a big however), there is nothing about this that isn't anonymous. All the great things about the track, the hook, the production...are the product of someone else. They certainly are not Britney.

I am not writing this because she is an easy target. She doesn't annoy me as much as a band like Nickelback, an "alternative" band. I'd take her B-sides over the risible Oasis, for example. But I'll say what I thought the first time I saw her. She is not interesting. She has never been interesting. She's not charming, she's not smart. She brings no personality to her songs--there is no distinctive sound you identify with her.

Sure, there's been some songs I liked. Quite a few, actually, most notably "I'm A Slave 4 U" (which was very much about the production values of the Neptunes). I've always thought she should do more tracks like "Slave"....putting her weak kittenish voice up in front of some dirty electro. That seems to work well. Oh, and I totally dug "Toxic".

Still...doesn't she have a record contract somebody else is supposed to have?

Her ex did it right. Justin Timberlake was never very interesting in N' Sync. Well, N Sync wasn't very interesting. On going solo, he did what Britney did...he began working with brilliant collaborators. However, he also began to show a more personal side to himself. And thats where, in my opinion, his long-lasting career was born. He never seems to take himself too seriously. Its his recognition of his limitations that will be his key to his success. He knows who he is and what he does well. That's smart.

But its Madonna. She's partially to blame for this. That's who Britney certainly wants to be. She wants her icon status, her career, her ability to generate controversy on her own terms. Well, it ain't happenin'. Britney isn't smart. She isn't interesting. Yeah yeah, I know...thats the point...in these ironic post-something times, isn't being a celebrity for no discernible reason interesting in its own rite? Yeah, you know how Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" contained not one actual ironic occurrence? That wasn't intentional, it wasn't ironic. Britney isn't playing with celebrity or her image on her own terms. By year 7 of Madonna's ascendancy to power, she'd pocketed some 40 million from Pepsi for daring to kiss a black Jesus in her "Like A Prayer" video. I mean, at that point, what was left? [An aside: unfortunately what was left was childrens books, the cover of Good Housekeeping and a faux English accent as she became a UK Jew--I give her credit, she's 2 lederhosen away from successfully appropriating every culture known to man). Madonna had done it all by then--for God's sake, she stuck a crucifix in her vagina ON STAGE! In Italy! Britney has never done that. Well, not on purpose. Who knows what happens when that Big Gulp kicks in and the meth hits.

And for all the endless pop culture analysis of her, sweet lord, please stop. I've read articles that suggest that maybe she's not so dumb, not so untalented...a dumb-as-a-fox, dumb-as-George Bush kinda thing. Wishful thinking its called, I think. First she was a vapid teenage queen, now she's just a train wreck that is happening slowly enough for the media to catch every moment of her sad demise. Its another Anna Nicole! There's blood in the water. I think people like her because she makes them feel better about herself. My sister-in-law cannot figure out why she is obsessed with the debacle Britney has become. I tell her its just cause she is breast-feeding. It'll pass.

Madonna got on the cover after "Like A Virgin" had been Number 1 for a couple of weeks. Britney attained that status.....before her first record came out--it was pre-ordained that she was going to be "interesting", that she was going to be successful. Guess what, she is successful, at least in monetary terms. Interesting...yeah, nope.

Oh, the track...."Gimme More"...ah, what to say. Its not bad, actually, pretty good, it is catchy. Like I said, its the kinda dirty electro backdrop that works well with her voice. And it could have been sung by approximately 15 million other people. It could be credited to anonymous and be just as good. Hey, that'd be more interesting! Milli Vanilli wasn't interesting as singers until we discovered it wasn't them. Maybe thats what Britney should do.

You know what. Maybe its like our President...they say you get the President you deserve. I mean, in a culture that has devoted more words than the Bible to the loathsome trash that is Paris Hilton (who is actually famous for doing absolutely nothing), Britney Spears must seem like Joni Mitchell. A sure sign that the 4 Horsement of the Apocalyse are upon us. Who knew they'd be vapid blonde anorexics! Ah, the banality of evil. Thank you Hannah Arendt. That's Miss Arendt, if you're nasty.

Torch Song Trilogy AKA I Am A Lonely Painter

2007-11-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up-Cortney Tidwell

Oft referred to as "country goth", Cortney Tidwell's first record came out last year (there was an EP prior). I've also heard her compared to Liz Fraser (Cocteau Twins), Melanie (by Lee Hazlewood no less) and Bjork. I'll go with Bjork. Not so much because of her vocals. Don't get me wrong...there is a similarity between the two. Cortney Tidwell is not Scandinavian, so she is missing that echoey quality so common in the chanteuses from the snowy regions. The songs do have a country quality, and they do remind me of Bjork...but they don't sound like Bjork. I'll explain it like this. Radiohead and Bjork always remind me of each other. Not because they sound alike, but because they make their way around a song the same way. The same unpredicability in their arraignments...I dunno, I can't explain it. It didn't surprise me a bit to discover Thom Yorke dueting with Bjork on her Dancer In The Dark record.

On this song, its the subject matter that draws the Bjork comparison. This song is about a love affair between an earthbound human and a starstruck alien. Seriously. Its beautiful and heartbreaking and remains one of the most beautiful things I've heard all year. The song builds and actually climaxes...these whoops start coming in at the end. The whole record is a beautiful record and an auspicious debut, but it'd be worth the price of admission for this song alone. When she sings "ooooooohhhhhh" at 2:43 into the song, oh lord, prepare yourself.

Now here's the shocker...their is a better version of the song. However, to appreciate it, you have to listen to the original first. It is, without question, not a song that you would listen to and think "hmmmm, I wonder how a remix of that would sound. A dance remix...". And yet....it happens. Ewan Pearson is the culprit. 2007 is almost done, but I'll tell you right now, this is my remix of the year.

Think of a time when you've been drunk. Not wasted, but warm drunk...you feel warm and happy and you don't care about tomorrow and you love everyone and you are dancing. Now imagine this...there is a disco ball and a beautiful happy vibe-ing crowd and the lights and the music and confetti drops from the ceiling which normally you find cheesy but tonight, oh tonight...its too beautiful for words.

that's what this sounds like. It's a song that you never want to end.

The Park-Feist

At the end of the year, it will be difficult to find someone on more "best of" lists that Feist. She is certainly the flavor of this month. Just a few nights ago, she was on Saturday Night Live as the choice of Brian Williams. His first choice was Bruce Springsteen, Feist was his second. Hey, that's saying something.

I didn't fall for her instantly. First song I heard was "Mushaboom". I liked it, I liked the video...however, at the time, i was like "eh, ok, its great" it was too clever for me. Now, I'd heard her before but didn't know I had heard her. Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It In People...she's on that. I did pick up her last record (Let it Die) and I did like it. That's it....I liked it. I have since gone back (I'm all about her now, after this latest record) and now love it. But at the time, er, ok. She's great and has a great voice but...

Worth the price of admission alone (my analogy of the day) was her cover of "Inside And Out" by the Bee Gees. Bars should be mandated by law to play this as the last song of the night...no, scratch that. The last song to dance to will be Cortney Tidwell. Then is the song you are kicked out of the bar to. Oh, if only I was DJ...

Honestly, its after I heard her latest record that I figured out something about her last record. I felt that on her last record (Let It Die) she held back too much. I wanted to hear more. Make sense?

So her latest is The Reminder. If you are at all into music, you've heard about it. Every reviewer has gushed and gushed and you know what, everyone's right! How often does that happen. Whats interesting is that this record is more stripped down that her past work. And yet...there's way more here. First single, "My Moon, My Man" was a sublime love song....somehow it reminded me of Squeeze (a good association). The remix, by Boyz Noise, also great...basically takes the original and makes Midnight Star sing it. Freak-A-Zoid indeed.

Then the next single, "1234"...well, you've heard it. Oh...don' t think you have. Trust me, you watch TV....you have. The new IPod Nano, this is the song the commercial uses. This kicks the song into the Top 30 on the Billboard chart, a position usually occupied by Carrie Underwood and Hoobastank. And sweet Lord, the crimes against humanity that is Nickelback. The best part is that the song is just a simple love song. And it features a banjo. And some of my favorite lyrics in ages, as in

Those teenage hopes who have tears in their eyes
Too scared to own up to one little lie

But those aren't the best songs on the record. She manages to tackle Nina Simone's "See-Line Woman" (retitled "Sealion Woman" and survive. There are few artists who can stand toe-to-toe with Nina Simone and not look like an idiot. Yet this version does Nina proud.

However, "The Park" is my favorite song. Remember how I said that I wanted more from her last record. I meant I wanted a bit more emotion, a little more gushing. But she's Canadian, where you just wouldn't do that sorta thing, ya know. She's not American, she's not arrogant enough to think that everyone needs to know her every thought and feeling. Are you listening, Alanis? Oh wait, she's Canadian too...

This is just her and her guitar and birds twerping in the background. Initially, its told in the third person...the narrator tells us about a woman who is looking for her former love in a park they used to frequent. But he doesn't show, he doesn't walk through. And Feist chides her for this, asking "why should he come back through the park?" and "Who can be sure of anything through the distance that keeps you from knowing the truth."

Its at the end, the devasting end, where she slips up. That's it, its almost as if she slips up. All her words before are so wise, it simply can't be her. But it is. It's her.

Why would you think your boy could become
The man who could make you sure he was the one?
The one
My one
My one

oh my

A Case Of You-Joni Mitchell

I grew up with folk music...Joan Baez, Boby Dylan, Buffy Saint-Marie, Peter, Paul & Mary. On and on it goes. That and Rumours by Fleetwood Mac and the soundtrack to Shaft and a little Lena Horne. Thats what I remember growing up. My dad would come home from the steel mills and shut of the lights in the living room and lay on the floor and listen to one of his records while my mom would make dinner. Every so often a song would come on which would make my mom walk in and go "oh" and sigh because she loved the song. ("Silver Dagger" by Joan Baez, for example). And I'd go in there and sit with him. In the dark. Its probably where my love of music came from.

Surprisingly enough, my parents missed Joni Mitchell. And I never heard Blue. So I didn't hear this record until I was much older and was a total music dork. I read about it in reviews...its one of 'those' records, like The White Album or Highway 61 Revisited. But I'd never heard it.

