23rd
Played Out - Pt. 5 (Top 10)
Tell ‘em what time it is, Kenny.
(They don’t make album covers like they used to.)
Here are the Top 10, most played songs on my iPod, with the number of plays in parenthesis.
10. Talk Talk: “Without You” (18) - I didn’t really care for this song at first because I thought they had ruined it. The song starts out with a synth line that sounds like an operatic line sung by a soprano banshee android. Which is excellent, in my mind. The beat of the verse was also good with some quiet breakdown sections. But the chorus really disappointed me. Something about the melody. It just didn’t meet the standards set by the other sections. The song, track three on The Collection, which is a greatest hits album without anything from their greatest albums, was right after “Talk Talk” and “It’s My Life”, which helped it get replays. After several more listens, the synth line kept getting better, the verse kept getting better and then, so did the chorus. Another reason was the voice of Mark Hollis. It contains so much weariness, yet so much passion and life. If Odysseus, after returning home to Ithaca, sang his plight to Penelope, he would sound like Hollis. It’s another shimmering example of how Talk Talk would become much, much more than just another New Pop act.
9. Silver Jews: “Pet Politics” (18) - This song, off of The Natural Bridge, has a lot going on in it lyrically. This is David Berman after all, who’s one hell of a poet. If you need further proof of that, here are a couple of lines: “Guard my bed/While the rain turns the ditches to mirrors”, “She was shivering so hard/It looked like there were two of her”. It seems to be about the narrator realizing that the woman he’s with still loves the man before him. But, like I said, there’s a lot going on, so you may find different meanings. The music is perfectly matched to the lyrics. The rhythm guitar is contemplative and restrained, the drums reserved and bits of low static are just audible enough to sound like the falling rain the narrator watches. All the pieces combine to form a rich song that I will no doubt listen to eighteen more times.
8. Bob Dylan and The Band: “Odds and Ends” (18) - The lead track off of The Basement Tapes is a whole lotta fun. It sounds like a group of guys havin’ a rowdy ol’ time playin’ music and that comes straight outta the speakers and into your soul. Plus this song is funny. What with all the talk about “spillin’ juice”. Maybe that’s just me. I don’t know. But when Dylan sings about the waitress who’s “Always spillin’ juice on me like you got some place to go” and makes me chuckle. Not because of the innuendo either. It’s just so damned fun. The only bad thing is that the fun’s over in 1:47. But that just means I have to play it again. And again (times eighteen).
7. Yo La Tengo: “Double Dare” (18) - I remember hearing about Yo La Tengo, funnily enough, in a third level Spanish class, my sophomore year of high school. This guy, a junior, who I admired for, like me, wearing the same ragged band t-shirts and, unlike me, being gregarious and outgoing, made a goofy comment about the expression before referencing the band. I smiled to myself, knowing this bit of info from my Spin mags, due to I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One having just been released. Not that I had actually heard anything by them. It took a few more years for that. The delay had a lot to do with me, incorrectly, assuming them to be just another “mainstream indie rock” band. Popular, light and dull like Spoon, Modest Mouse, The Flaming Lips and Belle & Sebastian. I turned out to be incorrect with all these bands and eventually liked them. Except for The Flaming Lips, who aren’t light or dull, but just, well, boring. Yo La Tengo I turned out to love and “Double Dare” is my favorite by them. Ira Kaplan’s guitar work on the song perfectly captures the emotion that the awkward narrator can’t express. The chords rise, squeal, moan and tremble through out. It’s the beautiful noise of life.
6. Dinosaur Jr.: “Been There All the Time” (19) - From their reunion album, Beyond, “Been There” is a triumph. The original members, together again, sound as tight and ferocious as they did twenty years earlier. I saw them live, last year, and watched J Mascis, his long, white warlock hair in a heavy metal spin, prove himself to be one of the greatest guitar players alive. It might be odd for some to consider this, but Dinosaur Jr. are Classic Rock. This song, and most of their other hits, would not sound out of place between “Manic Depression” and “Never Been Any Reason” on a classic rock radio station. They cover “Show Me the Way” for christ’s sake. P.S. - This is a good thing.
