Atomic Blawg

The Best Songs of the 2000s: #499

2009-12-31T07:30:00.000-06:00

#499: "Throught the Fire and Flames" (2006) - Dragonforce

On Guitar Hero (vol. 1), this was the boss song, a record whose guitar pyrotechnics melted away all but the most nimble-fingered of glorified air guitarists. The drumming and the vocals shred, too, but it's the guitars that are important here, as Guitar Hero (and, subsequently, Rock Band) is one of the two most musically influential innovations of this past decade.

Sure, some musicians bemoan the fact that millions are picking up a video-game controller instead of a "real" guitar, but of those millions, thousands have subsequently picked up a "real" guitar and started learning how to play the "real" thing and even started their own bands. I know personally of at least five such cases. Plus, there's the fact that Toys 'R' Us and Wal-Mart sold (and in some stores sold out) more "real" guitars these past three years than they've ever sold in all the umpteen years combined. Anything that gets an instrument in the hands of someone wanting to learn how to play, no matter what they're learning how to play or what inspired them in the first place, is a good thing. Musical literacy can only lead to a greater nation, a greater world, as it develops the mind.

As far as the track itself (nevermind the influence): it's value doesn't only come from the band's virtuosity, but it also comes from the strong melody that emerges from the uber-tapping and double-kick barrage. It's not quite the equivalent of Van Halen's "Jump," but in this new musical world, it's close enough.

The Best Songs of the 2000s: #500

2009-12-31T07:15:00.000-06:00

#500: "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" (2001) - Alan Jackson

Rush-recorded and rush-released after the 9/11 attacks, Jackson's song was criticized because, basically, it didn't seem too angry. It also didn't implicate the Powers That Were in any wrongdoing, nor did it ask many deep questions. It didn't question the nature of the events, and it sounded maudlin.

Well, most of those criticisms were accurate, but none of those should have denegrated the song. Jackson's song didn't criticize, but it didn't need to. What Jackson offered was a song of empathy. It's sentimental, but that sentiment seems appropriate to the mournful situation. One doesn't go to a funeral and start attacking and villifying any one person or the cause of death: one offers a sympathetic soldier--analysis can come later. Jackson had this song on the radio--not at his behest, either--in two months, and the nation was still in mourning. The deeper questions could--and did--come later.

The song grows complex towards the end, though. Jackson offers what seems to be a glaring contradiction, asking the audience if they turned off the violent television program and then asking them if they went and bought a gun. He doesn't seem to be hewing to the Republican/conservative party line here, though (as that contradiction might seem to denote), for his last question--and ultimate answer--"the greatest is love"--sure seems to be asking his audience to show kindness not only to each other, but to all others. That bit of philosophy is about as liberal and open-minded a thought as I've ever heard from a Nashville record, and that deserves mention.

The mandolin's sad and sweet, too. Just like the entire song.

The Best Songs of the 2000s

2009-12-31T06:23:00.000-06:00

Here's a list of 189 artists whose records didn't make my final cut, but who recorded music of quality this past decade, so their names are definitely worth dropping.

· AC/DC
· AM
· Alien Ant Farm
· The Almighty Defenders
· John Anderson
· Andrew W.K.
· The Answer
· The Asteroids Galaxy
· Baby Bash
· Backyard Babies
· Bat for Lashes
· Battles
· Be Your Own Pet
· Beausoleil
· Billy Boy on Poison
· Diane Birch
· Black Label Society
· Amanda Blank
· Mary J. Blige
· Blitzen Trapper
· BLK JKS
· Booker T.
· Brendan Benson
· Broadcast Radio
· The Brides of Destruction
· Bun B
· Buckethead
· The Cardigans
· Manu Chao
· Charm City Devils
· Choir of Non-Believers
· Guy Clark
· Cocktail Slippers
· Ry Cooder
· Elvis Costello
· Samantha Crain
· Rodney Crowell
· Current Swell
· Daddy Yankee
· Dan Auerbach
· Dark Meat
· The Dark Romantics
· The Dead 60s
· The Dead Weather
· The Decemberists
· Deer Tick
· The Deftones
· James Luther Dickinson
· Diddy
· The Dirty Sweet
· Dr. John
· Drums & Tuba
· Electric Owls
· Eliza Jane
· Eve
· The Films
· Liam Finn
· Five Horse Johnson
· The Flatlanders
· Flossy & the Unicorns
· Folk Uke
· The Fratellis
· Fred
· Ace Frehley
· Andy Friedman
· Fruit Bats
· Gentleman Jesse
· Jimmie Dale Gilmore
· Al Green
· Green Day
· Heaven & Hell
· Hakan Hellstrom
· Jolie Holland
· The Horror Pops
· The Horrors
· I’m from Barcelona
· In This Moment
· Iron Maiden
· Bon Iver
· Flaco Jaminez
· Sarah Jarosz
· Jimmy Eat World
· Johnny Boy
· Judas Priest
· Richard Julian
· Kasabian
· Killswitch Engaged
· Sean Kingston
· Kiss
· Solange Knowles
· Alison Krauss
· The Knux
· Aaron Lacrate
· Lady Gaga
· The Last Vegas
· Late of the Pier
· Cyndi Lauper
· The Laureates
· Ryan Levine
· Jeffrey Lewis
· The Liars
· Love as Laughter
· Nick Lowe
· Madlib
· Magnetic Fields
· Jesse Malin
· Richard McGraw
· Tim McGraw
· Megadeth
· John Mellencamp
· Metallica
· MGMT
· Charlie Miller
· Miss Li
· Monster Magnet
· Motorhead
· Movits!
· Mumford & Son
· MV & EE with the Bummer Road
· Nine Inch Nails
· Nobunny
· Noisettes
· Notorious Cherry Bombs
· Paolo Nutini
· Nora O’ Connor
· Shane O’ Dazier
· Colby O’ Donis
· Oh Darling
· James Otto
· Pantera
· The Parlor Mob
· Sean Paul
· Pearl Jam
· The Phenomenal Handclap Band
· Grant Lee Phillips
· Chris Pierce
· Robert Plant
· The Polyphonic Spree
· Portugal the Man
· Quasimoto
· Queensryche
· Radio Moscow
· Rancid
· Jay Reatard
· Robyn
· The Rosewood Thieves
· Rye Rye
· Saliva
· Santogold
· Sasquatch
· Ron Sexsmith
· Naomi Shelton
· The Silversun Pickups
· Slash’s Snakepit
· Slayer
· Todd Snider
· Spank Rock
· George Strait
· Ken Stringfellow
· Jazmine Sullivan
· Taylor Swift
· The Sword
· System of a Down
· Testament
· Thee American Revolution
· The Thermals
· Tool
· Two Door Cinema Club
· The Unicorns
· Unk
· Keith Urban
· The Vanity Plan
· Velvet Revolover
· Vetiver
· Rhonda Vincent
· Brooke Waggoner
· Butch Walker
· The Walkmen
· Webbie
· The Weepies
· Brooke White
· Wilco
· Charlie Wilson
· Winter Gloves
· Xiu Xiu
· Yacht
· Rachael Yamagata
· 16 Horsepower

The Best Songs of the 2000s

2009-12-31T05:54:00.000-06:00

Alrighty...

...so my one-week vacation from my blog turned into a one-week and seven-month vacation, but now I'm back/to let you know/I can really shake down the rest of these songs before the day/year/decade is over.

Okay, maybe I can't shake down all the rest of the songs on my list of the best songs of this past decade all in one day, but a man has to start somewhere.

I'll begin by listing almost two-hundred artists whose records didn't quite make my cut, but who recorded admirable music nonetheless.

I'll continue by then offering capsule reviews of 100 songs that either didn't quite make my original list (but I've since come to appreciate much more) or that I overlooked upon the way. These 100 songs were published sometime between January 2000 and June 2008.

I'll complete my list--hopefully, sometime within the next two weeks, possibly sooner--by offering full reviews of the top 100 songs on my list of the best records of the decade as well as analyzing (somewhat simultaneously) 67 songs that were released between July 2008 (my original cut-off date when I started this blog a year-and-a-half ago) and December 2009.