The first time I did, I was blown away. Its very honest and clear and every song is beautiful and important. Her voice is angelic and well, the lyrics...its a given that Joni Mitchell is one of the greatest songwriters ever. And interestingly enough, its a folk record. Later the cadences and rhythms on her records would lean more towards jazz. But this is a folk record.

THE song on here, for me, is "A Case Of You". Lyrically its one of the most brilliant records ever written. On the surface, its funny and touching...the refrain is "I can drink a case of you, and still be on my feet, and still be on my feet." Underneath its a bit darker...."I'm frightened by the devil and I'm drawn to the ones who ain't" and "I met a woman, she had a mouth like yours, she knew your life, she knew your devils and your deeds, and she said, go to him, stay with him if you can, but be prepared to bleed." Utterly utterly devasting.

Over the years, Joni Mitchell has smoked her voice away. Gone is the clear folk singer from 30 years ago--on the original she sounds like the young girl she was on Blue. Her voice is much deeper, more world weary...and yet.

Just a few years ago, she released the record Both Sides Now, which consisted of 10 standards and two originals, done with an orchestra. The two originals are the title track and "A Case Of You." I read about it before I bought it...I was so excited but a little afraid...I didn't want this song to be messed up. Well, the first time, the orchestra played, the strings come in....and then her voice. I balled, of course. And yeah, her voice, its Marlboro Red deeper and scratchy and according to some, she can't sing anymore. An assertion I find laughable.

Some people have great voices. But they can't sing a song. They can't make you feel something, they can't break your heart. Ask Celine Dion or Mariah Carey or newly trained Madonna. Or as late, Barbra Streisand. It doesn't sound real, it doesn't sound honest. By striving for perfection, they lose the emotion.

Some people can sing a song. It doesn't matter that their voice is imperfect. They still sing beautifully, because they inhabit the song...the singer and the song fuse. (See Tom Waits and Bob Dylan). That happens on this song.

She retired for 5 years after this record....said she'd never sing again. However, inspired (I think, because of the lyrics) by the state of the world in the George Bush years, she was inspired to write again and recently released Shine. Thank God.

Dare To Be One Of Us, Girl

2007-11-02T15:48:00.000-07:00

The White Flash-Modeselektor

All the sudden Radiohead floods the market...first, with the beautiful groundbreaking (in the way its being sold) In Rainbows. And then, Thom Yorke does this. Modeselektor's new record, Happy Birthday (much acclaimed and very cool) which ranges from weird funky deep hip-hop to electro (push came to shove, I would call them an electro band) to house. And this....frankly, I think I like this better than anything off In Rainbows (and that's saying something). I could bother to describe the song (funky-yet-disjointed skittering beats...it sounds very much like a track off of Amnesiac or Kid A).

Think 4 a.m...drunk, lonely, confused...this is the song you'd play. Its eerie and off-kilter and way more than a little heartbreaking. When he sings "You have all the time in the world..." and then his voice comes back in a very high pitch and sings "hello" while what sounds like a choral backdrop swells, honestly, see, I am doing it again...it stopped me in my tracks and I sat and just listened. Late night whiskey fever dreams...simple and beautiful. Check out http://www.modeselektor.com/

Australia (Peter, Bjorn & John Remix)-The Shins

Yeah, I know. I am so late on this its amazing. I had managed to resist the Shins, just one of those bands I don't "get". Such as The Beatles, Pinback, Spoon, New Pornographers...all great bands...they just don't move me. The Shins were one of those bands...and yeah, I liked Caring Is Creepy off Oh Inverted World (and more famously Garden State)...but anyone can write a great song, right?

Well, I wince, but with Wincing The Night Away I've succumbed. So I am writing this in tribute to my friend Liz, who was always going on and on about this band. She had a shitty day today and hopefully it will help cheer her up to get to say "Hey, see I told you so." In any event, its fun to "discover" a band so late...or in this case, "get them" so late...since now I can go back and listen to older stuff and appreciate it.

This song....just a brilliant pop song with brilliant vocals & funny clever lyrics. OK, yeah, I'm hooked. The remix...well, Peter, Bjorn and John, brilliant writers in their own right who came up with one of the best singles of recent memory with "Young Folks" (with help from Victoria Bergman from the Concretes on that)...this is their remix. Honestly, as far as a "remix"...I think they just made the drums sound more hollow, more tinny...more 60's--like the drums on their own songs. Surprisingly, it improves on the original...they don't do much (and why would you).

So yeah, I totally love this record...and don't even get me going about "Phantom Limb" (I absolutely fall apart and melt at the "whoa, whoa" part)

Oh and Liz...

You know, he's holding you down
With the tips of his fingers just the same
Will you be pulled from the ocean
But just a minute too late....

Chimacum Rain-Linda Perhacs

There's been a slew of previously "lost" folk records remastered and reissued (Karen Dalton, for example). This is off of Parallelograms, the only record Linda Perhacs ever made. Frankly, you could tell me she was the new Joanna Newsom and I'd believe it...it sounds very contemporary (or the new "freak" folk artists sound like her). It also reminds me a bit of early Joni Mitchell as well. The song, well, it's very simple song, rainy day beautiful...sung in her clear direct voice. She is also the only writer I know to use the word "lichen" in a song. The sound of the song its a bit off...spacey, almost eerie in the spots. especially where she multitracks her vocals (listen for "he belongs here, can't have him". In addition, the remastered album has demo versions as well, which don't sound that much different from the the original but are still cool as well.

The Promise-When In Rome

If I was forced to pick my 25 favorite songs from the 80's...here's one. Without question. It doesn't bring back any specific memories, except I do remember when I first heard it. Frankly, I think its stunningly gorgeous...like some lost Human League track, vocals, synth...that piano (sigh). Want 80's romantic...this is the definition of 80's romantic "I'm sorry I'm just thinking of the right words to say, I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be, but if you wait around awhile I'll make you fall for me, I promise you, I promise you" repeat and then "if I had to walk the world and make you fall for me, I promise you, I promise you....I will."

Poor When In Rome, they only had one album...and this one big hit...it peaked at #11 (is there any worse place to peak...maybe #41). Actually, the album itself is pretty great...there are like 9 other songs on it that could have been hits on the radio, if the radio was playing shit like the latest Starship record.

I've found a couple of mixes...official I think...the O.N. Mix and the far superior Coliseum mix. There's also a contemporary mix floating about...the very trance-y Koishii & Hush Do As The Romans Mix which I don't love. First off, I am not a big trance fan--I cannot understand how you dance to it, though I do get the appeal, since it tends to be very circular, like classical music (sorry Benj & Laura). Secondly, I hate remixes where the vocals are sped up to match the track...in this case stripping all the poignancy and yearning out of the best part of the song (that said, even if i heard this version on the dance floor...and I was drunk, i'd be thrilled). And just remember ...

"And when your in doubt, and when your in danger, take a look all around, and I'll be there...

i will...."

You Didn't Stand A Chance

2007-10-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

The Treatment-Dead Disco

Ok...like my favorite song on my ipod right now...i listen to it at least once daily. Think 60's girl-groups, the Go-Go's, a smidgen of Joan Jett, a bit of Bloc Party and dare I say, Blondie. It is one of those songs that would sound amazing coming out of a car radio...in a better world, this would be massive. Incredibly infectious chorus, driving guitars and synth work. Its pop perfection. The Metronomy mix is pretty good, but stick to the original. Dead Disco don't have a full record out as of now, but have a couple of singles that are all pretty awesome, most notably Automatic. You can check them out on their MySpace site or at http://www.deaddisco.co.uk/www/

Fancy Footwork-Chromeo

Speaking of songs that should be hits...this should be massive, especially if you have a boombox. It's so 1985 its astonishing...the song kicks off with a foreboding synth noise, then a funky 80's synth comes in along with a siren (natch). I hate to compare it with anybody from the 80's, since everybody carries a preconceived notion and opinion of many 80's acts....but i will say think "New Song" by Howard Jones having the shit kicked out of him by Cameo while the "Everybody" by Madonna plays in the background (Afrika Bambaataa is the ref). Chromeo pulls off a weird feat...they manage to make the song sound incredibly hip and NYC East Village while at the same time you could play this for somebody and act astonished when they say they don't remember it from the 80's. Two key moments that are MUST HEAR: around 2:10 in the song when the female voice that's been chanting "fancy footwork" gets all cut up and funky and then around 2:30 into the song when the song basically Midnight Stars into the best Cameo riff that Kool & the Gang and the Dazz Band ever wrote. Get the picture....two step, two step.

Cheap dimestore Liz, trying to hide her identity, she's a Yale graduate with a huge student loan debt

2007-10-04T14:30:00.000-07:00

This is kind of an ode to Radio Slave. To me, he is an amazing example of how a remixer (and a remix) can take a song in a totally different direction, change its meaning, flesh it out. Like opening a bottle of wine. Often its to "funk up" a slow or a "non-dance" song. Often this can turn out to be a big surprise, such as "Professional Widow" by Tori Amos or "Tom's Diner" by DNA...two very obvious examples (betcha hadn't thought about those songs in awhile). In the case of "Professional Widow", Armand Van Helden took a very mediocre song and strengthened it. In the case of "Tom's Diner", kudos to Suzanne Vega for stopping her record company from suing and releasing the record instead.

There are many many Radio Slave remixes out there (including a white label, I believe, of "Seven Nation Army" by White Stripes, although I could be wrong about that, but I think it put him on the map) as well as his own productions, which are also very cool. Plus he releases records as Radio Slave and his alter-ego Rekid AND DJ's. Almost without exception, I love everything he touches. But I am chosing the 3 I think best illustrate his talents.

First off, "Baboul Hair Cuttin'" by Agoria. The original...a very cool clanky electro track. Didn't love it...fun once. However, his minimal mix strips down the song to a very dark funky mood and then inserts all sorts of odd noises, most notably a riff from the original song. It has to be heard on earphones or in a club to get the full affect. He certainly makes the song danceable, although your head might feel a bit wonky.

