Saturday, March 04, 2006

Maestropolis Penultimis

Disc Five:

01. Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros “Coma Girl”
Everything good about rock & roll, from the tough-guy swagger to the eyeliner romanticism. Bruce Springsteen circa Born to Run but without the stadium effect. Hints of psychedelia, reggae, and punk, but mostly just good ol’ Joe, from the opening shot on his last record, getting to quote the Chiffons. From the Hellcat LP Streetcore, 2003.

02. The Broadcast “Pendulum”
I don’t know if it’s still appropriate to call this glitch (or glitch-something), but the beautiful 4ADeseque music sounds like it’s being generated from a machine that is being strangled to death very slowly. I have no idea why they file this under “dance/electronic”; nothing has ever felt less celebratory while being so hypnotically gorgeous. From the Warp LP Haha Sound, 2003.

03. Blur “Out of Time”
Blur famously (for those who care about this sort of thing) decamped to Morocco to make this record, and this is the only song on the record that sounds like it was worth it. Cod-exoticism is one thing, but a song that so perfectly meshes trad Western songcraft with dusty Saharan sonics deserves all the mixtapery it can get. From the Virgin LP Think Tank, 2003.

04. Dogs Die in Hot Cars “I Love You Cause I Have To”
I had to have it pointed out to me that this was ska; all I could hear was the Andy Partridge voice, so I assumed it was an XTC rip-off. So it’s an English Beat rip-off with XTC vocals, instead; and, by the way, a damn good one. And on the evidence of a line like “so now I spend most of my time playing computer games/and wishing I was loving like most of my friends,” it might even be the voice of a generation. From the V2 single I Love You Cause I Have To, 2004.

05. Loretta Lynn feat. Jack White “Portland, Oregon”
When you tell people who’ve been listening to this song that Loretta Lynn is over seventy, that she wrote the song, and that she loves Jack White’s production, their jaws slowly unhinge. It is pretty staggering that a country legend, no matter how proto-feminist she was in the 70s, is trading come-ons with a kid young enough to be her grandson over feedbacking guitars. From the Interscope LP Van Lear Rose, 2004.

06. Café Tacuba “Eres”
A beautiful ballad. This album was compared to Radiohead’s Kid A in a review. Then someone else wrote a review that said there was no comparison; this was so much better. Well. It’s not as experimental or as open-heart-surgery emotional, but it is a beautiful ballad. In Spanish. From the MCA LP Cuatro Caminos, 2003.

07. The Streets “Dry Your Eyes”
What have we come to when the best breakup song of the last decade is a white British guy rapping — no, not even that, talking — his way through lines that don't even rhyme? (“The softness she’s blessed with?” Are you even trying, Skinner?) What have we come to when it can still move you to tears on the last chorus? From the Vice/Atlantic LP A Grand Don’t Come for Free, 2004.

08. The Raveonettes “That Great Love Sound”
Excellent stomping beat, huge fist-pumping chorus, sickly-sweet girl-boy harmonies, thinly-veiled camp references, massive Wall-of-Noise production; basically, it’s the Jesus & Mary Chain meet Phil Spector with Johnny Cash’s rhythm section. Ooh yeah. From the Columbia LP Chain Gang of Love, 2003.

09. Richard X feat. Jarvis Cocker “Into You”

So Richard X is this guy who made his name by stealing the synth riff from Gary Numan’s “Are Friends Electric?” and spinning it into a massive (well, UK-massive) hit for the Sugababes. So he puts out an album of similar mashup-inspired songs. And this one, which doesn’t so much sample Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” as add different verses, is one very sexy older man of a song. From the Astralwerks LP Richard X Presents His X-Factor, 2003.

10. The
Detroit Cobras “Shout Bama Lama”
The lead singer is an ex-stripper. All they play is obscure covers from early rock & roll and soul. They’re part of the whole
Detroit “back to 1965” aesthetic (see also: the Von Bondies, the White Stripes). This song was Otis Redding’s first single, and contains references to old-time racist minstrelsy routines. From the Sympathy for the Record Industry LP Life, Love and Leaving, 2001.

11. Tom Waits “Top of the Hill”
Bronchial hobobilly hip-hop, from the man who did more than any other to rescue popular music from potentially dire consequences at the fag-end of the twentieth century. If pop must eat itself, we can only pray that its regurgitation will always be as thrilling, as funny, as catchy, and as potentially nervewracking as this. I’ll never roll a number seven again, either, Tom. From the Anti- LP Real Gone, 2004.

