Shangri-Las - Out In The Streets

A couple of years ago I got turned on to this amazing box set called "One Kiss Leads to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found." It's four discs of girl group songs from the 60s. It doesn't have the obvious songs that most people have heard on the radio, instead it has countless seldom heard gems. The Shangri-Las had a lot of huge hits, including "The Leader of the Pack" and "(Remember) Walking in the Sand." But this song is the killer. I love when it goes into the chorus at 1:23, with the impassioned vocals and swirling orchestration, and how at 1:45 it straightens back out with the firm percussion and extra strings starting the second verse. The little extra "knock!" that comes in at 1:50 is so perfect. Absolutely destroys me.

This song is so soul-crushingly sad, it reminds me of "Caroline, No" by the Beach Boys. These groups could wring so much emotion out of a teenage relationship, making it symbolize every magical thing that can never be recaptured. WHAT A SONG!

Burial - Raver

A lot of people say that electronic music has no soul. Well, let me kindly direct you to Burial. This whole album is amazing, and this is my favorite song. The mood of the whole album is dark, but there are glimmers of light shot throughout it. It's not even worth throwing out a bunch of flowery adjectives, because none of them really live up to the music. This is the best song I've heard in a long, long time.

Exposé - Let Me Be The One

This song's the jam. And I love that 2 of them are kinda fugly. Go fugly pop stars! There aren't enough of them around anymore. 2:12 is where it really blows up. The song has a great hook, and here the video changes to a scene where they are wearing truly amazing outfits. Aqua Net hair, awkward leggings, that tiger mauling scar skirt, the red leather jacket, it somehow all works.

I love how they keep all the session musicians out of the spotlight. They just hop around in the dark. I think one of the most fascinating specimens in music is the 80s session guitarist playing on a dance track. You know they grew up down in their basements playing along to Led Zeppelin, not dreaming of shredding in a song by Expose. So they reluctantly spray their hairspray and don their Members Only jackets. And they get about a 15 second abbreviated solo that is extremely awkwardly placed in the middle of a dance track.

I could do a whole blog on 80s top 40 dance/electro. Lisa Lisa, Expose, Olivia Newton John, Sheila E., Jody Watley, etc. All great stuff. Fun and innocent. Sure they sold sex in these videos, but it was just a tad less blatant and skeezy than it seems to be these days. And all of them are of age! And they could sing, or at least it appears that they could. Unfortunately, one of them got throat cancer! Very sad. Seasons do indeed change. :(

I can't embed the real video, but here's the url. It's worth checking out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6S1VwZi984

The Pixies - No. 13 Baby

This song is No. 1 on my list of best chuggalicious outros. No. 2 is "Found A Job" by the Talking Heads, and No. 3 is "What Goes On" by the Velvet Underground. But first things first! Joey Santiago's guitar just DRENCHES the song at 0:15, with those Fred-Flinstone-driving-drums in the background. I really love the interplay between Kim Deal's simple-but-awesome bass line and Frank Black's acoustic strumming when he's singing, "I'm in a state" at 0:43.

Frank Black's lyrics are always bizarrely awesome ("black tear falling on my lazy queen, gotta tattooed tit say number 13") , and his delivery is just the best. Sometimes screaming, sometimes singing, sometimes halfway in between, but always tweaking out one way or another. SO FUN to sing along to.

So back to the chuggalicious outros. Say you're driving on the highway. It gets to 2:00 in this song. You start bopping your head. You turn your radio up as loud as it goes. Speakers are blowing left and right, but you don't even notice. You're too swept up in the chug. I could drive on a highway for eternity, listening to the last two minutes of this song. So perfect. Thank heaven for the Pixies.

M-Five featuring Brad Raker - Sanctuary (Electroliners Remix)

For about a 2 year period from 1995-1996, I was a raver. There, I said it. Not a glow stick twirling, angel wings wearing, pacifier sucking, Vicks Vapo-rub masking raver, but a raver in the sense that I went to raves and listened to "rave music." In the 13 years that have passed since then I have moved on, and before today I only had about seven breakbeat songs on my iPod. I'd tried to listen to more of them, but I'm kinda hard up for cassette decks and turntables these days.

In the last year or two I'd gotten the itch to hear these old songs again, so I kept bugging a couple of friends to get me a mix of old Florida breaks records. Well today one of them hooked me up with about 25 records on mp3. It happened to be a Friday night, but I immediately cancelled my plans so I could drive around and listen to them on full blast in my car. My impatience to hear them was half from excitement to hear these great old songs, and half from excitement to bug out to all the old memories that would instantly be conjured up by listening to this music.

The songs didn't disappoint, as I recognized almost every one. One of my favorites is the one posted below. The beat is massive, the samples are bizarre, it's got it all. The Electroliners are solid. The Bassbin Twins remix of their Loose Caboose record is also great.

Can - Oh Yeah

This song is long, but for the love of God, please listen to the whole thing. This band is so ridiculously talented, it's almost unfair. This incarnation of Can is made up of four classically trained German musicians and a Japanese guy they pretty much grabbed off the street, who turned out to be absolutely perfect for their sound. This song starts out creepy and intense, with a backwards vocal track, intense drumming, and crazy synthesizer sounds swirling in the background. Then at 3:13 the mood completely changes, the vocals switch back around, and everything gets funky as hell.

