Thursday, January 22, 2009

try to find where you are inside of my head: 826-850



826. "i wanna be sedated"
the ramones

for whatever reason, this is the ramones' most well-known song. right? i mean, "blitzkrieg" has "hey! ho! let's go!" but this one has "bam, bam, bam-bam, bah-bam, bam, bam-bam!" maybe it's so renowned because of the lifting chord changes and the hopelessly helplessly bored n' dissatisfied n' freaked out so much that i need pills and booze and weed to get me through the mundanity of everyday existence lyrics. ("mundanity" is a word, damnit! look it up, blogger!) the ramones were always cartoonish and dorky, but incredibly affective whenever they hinted at the darkness underneath the veneer.

the ramones - i want to be sedated

827. "dance to the music"
sly & the family stone

this then? this is not a song. this is noise, static, musical masturbation. this is not a song, in the ordinary sense of the word. no, this is a castrated jam session, a gob of spit in the face of pop, a kick in the pants to structure, verse-chorus-verse, melody, harmony, chord progression...what you will. sly stone will sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but he will sing. he will sing while you croak, he will GET UP AND DANCE TO THE MUSIC over yr dirty, rotten, festering corpse.

sly & the family stone - dance to the music

828. "keep the car running"
arcade fire

token buzzwords used to describe the arcade fire (specifically neon bible era arcade fire): bombastic, overwrought, pretentious, springsteen, sodomized. they seek to make grandiose, BIG music with sweeping influence using all-encompassing political and emotional rhetoric. this was a really charming affect when they were a bunch of kids using dinky instruments and shoddy production techniques and not a bunch of older kids using real instruments and professional techniques. thus, many critics were repelled by neon bible's righteous musical grandiloquence. whatever. i dig the lilting mandolin and hectic undertones in this track. so what if they sound like they're trying to parrot springsteen? 'bout time he got some indie recognition!

arcade fire - keep the car running

829. "white rabbit"
jefferson airplane

like "fortunate son," "all along the watchtower" and several other tracks from the era, "white rabbit" has lost a lot of its potency from superfluous use in films, television, et cetera. it's the go-to "acid trip" song. and it has inspired more stoner high school kids to proclaim that alice in wonderland "is about drugs, man!" than necessary. but. i could give less of a fuck about hippies, lsd, the generation gap or whatever else this song is supposedly about. one word: crescendo. by the time the drums start cascading, that snaky bassline twists in on itself and starts to eat its own tail and grace slick starts screaming "FEED YOUR HEAD!" you know all the schlocky hippie sentiment and "flower power" has been completely obliterated.

jefferson airplane - white rabbit

830. "ladyflash"
the go! team
the aughties has inspired a lot of musical synthesis; the infinite options and easy access provided by file-sharing ultimately means that many different people are listening to many different styles and forms of music and are absorbing and reinterpreting these styles and forms in many different ways. thus, a white guy from england can combine old-school hip-hop beats with kitchen-sink soul production and get a black girl to do cheerleader chants over the concoction, and voila!, he's pitchforked and playing musical festivals on both sides of the atlantic. of course, it wouldn't work if tracks like "ladyflash" weren't filled with warmth.

the go! team - ladyflash

831. "the mountain low"
palace music
1995
viva last blues

who doesn't want to fuck a mountain? one of the more compelling aspects of the bearded conundrum that is will oldham is his unabashedly blatant expressions of awkward sexuality. don't be creeped out, little one, just give in to the soothing instrumentation and let bonnie billy's off-key warble send you to a place where sex, nature, love and god all merge together in one entangled, gesticulating mess.

palace music - the mountain low

832. "academy fight song"
mission of burma

too herky-jerky and off-kilter to be punk, too boston and too dirty proletariat to fit in with the arty fucks at cbgb's, too ahead of their time to be "alternative," mission of sperma remains america's quintessential post-punk band. this is their ass-kickin', mind-stimulatin', young n' hotshot debut single. it's cerebral, but anthemic; intense, but catchy. every arty-punky band to follow in the irish wake took notice of this dynamic.

mission of burma - academy fight song

833. "mikey rocks"
the cool kids

welcome to late aughties indie hip-hop. enough backpack rapping, enough self-conscious self-aggrandizing self-righteousness, enough afro-centrism and afros. let's just wear gold chains and do blow like the big shots, but do it ironically. "i don't use bad grammar, so please excuse this/i just tryin' to let niggaz know who i is." that minimalist beat is a monster, mikey rocks' rhymes are droll and slyly playful and by the time that synth shot appears in the last verse, you know these kids ain't just a gimmick.

the cool kids - mikey rocks

834. "take five"
the dave brubeck quartet

HOLY SMELLING SHIT! dave brubeck is still alive? and still playing shows? talk about longevity. talk about staying and playing power. really though, this track isn't about that relentless piano. it's sort of about about joe morello's octopus drumming and the wicky-wicky-wack syncopation (the "five" in the title is the "5" in 5/4 time, gentle people). but mostly, majorly and primarily, it's about paul desmond's mind-burning saxophone riff. jazz may be all complex and intellectualized, but that sax riff is just as infectious as any contemporary pop vocal melody. see, jazz, that's why no one REALLY likes you anymore. we can appreciate you, we like you in small doses, we like you in smoky, boozy clubs, but you're just no fun anymore. i think we should see other people. oh, hey phil spector. hey beatles. hey zimmerman.

