Every year, I abandon any semblance of ruth and rip off Sam's idea of making a CD for people, full of my favorite songs of the calendar year. And this year proves to be no exception. Upon reflection (reverberation?), it seems I was in a plinky-quirky-folky mood this year, lots of piano chord progressions and barely a distorted guitar within earshot. Most of these were set in stone fairly early in the year, so there wasn't as much last-second re-assembling and second-guessing as in previous years. Thanks as always to Sam for showing me some of [...]
What a disappointment. What poor handling of a band's legacy. The more I hear about the forthcoming remaster/reissue of the Rolling Stones' seminal Exile On Main Street album, the more my enthusiasm gets tempered. On Record Store Day , I was thankfully able to score one of the limited edition 45s of "Plundered My Soul," the first of the unreleased Exile cuts that make up a bonus disc in that set to make its way out. Watch the official video here & give it a listen yourself: [...]
I was inspired by Sam's nuclear post to put together my own list of radioactive music. I grew up at a time of transition for the world. I was born the day before the Watergate break-in (so I have an alibi), when I was six months old the last men walked on the Moon, my entire school life existed under the shadow of the Cold War, a Faustian trade-off for being the first American generation in a long time to not have to march off to war. Right after I graduated high school in 1990, things heated [...]
I work in a place that's got a nuclear policy bent, and my week at work has been frenzied thanks to President Obama's nuclear security summit. In honor of the assembled leaders' pledge to corral loose nuclear material, I thought it would be fun to put together a nuclear playlist - enjoy! Nena, "99 Red Balloons" The Watchmen movie did a respectable job of setting the stage with nuclear tension by including this ditty by German pop band Nena, which tells a story of 99 balloons floating into [...]
Things around these parts have been pretty dormant for months, and I'm sorry about that. Life has a habit of getting in the way, and when you're feeling down, it's really hard to sit down & write about something as seemingly trivial as music. It's been almost six weeks since my grandmother Alice Leveton passed away. She fought a months-long battle against a variety of ailments that were precipitated by a serious fall in the home she shared with my mother in Florida. We all called her Mac: it was a nickname she gained while serving as an [...]
As I think we're all aware, it's getting harder and harder these days to find a complete album that's enjoyable to listen to al the way through. With most people downloading single tracks from iTunes or Amazon (if they pay for them at all), the very concept of an album seems to be falling by the wayside. But every once in a while something does come along that is crafted as a whole, an immersive experience, even going so far as having intros, tracks blending together, skits, whatever. The Decemberists gave us a virtual rock opera last [...]
Hello and happy holidays! It's that time of the year again, when we SS-ers take a break fom being mere purveyors of fun recommendations, and resize our music-snob-critic hats for yet another year's worth of "songs from this year that we loved but you may not have heard". I'll try to keep the accompanying text down to a dull roar this year... 01. The Airborne Toxic Event, "Sometime Around Midnight" Sometimes I'm glad I'm not as tuned into the world of popular musical criticism as most (well, most who would go [...]
Sorry for the delay in posting this, folks. Turns out I've had to unfortunately deal with a few of my rough, tough, existential fears over the last couple of months, which is one of the reasons why it's been so quiet around these parts. Anyway, onto the list - I'll keep it short & sweet: Elvis Costello, "Veronica" This is the most deceptively peppy song I've ever heard. Co-written by Paul McCartney, it's an absolutely heartbreaking portrait of losing someone to a form of dementia like Alzheimer's. [...]
We all have things that scare us. C'mon - you know as well as I do that that "thing" underneath the fridge is definitely scary. Or maybe somebody like Glen Beck or Dennis Kucinich makes you tremble in fear. Or maybe it's just green tea that makes you faint. Whatever the case, the Uncles have you covered! We're peeling back out own inner protective layers to reveal some of our own neuroses and fears, as realized in songs written and performed by other people (who obviously eavesdropped on our deepest, darkest [...]
Sure, there are things that scare me - plenty of 'em. I'm just not sure how many have been summed up in songs that haven't already been claimed by my fellow Uncles. But there are things that scare me - death, dismemberment and loss being the big three. I try not to let fear rule my life and daily existence. Imagine me, a person who loves to ski down rock chutes, through tight stands of trees, off of cliffs into steep, snow-laden bowls, being so overcome by fear that I hesitate during a crucial point [...]