The sum of all these record reviews (333 + 100 +67) will then be 500! Yes, five-hundred fantastic pop songs of this past decade that have made my life more enjoyable. I could easily (though not quickly) lengthen the total to 750, and given a couple/three months to research, even 1000, but I think 500 will do quite nicely.

It's now December 31, less than one day away from a new year/new decade, so let's get rolling!

The Tournament of Metal: Final Round

2009-06-07T16:13:00.002-05:00

This week: the last battles. The last poll. Get your one-way ticket to midnight and vote now!

Last week's results:

2 ACDC’s “Hells Bells” v. Motley Crue’s “Shout at the Devil” 1
1 ACDC’s “Back in Black” v. Metallica’s “One” 2
3 ACDC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long” v. Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” 0
0 Aerosmith’s “Angel” v. Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home” 3
1 Bon Jovi’s “Runaway” v. Van Halen’s “Jump” 2
1 Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” v. Motley Crue’s “Dr. Feelgood” 2
1 Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer” v. Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” 2
3 Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” v. Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” 0
2 Cinderella’s “Shake Me” v. Ratt’s “Round and Round” 1
3 Cinderella’s “Heartbreak Station” v. Slaughter’s “Fly to the Angels” 0
1 The Cult’s “Firewoman” v. Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” 2
0 Damn Yankee’s “High Enough” v. Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” 3
1 Def Leppard’s “Rock of Ages” v. Scorpions’ “Rock You Like a Hurricane” 2
0 Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” v. Motley Crue’s “Girls Girls Girls” 3
2 Dio’s “Holy Diver” v. Van Halen’s “Panama” 1
1 Europe’s “The Final Countdown” v. Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” 2
3 Faster Pussycat’s “House of Pain” v. Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian” 0
3 Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” v. Motley Crue’s “Kickstart My Heart” 0
3 Guns N’ Roses “Sweet Child O’ Mine” v. Judas Priest’s “You Got Another Thing Coming” 0
2 Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City” v. Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me” 1
2 Guns N’ Roses “Don’t Cry” v. Skid Row’s “I’ll Remember You” 1
3 Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain” v. Tesla’s “Love Song” 0
0 Sammy Hagar’s “Heavy Metal” v. Quiet Riot’s “Metal Health (Bang Your Head)” 3
3 Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” v. White Lion’s “Wait” 0
3 Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell” v. Motley Crue’s “Too Fast for Love” 0
1 Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills” v. Quite Riot’s “Cum On Feel the Noize” 2

When the Hardys Go Marching In

2009-06-04T02:54:00.002-05:00

One last bit to leave you with before I leave for my trip:

After writing Monday's review of "Cryin' in the Street," I felt nostalgiac and pulled out the photographs Foot Foot and I took during our three different stays in New Orleans. So, here are some of my own slides of New Orleans...and St. Francisville, Lousiana (from 2005).

In St. Francisville, Lousiana, stands the Myrtles Plantation. Foot Foot, Nicholas, and I stopped at the Myrtles plantation there for two reasons: it is one of the grandest plantation houses still in existance, and the Smithsonian lists the mansion there as the most haunted house in America. When we arrived, it was the middle of the day, and it was hot, but the land and landscaping were beautiful, and after wandering around for awhile, the three of us sat down to rest and adore the scenery.

After cooling down, Foot Foot and I decided to go explore the mansion, but Nicholas told us that he saw something stwange near the carriage house. We asked him what he saw, but he didn't respond. He was staring afar, and he remained transfixed.

Foot Foot raised her voice to get his attention, and she asked him again what he saw. He told her to come look, that he sees a monster. Penny walked around behind him and peered over his shoulder, and she saw...

...something so hideous, that she screamed. Other tourists there looked at us, and they walked away. She asked me if I saw it, and I came around and peered over Nicholas's shoulder, but when I got there they told me it was gone. She took a picture of it, and she tells me now that the monster is somewhere in the picture above, but I just don't see it.

Foot Foot was ready to leave right then, but I wanted to see the inside of the house. I wanted to see evidence of the ghost of the slave Chloe, who poisoned the children of the house so that they'd be sick (but not deathly sick), and then she could nurse them back to health, thus incurring favor with the owners, which would allow her to become house-slave/nanny again. Alas, Chloe used too much oleander in the mix, and the children died. When the truth came out, so did Chole. Executed.

Since, the house has been rumored to be haunted both by Chloe's ghost and by the ghosts of the children. The most prominent haunted spot in the mansion is at and nearby the foot of the stairwell, opposite of which hangs a stately mirror. Pictured below is the mirror. If you look closely enough (and maybe squint your eyes just so), you can see the outline (it's faint, but I tell you it's there) of a figure wearing a white dress, arms held out straight to the sides, perpendicular to the body. Chloe wore a white dress. Everyday.

You know what's creepier than that? Look again at that picture below. You see those two people in the mirror? I don't even know who they are! I don't even remember them being there!

After touring the rest of the house and all of the grounds, we headed to New Orleans. Much later that night, after driving around the French Quarter, lost, for an hour, we finally found our bed & breakfast (without the breakfast, we'd discover the next morning), but it was locked, the envelope with the keys NOT where the owner said they'd be. I used a lock of my hair and the tag from my underwear to break into the massive wrought-iron gate, and we went inside and crashed.

The next morning was beautiful. We woke early, walked out on the balcony, and admired the busy splendor of New Orleans.

We then hit the streets, hungry, aiming for Cafe du Monde and some Ben Yays.

Unfortunately, Cafe du Monde held a eighteen-hour wait, so we decided to cruise down Decatur to grub at less conspicuous establishment. Luckily, we found one quickly, and this time, the wait was only one hour. Cafe dude Mondey Mondey had no vacant tables inside, but they did have one empty chair and one rickety stool, so I let my family take those whilst I stood outside to sweat and admire Willie and Poor Boys who were playing out in the street. I had no nickels, though I did tap my feet. Soon, someone shouted, "Freebird!" Willie glared, grabbed his guitar and his bag o' tricks, and left.

Soon to take his place in what must have been a coveted spot was a sausage swallower. See the picture below? See what he's doing? He's already taken in half of it. He pushed the entire sausage down his throat, too, and pulled it back up. He asked if anyone then wanted a bite, but no one took him up on his offer.

I almost did, though. My stomach was rumbling, and I was about to walk over and grab that summer sausage, but at that time, Foot Foot told me that there was a spot open in the line. Some old geezer had seemingly fainted from heat exhaustion, and while the other people in line were tending to him, Foot Foot and I jumped at the opening, ordered our Ben Yays, and then we feigned concern. That's the way it's done in the Big Easy.

A half hour later, our Ben Yays arrived about the time the ambulance did outside. We hurried past the EMTs, and we ate as we walked the streets, headed to the famous aquarium (I forget its name). On our way there, we ah-spied a wedding procession with an authentic New Orleans jazz band leading the way, playing a tune somebody told me was called the Second Line (I guess the couple couldn't afford the First Line).

After the procession processed by, we continued on our way, and as we passed by the park, we saw...now get this...MICHAEL JACKSON! Yes, it was really him! He had smeared grease paint on his face in order to disguise himself from the crowd, but it was the King of Pop, alright. We looked at his wardrobe, and seeing the similarity between it and the outfits the cheap wedding band wore, Nicholas told him, "Your band left you up there. Why did they do that? That wasn't very nice!"

Mike told him, "Why do they do me that way? It's just human nature. I gotta get my back up off the wall, now. Bye bye, pretty young thing." He left. I was just a tad nonplussed by his comment, but, hey, it's Michael Jackson...I'm sure he meant nothing untoward.

We arrived at the aquarium, I was instantly attacked by the painful memory of when, three years prior, we lost a student to the waters of the aquarium. Mr. Daryll "D-Bo" Willis (pictured below, in the last photograph taken of him, in his last moments). May he rest in peace.

Foot Foot and Nicholas nearly lost their lives their, too. The world's largest Great White (and no, I'm not talking about Jack Russell's recent weight gain) was on exhibit, and it began to swallow whole my family.

Luckily, I was there with my authentic Peter Quint harpoon (w/spring-loaded floatation barrel), and my family is still with me to this day. The shark, however, swims with the fishes.