12. The Strokes “Under Control”
When their second CD was coming out, all the promotional interviews with frontman Julian Casablancas had him dropping Sam Cooke’s name. And you can almost hear it, here. It might be too much to call the song a langorous “You Send Me” for the post-alternative generation, but it can definitely bear comparison with, say, the Commodores’ “Easy.” (Like, you know, Sunday morning.) From the RCA LP Room on Fire, 2003.

13. Belle & Sebastian “Your Cover’s Blown”
And then, on the eighth day, God said “let there be Belle & Sebastian remixes.” And God saw that it was good. Bedsit indie isn’t just for bedsits anymore, which tends to makes people who loved the band before everybody loved the band cranky, but if people must fill dancefloors with sweaty primitivism, why not do it in the most wittily literate fashion possible? Anyway, it’s not like he gets the girl. From the Rough Trade EP Books, 2004.

14. Sam Phillips “Love Changes Everything”
Did I mention that when I was about ten years old the most thrillingly sexual musical artist I knew of was Leslie Phillips? This was because she didn’t smile on the cover of the Christian-contemporary LP my parents had, and, well, she was kind of hot. Also, there were loud guitars on the record, and I did not hear a lot of loud guitars growing up. Being able to love her new music is one of the greatest pleasures I’ve had in growing up. And she’s still kind of hot. From the Nonesuch LP A Boot and a Shoe, 2004.

15. Ian McLagen & the Bump Band “The Wrong Direction”
I bought this album because I’m a Faces junkie. Ian McLagen was the keyboard player for the Faces. (Other members of note include Ron Wood, later of the Rolling Stones, Kenny Jones, later of the Who, Ronnie Lane, later of Ronnie Lane, and some singer.) This is a great song, not least because the singer claims that he’s on God’s shitlist. Who can’t relate to that? From the Gaff Music LP Rise & Shine!, 2004.

16. The Notwist “Pick Up The Phone”
In the winter 0f 2002, I spent more time than I dare remember downloading songs from various Top Ten CD Lists around the Internet. Very few of them have stuck around, inspiring actual-record-buying or even a second listen. This one took some time to get its hooks into me. I think it was the weird, glitchy rhythm that did it. Or the dude’s English, too free from any distinguishing accent to be real. Great stalker song. From the Domino LP Neon Golden, 2003.

17. The Scissor Sisters “Take Your Mama”
This song makes me want to be gay just so I can have a coming-out as fabulous as the Scissor Sisters say it should be. I heard it for a while on a
UK radio station before listening to the Scissor Sisters album, and I realized that I had thought it was an old Elton John song from the 70s every time I’d heard it before. I don’t know why, but the little blurps my mind plays like that fill me with joy. From the Universal LP Scissor Sisters, 2004.

18. The Libertines “Music When the Lights Go Out”
The swooniest swan song from an album chock full of nothing but swoony swan songs, their second. Neither Babyshambles nor Dirty Pretty Things will ever have my full, naked, unashamed, unswerving devotion like the Libertines did. Maybe I’m too old and jaded now, or maybe they are. But it was a great couple of years, even though on my end it was pretty much all through the computer. From the Rough Trade LP The Libertines, 2004.

19. Warren Zevon “El Amor de mi Vida”
I love songs that make me want to cry. I’m not sure this would make anyone else want to cry, though. It’s kind of personal. Although the fact that Zevon was dying when he recorded it certainly doesn’t make it any less poignant; I love to think of the (totally imaginary, I’m sure) girl he’s singing to hearing this only after he died and her heart breaking. Chorus in Spanish. From the Artemis LP The Wind, 2003.

20. Banda Ionica “Lorenzo in Sicilia”
Oh, hey, this is another relic from the Great Music Hunt of Christmas 2002. So Banda Ionica is this band from
Sicily, right? Only they’re a good old-fashioned Italian brass band, what we’d call a marching band here in the States. Only they seem to be on the same wavelength as, say, Tom Waits and Radiohead. This is a kind-of-sort-of cover of the theme to the film Lawrence of Arabia, hence the title. From the Felmay LP Matri Mia, 2002.

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