The first ten songs that my iPhone offered up to me, on shuffle mode, as I walked to the comic store yesterday afternoon:
1. DJ Shadow: “Untitled Heavy Beat (Parts 1 & 2)” from The End of Violence
I was never the biggest DJ Shadow fan; I liked about four tracks from Endtroducing, and then maybe a couple of singles or random things afterwards before losing interest. This is one of those random things, from the soundtrack to the much-more-disappointing-than-I’d-hoped Wim Wenders movie The End of Violence. Despite me never really loving any Wenders movie, he’s a bizarrely massive influence on me as a writer. I should explain that, one day.
2. Beyonce: “Suga Mama” from B’Day
Again, not a massive Beyonce fan, but this song was pretty much the best thing from a particularly disappointing second solo album. That guitar! That chorus! Come on!
3. Panic At The Disco: “Northern Downpour” from Pretty. Odd.
They’re the band that really wanted to be Jellyfish, all of a sudden, but that’s not necessarily the worst aim in the world. I love that, in the interviews surrounding the release of Pretty. Odd., they kept namedropping the Beatles and yet still managed to sound more like countless Power Pop bands who’d genuinely been influenced by the fab four than the Beatles themselves.
4. Kelley Stoltz: “To Speak To The Girl” from Circular Sounds
And talking about the Beatles, Stoltz’s song here still reminds me of something Lennon would’ve come up with if he was feeling particularly swing-inspired one day. I love this song to pieces.
5. Billy Bragg: “Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards” from Must I Paint You A Picture: The Best Of
“Mixing pop and politics, he asked me what the use is/I offer him embarrassment and the usual excuses.” This is where Billy managed to mix pop and politics better than ever before, and better than he ever would again, though. In my humble opinion, of course. The revolution is just a t-shirt away.
6. Lilys: “Can’t Make Your Life Better” from Better Can’t Make Your Life Better
There are too few words in the world for me to describe how happy this song makes me, whether it’s the xylophone or the way the song kind of falls apart midway through, or the creepy-confusing lyrics. The centerpiece of an over-looked album, to say the least.
7. Elliott Smith: “Care of Cell 44″ live bootleg
If I need to explain my love of Elliott Smith again, you’ve probably not read much of this blog already. But I’ve never really talked about how much I love the Zombies, and in particular “Odyssey and Oracle,” their second (and final, really) album; it’s one of those “classic pop” things, an album of exquisite, perfect pop songs one after another, each better than you’d expect. I discovered the album, and the band, through two cover versions: Menswear’s “This Will Be Our Year,” back in… 1995? 1996, maybe?, and this.
8. The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band: “My Brother Makes The Noises For The Talkies” from Vol. 3: Dog Ends
I admit it; I skipped this one. I like the Bonzos when I’m in the mood, but this is a particularly novelty song even for them, and I wasn’t in that mood.
9. Foo Fighters: “Up In Arms” from The Color And The Shape
I can still remember hearing “This Is A Call” for the first time and thinking, it’s like Nirvana were covering the Monkees. At their best, that’s what the Foos always sound like to me; some wonderful evolution of grunge into sweetness and harmonies and lightness (Well, that and “Stacked Actors,” which is none of those things but still one of my favorite Foo Fighters songs - It’s that riff and the feedback, there). This one in particular, I love the way that the gloom of the first verse is turned into something more positive and uplifting and urgent just by playing it faster the second time around. Sometimes, it is that simple.
10. The Good, The Bad & The Queen: “Mr. Whippy” from Herculean EP
An oddity, here; I love Damon Albarn in general, whether it’s Blur or Gorillaz or the Monkey opera, and I think The Good, The Bad & The Queen is an interesting album if not a great one. Weirdly enough, I think it’s smothered by Danger Mouse’s production (What little I’ve heard of them live, they sound much better, looser and more intricate). This is a B-side, though, and one of the songs that seems more like something from Parklife than the GB&Q album itself. As much as I know this album was supposed to be Albarn’s latest statement about being “English,” I wish he’d just record something with Mike Skinner and give us the next generation Parklife I really want.
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Content © Graeme McMillan, 2008-2009.
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