After that narrow escape, we happened upon an enchanted swamp there at the aquarium, and Nicholas rode one of the hoodoo hop toads. Later, Nicholas developed a severe case of wart on his lower extremities, but we contacted Marie LaVeau's great-great-grandson Remy LeBeau via v-mail, and she gave us a cure for only $17.99. It worked, too.

The last exhibit (one that has since been closed) we visited in the museum was called the Taste of New Orleans. Rather than sample of the aquatic delicasees, a sample was almost made of Nicholas! One of the three cooks gave Nicholas a bite of newt, and he spat it out. Well, the cook didn't like that poor display of manners, no sir. She reached out and grabbed his toungue, and put him in the pot, saying, "If you don't like eye of newt, then how about eye of Nick?" Foot Foot decided she prefered the newt, so she grabbed Nicholas, and we exited the aquarium.

As soon as we sat foot outside, we saw the late voodoo priestess herself, Marie LaVeau, helming a voodoo carriage down Canal street.

Nicholas deemed the queen too skinny for his personal proclivities, so we scooted over to St. Charles to take a streetcar all down the line and back.

Nicholas soon grew worried that he would be unable himself to cast a spell of redress against the chef that offended his person, so he asked for my assistance. Against an average person, one not so inclined to the ways of hoodoo and voodoo--some call them "muggles", but I've always termed 'em, "doo-doos"--I would have been able to merely scratch my nether regions in order to pester a pernicious person, but against those wise in the ways of vaudois, a needed some assistance myself.

I stopped by the Livre Imaginaire bookstore at 9 3/4 Bienville, and I consulted a consortium of texts legitimate, illegitimate, and not quite sure anymore 'cause my parents are both caucasian but I'm not. After burning the midnight oil and the beds that they burned, I remembered the spell that nearly took the life--and did take the arm--of one of my former students on our last senior trip to New Orleans.

The senior class had taken a bayou tour, and the tour guide--Prince Glenn Dio (and Prince was his given name, too) was somewhat short of height (as well as temper). Garrison Jim--the aformentioned student--normally very genial and gregarious, had some fun at the tour guide's lack of verticality, and the tour guide cursed him...in both senses of the word! Soon, as we came upon an alligator, the tour guide asked Garrison if he'd like to volunteer to feed the sea creature, and Garrison accepted. As soon as Garrison leaned over and held the scum for the gator to get, the reptile lept past the scum and swallowed Garrison's right arm. And bit down. The gator took Garrison's arm down into the depths with him, and we had to rush back to the shore to get Garrison to the hospital on a speed boat that would take him down the bayou to a nearby medical clinic (after seeing it later, I hesitate to call it a hospital).

Since that particular incident was so nasty and unfortunate, I felt it would be appropriate to use that particular curse--locally called the "Gator Getter"--to take revenge upon that nasty and unfortunate woman (I shan't call her a "lady") who tried to make Irish stew out of me boy. When I arrived back at the bed minus breakfast, I told Nicholas not to worry, that I'd taken the liberty of cursing the hag myself (and I did). He smiled and asked for Cheetos, so I knew all was well in his world. I didn't want him to yet match wits with the strange and supernatual forces that lay within the Vieux Carre. I'd already lost enough children to the Quarter, and I didn't plan to lose anymore.

Not only did Garrison suffer the loss of his arm and D-Bo the loss of his life, but the first group of seniors Foot Foot and I took to New Orleans suffered their own loss. The loss of their own persons. Let me explain.

In May of 2003, I took my first group of seniors to New Orleans. One week after we left, I came home...with none of them. The last night of our trip, we came upon a group of what-looked-like tourists gathered in small groups outside of O'Flahety's Irish Pub. In each of these groups stood tour guides, sounding like carnival barkers as they rounded their individual groups together, telling them to stay with each other and make sure they had their stickers on. I looked at these people, and, indeed, each one had a sticker affixed to his or her chest depicting the name of the tour company (I think it was called Bourban Go Boo). My seniors asked if they could join one of these little groups, and I looked around, and one of the guides had just laid a packet of stickers on a cart behind him. I picked up the packet and distributed them to my group. We then joined along, and strolled throughout the streets with our tour guide---Sheleighly Shane--leading the way.

Oh, the stories he could tell...the Axeman, the Boogyeman, the Octoroon Mistress, Madame Minieurcanal, the Phantom of Jackson Square, the Flaming Tomb, the S.S. Watertown, the Seaman's Bethel, the St. Louis Cathedral, the Le Petit Theatre, Antoine's, the Royal Cafe, the Andrew Jackson, the Griffon House, the Beauregard-Keys House, the Gardette-LePrete Mansion, the Devil's Mansion, and, of course, the most famous haunted house in New Orleans: the LaLaurie Mansion (pictured below--my picture, too!):

Long story short ('cause to get the full, chilling effect of this story, one really needs to either be in front of the house to hear it or hear it told by an expert storyteller. Since this is the internet, and I'm obviously not the latter, I'm giving the thirty-second summary), Madame Delphine LaLaurie kept a house full of slaves, tortured them, experimented on them, deforming and defiling their bodies. One day, the house caught fire, and as firemen and other went through the house putting out the flames, they found a door they could not breach for it was locked. They broke it down and found dozens of slaves chained to walls and tables, and a couple of them in cages. They found a few dead. The slaves were led out of the house, and when the public discovered what Madame LaLaurie had done to them, they were outraged and began to storm the house. Madame LaLaurie escaped, though. She never returned. The house was sold, but from the moment the next owner spent his first night in the house, the haunting began.

Nearly one-hundred years later and several owners later, the house was sold (for the umpteenth time), and the new owners this time decided to almost completely remodel the house. When they started working on the second story, they noticed strange smells coming from the room where Madame LaLaurie tortured her slaves. The new owners began ripping up the floor planks, and they discovered nearly one-hundred dead bodies buried there, underneath the second story floorboards.

The complete details of the story are much more heinous and disgusting than what I've revealed here, and our entire crew was taken aback by it, horrified and disturbed. Some, however, were so fascinated with the story that they lingered there on 1140 Royal to wait and see if they could hear or see anything of a spectral nature. They were all well-mannered kids, and--hey--it was New Orleans, so what could possibly happen to them here, right? I allowed them to stay behind as the rest of us followed Sheleighly Steve. That group--five kids, total--we never saw again. They're still missing.

Our tour ended that night outside the oldest building in the Mississippi River Vally (and the only surviving French-colonial building in the United States), the Ursuline Convent. Back when Louisiana was still a colony, prostitution was legal in New Orleans, and the city's criminal element ran rampant, and Governor Bienville sent to France for help, help that arrived in the form of twleve nuns, who came to New Orleans to educate, set up orphanges, and help a few of the locals get religion. The nuns--and Governor Bienville--soon realized they needed respectable women (previously, only lower-class women were shipped, and they were generally full of disease, and thus they either couldn't reproduce or didn't live long enough afterwards to take care of the children) to make honest men of those who weren't, so in 1721 the first of several boatloads of girls arrived from France (a practice that would continue until 1758) in tow with their luggage...shaped in the form of a casket--and hence came known as the Casket Girls. These girls first took room in the third story of the convent.

Many of the Casket Girls didn't fare as well as hoped, and after numerous instances of abuse and rape, these girls were shipped back to France. However, their caskets were not sent back with them. After the last group of Casket Girls returned to France, all of the third-story windows were nailed shut, and for each window was used one-hundred nails--each one blessed by the Pope himself. Rumors abounded, of course, as to why these windows would need nailing shut, especially considering the heat during that time period (pre-air conditioning era), why so many, and why each needed to be blessed by the Pope himself.

In the late '70s, two reporters from The New York Times were in New Orleans, and they had heard the rumors of the Ursuline convent, so they decided to camp out in front of the convent for three nights in a row. According to their journals, the first two nights they noticed nothing, but on the third night, they looked up and noticed a window open on the third floor. This information was the last thing noted in their journals. The next day, they were found dead. Their bodies were completely empty of blood.

