Friday, December 22, 2006

15 songs to listen to over the holidays

Wasted Little DJ's The View Wasted Little DJ's The chorus of this song is not in English. It sounds Welsh, but the band is Scottish, so probably not. It might be gibberish. Gibberish is very flexible sonically. There is not enough of it in popular music.

Work for Love Ministry Work for Love This bouncy eighties tune sounds considerably different than the industrial noise I associate Ministry with.

Broom People The Mountain Goats The Sunset Tree The whole album is worthwhile. Perhaps the best album I've come across in the second half of '06.

Painted Soilders Pavement Wowee Zowee (SSE) Legend has it the vocal stylings of Pavement's utility singer Bob Nastanovich inspired Blur's hard charging stadium anthem, Song Number 2. Nastanovich is doing his best woo-hoo-hooing -- albeit with more conviction than enthusiasm -- on this previously unreleased track from the Wowee Zowee re-master.

Pull Shapes Pipettes We are the Pipettes The Ronettes, ABBA and the Spice Girls rolled into 2:59.

Holland, 1945 Neutral Milk Hotel In The Aeroplane Over the Sea This is not an easily assessable, or accessible song. It took me a bunch of tries before it sunk in. Now I rate it as about the most powerful and beautiful song ever written.

Judith A Perfect Circle Mer de Noms I remember liking this song when it came out five or six years ago. Then I completely forgot about it. Now, through the power of the internet, it's back in the rotation.

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere Neil Young EKTIN This country rock classic is perfect in length and tone.

King's Lead Hat Brian Eno Before & After Science The next stop in my journey through Brian Eno's delightful pre-ambient catalogue.

Ballad Of A Comeback Kid New Pornos Electric Version I'm pretty sure this song is not about Bill Clinton.

Trill Clipse Hell Hath No Fury I don't care much for hip-hop but Trill transcends my genre prejudices. Speaking of which, the lyrics would make Michael Richards blush.

Disco Infiltrator LCD Soundsystem LCD Soundsystem Typical LCD catchiness. Something about James Murphy's voice cracks me up.

Here At The Western World Steely Dan Gold A jaded, sleepy masterpiece.

Timebomb Old 97's Too Far to Care Frantic and paranoid has never been so rollicking and fun.

101 Albert Hammond Jr. Yours to Keep Surprisingly good song from the Strokes' sideman's surprisingly good debut album.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

hit me with some links damn it...or maybe some constant play....post the tunes....jdmain is using fancy words

Unknown said...

jdmain is an anagram for man jid (pronounced jizz)

JT said...

Speaking of fancy, posting a tune is way too fancy for me. But the songs are easily available in a low-cost forum. Or you can always bring a blank CD over here.