This album is split into two parts. The first half consists of brilliant experimental rock songs highlighted by the most insane drumming I've ever heard in my life. Seriously, Jaki Liebezeit makes Keith Moon sound like Meg White. Ok, that was an exaggeration. Keith Moon is awesome. And I like Meg White's Fisher Price drumming on some songs. But this guy seriously sounds like he has eight arms. The drum beat from Mushroom sounds like it should be backing a rapper, except it's in a 1971 rock song. The drumming in Halleluwah is so relentlessly funky and tight, it never gets remotely boring over the course of 20 minutes. The second half of the album is PSYCHOTIC. Seriously, enter at your own risk. :D

Listen to Can!

Note: Unfortunately, this is a low quality Youtube. There is now a remastered version of this album, and it is massive. Do yourself a favor and listen to this great album the way it was meant to be heard.

The Beatles - You Never Give Me Your Money

Choosing a favorite Beatles song. A seemingly impossible task. Lesser (wo)men have tried and failed. But it's never really been much of a contest for me. While there are tons of 1as (including some [relatively] unsung songs like Things We Said Today [!], Rain, and Old Brown Shoe), You Never Give Me Your Money is definitely my favorite.

Lyrically, it's a snapshot of how money, Apple Records, and egos (no explicit mention of Yoko, who was an unfortunate scapegoat for the inevitable dissolution of the band) were tearing the Beatles apart in the late 60s. Musically, it is just ridiculously great. 1:32 is where it just destroys me. "But oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go, Oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go, Nowhere to go!" The Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhs that follow, with the chiming guitar in the background, is joy and sadness rolled up in a giant ball of awesome. I must admit that the profundity of this moment was always exacerbated by my misinterpretation of the lyrics as being, "Oh, that magic feeling, oh where'd it go?" Now these chumps on Youtube had to print the lyrics and destroy about 439 over-the-top sentimental moments for me.

This whole album is brilliant. I Want You is the best song ever that just repeats about 10 words sixty times, and if you can't have fun bugging out to Mean Mr. Mustard-Polythene Pam-She Came in Through The Bathroom Window, you are probably not human. You are probably part banana slug. You should totally get that checked out!

It seems like there are so many mini-goodbyes to the Beatles on this album, this being the last one they recorded (though Let it Be was actually released last). "The End" is the obvious one, but this stanza also has an air of finality to it:

One sweet dream
Pick up the bags and get in the limousine
Soon we'll be away from here
Step on the gas and wipe that tear away
One sweet dream came true today
Came true today
Came true today

:( Love the Beatles. What's your favorite Beatles song?

Pet Shop Boys - What Have I Done to Deserve This?

I enjoyed this song on the radio as a kid, but never gave any thought as to who the duet was with. Probably just another 80's background singer with awful hair and a drug problem. On the contrary, this duet was sung with a legendary blue-eyed soul singer with awful hair and a drug problem. Now that I've heard "Son of a Preacher Man" in Pulp Fiction, and own the amazing "Dusty in Memphis" album, I realize how freaking cool it is that Dusty Springfield sings on this record. And she KILLS IT. Every time she sings, "Since you went away, I've been hanging around, I've been wondering why, I'm feeling down," it gives me chills and I get all verklempt.

This is one of those great,"Music sounds happy, lyrics sound utterly cynical" pop songs. "How am I gonna get through?" is a great anchor for the song, and plays off the lyrics so cleverly: "You always wanted me to be something I wasn't, you always wanted too much. Now I can do what I want to forever, how am I gonna get through?" Sums up perfectly that simultaneous feeling of relief and utter panic at the end of some relationships. The music then cleverly skips a beat, adding a feeling of urgency heading into the next lines: "At night the people come and go, they talk too fast and walk too slow. Chasing time from hour to hour, I call the drinks and crush the flowers." Neil Tenant is such a great songwriter!

It's easy to enjoy this song in the context of 80's nostalgia and forget that the Pet Shop Boys are an amazing group with tons of great songs. I haven't even talked about the awesome video, with the requisite completely awkward 80s video moment of the guy doing the slow motion dance jump thing. Mind-twisting deja vu + brilliant song = brain on fire.

My Bloody Valentine - Blown A Wish

I inevitably think about two things when I hear this song. First, I feel like in a slightly different universe this could be a #1 top 40 hit. It's so catchy, and it's really not that obscure or bizarre. Sure, the lyrics are practically impossible to make out, but most top 40 lyrics are better left unheard anyway.

Next, I think of Borderline by Madonna. I'm not a huge Madonna fan, but that's a great song. To me this song is a cross between Borderline and the scene at the end of Robocop where the second-in-line bad guy (the guy who terrorizes the poor dorky college student at the gas station, not the dad from That 70's Show) crashes his van into the toxic waste tub. Truly awesome scene. The guy comes stumbling out of the wreck and he's melting, chunks of his body hanging off at wierd angles, yelling, "UUUUGGGGGGGH!" Then the That 70's Show dude flies around the corner in his car and BOOM! Chunks of the 2nd bad guy fly everywhere. When I was 11 and my Dad inexplicably took me to see that movie, I almost leapt up out of my seat and screamed, "Yes!!!!" after that scene.

That was a long-winded way of saying that this song sounds like a beautiful pop song, but it's melting. A few songs on this album actually sound like the front cover of this album looks, and this is one of them. Btw, the sound quality on this youtube is obviously not the greatest, and this entire album benefits from being listened to on a decent sound system. The whole album is incredible, so get it if you don't already have it!