After hearing this story, our group made its way back to our hotel. The seniors were--naturally--straggling behind Foot Foot and me, talking amongst themselves, and one Cheyanna Dixon (seen below on the first row in the white tee-shirt), asked me if they could all return to the sidewalk in front of the convent to watch the windows. Foot Foot and I both said sure, for it was hours before curfew anyway. Foot Foot then asked us to pose for a picture before they left, as this was our last night in New Orleans. For that group seen in the picture below, it truly was their last night. We never saw them again after that moment. We still don't know where they are. We returned home alone (and, strangely enough, never went on a senior trip again, either).

Discussing these lost seniors with Foot Foot, we both grew forlorn, and we decided to cut our own family trip short. Nicholas, though, overheard some of our conversation, and he asked if he could help look for them. We told him no, but he was insistent, and he suggested we go to the harbor, that perhaps we could see them there. Well, we walked there, but we saw no sign of them.

Nicholas then told me to ask the riverboat captains if they'd be willing to give us any information. I told him I didn't think they'd know, and if they did, they might not be willing to share their knowledge, but Nicholas stated that the people on the river are happy to give. Since he was correct about the openness of shipyard skippers, I climbed aboard every ferry on that side of the Gulf of Mexico, and none had heard or seen any of our seniors. The captains did, though, agree to share with me a smoke of their pipes. They even let Nicholas steer their ships whilst they each emptied bottles of peppermint schnapps. Ahh...life on the river. I'm glad I listened to Nicholas, as the boat rides lifted my spirits, and I soon forgot about the lost seniors altogether. Thanks, buddy, I needed that. The Little River Band was right: it was time (at that time) for a cool change.

Refreshed, the three of us walked back to our bed minus breakfast, ate our supper of baloney and crackers, and hurried off to sleep, exhausted from all the searching and pondering. The next morning, we woke early as to get home as soon as possible. We enjoyed our stay in New Orleans, but we were homesick. We packed our luggage, and I carried all downstairs and out to the Jeep. I pulled our vehicle around front, and I waited for about fifteen minutes for Foot Foot and Nicholas. They didn't walk out with me because Foot Foot had some last minute intestinal difficulties which she had to tend to. I didn't mind the wait, though. It was nice just watching the people walk by.

They soon came to the Jeep, stepped in, and we drove away, arriving home a mere four hours later. The next day, we took the film to Wal-Mart to get developed (this was back in the day before we were able to use a digital camera). Three days later, we picked it up, and we laughed and smiled at the photographs...all except the last one. That last one is of Foot Foot and Nicholas leaving our bed minus breakfast to go home that last day. What was so disconcerting about that picture?

I didn't take it. I was in the Jeep. The camera...was with me.

The Countdown Capsule, Part V: 150-101

2009-06-04T00:01:00.002-05:00

Now, with only one-hundred records left on my chart, I'm taking a mini-vacation as Foot Foot and I descend upon Biloxi to watch the Black Crowes and for me to freckle and get a red (as unfortunately, I can't get a tan). The chart will resume on Monday with #100.

For those of you just now catching up, here are the last fifty:
For those of you not just now catching up, here are the last fifty:

#150: "Can't Get You Out of My Head" - Kylie Minogue
#149: "Portions for Foxes" - Rilo Kiley
#148: "Mercy" - Duffy
#147: "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time" - Jarvis Cocker
#146: "All of This" - Blink-182
#145: "Bullets" - Tunng
#144: "Put Your Records On" - Corinne Bailey Rae
#143: "Imitation of Life" - R.E.M.
#142: "Slow Jamz" - Jamie Foxx featuring Twista
#141: "Run to Me" - Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs
#140: "I Found Out" - Nathanial Mayer
#139: "Ya Ya Ya (Looking for My Baby) - Detroit Cobras
#138: "Dick in Dixie" - Hank Williams III
#137: "Gone and Went" - Bob Childers
#136: "On a Bus to St. Cloud" - Jimmy LaFave
#135: "Valerie" - Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse
#134: "Duplexes of the Dead" - Fiery Furnaces
#133: "Right Out of Your Hand" - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
#132: "Step in the Name of Love" - R. Kelly
#131: "Beloved Stranger" - Cindylee Berryhill
#130: "Hit the Ground" - Lizz Wright
#129: "Yeah" - Usher
#128: "Four Winds" - Bright Eyes
#127: "Saint Martha Blues" - Otis Taylor
#126: "Decoration Day" - Drive-By Truckers
#125: "State of Massachusetts" - Dropkick Murphys
#124: "American Skin (41 Shots)" - Bruce Springsteen
#123: "Paper Planes" - M.I.A.
#122: "A Border Tale" - Robert Earl Keen
#121: "Choctaw Bingo" - James McMurtry
#120: "Your Man" - Josh Turner
#119: "Old School" - Lyfe Jennings featuring Snoop Dogg
#118: "When the Crying Is Over" - Ian McLagan & the Bump Band
#117: "All I Wanna Do" - Jamie Lidell
#116: "Falling Slowly" - Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
#115: "No One Knows" - Mark Ronson featuring Domino
#114: "No One Knows" - Queens of the Stone Age
#113: "The Sweet Escape" - Gwen Stefani
#112: "1234" - Feist
#111: "A Case of You" - Prince
#110: "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" - Mitch & Mickie
#109: "Penny & Me (Live)" - Hanson
#108: "Seven Nation Army" - White Stripes
#107: "Your Touch" - Black Keys
#106: "1, 2 Step" - Ciara featuring Missy Elliot
#105: "My Sweet Annette" - Drive-By Truckers
#104: "No Vacancy" - Subdudes
#103: "Cryin' in the Streets" - Buckwheat Zydeco
#102: "Belleville Rendez-Vous" - -M-
#101: "A Stroke of Genie-Us" - Freelance Hellraiser

The capsule list from 151-200 can be found here.
The capsule list from 201-249 can be found here.
The capsule list from 250-300 can be found here.
The capsule list from 301-333 can be found here.

The Best Songs of the 2000s: #101

2009-06-03T23:55:00.004-05:00

#101: "A Stroke of Genie-us" (2001) - Freelance Hellraiser

Now we come to just about every DJ's favorite type of music: the mashup. Also known as bastard pop, plunderphonics, glitches, xenochrony, bootlegging, bootie, and--the term I first heard to describe this type of music--the mix (or the re-mix), mashups are (usually) where DJs (and producers and composers, too) mix one record with another to form a "new" composition. Mashups have been produced for over one-hundred years now, the (argueably) first one coming from classical composer Charles Ives with his Symphony No. 2 in 1906. A few times since, (various forms of) mashups have been national (and international) hits: the Stars on 45 records, the Jive Bunny & the Mastermixers records, and the record "Pump Up the Volume" by M/A/R/R/S (the biggest single mashup hit of all time). Of course, radio-station DJs have been mashing up records since the beginning of radio stations, oftentimes taking political speeches, sampling them, and dropping them into instrumentals or either "interviewing" these politicians using reel-to-reel recorders. Club and party DJs have...well, if you've heard a club or party DJ, you've heard a mashup.

In fact, considering the number of people who've heard mashups all their lives, I'm still amazed at the number of people who still--still--get angry at the basis for most mashups: sampling. Methinks there's a bit of inherent racism that comes along with the criticism of sampling (as it helped give birth--and still is one of the building blocks--to rap and hip-hop). The standard accusation is that samplers have no creative ability, so they just steal from those who do. Malarky. Take it from someone who's tried to mashup songs and has tried to write his own: making a good mashup is much more difficult than writing an "original" song. Heck, in the world of fine arts, isn't collage a legitimate form? I thought so.

The mashup here--a combination of Christina Aguilera's vocals to "Genie in a Bottle" and the instrumental of the Strokes' "Hard to Explain"--is better than either one of those two records. The whole, this time, is greater than the sum of its parts. The production work on "Genie in a Bottle" is too generic, and Julian Casablanca's vocals on "Hard to Explain" too low-key and low in the mix (albeit deliberately). The mixture of the two, though, plays upon each record's strengths: the Strokes hard-driving (but not overpowering) muscular roll and Aguilera's vocals (and "Genie"'s vocal melody, too); it mixes perfectly pop and rock. What we have here is a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich (though the RIAA--which squelched this record from ever being sold or played on ClearChannel radio stations--hasn't stopped production of the peanut-butter & jelly sandwich...yet) for the ears.