Next up is "Moan" by Trentemoller. Trentemoller is a Danish artist and an amazing remixer in his own right (see "We Share Our Mother's Health" by the Knife). The original is a beautiful downtempo track and features vocals from Ane Trolle, who is without a doubt Scandinavian (I am gonna go with Denmark, second guess: Norway). I think this not only because of her name, but from her voice, which as very echoey distaff quality that I associate with vocalists from that region (Flunk, Emiliana Torrini, Ane Brun, Bjork). In its original incarnation, the song has a very sad and lonely feel to it. She sings about "constantly thinking about you" and seeing "the sunset with no sleep at all." My favorite lyric: "I've listened to all the tunes I love, they make me feel quite blue." [This reminds me of my breakup with my first boyfriend...I kept a tape handy of depressing songs to plug into my walkman anytime I felt my depression actually lifting. Ya know, The Cure, The Smiths, Siouxsie---oh how I swooned to "The Last Beat Of My Heart). To me, this version feels like a breakup song--in both a musical and lyrical sense. And t perfectly highlights the sitting-here-alone quality to Ane Trolle's vocals.

And there is the Radio Slave version. It opens with a minimal pulsing beat and then just builds from there (something I love about his remixes, they keep surprising you 7, 8 minutes in...this mix is over 11 minutes long). Her vocals don't drop in until well over 2 minutes into the song. This mix, uh, er...it doesn't feel like a breakup song at all. This mix perfectly highlights the sexual, softcore side of Ane Trolle's vocals...it feels like a song about infatuation, sexual longing, missing someone. Frankly, it feels like she is doing something to herself. Yeah, she wishes you were there...but she is taking care of business nonetheless...

But to me, THE mix is of Peace Division's "Blacklight Sleaze" which features Pleasant Gehman (I feel there is an inside joke there). The original...a cool track where Pleasant (or Ms. Gayman I mean Gehman) talks about her descent into drugs and prostitution and how her makes it feel. It works...but it doesn't blow me away. And frankly, it feels just a tad gimmicky, in a "oh I'm oh so decadent way."

The Radio Slave mix....OK...you know Jennifer Connelly's character in Requiem For A Dream on the night where she prostitutes herself at a sex party (if you have seen the movie, you know exactly the scene I am talking about). Now picture that character really really fucked up...in Times Square. The song manages to do 2 things beautifully...first off, it pushes her vocals even more to the forefront, almost like she is talking over the song playing behind her. Picture her standing there, burnt out, fuckedup...now picture the scariest music you have ever heard of in a club thomping away in the background. Honestly, it sounds like a fat guy's really deep voice that has been cut-up to make the beats. And then there's all kind of crazy noises swooping in and out of the background. Like some incidental music from Seven crossed with the human sacrifice scene from The Temple of Doom...you know, the drums. All the while Pleasant is tossing out vignettes like "I feel sorry for Stacy, her face looks as though it's been stepped on, and her body is like angel food, almost too beautiful to look at...her boyfriend probably doesn't when he hits her" and then as the bass seems to dive even deeper and the noises coming from your speakers get even more fucked up and scary Pleasant drones "I feel sorry for Babette, with her henna'd Cleopatra hair and her luminous eyes....her adorable accent and her broken English can't hide her drug habit and her predatory nature." OKAY, soooooo....you wanna dance. And it builds...and it builds and then..."sometimes i wonder what i am doing here, but... i like to sleep all day and stay out all night. the idea of a straight job is like the idea of a straight jacket. I like buying clothes, I like eating at expensive restaurants and taking taxis. I'm pretty and smart and sarcastic and selfish and I'm not going to be doing this forever."

And it's that last line...it gets me. You know its not true. She is going to be doing this forever, no matter how smart she is, how sarcastic she is. Kids, they are not going to Moscow, no matter what Irena says.

I would love to hear this in a club (I never have). Anyone paying attention will run crying from the dancefloor, sobbing. Fucking amazing and brilliant.

I Copy And Paste

2007-09-24T15:06:00.000-07:00

Folder-Plastic Operator

Simple beautiful electro-pop. The whole record is gorgeous....very hazy, very autumn, lovelorn. It's definitely has an 80's vibe....it also has a Postal Service vibe, although I think that record was a bit overrated (I think it had two amazing songs and the rest were good). It was hard to pick a favorite on this record. I was torn between 3 songs....Peppermint and Why Don't You? being the other two.

But the lyrics on this one made it the winner. Like most of the songs on this record, the theme of the music is definitely a crush, but you are not always sure if the love is requited. You listen to the song and maybe....but maybe not.

The music on this song is beautiful airy Human League/OMD-esque pop....the best part may be the "oooooohhhhsss" that float along throughout the song.

I just read in a Harpers that teenage love exhibits many of the same symptoms as a mental illness (I am not sure how regular "adult" love differs). In any event, this song gets a crush down...it distills it down and highlights the kind of ridiculous things that happen in a crush. While the anthemic musical chorus flows by, the singer sings "that's why I copy and paste, into your folder, into your folder, with your name....it'd be more than i can take, if i just told you, told you what I feel." Honestly, I can think of few lyrics that so sum up a crush...that so sums up how the dividing line between losing your mind and sense of reason and devotion is negligible.

Its a truly beautiful song. Very hopeful and idealistic, just like a crush. Though just like a crush, where every single move is analyzed, analyzed again and THEN the analysis is analyzed, you are not sure if the hope is justified. The music is upbeat, but yet there is no indication of

I just saw a cartoon in the New Yorker where a woman is looking at her phone and she says "I get the text, but what is the subtext"....this song gets how an obsession intersects with the digital age...where we can communicate in a myriad of ways not possible in the past...but yet still are so far apart, still missing each other.

Don't Blame Your Daughter (Diamonds)-The Cardigans

It can be very very bad to get labeled early on in your career. Ask Cyndi Lauper. "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and "She Bop" and the red hair and Betty Boop voice masked one of the best rock voices going.

Happened to the Cardigans as well....remember "Lovefool"...sure you do, "love me, love me, say that you love me". Sure you do? And the ensuing video, featuring an ultra-blonde and beautiful Nina Persson cooing along to the sunny lyrics. That song and video forever casts the Cardigans as this sunny light-as-air pop band. Which was a huge huge mistake.

This is one of those songs that sounds like a hit the moment you hear it. If Sheryl Crow sang this, it would be. Its has a vaguely country rock sound with pointed "you fucked me over" lyrics that are very very sly and yet still devastating. This isn't a 'please come back song'. This is a song about trying to figure out what went wrong with a relationship with somebody that you know is an asshole. Yet there is still some residual feeling...love, anger, both?

Nina Persson's voice has aged wonderful...its still very pretty but has a slight Marlboro light edge to it. All the better to deliver lines like "Leave me your tombstone, tell me your sorry, fax me your will, you owe something still."

She delivers "you owe me something still" with the slyest, sexiest and most derisive tone possible.

I just listened to the song again. Actually, this guy isn't just an asshole. He's a spineless wimp. It adds another layer to the song...how the woman that sings and writes these lyrics would ever love somebody like this. Good thing she did, cause we got this.

no, not sorbet, sherbert

2007-09-03T12:22:00.000-07:00

I Love Your Smile-Shanice

i decided to write a little about the 80's...that's the decade where i discovered music (this song might be 90's, but its on the edge). This song is pure sugar. Its like those pixie sticks. Or when i went to swim meets and people were eating raw flavored jello with their fingers out of the box for "energy." Or maybe even better, like orange sherbet. Its a sweet little confection...a little toothache waiting to happen. I think Shanice's career lasted the entire 4:19 of the song, but no matter. Its a great 4:19.

I mean, i love your smile, is there a sweeter sentiment than that? The songs has some great moments (um, its best to not speak of the rap, i just act like that part doesn't exist). First off, everytime she sings "smile" you smile (although at the end she says "psyche" which always makes me think she's fucking with some poor dorky kid but i think thats reading way way WAY too much into it).

And of course, the songs opening "da da da" is adorable.

Hands down best moment...i call it the Nobel Prize in Literature moment features this lyrical couplet:

The clock at work says three
and i wanna be free
free to scream, free to bathe, free to paint
my toes all day

[right here i have to jump in and just say "Um, what the fuck. You can't BATHE?". Someone call OSHA]

My boss is lame you know, and so is the pay

and then, the moment

I'm gonna put that new black mini on my charge anyways.

So in other words, so i can't bathe and i am oppressed at work and not allowed to scream (??), it all comes down to a skirt

Whoever wrote that should go to heaven. its brilliant in an insane way they never need to write anything again. And quite honestly, they never never should.

i heard a spark, something that glowed...

2007-09-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, i am kinda dedicating this to a friend of mine. One of the few friends who actually gave me a mix CD back (and is a big advocate of my mixtapes to others, which is way important to my closeted DJ aspirations). These are two songs i heard first via his influence.

Spark...The Bird & The Bee
I am not in total love with this band. Their big song, their hit, is "My Fucking Boyfriend", which, though cute, kinda grates. The Peaches mix was cool, but I found it a bit disposable (i know, that sounds bitchy). However, I don't think that's the song I'd play to get people into them. Its this song. Its sung beautifully, very clear and straightforward. The singer is basically talking about feeling better about herself, about slowing down her life and enjoying the beauty around it. Its a very simple song and all the better for it. And for some reason it reminds me of "The Way Old Friends Do" by ABBA. Yeah, i don't know why...all i know is that i love it when she sings "I open my eyes, when there is light, to see if i am closer, what if i stopped, just for awhile, to make it go slower. Still like the night, just for awhile, to see if i am finer...live like i'm finer." Gets me.

Sometimes....James
This song was actually on the mix CD that my friend made. Although I had was familiar with James (the most recognizable songs being "Sit Down" and "Laid", which everyone has heard. Two interesting facts about "Laid": it was their only chart hit in the United States [they had like 20 in the UK] AND i always confuse it with Robyn Hitchcock "So You Think You're In Love". Its a great song with great lyrics, very sexy).

But "Sometimes" was only a minor hit in the UK (i think it hit like #18). To me, its the ultimate mixtape song--it just jumps out, stands out--you stop whatever you are doing to listen and bask in the moment. From the get go, its immediate..its all about a torrential rainstorm and being in love and being in a moment. "There's a storm outside and the gap between crack and thunder...is closing in, is closing in." And at the chorus, the song just takes off...he sings "cmon thunder, cmon thunder" and the guitars lift and he sings "sometimes, when i look deep into your eyes, i can see your soul."

but the part that gets me (and i mean GETS ME, i can listen to this song over and over and over) comes later. He sings "there's four new colors in the rainbow, and an old man's taking polaroids, and all captures is endless rain, endless rain" And then the imagery gets Dali "He says, takes my head and puts my ear to his and i swear i can hear the sea."