the dave brubeck quartet - take five

835. "kill the poor"
dead kennedys

the spiritual and musical heir to the fugs' "kill for peace," i'm guessin'. i don't give a fuck about american "hardcore" music. black flag has always come across as juvenile and BOUGIE to me. and i avoid eye contact whenever skate-punk walks past me on my way to school. but. jello biafra's wit, caustic sarcasm and ballsiness elevates the dead kennedys above the rest of the muck, at least on fresh fruit for rotting vegetables. "kill the poor" has an interesting introduction; it would be an affective anti-ballad if it didn't devolve into punky-ritalin chaos and repetition. such is the charm of a self-consciously unsophisticated form of music, i guess.

dead kennedys - kill the poor

836. "long distance call"
phoenix

have you ever been stranded and wasted in a foreign country with only a minimal amount of local currency in tow? i haven't really, but i imagine it'd sound a lot like "like distance call." a steady lull of a drumbeat and wah-synth washes and chimey guitar strums and thomas mars' brokenhearted broken english croon striving to find comfort in that disemboded voice oceans away through the maze of wires, machines and computers. god the bless the power of communication and god damn it.

phoenix - long distance call

837. "no action"
elvis costello & the attractions

maybe the buddy holly glasses were wound too tightly across his computer programmed-out face, but the other elvis was a pissed off, disillusioned, frothing-at-the-mouth angry young man on this year's model. maybe i've always been struggling with disillusionment issues myself, but this incarnation of elvis costello has struck me as exponentially more interesting than the solid golden oldies lovin' and imitatin' geek of the early 80s and whatever he became after that. "no action" is one of those opening tracks that defines the mood and tone and aesthetic sensibility of the entire album: cathartic black and literate yet contradictory punkish fury. i mean, "i don't want to kiss you, i don't want to touch."

elvis costello & the attractions - no action

838. "bandages"
hot hot heat

there was a time between my "musical enlightenment" at age 13 and high-speed internet, pitchfork and easy access to everything at age 18 when i still had to resort to antiquated methods of discovering "new" (as in current, contemporary and of the now) new music: radio, television, friends and "what the fuck was that?" moments at department stores. "bandages" is an example of the latter day saints. it leapt out at me like a ferocious, snotty-nosed ocelot from the barely audible background music while i was CD browsing at a target back in aught three (or two, maybe). simple parts - rowdy, searing organ, shout-along, repetitious chorus and a near-end song break-down - make a satisfying whole. even if i never did listen to any other song off of make up the breakdown - which i indeed bought that day. suggestive selling, yes!

hot hot heat - bandages

839. "crying"
roy orbison

that voice. that tremulous, defeated vulnerable yet enormously "operatic" voice. that build-up. soft brushed-out drum rolls, piano fills and hints of strings leading into orchestral crashing and tom pounding. and that final note. by god, that final note. i hated roy orbison for the longest time because of that schlocky, skeezy sad-schmuck fest known as "oh, pretty woman," but singles like "crying" defy any easy categorization. eerie darkness lies hidden underneath the sentimental veneer of many a "golden oldie," and "crying" may be one of the most otherworldly. silencio.

roy orbison - crying

840. "still d.r.e." (feat. snoop dogg)
dr. dre
1999
2001

the woozy, rollicking, stoned-as-hell west coast sense of liberation found in dre's earlier g-funked work is absent here. this is unmelodious, repetitive and, aside from snoop's inimitable drawl, lacking any semblance of "soul." this is harsh, mainstream gangsta rap for the new millennium. sure, public enemy and the bomb squad brought atonality and discordance to rap production a decade earlier, but this is mainstream. every car speaker in every neighborhood - inner-city, suburban or rural - blared dre's 2001 in the fall of 99. everyone heard it and its influence is traceable in rap's development throughout the aughties. if dre hadn't helped make the g-funk sound - which he himself created - unfashionable with tracks like "still d.r.e.," the neptunes, timbaland, et cetera, probably wouldn't have been as ubiquitous.

dr. dre (feat. snoop dogg) - still d.r.e.

841. "waterloo"
abba

this is abba before the disco sheen, before transnational success and inter-band dramatic tension. this is abba fresh-faced, full of youthful vim and vigor, pith and vinegar, longitude and latitude. if the raucously energetic chorus, complete with handclaps and saxophone, doesn't sweep you off your feet and send you clamoring towards the nearest chapel to commit to a life-long love affair with benny, bjorn, agnetha and anni-frid, then i don't know what to tell ya. and if you still can't embrace the pleasures and pop glory that is abba, in this day and age, when dogs piss on rockism's grave, then maybe you should go listen to "real music," like, uh, kt tunstall or something. i mean, she writes her own songs and plays her own instruments, right?!?!