Just like you can't buy a peanut-butter & jelly sandwich in the grocery stores, you can't find this one in Wal-Mart or on iTunes. You gotta go home, sit in front of the counter, and find the mix yourself. You don't have to make it, though, as Freelance Hellraiser (British DJ Roy Kerr) has already made it for you. You just have to get up and go get it. As with the sandwich, the result is well-worth the effort. Let's pump up the volume.

The Best Songs of the 2000s: #102

2009-06-02T23:59:00.003-05:00

#102: "Belleville Rendez-Vous" (2003) - -M-

An aural ode to one of the greatest guitarists ever from one of the greatest animation films ever (or at least of the past ten years), Benoit Charest's (music) and Sylvain Chomet's (words, and the film's director/animator) "Belleville Rendez-Vous" takes Django Reinhardt's gypsy jazz stylings (played here with some original fantastic fills by Thomas Dutronc), adds a heavy kickdrum thump, charismatic and stylized vocals & scatting by Mathieu Chedid (known famously around France and part of Europe as -M-), a kazoo, a paper-harmonica, and some sublimely silly scatalogical background lyrics, and makes an endlessy-inventive pop pastry, light on its feet, but ever so tasty. You could sing along even if you don't know the language (and the French original take flows so much smoother than the English version), and you could dance this in the home, in the street, and--with that insistent one-three thump, even in the clubs. Would have driven 'em wild there in the mid '30s, but it works just as well in this new millenium. Even Queen's "Bicycle Race" was never this much fun.

The Best Songs of the 2000s: #103

2009-06-01T23:59:00.001-05:00

#103: "Cryin' in the Streets" (2005) - Buckwheat Zydeco
Let's stay on the streets of New Orleans a little longer, for though we still weep at the lives lost over the winds and floodwaters and we still shake our heads at all the homeless denizens, nearly double the number before Katrina, we see a jazz band march 'round the corner at Royal and step down Iberville, and as they approach closer, we hear them playing, and the music is elegiac, stately, yet joyful and hopeful, reflecting that ever-so-specifice Cajun mixture of Catholicism and African culture. It's grieving for the dead with head held high. It's a cheerful promise that tomorrow will be a better day, that those crying are doing so for--unbeknownst to them--our benefit, for we'll see their misery, and we'll sympathize or maybe even empathize, and we'll want to do our best to shine a light, to spotlight their suffering, so that, one day, though the rain may fall and the levees may break, there will be no one crying in the street.

Leading the band 'cross the Quarter is New Orleans's reigning Zydeco king, Stanley Dural, Jr., commonly known 'round these parts as Buckwheat. Buckwheat's been playing music professionally for more than forty years, and he got his start by helping back zydeco progenitor Clifton Chenier. Buckwheat's been performing with his own band--and they're fantastic--The Ils Sont Partis Band--for over thirty years, and they're responsible with the regional hit "My Toot Toot" some twenty-plus years ago.

Today, though, the band he leads is composed of all-star studio musicians: Michael Elizondo on bass, Jim Dickinson on piano, Jim Keltner on drums, and Ry Cooder (who formed the band and produced the sounds of this here parade) on slide guitar. The song of choice is a cover of Buckwheat's fellow George Perkins's 1970 regional hit (w/Perkins's backing band the Silver Stars) about socio-economic and racial injustice. Cooder tells the band to slow it down to funeral dirge tempo and to follow Buckwheat's accordion--and sweet tenor, which hasn't seemed to have aged a day since he began singing and which has never, ever sounded better or more soulfully exhuberant--all the way down the street. Much like the New Orleans jazz band that played at the graveside services to my late aunt Tommie Lynn Kirkland's funeral, they're respectful enough not to denigrate the occasion, but evangelical enough to play with enough emotion and verve to lift the spirits of the quick and the dead on this solemn event, trying to bring back the memories of what was once so wonderful.

New Orleans will come to full strength again, one day. I'm sure. Buckwheat Zydeco is, too. You can hear it in the song. It will rise. Like the waters--still, like dust, it'll rise.

The Tournament of Metal: Round 4, Bracket 1

2009-05-31T00:05:00.005-05:00

We're now down to fifty-two teams. After last week's battles, we were down to forty-seven, but I added five more songs that deserved another shot (according to the 555 messages that people sent me, irritated, sad, and outraged that their songs didn't make it). From fifty-two, we'll go to twenty-six, and then to magic number thirteen, where we'll stop and talk about the importance and/or greatness of each song.

The list of all fifty-two (as decided by you) is below:

ACDC’s “Hells Bells”
ACDC’s “Back in Black”
ACDC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”
Aerosmith’s “Angel”
Bon Jovi’s “Runaway”
Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name”
Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer”
Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive”
Cinderella’s “Shake Me”
Cinderella’s “Heartbreak Station”
The Cult’s “Firewoman”
Damn Yankee’s “High Enough”
Def Leppard’s “Rock of Ages”
Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me”
Dio’s “Holy Diver”
Europe’s “The Final Countdown”
Faster Pusscat’s “House of Pain”
Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle”
Guns N’ Roses “Sweet Child O’ Mine”
Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City”
Guns N’ Roses “Don’t Cry”
Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain”
Sammy Hagar’s “Heavy Metal”
Billy Idol’s “White Wedding”
Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell”
Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills”
Judas Priest’s “You Got Another Thing Coming”
Metallica’s “One”
Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”
Motley Crue’s “Too Fast for Love”
Motley Crue’s “Shout at the Devil”
Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home”
Motley Crue’s “Girls Girls Girls”
Motley Crue’s “Dr. Feelgood”
Motley Crue’s “Kickstart My Heart”
Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian”
Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train”
Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me”
Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”
Quiet Riot’s “Cum On Feel the Noize”
Quiet Riot’s “Metal Health (Bang Your Head)”
Ratt’s “Round and Round”
Rush’s “Tom Sawyer”
Scorpions’ “Rock You Like a Hurricane”
Skid Row’s “I’ll Remember You”
Slaughter’s “Fly to the Angels”
Tesla’s “Love Song”
Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It”
Van Halen’s “Jump”
Van Halen’s “Panama”
White Lion’s “Wait”
Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again”

Here's a list of all the bands whose songs didn't quite make it to the top fifty-two:

Accept
Anthrax
Armored Saint
Autograph
Bad English
Bang Tango
Black N’ Blue
Jon Bon Jovi
Bulletboys
Alice Cooper
Danger Danger
Danzig
Dokken
Enff Z’nuff
Extreme
Firehouse
Lita Ford
Frehley’s Comet
Giuffria
Great White
Hanoi Rocks
Helix
Jackyl
Junkyard
Keel
Kix
Krokus
L.A. Guns
Loudness
Lynch Mob
Manowar
Megadeth
Motorhead
Mr. Big
Nelson
Aldo Nova
Pantera
Queensryche
Rainbow
David Lee Roth
Saigon Kick
Saxon
Slayer
Stryper
Tora Tora
Trixter
Vinnie Vincent Invasion
Vixen
W.A.S.P.
Winger
Warrant
XYZ
Y & T
Zebra

Here are the exact results of this past week's intra-band battles:

2 Metallica’s “One” v. Queensryche’s “Eyes of a Stranger” 1
3 Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” v. Whitesnake’s “Still of the Night” 0
0 Metallica’s “Sad but True” v. Scorpions’ “Rock You Like a Hurricane” 3
3 Motley Crue’s “Too Fast for Love” v. Warrant’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” 0
0 Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home” v. Tesla’s “Love Song” 3
3 Motley Crue’s “Girls Girls Girls” v. Skid Row’s “18 and Life” 0
3 Motley Crue’s “Dr. Feelgood” v. Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” 0
3 Motley Crue’s “Kickstart My Heart” v. Van Halen’s “Everybody Wants Some” 0
1 Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades” v. Van Halen’s “Panama” 2
2 Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian” v. Steelheart’s “I’ll Never Let You Go” 1
3 Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” v. Tesla’s “Little Suzi” 0
0 Ozzy Osbourne’s “Flying High Again” v. Slaughter’s “Fly to the Angels” 2
0 Ozzy Osbourne’s “Goodbye to Romance” v. Skid Row’s “I’ll Remember You” 3
1 Ozzy Osbourne’s “No More Tears” v. Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” 2
3 Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me” v. Scopions’ “Wind of Change”0
1 Poison’s “Nothin’ but a Good Time” v. Van Halen’s “Jump”2
3 Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” v. Warrant’s “Heaven”0
3 Quiet Riot’s “Cum On Feel the Noize” v. Skid Row’s “Youth Gone Wild”0
1 Quiet Riot’s “Metal Health (Bang You Head)” v. Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It”2
2Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” v. Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher”0
1Stryper’s “To Hell with the Devil” v. White Lion’s “Wait”2

The Best Songs of the 2000s: #104

2009-05-29T23:59:00.003-05:00

#104: "No Vacancy" (2006) - The Subdudes

About this time every year, many of my friends and acquantainces and peers are either going or returning from vacation. About this time every year for about five years in a row, the missus and I would be not long returned from a senior class trip. Two of those years we went to New Orleans. The summer after our last senior class trip there, Foot Foot and I took our son Nicholas with us. The three of us had such a good time--and Foot Foot and I enjoyed our senior class trips there so much, too--that the missus and I decided to return to New Orleans every summer. That was in 2005, in June. In August of that year, Katrina hit. It hit our litte town pretty heavily, but the impact here was nothing compared to the devastation in New Orleans. We haven't been back.

We saw all the news reports, read all the articles and editorials, listened to all the griping from those who stayed and to all the griping from those who grew angry at all the griping from those who stayed. Blame passed back and forth, accusations of racism came from white and black/rich and poor, yet still people drowned, still people were left without means, without food, without a lifestyle. For varying reasons--lack of transportation, lack of funds, selfishness, greed, hubris--thousands of people stayed in New Orleans when Katrina hit, and many of these thousands died. The government (local, state, and federal) knew the levees wouldn't hold if a hurricane magnitude of Katrina hit the Gulf Coast near New Orleans, yet these thousands of people--for whatever reason--weren't evacuated. Some stayed willingly, would not have evacuated for any reason whatsoever (remember Camille, when people had hurricane parties--happened this time, too), but some...may they rest in peace.

Not all died, of course. Many who stayed survived, and many of those survivors were left jobless or homeless or both. With this increase in vagrancy came, of course, an increase in crime, in a city already known--yea, hailed--for its laissez faire attitude towards miscreants. Pundits and a few legislators even seriously considered leveling the city, calling it a wash, and starting over from scratch, building atop the rubble and the remains; and some even mentioned forgetting the city altogether, those few thousand remaining forced to leave and find work and home elsewhere.

Some did anyway. Many, though, scraped by best they could. The city's slowly recovering. As noted above, I haven't been back yet, though maybe in a couple of years, when my youngest is old enough to travel more than sixty miles without whining, Foot Foot and I will return. Maybe by then, the city will be as festive and gauche as it was the times I was there before. I hope so. Of all the cities I've visited, New Orleans has been my favorite.

The next two songs on my countdown are dedicated to The Big Easy. This first one was recorded by New Orleans' own Subdudes in May of 2005, three months before Katrina hit; it wasn't released (for obvious reasons) until January 2006. The song's a metaphor for leaving behind heartache and pain, but for me, "No Vacany" will always be inextricably linked to those left behind in the wake of Katrina. I can't hear the song and not think of the pictures and film/video footage of the effects the hurricane had upon the streets of New Orleans. It's supposed to be a hopeful song, but the singer's yearning tone, the somber instrumentation, and the empty spaces bluesman Keb Mo' leaves in the record leave me with images that aren't very hopeful. It makes me sad, a bit depressed, even though I know things will get better. There is (to paraphrase Ecclesiastes and Ben Harper) a reason to mourn.

The Best Songs of the 2000s: #105

2009-05-28T00:29:00.002-05:00

#105: "My Sweet Annette" (2003) - Drive-By Truckers

If Bruce Springsteen would have been raised in the dirt hills of Alabama or the swamps of Florida instead of the swamps of Jersey, then something from his albums Darkness on the Edge of Town or The River might have sounded (in music and lyric) something like this. Since he wasn't, then Jason Isbell's song with his then band the Drive-By Truckers will have to do, and they do so nicely, detailing a relationship soured in the South, where people used to be much more likely to follow their emotions because they didn't have the education to follow their heads 'cause they were spending their youth working the farms and the fields trying to make sure their family didn't go hungry.

The country music here fits perfectly with the redneck setting, as the prospective groom dumps his bride for her maide-of-honor right at the altar on the wedding day. Sounds like a recycled idea from a cliched romantic comedy, doesn't it? Yeah, maybe it does, but that stuff still happens 'round here (and I suspect elswhere, too)--just ask my brother. When you do, make sure and ask if the band's still gonna play the reception even though the wedding's been called off. If you tell him the Truckers are that band, then he might consider it.

The Best Songs of the 2000s: #106

2009-05-27T23:59:00.004-05:00

#106: "1, 2 Step" (2004) - Ciara featuring Missy Elliott

Not only a great "dance" song, it's a great song in-and-of itself, with slinky, funky, very Prince-like Jazzy Pha production (especially in the verses and the chorus), with a contemporary spin that blips and typanies and compresses the frizzy synth lines and interjections just enough to give space for the beat to hit and for the dancers to work their body and one, two step. Enough room for freestyle but structured and full enough for those who just want to follow along, bobbing their heads and shaking their tailfeathers.This one's even got a bridge straight from late-seventies disco/soul, with Ciara trying her best to come across like Disco Donna Summer (though she doesn't have Summer's energy and sounds more like Disco Diana Ross). Plus, you've got co-writer Missy Elliot rapping a solo in the middle, and any Mis-da-meanor addition is always arresting, this time with Ms. Elliot comparing her relative age to the finest cut of steak. Eat it quick, though, so you can get back on the floor.

The Best Songs of the 2000s: #107

2009-05-26T00:43:00.002-05:00

#107: "Your Touch" (2006) - The Black Keys

From one guitar+drums duo of rocking blues to another, I give you (for the second time), Akron's finest,* The Black Keys, with Dan Auerbach on guitar and Patrick Carney on drums and behind the production mixing board. Perhaps moreso than any other band this decade, the Black Keys have benefitted from selling out. This duo has never had a hit record, but they're ubiquitous; more people have probably heard their songs than have heard the White Stripes (even though the White Stripes are headliners and the Keys are always someone's opening act) thanks to savvy Madison Avenue ad agents and TV show soundtrack compilers who know a thing-or-two more about great pop records than do any of those Clear-Channel executives who are ruining radio with their oligarchic rule. The Keys' songs are everywhere, from commercials to mainstream television to pay-cable shows to film soundtracks to video games. Why?
Like the White Stripes, the Black Keys have a primal thrust in the beats and riffs of their songs, and thus their music can appeal to a wide audience. Their song dynamics are catchy, as they often start and stop on a dime, pausing for a vocal effect or a drum roll or a pick slide. They keep it simple and basic, with no extravagence (which is where they differ from the White Stripes) to interfere amid messenger, message, and audience. In that straightforward approach--in musical and lyrical style and form--their music harkens back to the blues of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf (as well as contemporary--and late--blues musician Junior Kimbrough, of whom the Keys owe a tremendous musical debt). Auerbach and Carney like rock and metal too, so Auerbach distorts his guitar so much that it sounds like it could have been played forty years ago by Dave Davies or Pete Townshend, and Carney splashes and crashes on the cymbals like early John Bonham.
Unlike the Kinks or the Who or Led Zeppelin, the Black Keys don't veer from their original path.** Carney adds a little echo to Auerbach's urgent yet controlled vocals, but otherwise it's a contemporary sound the Keys have, yet the energy and emotion are raw and open. Their music may harken back to bands from forty or fifty years past,*** yet the Black Keys aren't a retro band; there's not a false note on any of their records. These primal emotions--and this song, "Your Touch," is a great example--will never go out of style.
"Your Touch" is basically a song about desire, immediate desire, immediate physical--sexual--desire, and the Keys don't, uh, beat around the bush. Over and over, Auerbach moans, "I nee-eed...your touch," the drums and the guitar the only things holding him (ever so slightly) in check all the while replicating his will, his drive, his urge. It's a record almost anyone can connect with on a visceral level, and it's a visceral song, upfront and in our faces, so basic, so simple, the need to connect.