And then the song literally bursts open with the chorus featuring (are you ready for this) a key change and oh my god is that a fucking choir. Yup, it is. And he just keeps singing ...i can see your soul...i can touch your soul...i can reach your soul."

Its like one of the hottest most beautiful songs in the world. i fucking love it. i've made my friend like 50 mix cd's, he's made me 1. for this song, its the fairest trade in the world. Whats it really about...to me, its about kissing somebody you love in the rain and wanting it to never never end.

Perfect perfect perfect

2007-08-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

Smoke & Mirrors & The Book Of Love-Tracey Thorn

I have always loved Tracey Thorn's voice. To me, her voice is very understated...it has a hint of sadness and melancholy and manages to convey more emotion in one song that Mariah has mustered in a career. Her lyrics, both solo and with Everything But The Girl, tend towards the somewhat ambiguous. Case in point: "Missing". I think alot of people think of that song as a love song, and it is...sort of. But on the refrain "...and i miss you, like the deserts miss the rain"--to me, this is a double-edged metaphor. I get this image of her being out late at night walking, trying to figure out how much she needs this person in her life. Or how much of this person she wants in her life. I mean, on one hand, its hyper romantic, what is more satiating to a desert than rain. However (and a big however), deserts do just fine without rain for months at a time. They survive. Maybe she didn't intend that to be the interpretation...but to me, it adds yet another layer to the song. Maybe I want this person in my life, but in small doses.

Tracey, like Dusty Springfield or Astrud Gilberto (two singers she reminds me of), is one of those voices that you want to hear cover stuff--acoustic, standards. And that rarely happens...but when it does (Tougher Than The Rest on the Everything But The Girl record "Acoustic" is a must hear...she takes a decent Bruce Springsteen song and sings it like a standard). And, honestly, if i had to pick a songwriter for her to cover, I would have many choices. But i know one of them would be Stephen Merritt and the Magnetic Fields.

So imagine my joy when i discovered not one but two Magnetic Fields covers on the flipside to "Raise The Roof"--"Smoke & Mirrors" and "The Book Of Love". And they are everything you'd hope they would be...even the instrumentation is similar to the original records, low-key, droll electro. Frankly, she has a perfect voice for Merritt's droll musings--this should happen again.

Smoke & Mirrors is a beautiful and reflective song..."smoke & mirrors, special effects, a little fear, a little sex, that's all that is, behind the tears."...but it is Book Of Love that really stands out. I mean, if you haven't heard the original (and why would you NOT own 69 Love Songs). When she sings the refrain "I love it when you read to me, you can read me anything" it illustrates that sometimes the simplest way of saying something is the best way. And the lyrics...."the book of love has music in it, some of it is transcendental, some of it is just really dumb." And when you hear Tracey singing these songs, those lyrics make total and complete sense.

Agnetha's legacy (aka Attack Of The Swedes)

2007-05-31T17:44:00.000-07:00

At some point, I will have to write about ABBA. They were the first band i ever got into...i was like 10 or 11. Back then, the fact that they were Swedish was a novelty. Now, being Swedish is no big deal...there's is a virtual Scandinavian invasion afoot. So Attack Of The Swedes, here we go

With Every Heartbeat-Robyn
You might remember Robyn from a few years back. She was this short Swedish chick with a Pink-esque look and had some minor hits (i think they both hit the Top 40) with Show Me Love and Do You Know What It Takes. Catchy tunes, yes...but kinda blended into the pop/r&b landscape (although i actually liked the former). And then she disappeared.

Well lo and behold, she's back. Now older, Robyn left the major labels and puts out her own music, using the web and MySpace to promote her music. She was linked up with Max Martin (future Britney Spears svengali) and was irritated that she lost control of her music. So she bailed. Kinda cool. I read about her on another blog...she had a song out last year (although the album is just out in the UK) called Be Mine. Insanely catchy, it should have been an enormous hit. Over skittering beats and massive strings, it's all angst and girlish tears (it opens with the fabulous line "it's a good thing tears never show in the pouring rain"...basically she sees her ex-boyfriend with another girl. It all features a fantastic spoken word interlude about the scarf that she gave him and the new girl. Honestly, shoulda been huge. Maybe still will...who knows.

Two other songs worth nothing hit the web. Robotboy (also great pop) and Konichiwa Bitches, which is about 2 minutes long in its original version and featuring a much lauded Trentemoller mix. Both good....

but this....simply gorgeous. Again, it's pop. But its brilliant. It's on the cd as well as being out on a single where its credited to Kleerup featuring Robyn. In any event, she opens the song singing
about how she and her love should keep working

maybe we can make it alright
we could better sometime
maybe we can make it happen baby
we could keep trying....

and then, in a moment that i can only call a "Joy Division" moment (i know sacrilege) the song literally sounds like it is lifting up...she sings...."but things will never change, so i don't look back, still i am dyin' with every step i take." And then the beat comes in. And thats it...she just walks away while the song goes on to talk about why the relationship will never ever work and how it hurts "with every heartbeat." Its a beautiful sad song. It reminds me of If You Leave by OMD, I am sure because of the subject matter and the phrase "If you leave, don't look back." Maybe its the companion piece or its her answer. But it has that same feel...surely one of the more beautiful melancholy Number 1's of the 80's. Please seek out this song...its wonderful and charming and cool.

Anyways, you can check it out on www.juno.co.uk or on www.beatport.com or on her website,http://www.robyn.com/index.html and you can check out some of the other songs i mentioned on her myspace site, http://www.myspace.com/robynmyspace

Lose You-Linda Sundblad

Another Swede and another MySpace denizen (http://myspace.com/lindasundblad), where i ran into her. This is a song that you could easily imagine hearing on the radio. It definitely sounds a bit like some of the better selections from Sheryl Crow...it has that casual rock-chick feel. Also, its very summer. Honestly, it reminds me a bit of the 70's...very Fleetwood Mac...i don't know, the chords or the organ sound.

Keeping with the blonde, gorgeous yet dark & melancholic Swedish vein, the song starts out all casual about meeting a boy

Pounding heart on a Saturday night sneaking peeks down my velvet skirt cutie talk not to witty or bright but your beauty was the kind that could hurt l could tell from the look in your eyes l was trigging your insanity l just knew l could see it that...

and then the song goes from a pensive meeting to a much darker and twisted place

...i would lose you, i would lose you from the start

Very Bergman, if you ask me.

Sit Down-Flunk

Ok. Not Swedish. Nobody knows this band. I think like 4 people outside of Norway (1 is me, 1 is Carlos). It's a shame. At the risk of labeling them with an adjective often considered bad, they are often lumped into the chillout genre. I consider them soul music, really.

This is their new single. It's beautiful, pensive, kinda sad sounding. Very late night. Very glass of red wine...you can check it out here....http://flunkmusic.com/personale/

but what i really want to write about is this song

On My Balcony-Flunk

3 minutes and 10 seconds of sexy sexy sexy. Has a vague hip-hop beat and a funky guitar. And that's kinda it, save the languid vocals of Anya Oyen Vister. Anya has a very Scandinavian voice...its hard to explain, but she has that chilly/warm combo that you hear in many artists from that area.

Like i said, the song is very sensual...i'd even say erotic, although not explicit in any sense.

Here comes summer
Beaming in through my bedroom window
There´s a song on the radio
You used to hum back then
Here comes summer
Still feels fresh as morning air
Today I'll just stay here
And do, well, whatever
I´ll do whatever
Please, make summer last forever
All I wanna do
Is sit here on my balcony
And think about you and me
And how happy we could be

And thats kinda it. From my perspective, the song is kinda ambiguous. You don't really know if they will be happy, i guess. However, its hopefully, not only in the tone, but i get this image of her on her balcony in the early morning, maybe her lover is still sleeping. Its early, both literally and in the relationship, and she's hopeful that it will always stay just like this. Summer as a metaphor for the beginning part of every relationship, before things get tough (and sometimes end...Linda Sundblad knows its gonna end right from the start)

go to Beatport, type in Flunk and then go to the album Morning Star....you can hear it there. Sexy sexy sexy, i swear.

Wasted & wounded, it ain't what the moon did

2007-05-18T09:48:00.001-07:00

First off, a brief review of Sting's career trajectory. He starts off in the Police and gives us many a good tune, most notably my favs Spirits In The Material World, Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic and the oft-misunderstood creep out Every Breath You Take (its not a wedding song). Then he goes solo. We get some fairly decent songs, one beautiful song (Fragile) and two good records, The Dream Of The Blue Turtles and Nothing Like The Sun. And then the man that gave me one of my first gay "moments" (when he takes his shirt off in the video for Don't Stand So Close To Me, i was 10 or 11 and lost my proverbial shit) goes horribly horribly wrong. Fields Of Gold anyone...his career turns into The Worst Of Adult Contemporary, fighting it out with Savage Garden and Celine. And need i remind you of the risible disaster/embarassment of All For One from the Three Musketeers movie. Your critical career is officially over when you record a duet with either Rod Stewart or Bryan Adams. But when you record a song as a trio (get it??) with both, critically, you are the equivalent of Yanni.

Proving everyone wrong who predicted he could not get more pretentious after 2005's "My Funny Valentine: Sting At The Movies", Sting's latest "opus" is "Songs From The Labyrinth", which are madrigals from the 15th century...on a lute. This from a man who sang "Roxanne". Someone shoot him.

Enough ranting...

Don't You Want Me...The Human League

OK...today is about watershed moments for me. This was one.

I grew up in NW Indiana in the 80's. AKA, to anyone that knows the area, it's The Region. Its right up there on the lake and pretty much influenced by Chicago radio, TV and politics. Its a whole lot of strip malls and suburbs and of course the steel mills, Gary and Michael Jackson. I lived in Crown Point, which at the time was the border town between The Region and row after row of corn (the 4-H kids from the town to the south of us, Lowell, actually bragged about being in 4-H). There wasn't much to do...basically we'd just drive back and forth between Burger King and McDonalds and the Southlake Mall and occasionally get drunk on whatever liquor we could steal out of our parents liquor cabinet (I have thrown up ever flavor of Schnapps known to man). Likewise, there were not alot of options for a junior highschool music-wise...the radio basically played Air Supply, Olivia Newton-John and Kansas. Plus country music. It was rough.