abba - waterloo

842. "no children"
the mountain goats
2002
tallahasse

call him histrionic all you want, john darnielle is one of the most effective and evocative lyricists i've ever stumbled across. "no children" captures the moment of complete dissolution in a self-destructive marriage; the lyrics are bitter, tragic and maybe a little bit self-deprecatingly self-aware ("i hope you die/i hope we both die"). the track may lose some of darnielle's trademark one-channel guitar n' voice rawness because it is a full-band arrangement. nevertheless, the piano riff emphasizes the frenetic, hopeless urgency of the lyrics. the scariest thing? this can't rightly be considered a "break-up" song: "you are coming down with me/hand in unlovable hand."

the mountain goats - no children

843. "one nation under a groove"
funkadelic

ready or not, here comes the supposedly "rock"-orientated funkadelic with a massive, hook-filled disco jam. this is such a gaudy, full track; it has all the right elements: trashcan percussion, handclaps, chicken scratch guitar, rumbly synth-bass, moog-y swells and sprangs, bells and fucking whistles. and, as with any george clinton project, as many plays on the word "funk" as possible (get it? they say "funk" instead of "fuck," get it?). it doesn't even have an instrumental break. it's just eight minutes of ecstatic, coked-out exuberance and exhilaration.

funkadelic - one nation under a groove

844. "here's your future"
the thermals

it's about god, it's about christ, it's about the hypocrisy of organized religion. it's a screed, an attack, a potshot, a searing indictment of religious determinism. fuck new testament benevolence; god is unfair, he's mean and he's a dick. too brash, bold and rambunctious to be classified among their portland brethren, but too articulate and literate for the "punk" tag, the thermals ride a wave of snarling feedback into your conscience.

the thermals - here's your future

845. "steam and sequins for larry levan"
matmos

yeah, that matmos. "amplified crayfish" and "liposuction" matmos. "steam and sequins" is hallucinatory paean to post-disco pre-AIDS new york and the legendary DJ/club owner/icon/hipster in the title. matmos ditches most of the musique concrete experimentation - though there are still a lot of fucked-up noises on this track - to make something resembling an actual dancefloor hit. it's not even all that difficult to imagine this as the soundtrack to last call at the paradise garage as all the sweaty, discombobulated bodies slowly down that final crown and coke and smoke one more cigarette before venturing into the great unknowable outside the vaunted doors.

matmos - steam and sequins for larry levan

846. "houses of the holy"
led zeppelin

i know, i know, i know, i know. classic rock radio has beat this one to death. radio programming does the devil's dance daily on the grave of zeppelin's credibility; a "stairway" for every hour! even if they represent all that is bloated, preposterous and stagnant about the early 1970s and everything that is potentially damaging about the specialization and deification (the term "rock god" still makes me cringe) of musicians, i still like led zeppelin. and i really like them when they don't try to be mystical, or funky, or rootsy, or bluesy. this is a pop song. this is love, weed and sex. this is trashy, but not scummy. this is dorky innuendo, but not "fuck me." when they weren't attempting to be anything other than guys making good, solid rock n' roll music, the zep was pretty on target.

led zeppelin - houses of the holy

847. "kidz are so small"
deerhoof

i found satomi matsuzaki's voice incredibly grating at first too. intonation 2005. i was hot, i was miserable, i was heartbroken. obvs. not the best condition to be exposed to this wonderfully idiosyncratic band with a cute 'lil AZN frontwoman sing-songing about pandas and flowers. but i've since embraced deerhoof with open heart and legs. "kidz" is my favorite track off friend opportunity. why? oh, the usual deerhoof tricks: stop-starts and other rhythm complexities, 'twee lyrics and vocal performance, odd effects. but did i mention that it has a ROBOT?

deerhoof - kidz are so small

848. "it takes two"
rob base and DJ ez rock

yeah! whoo! yeah! whoo! yeah! whoo! yeah! whoo! yeah! whoo! yeah! whoo! yeah! whoo! yeah! whoo! yeah! whoo! yeah! whoo! yeah! you think it's simple to make a rap beat? yeah! could you make something this infectious, this catchy, this incessant like DJ ez rock? whoo! you think it's simple to rap? yeah! could throw down as much self-conscious braggadocio as rob base? whoo! yeah! whoo! yeah! whoo!

rob base and DJ ez rock - it takes two

849. "let's get sick"
MU

if you don't like your dance music all fucked-up, abrasive, distorted, frightening and ominous, you best stay away from this monster. if the unrelenting drum massacre and harsh synth yelps don't send you trembling to your parents' basement, the broken-english, digitized vocals screaming "FUCK THAT!" will. it starts off with a siren; you've been warned, compadre.

mu - let's get sick

850. "the night they drove old dixie down"
the band

although they might have influenced every bearded, stoned monstrosity with an acoustic guitar and a harmony in the head to romanticize the antebellum american south (i'm looking at you, fleet foxes, ya hacks), the band at least knew how to write a song and "dixie" is one of their prettiest. the lyrics are a bit stultifying and academic, but the self-pity, resignation and quiet fury in levon helm's soaring voice more than compensate. the potency of the track isn't even diluted by the whole canadian thing (sorry, had to mention it).

the band - the night they drove old dixie down


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