The Best Songs of the 2000s: #108

2009-05-25T23:50:00.001-05:00

#108: "Seven Nation Army" (2003) - The White Stripes

As if to throw a big middle finger to their detractors, the White Stripes open the first song on their first album with an instrument that hadn't been on any of the three prior records: the bass guitar. It's a great rock bass riff too, opening the door ceremonially to Meg White's four-on-the-floor kick, all announcing the coming of a ticked-off Jack White, walking towards us, getting closer and closer, vocals climbing from speak-sing to falsetto to full-blown roar. His fuzz-guitar amps mimics the bass riff as it mimics his anger and his envy and his jealousy and his rage at all the gossip and ignorance and betrayal in his life and in his world. It's a little blues, a little Zeppelin, a little Pixies, and a little Nirvana, all wrapped up and striped in a red, white, and black package at our front door. We shake it, we hear it ticking, but we open it still, only to find it blow up in our face, our last images of Jack and Meg walking side by side--but not hand in hand--out to the horizon, their contours framed in shadow by the setting sun, this little Western movie epic of a record, a John Ford film on wax.

The Tournament of Metal: Round 3, Bracket 6

2009-05-25T16:56:00.003-05:00

The all-important third round is now upon us, as the top 94 songs battle it out, and this time, there's not a stinker among them. This week, we have 42 songs, with bands M-W competing.

One song--because of the odd number of songs in this bracket--gets a bye based on having a nine-point victory two weeks ago (the highest). That song is Motley Crue's "Shout at the Devil."
We'll see it in competition next week.

This past week, the following metal acts left us:

Jon Bon Jovi (solo)
Bulletboys
Honeymoon Suite
Jackyl
Junkyard
Kiss
Lillian Axe
L.A. Guns

while the following headbangers soldier on, and we'll see them again in next week:

AC/DC
Aerosmith
Bon Jovi
Cinderella
The Cult
Damn Yankees
Def Leppard
Dio
Europe
Faster Pussycat
Guns N' Roses
Sammy Hagar
Billy Idol
Iron Maiden
Judas Priest

Anyway, exact results of this past week's intra-band battles:

3ACDC’s “Hells Bells” v. Jon Bon Jovi’s “Miracle”2
4ACDC’s “Back in Black” v. Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without a Face”0
0ACDC’s “Thunderstruck” v. Judas Priest’s “You Got Another Thing Coming”3
3ACDC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long” v. Kiss’ “Crazy Crazy Night”1
0ACDC’s “Who Made Who” v. Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell”3
0ACDC’s “For Those About to Rock” v. Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City”4
3Aerosmith’s “Angel” v. Guns N’ Roses’ “Don’t Cry”2
3Bon Jovi’s “Runaway” v. Billy Idol’s “Rock the Cradle”1
5Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” v. Junkyard’s “Hands Off”0
4Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer” v. Guns N’ Roses’ “Patience”1
3Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” v. Jackyl’s “The Lumberjack” 2
1Jon Bon Jovi’s “Blaze of Glory” v. Europe’s “The Final Countdown”3
0Bulletboys’ “Smooth Up in Ya” v. Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine”5
3Cinderella’s “Shake Me” v. Kiss’ “Lick It Up”2
0Cinderella’s “Night Songs” v. Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle”5
2Cinderella’s “Heartbreak Station” v. Faster Pusscat’s “House of Pain”3
0The Cult’s “Wild Flower” v. Sammy Hagar’s “Heavy Metal”3
3The Cult’s “Firewoman” v. Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law”1
3Damn Yankee’s “High Enough” v. L.A. Guns’ “Ballad of Jayne”1
2Danzig’s “Mother” v. Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills”3
3Def Leppard’s “Rock of Ages” v. Kiss’ “Heaven’s on Fire”1
2Def Leppard’s “Photograph” v. Billy Idol’s “White Wedding”3
5Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” v. Honeymoon Suite’s “New Girl Now”0
0Def Leppard’s “Hysteria” v. Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain”5
4Dio’s “Holy Diver” v. Lillian Axe’s “Misery Loves Company”0

The Best Songs of the 2000s: #109

2009-05-22T23:36:00.002-05:00

#109: "Penny & Me (Live Acoustic)" (2004) - Hanson

Well, the missus and I never used to put the pedal to the ground, and we never closed our eyes and pretended to fly, but we did use to love to ride around with the windows down (yeah, it's generic, but that doesn't mean it's not great), drinking cappucino, music almost blaring (until I was told to turn it down), and sometimes we'd listen to Hanson and their wonderfully chipper and full California harmonies, their upbeat tone, their just-this-side of bubblegum marriage of pop and rock. You know what? We still do. Or at least I still do. Sometimes. Taylor Hanson can still bring the soul and sing the lights out of anything, and the brothers' sense of melody and harmony and light rhythm is as impeccable as ever, and in this one, they ride that strumming acoustic guitar into the sunset, around it, and back home again. They mention my wife's name in the title, too, and as for Penny songs, this one's much better than Lionel Richie's "Penny Lover" (and slightly better than Moe Bandy's "I Love You Penny"), and guess what...tomorrow marks eleven years of wedded...uh...marriage.
Happy Anniversary, Foot Foot! This one's for you!

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #110

2009-05-21T00:01:00.007-05:00

#110: "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" (2003) - Mitch & Mickey

When Mitch Cohen and Mickey Devlin performed their seminal hit "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" on Lee Aikman's Folk Hour on CBS on August 23, 1966, my mother and father were sitting at their respective houses hearing a song that--unbeknownst to them--would soon lead them to their own precious little pot of gold. My mother wasn't a huge fan of folk music, but she liked the more pop outings of Ian & Sylvia almost as much as she did Paul & Paula, so she'd tune in just in case anyone was singing a catchy little ditty. My father abhored folk music,* but he tuned in because his blue-eyed soul band's keyboard player Andy Mobandy had just returned from a trip to San Francisco, where he'd heard a punk rock group he loved, the Golliwogs, and he heard that three members** of the Golliwogs would be playing on the show with a black guy named Jimi who--though he had actually played soul music and was starting to incorporate some weird San Francisco-rock music--looked like a folk singer (or, at least, looked like he had Bob Dylan's hair do), and Andy had encouraged all his bandmates to check out the show.

My dad watched the entire show, and to his consternation, Jimi & the Golliwogs never performed.*** He and his buddies were talking about the show the next day at school, and my mom overheard them. She told them that she had watched Lee Aikman's Folk Hour too, and that she thought the song was sweet. My dad and his friends were aghast. They thought the song was garbage. Knights? Maidens? Fairy Tales? Kiddie music! Where was the groove? Where was the soul? Where was the truth? The honesty? The throb? The pulse?

My mother held out her hand, and she asked my father (who was the most outspoken of the group) that if he took her hand with his, and he felt the underside of her wrist, what he would find. My father, looking around to make sure he was heard, said, "The pathway to your heart, o princess." His friends laughed. He did, too. He started to grab her hand, and she pulled it back.

She told him, "No, what you would find would be what you were looking for in that music last night: a pulse." His friends oohed and chortled. My mother extended her arm again, but this time, she kept it closer to her. She then addressed all of them.

"But you'll never find it, you'll never hear it, you'll never notice it if you're too busy baying like simple-minded sheep. To truly catch the pulse of something live, you must focus, turn on, tune in, and listen for it." She then pressed the first two fingers of her left hand against her right wrist and closed her eyes. "You must be attentive. Only then can you hear it. Only then can you feel it."