But then this song. I remember hearing it for the first time. The instant driving beat, entirely electronic and cool. The fey, romantic vocals. Well, and of course, the line. I wanted to work as a waitress in a cocktail bar. That much IS true. I immediately rode by bike to the courthouse and went the local record store there and bought the 45. Every night, in the dark, i would listen to the song and dance around my room. It was my first introduction to a totally new sound, something totally different. And it caused divisions...if people knew you liked that song, you were a fag or a sissy. Because Phil Oakey wore eyeliner. This, of course, from people who liked Kiss.

Lest you think i instantly became cool and all new wave, around this time my best friend Angie and I were at her pool one night and instead of getting drunk or smoking Capri's, we actually pretended we were dolphins and tried to communicate underwater by "squeaking". We were like 15. We rebounded, we both made prom court. Neither of us won, but rumor is, i was cheated by a vote counting scandal. Angie just lost. That much is true.

Tom Traubert's Blues (Three Sheets To The Wind In Copenhagen)-Tom Waits

This is off of 1976's Small Change album. This is from the pre-experimental days, much more of a piano and voice album that his 90's work. Its no less brilliant because of it...and his voice, well, even back then it sounds like a nothing else out there. Reviews always compare him to a Foghorn...i always thinks he sounds like what any deep voice would like after 8 whiskeys, numerous shots and a pack of Marlboro Red cigarettes, unfiltered. The whole album is brilliant, sad and often, fucking hilarious, most notably on "Pasties And A G-String" and "The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)". But this song...its one of my favorite of all a time...and there is a story about it.

Prior to hearing this song on a mixtape in '93, i had heard Tom Waits only once. My first encounter with him was on "Stay Awake" which was a very cool compilation of Disney tunes covered by different artists. Yma Sumac, Betty Horn, Sinead O'Connor, Natalie Merchant & Michael Stipe doing "April Showers" and perhaps most notably, Sun Ra and His Arkestra doing "Pink Elephants On Parade." Well, Tom is on this...doing Heigh Ho from Snow White. His version, well, what can you say. It doesn't sound like the Disney version, like they are happy and cheerful to be working in the mines. They sound sad and impossibly tired and maybe not so happy about being picked on and that there is some strange woman living as a freeloader in their house. I hated it. From the get go. I thought "this man cannot sing...he's torturing this song."

So its 1993 and i am working at this horrible car dealership fresh out of college, where i was, well, let's just say, unimpressive with my 2.6 and my 4 D last semester. Shocking that nobody would hire me except Enterprise rent-a-car. I was living in this dismal lonely basically uninhabited building on Montrose & Sheridan...i actually rented it because you could see the lake (uh yeah, for about 4 inches of the 8 foot view). Idiot i was. A guy i worked with made me a mixtape of cool stuff and put this song on and i was listening to it in the car. My reaction was one of complete revulsion. Again, that "oh my god, what is he singing...that voice." I hated it and turned it off. He was the worst singer i'd ever heard.

So i was working as a bouncer at Roscoe's...the Friday and Saturday shifts til 3. And dating this guy Dan, who i guess i really liked (or really liked the thought of liking him, not so sure which). And he came into work, while i was at the door, and broke up with me. In like 3 minutes. Casually, as if he was meeting me later or just saying hi. And left. And i worked the last 2-3 hours in a total haze. And of course, as all late-night workers do, i went out for drinks til 4:30. And got drunk. Sad and lonely, i walk outside, only to discover i have no money for a cab. So i decide i'll walk home.

That fateful walk. I often wonder if i would have ever discovered Tom Waits had it not been for that night, the liquor, that old boyfriend. It is a pivotal moment in my life in that i realize how much music means to me and how it can chance your perspective on things; how it serves as a touchstone on events that happened to you...its your soundtrack. It was raining, drizzling...and cold. So i put my headphones on, pressed play, and began to walk. I don't remember what was on first but it didnt matter. And on comes this song...the piano begins to play, the strings begin and on comes Tom.

His first lines, well, they made me really really listen. "Wasted and wounded, it ain't what the moon did". It literally stopped me in my tracks. The song is basically about a breakup, about a woman that left him, tormented and sad, wandering the streets at night. And lyrically it shows why Tom Waits is an American treasure (an overused compliment, to be sure)....singularly genius in his own perspective. Many of his songs have characters that could be in a Diane Arbus picture. Or Edward Hopper's paintings. Often you are catching somebody at a very vulnerable moment. Anyways, i digress.

I could quote the whole song...but you should hear it sung first. If i wrote this song, and never another, i'd think, on my deathbed, i'm a genius. Two examples:

I begged you to stab me, you tore my shirt open
And I'm down on my knees tonight
Old Bushmill's I staggered, you'd bury the dagger
In your silhouette window light go

No, I don't want your sympathy, the fugitives say
That the streets aren't for dreaming now
And manslaughter dragnets and the ghosts that sell memories,
They want a piece of the action anyhow

Ok...how do i describe this...how do you write about brilliant writing. You can't.

But its the refrain that got me. Anyone that has heard this song, and particularly if they love this song, doesn't know it by the title or "Three Sheets To The Wind In Copenhagen". They know it by "Waltzing Matilda", the national song of Australia, which ends every verse. Every time he sings it, the music swells a little bit, your hopes rise a little bit, maybe she'll come back. But she won't...because you can hear it in his voice.

Me. Ok, by this point before the ending i am soaking wet, sobbing and drunk and i now believe that Tom Waits is not the worst singer in the world, but the best singer in the world. I had been converted. In other words, i "got" him.

It's a 7 minute song of quiet devastation...a song of complete and utter sadness that so sums up the mixture of love and loss that goes with a breakup. It's not that you hate the person...that'd be easy. Whatever your feelings, you know they will never be in your life in that capacity again. Completely and utterly earth-shattering brilliance.

And it ends.

And it's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace
And a wound that will never heal
No prima donna, the perfume is on an
Old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey
And goodnight to the street sweepers, the night watchmen flame keepers
And goodnight to Mathilda, too

Strings out.
Fucking Christ

Quietly, I drop my weight into your sea, I drop my anchor

2007-05-16T08:23:00.000-07:00

Silently...Blonde Redhead

I've read reviews of the last two Blonde Redhead albums, 23 and Misery Is A Butterfly, which although great, bemoan the fact that they have moved away from their earlier Sonic Youthisms. Fair enough, although Sonic Youth also moved away from their early Sonic Youthisms. In any event, Blonde Redhead has grown massively as a band...they seem more confident venturing into different styles with each new record. And the vocals of Kazu Makino have grown stronger yet more shimmering (i always think she sings like the Cocteau Twins sound....she doesn't sing like Elizabeth Fraser, her voice just reminds me of their sound).

Ok..the whole record is great, one of their best (and maybe after a couple of listens, their best). However, this song....Silently. First of all, it opens with the most beautiful lines i've heard in ages

Silently, I wish to sail into your port, I am your sailor
Quietly, I drop my weight into your sea, I drop my anchor
I sway in your waves, I sing in your sleep
I stay till I'm in your life

The song has a very 80's feel to me....in an OMD-filtered-through-the-Flaming Lips Yoshimi record kind of way. Its hard for me to really put an exact time on the song, but it sounds like some lost gem from 1985 and has drums and uber-cool handclaps that remind me of Talking Loud And Clear by OMD, which is lovely. It's a gorgeous gem, and i won't bother saying it would sound great coming out of the radio, cause radio would never play it and i never listen to radio. It would sound great sitting at the beach or better yet, coming out of a car radio while you drive on a warm summer night. Or EVEN better yet, coming out of your car radio at night while you are parked at the beach. Making out. Yeah, its that good.

i will miss your heart so tender

2007-05-15T18:32:00.000-07:00

Good Woman-Cat Power
I fucking swear this song was recorded at 3 am in some shoddy cold studio. I think maybe Cat Power was out drinking, getting really fucked up, and she came in and sang this, her voice breaking apart in spots from cigarettes, liquor and pain. The lyrics are heartwrenching...she's basically telling someone that for her to be a good woman, and him a good man, she has to leave him. First time i heard this song, i was walking home at night in NY in a cold cold rain. It wasnt even late...probably just after work, but winter, dark. From the bus to the front door of my apartment, its probably the length of this song. By my front door, i was practically sobbing. Its hard to pick your favorite Cat Power song...but this, well, this is mine.

Cool shit from Bpitch

2007-05-15T18:16:00.000-07:00

Arcadia-Apparat

I think Apparat is/are German...i know they are off of Ellen Allien's Bpitch label. I heard this song at the end of the mix and it kinda slayed me. I think it would be a perfect song to hear at 4 AM on the dancefloor. It starts off with a odd loping beat....sounding somewhat like a Bjork track. Then a voice very similar to Thom Yorke of Radiohead comes in, although more in his falsetto range. If i was having a perfect night out, this would be a perfect end track. It'd definitely make you all starry-eyed and ready to kiss the nearest person, as it is so romantic and lush to be embarassing. In some ways, it reminds me of an updated "Boys Don't Cry" or some other romantic lush classic from the 80's.

just one more alias for Emil Svanängen

2007-03-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

Sinister/State Of Hope-Loney, Dear

Like most music fanatics, i am always searching for new sounds and bands. When i talk music with other people, though, i am often never surprised by the artist they believe they are introducing. As in the statement "have you heard of..." i often have. About 90% of the time, i've at least heard of the band or artists...through word-of-mouth or blogs or magazines. In any event, Loney, Dear was somebody i'd never heard or read about. Even more surprisingly, since i am such a Scandinavianophile; Loney, Dear (actually one man named Emil Svanängen) is from Sweden. So i asked my friend Liz to send me a copy of the CD.