Vacations and other deadlines have conspired to make me late this month, kids - apologies for the delay. In keeping with the theme (and in an effort to finally wrap up our September lists), I'm going to make this quick: my goal was to assemble a list of songs that were just short enough to leave you wanting more, songs that made you skip back & listen to them again right away. Here we go: Ten Minute Turns, "Stars Burn OUT" A perfect combination of dusky [...]
Let's keep this brief, shall we? Since Mandel and Sam decided that the side two medley from Abbey Road was out, I also disqualified using any of the "Fingertips" from They Might Be Giants' Apollo 18 (such a great album, purposely built to be played in shuffle mode). So I bring you 18 short songs. Some lack lyrics, but all are complete and lovely in their own right. "Our Prayer" - The Beach Boys Such a lovely opening to an album ( [...]
This month's list consists of fourteen songs that clock at about two minutes or less...nuggets of ear-delicious goodness ranging from TV and theme park themes to monologues to mellow album closers. Enjoy! 57.5 BARS by Call Florence Pow I'd like to nominate this song as the theme song for this month's playlist theme. I found this song years ago. I don't remember how I found about these guys, but it's most self-explantory 1:41 of power pop you'll ever find. The lyrics are about as straight-forward as you can get [...]
For those who demand quantity over quality, here you go - a selection of songs all less than a minute long! In the interests of maintaining listenability I've excluded hundreds of intros / skits / interludes etc, choosing instead to focus on pieces that, while short, still establish their own identity as songs. So here we go, strap yourself in and feel the Gs: thirty-four songs in twenty-five minutes, twenty seconds! 1. The Dodos, "Eyelids" (mp3) 2. Black Flag, "Wasted" (mp3) 3. De La Soul, "A [...]
This month, Selective Service has done a bit of downsizing. To help those of you with ADD, we've each put together a list of short songs - songs that are less than 2 1/2 minutes long (songs from The Beatles' "Abbey Road" side two suite could NOT be used). Uncle Sam asked me to do the writeup of this and at first I was offended thinking it was a knock on my smaller stature, but I got over that and thought, "who better to write up about this list than me?" I mean, one of my [...]
Led Zeppelin came up with the best title for this kind of exercise. Sadly, nobody else has taken them up on the challenge to name another song by the same title. Pity. I went with a song title that's basically a wistful platitude. Enjoy the different connotations. Song Title: "It's Only Love" Artists: The Beatles. This is the version of the song I think of when I hear the title. Gotta love John's double-tracked vocals in the chorus. Elvis Presley. It's all [...]
Finally, an excuse to pair Bob Dylan and Basement Jaxx together on a playlist! Bob Dylan, "I Want You" "You don't have it? That is perverse. Don't tell anybody you don't own fucking Blonde on Blonde " (the line is at the 1:17 mark). Oh, I have it alright, JB. Three copies of it to be precise (none of them vinyl, sadly, but I have made it a habit of giving vinyl copies of it to turntable-enabled friends as wedding presents), and "I Want You" has [...]
For my homonym I chose " Sometimes ", which was a lot of fun in that it opened up my search to avenues less traveled by. While a couple of these are songs I know and love, most were ones that manifested themselves to me only when I arranged my iTunes by song to see what I had. I love finding pleasant surprises among things I already own! 1. James I blabbed about James in a previous post, so I'll just say that this is the song that initially grabbed me. [...]
I can't remember exactly under what circumstances I had this thought, but when I was a kid I remember thinking, "Do you think they'll ever run out of song titles? There are only so many combinations of words in the English language." My youthful fear has been alleviated thanks to the continual invention of new words like "shizzle," but I'm pretty sure my initial question was brought upon by hearing lots of songs with the same or deeply similar names. Upon further review - and a good, deep exploration in this month's playlists - that's a very good [...]
At first I thought that putting together a playlist of songs all having the same name was near-impossible until I sorted my iTunes songs by "name." As I scrolled through the thousands of tracks, I discovered that I had quite a number of songs with the title "Magic." It's as if my iTunes worked its magic! Har har har... So, take a listen and fall under the spell of my playlist for you this month! MAGIC by Olivia Newton-John It shouldn't be news to anybody that the soundtrack [...]
Selective Service
First Aid Kit – Emmylou
Childish Gambino - "Heartbeat" (Official Music Video)
Hardwell Bootleg Pack 2012
James Blake – Live Album
Circo Voador anuncia shows de The Kooks, Foster The People, Friendly Fires, Gogol Bordello e mais