5. Cut Copy: “Hearts on Fire” (20) - Like I’ve said, Cut Copy want you to dance. This song, which is actually the single version, not the one from their new album In Ghost Colours (they have slight differences, but are both great), will help you. It will help with such ease and grace, that it may take a minute or two before you realize that you’ve been bouncing so much that the furniture is shaking. But worry about that later because the beat’s coming back.
4. A Sunny Day in Glasgow: “Things Only I Can See” (23) - Your eyes slowly open. After wiping the sleep from them you slowly get out of bed. Lines of sunshine, coming through the blinds, reflect upon the floor and you realize it’s Saturday. It’s summer and you’ve got plans to meet up with friends at the park. You get ready then walk to the park. On the way, you smile at the people, at the trees, at the pale blue sky. You know it’s kind of cheesy, but you don’t even care because you understand the beauty of the world. Once at the park, you have a picnic with all your friends. You catch up, you play some football, you drink a few beers. That feeling rises up within you again and you smile. That’s what this song is like.
3. Deerhunter: “Cryptograms” (23) - Last April, I saw the first New York show by Deerhunter in support of Cryptograms and Fluorescent Grey. Frontman Bradford Cox came out simply enough, in a t-shirt and jeans. It only took a song before those were shed to reveal a white sun dress. By the end of the second song, he had bitten open a fake blood capsule and smeared it around his mouth and onto the dress. Like the poop & “porn” blog posts that came out soon after, it seemed like too much too soon. Unnatural. Luckily, the music has always been there to drown everything else. Which it did at the show. My ears rang for three days after the show. My cousin and I were on the front lines of the assault. Which wasn’t strickly audio. At one point, Cox slid over, took a handful of my curls in his hand and leaned out into the audience (of which Karen O was a part of, cheering him on) using me for balance. My cousin and I, thinking that he really wanted to get in there, began to lift him up, but he managed to break free and head back to center stage where he remained the rest of the night. Bassist Josh Fauvre stayed with us all night. At one point, he politely asked for a sip of my beer, which I was happy to oblige him. Deerhunter is currently finishing up their new album, Microcastle, which I am quite excited about. Cox, who’s also Atlas Sound, makes music, it seems, on a daily basis, which is quite impressive. Some good, some forgettable. (Go here for greater insight on that.) This is a promising young band. I don’t buy a t-shirt and EP after every show I see. Actually, I’d never done that before. Whatever slight reservations I had in the middle of last year, have been washed away by the sounds.
2. The Replacements: “Favorite Thing” (25) - In the summer of 2001, I was at a real low point. Lonely, drinking hard, suffering from Midwestern ennui, out of work, and driving a car minus a quarter panel, which I lost one morning after smashing into a guard rail on a rainy highway. During this time, I got a copy of Tim and Let It Be and I’ll be damned if Paul Westerberg didn’t know exactly how I was feeling. He’s from Minnesota and I from Wisconsin, so he knows all about that Midwestern ennui and the lack of ways to combat it. He knew of one way though and was kind enough to show it to me. Along with Pavement, The Stooges, The Velvet Underground, and Sonic Youth, The Replacements had a profound effect upon me that would be difficult to describe without going into great lengths or heavy use of superlatives.
1. Galaxie 500: “Oblivious” (27) - This one was a surprise to me. It shouldn’t be. It contains a few musical elements that I’m a sucker for. The main one being a harmonica. When a harmonica is used well in a song it elevates things to another level for me. I haven’t figured out why yet. Maybe the raw, rootsy, humanity of its sound? Galaxie 500 also managed to incorporate a touch of shoegaze and the nocturnal pop of later Velvet Underground into this, and much of their other work, which I also love. It’s also simple. The chord progression and the lyrics. When you can make something so simple yet so full and engaging that’s more impressive to me than some lengthy, dense, virtuosic piece. “Oblivious” soothes my soul.
And that’s that. We’re played out.