Ever been in a really bad dour mood and then just hear a song which is so transcendent that it lifts your spirits? It can be a song you know really well or one you've never heard before. From the opening moments of "Sinister/State of Hope" my previously dark mood was lifted. Svanangen has an astonishingly beautiful voice--definitely a Scandinavian sound to it. As soon as he started singing on this track, i thought "sigur ros". That is only a good thing. His voice actually is somewhere between sigur ros and the Norwegian singer Evan Johanesen (Magnet). The lyrics are very simple and made me think of some existential late night crisis...a period of swinging between incredible doubt and great hope. And when he sings "when all i want, all i want, is a state of hope, with all i want summer night, and i didn't hope, for something i couldn't have. you turn me down" is heartwrenching. So gorgeous.

It's All True-Tracey Thorn

2007-03-15T06:34:00.000-07:00

This is a new single from Tracey Thorn, of Everything But The Girl. EBTG have not broken up....apparently this is just a solo venture while he runs his record label and DJ's and produces.
Sometime in the mid 80's, Chicago got a new radio station, WNUA. WNUA introduced me to the horrors of the word "smooth jazz." It is, unfortunately, the first place i ever heard David Sanborn or Andreas Vollenweider or Kenny G. It is, interestingly enough, the first place i ever heard Everything But The Girl. EBTG were a band that had a hard time getting airplay in the United States. They did have a jazzy side to them, although i would argue (and frankly, i think correctly) that their are as much influenced by Brazilian bossa nova and Jobim as they are English pop. Not only with the arraignments, but with Tracey's voice, which has this lilting melancholic understated quality to it. But they never really fit in for radio...they certainly were not "alternative" enough for college/alternative radio. But i fell for them when i first heard "I Always Was Your Girl", which is a beautiful song. I became a huge fan and went back and purchased their whole back catalog. When they transitioned to dance, i went with them...i had the "Missing" single about a year before it went to #2 in the US.

My only complaint: they wait too long between CD's....so i am thrilled that Tracey is releasing a new single.

In any event, its great. It has a quirky somewhat 80's electro vibe to it...its a great spring/early summer. And the vocals are sublime. I haven't heard the whole CD yet (today, tomorrow) but can't wait. Also great are the remixes, most notably the Escort and Martin Buttrich remixes.

Spent Time

2007-02-17T16:05:00.000-08:00

Spent Time....Durutti Column

Durutti Column is a weird band. People who know them dig them in a big way. Most people do not know them. I don't think they ever had a hit. To me they make me think of 4AD and the Cocteau Twins, as most of their songs are instrumentals and bear some resemblance to what solo guitar works by Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins would sound like (although i know that Robin Guthrie has recorded solo guitar works and i have never heard them).

Anyways, this song is a perfect mixtape song. On its own, it might not impress or overwhelm. But in the middle of a mix, its perfect. Its very subtle, vaguely sad. And very echoey. Quite beautiful, in a very minor-key way. The guitar instrumental leads in a long way before the vocals come in, its very beautiful throughout. Definitely worth hearing and checking out.

2007-02-17T15:30:00.000-08:00

Rej...Âme

If you have heard this track, and you should have...you'll know. Its also possible you have heard it and freaked out to it already. Sound weird...no seriously, if you ever go out and dance, there's a chance. And if you don't....you need to hear this soon. But honestly, the best way to hear it is loud and on a dancefloor.

Every so often, a track comes along that every DJ plays. It could be something that charts on the pop charts, such as "Finally" by CeCe Peniston. Or something obscure. Like this. I think Âme are from France. This track falls into the whole European minimal techno thing. I am sure it started out with just a couple of DJ's and went from there. Exploded. Became huge.

Funny story. So i go to Fire Island this summer with my friend Bryan. We are hanging out on the beach having fashion conversation after fashion conversation. Now, i like fashion. But this was way out of my league. So i kinda zoned out and was reading a dance music magazine. Somebody asked me what i was reading and i told them. And they started talking about music. So i pontificated a bit on this track...i said its weird when a song becomes universal, how everybody knows it and it becomes massive, all from this small little starting point. And i talk about "Rej", which i was listening to at the time. And everybody zones out, gets bored. Flash forward: we are getting ready for going out. And i put on a mix CD i burned. All sorts of cool tracks of course :) including this one. So everyone is into it but getting ready....people are in the bathroom, gettting dressed, hanging out. And "Rej" comes on. My friend Bryan goes nuts...he comes out of the bathroom totally naked and says "what is this" while dancing. The other two guys...everyone in the house was floored in some way. Its that track. Its the track that some dork like me would go out of his way to download in last summer that some girl from Jersey is asking the DJ about in a Bridge & Tunnel club as we speak. Its that much of a uniter.

What does it sound like. Well, it proves the maxim "alot with a little." My boyfriend said is sounded like a much cooler version of "Nightmare." Its minimal i guess, although its impact is far from that. Maybe a dance party at a haunted house. Or heat lightning. Or heady drugs. Let me say this. You must hear it. Its massive.

Where she keeps a tangerine

2007-01-29T18:36:00.000-08:00

So it didn't take me too long to get around to mentioning Sheena Easton again. Say what you will, but she got me into music. First album i ever bought. Just fell in love with "Morning Train" How my parents never knew is beyond me.

Now, interesting fact. That song hit #1 in the US, but NOT in the UK. Sheena only had one number 1 in the uk...the followup, Modern Girl (which peaked at like #19). I loved this song--i thought it was a little hipper (!!!!) than Morning Train. OK, i didnt think that then. I think it now? Ok, its not hip. I embarass myself and digress.

Can i just reference the lyrics?

He wakes and says hello, turns on the breakfast show
She fixes coffee while he takes a shower
Hey that was great, he said, I wish we could stay in bed

But I got to be at work in less than an hour
She manages a smile as he walks out the door
She's a modern girl who's been though this movie before

Chorus:She don't build her world 'round no single man
But she's gettin' by, doin' what she can
She is free to be, what she wants to be'
N all what she wants to be, is a modern girl
Na na na na na, na na na na na, na na na na na, she's a modern girl

It looks like rain again, she takes a train again
She's on her way again through London town
Where she keeps a tangerine, flicks through a magazine
Until it's time to leave her dreams on the underground
She walks to the office like everyone else
An independent lady, takin' care of herself

chorus: She's been dreaming 'bout it all day long
As soon as she gets home, it's him on the telephone
He asks her to dinner, she says I'm not free
Tonight I'm going to stay at home and watch my TV
I don't build my world 'round no single man
But I'm gettin' by, doin' what I canI am free to be, what I want to be
'N all what I want to be, is a modern girl
Na na na na na, na na na na na, na na na na na, she's a modern girl
Na na na na na, na na na na na, na na na na na, she's a modern girl

OK does that not rock or what. Don't you love the sexually blase beginning. Folks, this was 1981!!!! If this ain't a feminist anthem, what is. Its Sleater-Kinney as a Scottish lass! She doesn't want to hang out with her man...TV is enough!

Sheena sings it very straightforward, not surprising. Its very i'm-gonna-make-it and all.

As i grew older and hipper and cooler and more ashamed of my love for Sheena Easton, i began to rationalize "you know, that's actually a cool song, if only somebody would record it for a cool TV show." Is it so not Bridget Jones diary or Sex In The City?

Enter Camera Obscura. Yup! Why am i not running a label (LOL...haven't you heard the Camera Obscura version on the radio...oh wait, that's why!). This band i will forever love for recording this song. They get it!

Interestingly, some 25 years later, the songs lyrics sound different, especially sung by Camera Obscura. Sheena sings this song like its an anthem, an incantation. Hell, she was 20 and it was the early 80's....all faux Thatcher/Reagan economic optimism. She shoulds like she is going to march in and start at secretary and poof! within years, she's the CEO. So 80's.

Tracyanne Campbell sings it very differently. There is something sad about the way the lyrics sound with her. Its basically a totally different interpretation of the lyrics. Her Modern Girl sounds like somebody whose done this time and time again, and isn't really believing that this or any job will amount to much for her. She might be waiting for a guy to come around. Or she might not. Even if he does, i don't think she's so sure he'll work out to be such a prince. Basically , she's happy about going out for drinks with the girls. That she is sure of.

Basically, the tangerine takes on ALOT more significance.

Revenge Of The Slits

2007-01-29T18:22:00.000-08:00

Same Old Song-Tulipomania

I don't know a damn thing about this band. This is a grimey bluesy song that makes me want to know a whole hell of a lot more. I love ramshackle songs that barely hold themselves together. That's this song. Somewhat funky, but again, in a sort of non-committal away (its like a tentative kiss).

Earthbeat-The Slits

And they are back! After some 25 years...what are they now, say 30. They were like 12 when the first record came out. This is mature, but not in a VH-1 behind the music way. It sounds like you think the Slits would sound after 25 years. I want to hear the CD...now. This track: imagine if the original lineup of Bananarama was abducted by the natives in the King Kong film...then released a record. Now imagine that as a VERY GOOD THING. There you go...genius.

If you don't know who they are, you should be embarassed. And not mildly. Where there are the Slits, you will find the Go-Go's. And Bananarama. But not the Spice Girls.

Take Care, O Pilgrim-Inch Time

One of those tracks i just cannot describe. So somebody is fucking around on synths....with some vaguely hip-hop track playing. And somebody else keeps pressing some alarm and buzzer. And then your friend comes over and starts fucking around on his sax. And it all works. Beyond-the-wicked of cool, yet vaguely menacing.

The Light-White Magic

After hearing/reading so much about White Magic in the last 3-4 weeks, via papers and reviews, i finally got to hear something. Apparently you can lump them in with Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom and new folk. i am fairly dubious of that whole category to begin with (not necessarily the artists, both examples i like, but the whole category). This is the Siouxsie Sioux of folk, which must be an oxymoron. All i have to say about White Magic track is this...think of some 8 year old playing a very simple piano track while his piano teacher, who is secretly a witch, starts doing incantations. That about sums it up...hey, actually my Siouxsie Sioux reference was not bad. Hear more.

2007-01-29T18:15:00.000-08:00

Blitzkreig Bop-The Ramones

It's my favorite Ramones song. As often is the case with me, its the first song i ever heard by them. I love the way they sing the word Bop. Brilliance in simplicity. Favorite Ramones song. nothing more to say.

Cheree-Suicide

Is there some kind of award we can give this guy. This shit was so ahead of its time, its remarkable. This song is actually very beautiful, which is not always true about other Suicide tracks. Well, they may be pretty, but they generally tend to be eerie. Like if you read the lyrics, you'd think "oh, he likes that girl" and then you hear it and you think "ok, he's going to kill and eat her."

wait...sorry, i just turned it on while i was writing. I was right, but wrong about this song. This song is fucking beautiful, but its freakin' scary....:Oh baby, oh baby, have you, cheree cheree, my comic book fantasy...i love you...oh baby" and at this point the eerie chimes kick in and then the weird chimes (ala Tubular Bells kick in).

Its beyond genius. But scary. This sounds like this could have been recorded from anytime in history. As long as you had a nutjob. That primal.

The red look your lips get when you drink too much wine...it sounds like that

2007-01-29T17:59:00.001-08:00

Psychocandy-The Jesus & Mary Chain (my paen to Liz and Molly, who better 'get' this)

In the John Hughes film of my revised teenage years, i cannot decide whether or not i want to be kissed by Ralph Macchio at of 1:29 of "Just Like Honey" or at of "The Hardest Walk." Wait...ok, i think "Just Like Honey" would serve as maybe the closing credits...right about 2:06 i go back to the guy who originally dissed me. Like Pretty In Pink. Or do i end up with the guy who pines away (ala Ducky)....AKA Some Kind Of Wonderful. I think I'd use "The Hardest Walk" for the breakup scene...clearly the moment where he sings "Don't want you to need me..." over and over and Ralph is devastated.

Beautful, loud, fucked-up, its just devastating in its delivery....i remember hearing this and thinking there was nothing else like it. Its so beautiful...like some kind of cotton candy that's actually laced or actually insulation (i actually ate insulation once cause it looked like it)...sweet yet bitter...i cannot say enough about Psychocandy...hey, there you go...perfect title.

It meant so much to me them...it was the sound of the world outside my little Loverboy-lovin' (no, i wasn't Lovin' Ever Minute Of It) Indiana town. Its the record you'd make if you wanted to feel what it was like to have your heart broken, but had no fuckin' clue what that meant. It sounds like desire.

PRK Vs. WD

2007-01-29T17:48:00.000-08:00

Amazing label named Sublime Frequencies. Tons of cool stuff (check out their website)--i am sure i will write about them again. They kind of specialize in these amazing records which compile all these rare and obscure tracks from different countries in Asia. There is a whole series called Thai Beat-A-Go-Go, which feature all sorts of 60's and 70's tracks.

Radio Pyongyang: Commie Funk And Agit Pop from The Hermit Kingdom

This is possibly the strangest. Its essentially an audiocollage of music off the radio...military marches, strange pop, commercials (i think), karaoke, i think something resembling opera.....all broadcast at some point from North Korea. I suppose some people might like some context to the tracks...but he just assembles them into 8 distinct tracks.

Honestly, its alot of fun. And strange. Very. But from it i think you get this weird sense of the crazy control that goes into the propoganda (thats on here...broadcast in English). Its all so intricately planned...there is no rock on here...it all sounds like....well, for the life of me i couldn't figure it out...

and then i thought..., no not the Hermit Kingdom, but the Magic Kingdom. This sounds like the music played all over the park...there were many moments on this disc where i could imagine a 7 foot tall Tweedledee chasing me. The reference is probably not that far off...is there anyone more controlling of their "propoganda" than Kim Jong-Il and Walt Disney. Oh yeah, Walmart. Very cool.

Before you go and shoot your load, you better know your hanky code

2007-01-29T17:35:00.000-08:00

Hanky Code-Peaches

Is there a list for the gayest songs ever? This is most certainly on it. Its possibly the gayest thing Peaches has done. And for the Jewish Canadian bisexual feminist rapper, that's saying a whole hell of a lot. I am surprised this didn't make the actual CD and ended up a B-side...how does she determine that exactly...i mean, how did this song not make it on there. In any event, i think she is one of the more fun and interesting artists out there...most of the time, i think her attempts at subversiveness work. No surprisingly, this ode to leather men and the different meanings attached to the hankies is hilarious. I kinda wanted to hear her describe more of the act attached to aqua, violet, black etc etc. But no matter...props for even coming up with this song. This is off the "Downtown" single i believe...which is also includes the wicked Simian Mobile Disco mix of "Downtown". Favorite lyric: If you're wearing black on the right, then you know you're gonna hurt tonight. Didn't Madonna spend her entire career trying to come up with something like that. No, wait, Madonna is good at taking subversive and making it mainstream. Peaches is good at making subversive fun and poppy.

Revelee-Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom (Carl Craig Remix)

Off of the DFA label...but not punk-funk.....actually i am not sure what the original sounds like. No matter. This is sublime intricate techno...it sounds like it could be from anytime in history. Driving yet not trancey...hypnotic as all get-out. Honestly, if this song dropped onto a sweaty dark dance floor at 2 a.m., you'd feel fucking high. Whether you were or not. Brilliant.

Does Night Fall Like A Grand Piano?

2007-01-29T17:15:00.001-08:00

Hyacinths And Thistles-The 6th's

I was going to just write about one song on this CD, but then i listened to it again and decided to just write about the whole disc. The 6th's is one of the many guises of Stephen Merrit, who is one of the best lyricists in music. As Magnetic Fields, he wrote the opus "69 Love Songs" and also records as Future Bible Heroes (more of an 80's bent) and The Gothic Archies (more of a gothic bent, not surprisingly). The 6th's is his project where he brings in other singers to record songs. I find that many of the songs have a vague Bacharach-esque 60's feel to them. As a whole, this maybe shouldn't work...he brings in people as diverse as Marc Almond (of Soft Cell), Odetta (the folk singer), Sarah Cracknell of Saint Etienne, Gary Numan and Bob Mould of Husker Du (among others...the list kinda goes on and on). Maybe this shouldn't work, but its a beautiful CD, despite the diverse cast. Its kinda hard to pick a favorite...i love everything on this disc and think it has such feeling of hopeless romanticism. Although he can write about anything, he seems best when his heart's been broken. The chorus on "Just Like A Movie Star" (with Dominique A) is gorgeous....a slightly swirling carnivalesque feel. Sarah Cracknell is tailormade to sing these song of 60's influenced pop songs (if there is a more underappreciated vocalist in pop music, somebody tell me). She shines on "Kissing Things" all wistful and broken. Odetta is magnificent with her cracked voice on the vaudevilleish "Waltzing Me All The Way Home." Its hard to pick a favorite.

But i have one, of course.

"I have lain awake, through the longest hours, whether to cry or to scream. You can take my heart, it was always yours, but give me back my dreams".....Sally Timms of the Mekons on the gorgeous understated remarkably sad "Give Me Back My Dreams". Its 3:04 of all the feelings you go through when you lay awake and miss somebody. Simple as that.

Don't Come Down Here-Serena Maneesh

This self-titled CD by Norway's Serena Maneesh ended up on quite a few best lists. I liked it...but i thought it was a bit overrated. It suffers from being very good, very loud yet kinda forgettable in spots. Yet it has moments. And i am not exactly sure if its good for a band to have 3-4 great fantastic songs on a good solid but somewhat standard record. Does it make it better, or does it just highlight what could have been.

So "Don't Come Down Here"....you hear My Bloody Valentine mentioned as soon as their are 3 guitar tracks laid over them. Most of the time, that reference is a horrible fit....almost all bands will suffer from any comparisons to Loveless. What made that record so amazing, and what so few people who try to do that sound get, is that Kevin Shields and Co. buried actual songs under all the haze and fuckedupedness of the sound. This song gets that perfectly--even with the hard driving break in the middle. The melody keeps moving along through the haze...its just sheer wistfulness. I hope their next record has more of this.

A dog and I have no idea what they are talking about

2007-01-23T03:44:00.000-08:00

O Fridur-Sigur Ros

I could put something up by Sigur Ros daily...i love them that much. I remember the first time i heard them, i was blown away. I described it once as Radiohead and Pink Floyd being abducted by aliens and returning to the earth...via Iceland. Its interesting that they have become so popular. But good. One of my favorite things about them is Jon Birgisson's voice....incredibly strong yet feminine and ethereal. Ghostly of sorts. Funniest thing i ever read about them...when the first CD came out, the New York Times and Spin, tripping over themselves to remain hip and relevant, called his voice the most important female voice to come down the pipe in decades. Or something like that. Whats hilarious is that they fucked up the gender.

Keeping in mind that i think they could sing the phonebook and get away with it (although that might be better suited to Mogwai), this is a actually a b-side to the single "Saeglopur". Its somewhat minimal...it just starts with a loop being played, possibly backwards. This goes on for a minute and a half..slowly building. Then the plaintive sad vocals comes in, repeating a phrase over and over. Its stunningly beautiful.

Old Blue-Joan Baez

I could go on about Joan Baez...her committment to leftist politics, how many of the nu-folk/new-folk (???) revival cannot hold a candle to her etc etc. This song, which i had a very difficult time finding, is on some very old record and about 2 1/2 minutes long. It just starts with her singing in very old timey lyrics about dog Old Blue while playing the guitar. The refrain is her calling (and you can imagine her in the back of a field or yard calling "c'mon blue, you good dog you." At the end, she describes his death with indelible imagery "old blue died and he died so hard, shook the ground in my backyard. Dug a grave with a silver spade, load him down with links of chain. Every link i did call his name..." and here she starts this cry to him.

Where did i hear it? My father...when i was like 6 or 7 years old, would come home from working a long long shift at Inland Steel. He would put on the record, shut off the lights in the living room, smoke a cigarette and listen to this song. Often this song would make me cry, i like most kids, was incredibly upset at the idea of a dog dying (i got hysterical during old yeller, yell, i got hysterical during dumbo and he was only separated from his mother). This song will always remind me of my father. And is one of the many reasons that i think Joan Baez has one of the most remarkable and unique voices of the last century.

2007-01-22T14:29:00.000-08:00

Ahh...ok...sorry...so much for daily :) This will be a brief posting...computer is down at home and i was busy and couldn't get going today. Hey, its a Monday.

Homeless Club Kids-My Favorite

I don't know much about this band. I ended up getting their double CD, which as remixes on the second CD (hit or miss). I originally heard this on a compilation...i think the first time i had it on low and not on my headphones and it just kinda whizzed past me. You know how that happens...how you listen to a CD a million times and then just one time, you hit on a song for the "first time"...you pay attention differently, the lyrics catch you, something.

This song kinda happened to me like that. Its almost shockingly beautiful in this very swirly Cure "Disintergration" kind of way. It doesn't sound like the Cure necessarily, it just has this epic sweep like many of the tracks on that record did...how layers kept coming in adding to the mix. Sung in a slightly atonal beautiful female voice, this is more of a dance floor record, which is fitting because its lyrically all about the dance floor. Its opening line is "when the dance floor's full the kids all look so beautiful." And the refrain "the ghost of dead teenagers sing to me while i am dancing." I mean, fucking beautiful.

I am not sure what My Favorite intended, but i find it ineffably sad and melancholic yet somehow future looking and hopeful. I feel we've all had those moments on the dancefloor, those moments where we are disconnected and self-analytical and we realized that we are in this mass of people, connecting to a beat yet somehow lost and alone. We often think of past lovers and regrets while out there. I don't think thats necessarily sad, perhaps more melancholic. But incredibly solitary, if thats an expression.

The song always reminds me of dancing in gay bars. Maybe i am reading too much into it, but i am often cognizant of the "missing" men in bars. Men who were just cut down in the early part of life. One day they were strutting away to Grace Jones and Arthur Russell and ESG and Shannon in a total escape from the 80's and 90's. Maybe this was their only place where they could be themsleves. and then they are gone. I feel that, particularly in places like the West Village and the Castro, i feel like their are ghosts there. So maybe their ghosts are dancing with us. And good for them...maybe thats the melancholia we feel. I mean, dancing is primal to begin with. So maybe we are connecting through the rhythm strings and beat, to something that we lost.

My Favorite might have some other great tracks. I like alot of them on the disc. But i keep coming back to this, over and over and over. I mean:

"the disremembered stars are as bright and lost as fireflies in jars"

I wont even bother to try to find an adjective to describe that.

the best things i've heard in 2006

2007-01-17T09:14:00.000-08:00

so i thought the first thing to do was a "best of 2006" list. it'll kinda catch everyone up on what i think they need to hear. note: its the best of 2006 in the sense that its the best things i heard in 2006. so if its something older (as in not released in 2006) i still included it. i am not the new york times, so i don't feel i need to be that accurate...

ok here goes

RECORDS:
Aux Sources Du Rai-Cheikha Remitti

I've always like Algerian rai music. I first bought Chaba Fadela in like 93 or 94...i read a review in Alternative Press, which was still cool at the time and a huge source for cool music recommendations. [It has since become the home of every Blink 182 soundalike band and actually recommended an Ashlee Simpson record...a long way from Diamanda Galas, who i learned about and purchased from AP]. If I ever DJ'd out i'd play "Hana Hana" by Chaba Fadela in a second...totally infectious party music. Cheika Remitti is considered the grand dame of Algerian rai, i believe, and her music is much more mournful and sad. But stunningly beautiful. She died this year in Paris. Whats kinda interesting about her is that she sang songs about sex & drinking which were traditionally not sung by women in public...so she caused a great deal of controversy, i believe.

Aerial-Kate Bush

If I did the Grammys, which i loathe, this would be Record of the Year. Its rather shocking in how good it is...basically Kate takes 12 years or so off, then comes back with a double CD with no obvious singles, birdcalls and other strange samples and affects. The songs: she singsa bout her washing machine, child and motherhood, among other things. Its pretentious, but like most things pretentious, when they succeed, they are remarkable. And this is remarkable. First time i heard it, i was at the gym getting ready to work out and i was in a horrible horrible mood. I put it on and just laid in the yoga room and listened to the first disc straight through. At the end, i was happy. Very few artists can actually write a joyous song and pull it off...Kate's done it numerous times in her career (Hounds Of Love is astonishing...Eat The Music....The Big Sky). This whole record is the sound of joy.

Ys-Joanna Newsom

Speaking of pretentious. How about a record with 12-minute songs from a harpist? With lyrics such as

"And all those lonely nights down by the riverBrought me bread and water, water inBut though I tried so hard my little darlingI couldn't keep the night from coming inAnd all those lonely nights down by the riverI was brought my bread and water by the kith and the kinNow in the quiet hour when I am sleepin'I cannot keep the night from comin' "

Yeah, she says kith. Its beautiful, intimate and latenight. I love it

It's So Hard To Tell Who' Going To Love You The Best-Karen Dalton

This got reissued this year, so i guess it falls in 2006. But it was actually recorded in the early 70's. Its a very Sunday morning record--she only released 2 cd's before ending up homeless and crazy. Very beautiful and fragile at times...she shoulds like Billie Holiday doing folk.

Fox Confessor Brings The Flood-Neko Case

This is on everyone's list, i know. But its a great CD. At first i was a bit underwhelmed...i felt some of the songs were actually too short and not as immediate as Blacklisted, which is fantastic. After a few listens, i was hooked. And not many in pop/country/rock music have a better more expressive voice than Neko Case.

The Avalanche-Sufjan Stevens

And these are the other 20 or so songs that DIDN'T make Illinois. Wow, his castoffs are better than 95% of other artists originals. Endlessly interesting and entertaining.

The Warning-Hot Chip

Cool cool cool pop music.

The Greatest-Cat Power

She could record anything and i'd put it on my best-of list. This is very soulful and has a Memphis-sounds. Ever since Moon Pix i've dug her smoky dark voice. Favorite song: Good Woman off of "You Are Free"

Silent Shout-The Knife

Their last record featured quite a few great songs, including one of the best singles i've heard in the last 5 years, Heartbeats. Then Karin Dreijer added her voice to "What Else Is There" by Royksopp, which has to be one of the best remix packages of the year (most notably the Trentemoller mix). This is a brother-sister duo from Sweden...very young and intense. She has a wraith-like voice...somewhere in the Bjork family, but slightly gothic and very scary. This CD is much darker than the stuff they've done in the past...very industrial soundscape-ish. Serious brilliance.

So This Is Goodbye-Junior Boys

Know how everyone raved about the Postal Service record, but were actually talking about the two fantastic singles. This is the CD they wanted "Give Up" to be...quirky, different, beautiful and charming all the way through.

Another Thought-Arthur Russell

Arthur Russell was a member of the NY "downtown" scene and had two famous tracks...."Is It All Over My Face" as Loose Joints and "Go Bang" as Dinosaur L. In the last few years more of his music has come out. Its amazing and so ahead of its time (sometimes its unclear what "time" its from). This has a classical bent...very echoey and underwater. He was famous for editing his tracks over and over and these tracks have lots of loops and are sometimes very dense. I read once that he had very bad skin and was always very shy about going out to the NY gay bars because of it. He died of AIDS very young. To me his music always sounds very sad and fragile and beautiful.

IBM 1401: A User's Manual-Johann Johannsson

This is considered "modern classical" whatever that means. The first track is a huge orchestral number---very sweeping and vast and sounds like a score to a movie. The whole record is astonishingly good. Somebody described this to me in the store as ambient, which is way off. Even if you didn't like any of the first 4 cuts on the record, this is worth it for track 5, "The Sun's Gone Dim And The Sky's Turned Black". This has an actual IBM 1401 computer talking...it sounds like a sad lovesong sung by the computer in 2001: Space Odyssey. Remarkable.

Melody Mountain-Susanna & the Magical Orchestra

Beautiful quiet late-night folk music via Norway. Very sad and eerie in spots. Also weird--its all covers. Most inspired choice "crazy crazy nights" by KISS. Yeah, that KISS. Sung as an elegy.

Through The Windowpane-Guillemots

I initially resisted this--it was raved about in the British music magazines and they are kinda a Next Big Thing in England. Often the next big thing from England is the risible Oasis or the way-overrated Arctic Monkeys or a band like Mansun or the Manic Street Preachers. When i heard it i was floored. I dont know how to describe it...i read somewhere it sounds like Jeff Buckley and Brian Wilson singing the songs of Bjork. Accurate...i don't know. But close. But that brilliant and sweeping and courageous. Its genius. Debut of the year for sure. A work of remarkable beauty.

SINGLES
We Share Our Mother's Health-The Knife (Original & Trentemoller mix)
My Love-Justin Timberlake
Hung Up-Madonna
In Silence-Pet Shop Boys
C'mon-A Sunny Day In Glasgow
All This Love-The Similou
I Will Follow You Into The Dark-Death Cab For Cutie

MOST EMBARASSING GUILTY PLEASURE OF THE YEAR
Unwritten-Natasha Bedingfield

AMAZING LIVE EXPERIENCES
Jose Gonzalez
Magnet (Leslie...Carlos and I know what you did, despite having 8 whiskeys apiece
Stars
Diamanda Galas (on Valentines Day no less!!!)
Sigur Ros

OK--thats it, i think. I am sure i am missing something but i'll put it in here on another day. This is a good start i think. A

My Mission Statement

2007-01-17T08:36:00.000-08:00

Alright, I've been saying I was going to do this for ages...and here it is. My music blog. How online has survived without me this long, I don't know. I guess the idea behind this is to share my thoughts on whatever it is I am listening to. God knows i listen to enough music, i should share the wealth! As well as connect with other people who are the same kind of dork I am. The first record i ever bought? "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes. First album...the first Sheena Easton record (Yes, there many...). Granted not the coolest of purchases. But they kicked off my lust to hear new sounds. For me, music is attached to my soul...its such an indicator of how i am feeling.

I branched out considerably (although i still love Sheena Easton and much 80's cheese)...i remember when i received 3 cassettes for my 16th birthday: "the queen is dead" by the smiths, "spleen and ideal" by dead can dance and "hyaena" by siouxsie & the banshees. and my world changed forever. i remember listening to "dazzle" and the long orchestra intro kick into siouxsie's voice and thinking "wow, this is like nothing i'd ever heard on the radio." I am from a small farming/steel town in Indiana, so it wasn't exactly a bastian of new sounds and great culture.

How i came up with the name? There was this great record store in Chicago (since closed, unfortunately) that I used to love to go and dig thru. Many great finds there. I always thought the name was very cool. So i guess its a tribute to them.