She paused, three seconds, and she opened her eyes. "There. I know my pulse. I know it's there. I've felt it. I know it. Now," she then looked at my dad, "let me feel yours." She grabbed his right arm and pressed her fingers to his wrist. She closed her eyes. She, he, his friends were silent. Three seconds. Five seconds. Six seconds.

"There it is," she said, and she dropped his wrist. "I wasn't sure at first because I was listening for my pulse, but I didn't find it. I did, however, find one that beat much more rapidly than mine. It was different, but it was still there. I just had to stop listening for something in particular so that I could hear what was already there to begin with." She took a step or two away down the hall, and then turned her head and said, "Know what I mean?"

Two weeks later, my dad and my mom went on their first date. Three years later, they eloped. Two years after that wedding date, they named their first born after their friend who, for all unintentional purposes, introduced them to one another as man and wife. The day my mother came home from the hospital, she gave my father a cross-stitched picture she'd been working on for weeks, a picture that read, "Pulse Of a Pot of Gold" (those emboldened letters were each capitalized in extra-large stitches at the beginnings of the three lines). The picture, framed, is still at my parents' house, above portraits of me, my brother, and the family dog.

Mitch's and Mickey's pot of gold tarnished, though, only eight short years after their debut album Meet Mitch and Mickey. Mitch struck out--in both senses of that phrase--solo, releasing three critically-panned albums in a row, each more commercially unsuccessful than the previous one. The albums Cry for Help, Songs from a Dark Place, and Calling It Quits were each self-indulgent, insular, stark, gloomy, and paranoid. Both lyrically and musically, each album deliberately contradicted the bright and hopeful tone of the Mitch and Mickey records. Gone were the major-chord melodies and the lush romanticism and the optimistic outlook and the righteous yearning, all to be replaced with doom-laden tracks full of minor-chords, single-string strumming, droning bass notes, and repetitive singing**** about topics such as murder, suicide, hatred, self-loathing, and the yearning for a drink of water. Even after the atypical, non-conventional pop-rock music of the Velvet Underground and the Plastic Ono Band, Mitch Cohen's three mid-seventies' albums struck a nerve with audiences, and the audiences didn't like their nerves struck. After three such strikes, Mitch Cohen struck out.

In 1976, after hearing of the success his pop-music contemporaries Brian Wilson and Roky Erickson had had with institutionalism,***** Mitch Cohen decided to admit himself to an asylum. He stayed there for over twenty-five years. Albums produced: none. Songs written: none. Chart success: none. Critical re-evaluation of his canon of recorded music: none. Egg-salad sandwiches eaten: over 28,000. Cohen did write poetry, though, sometimes thousands of lines per day. Unfortunately, Cohen wasn't allowed to use a typical writing utensil******, so his only writing recourse was a crayon, and his only tablet his hand*******, so Cohen's entire artistic output from this period has since been scrubbed down the sink.

It's all a wash anyway. In 2003, Cohen was released from the asylum******** in order to participate in the "Ode to Irving" tribute show.********* At the live show in the Town Hall, Mitch performed with Mickey for the first time in almost thirty years. They sang "When You're Next to Me," "Killington Hill,********** "One More Time***********," "The Ballad of Bobby and June," and, their closer, "The Kiss at the End of the Rainbow." That last song was the showstopper, bringing forth vocal and emotional nuances in both Mitch and Mickey that were absent in the original recorded version (as well as the version on Lee Atkinson's Folk Hour).

After that highly-regarded performance, Mitch and Mickey were rushed into the studio the next day by once-defunct (but now publicly-traded) record company Folktone Records to record the song again, in hopes of capitalizing on the success of the "Ode to Irving" show. In fact, the duo recorded several tracks--none new--and Folktone hoped to convince the two to record an entire album's worth, and Cohen agreed, but he told the executives that he left his material in his room at the institution. He then hastily returned to the asylum. He has yet to re-emerge.

This re-recording of "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow," however, did emerge, and it sold substantially well online and received limited amounts of airplay.************ Of course, this recording doesn't have the visual--from the Irving show--of Mickey's hope and heartbreak, which truly imparts how important dreams and fantasy are to those of us whose lives have carried more disappointments than they should, but Mickey's vocals are sweet yet forlorn enough for us to imagine the loss she's lived with and the brighter day she hopes may someday yet arrive. Mitch's vocals on the record? Steady. They're the pulse that allows Mickey to invest herself attentively in the song. His rhythmic throb allows her to coo and frill. She can sing upfront because he's coming at her from behind, and they climax together.

With an autoharp.

NOTES

*Still does, too.

**The fourth member, John Fogerty, had just been drafted, and so he immediately signed up with the Air Guard, and he was away on basic training at the time.

***Concert promoter Bill Graham landed Jimi and the Golliwogs the gig, but Bill forgot to book the flight.

****How repetitive? Mitch Cohen's last solo album contains a song called, "Why?" in which the sole lyric is the word why chanted in monotone over an out-of-tune, singularly plucked E-string. No steady rhythm is found in that song, and it drones on for seven minutes.

*****Mitch thought Institutionalism a form of music or art, like Psychedelica or Cubism.

******Quite possibly the inspiration behind this institutional dictum was Cohen's song from Songs from a Dark Place, "A Hard Pencil Lead's Gonna Fall Right in Mary's Eye (so Mary Won't Be Able to Weep No More)."

*******Roky Erickson once visited Mitch in the asylum, and Erickson convinced Mitch that the trees were actually aliens who were able to watch people from the outside (as trees) and from the inside (as paper). It took a decade to convince Mitch that Erickson's belief was fallible.

********He was never actully incarcerated there. He stayed--the entire twenty-six-plus years--voluntarily.

*********Irving Steinbloom was an influential folk-music producer.

**********"Killington Hill" is a song about rape, murder, and naps, and is the only early sign of Cohen's future musical path.

***********Daft Punk would later cover--and strikingly alter--Mitch & Mickey's "One More Time."

************Folktone Records had more success with this new version of "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" because of the mp3 format. The CD copies of the "Ode to Irving" album sold fewer than one-hundred copies--primarily because word spread that one would have to punch a hole in the middle of the Folktone CD for it to play on many--but not all--CD players. The CD is now a collector's item on eBay, and it has garnered bids of over ten-thousand dollars.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #111

2009-05-20T00:01:00.000-05:00

#111: "A Case of You" (2007) - Prince
Kiss. Elton John. Journey. Billy Joel. Bruce Springsteen. Motley Crue. Guns N' Roses. Michael Jackson. Those were my favorite recording artists when I was in late elementary and later high school. I can't say I admire all of their records anymore (except for Springsteen), but for years I did. One topped 'em all, though, and that was Prince. Prince could play rock, funk, soul, and pop with the best of 'em, and his best always topped everyone else's from his heyday. I believed that then, and I still believe it now. Considering how much I loved his music, it's funny--and sad--that of all the records he's released this past decade, he's not only going to have only one make the charts, but that one isn't one he wrote himself.

This one's a cover of a Joni Mitchell song. Theoretically, this mishmash seems odd, but it works oh so well for quite a few reasons. For one, Prince is a self-avowed Joni Mitchell fan (he regurly lists Mitchell's "Help Me" as his all-time favorite song). Second, Prince is highly-capable of writing and performing subtle, piano-driven love/soul songs (and, no, "Purple Rain" doesn't count--that's a metal ballad if there was one). Finally, Joni Mitchell's written many a fine soul song herself, though Mitchell didn't always have the best accompaniment, nor did she usually arrange her songs as typical love/soul songs; nevertheless, that soul-song structure--as well as Mitchell's voice quality and timbre--are present in many of her songs, and maybe only another musical genius could not only see the soul within the songs, but also record one of them as a love/soul song as well, as if to say, "See"?

Prince's version tops Mitchell's for two reasons: 1). he sings in falsetto, so he obscures the bad poetry that lies in some of the verses, and 2). his drummer adds the backbeat/rim-shot combination that---mixed with the exquisite piano work here--makes explicit not only the soul vibe (which was just implied in the original), but also adds the sway, the roll, to the pretty piano, making the record romantic, danceable, and a bit sad and lonely--all of which are ingredients in the best soul ballads, of which this is one.

All hail. The Prince is gone, but he's not forgotten.

no video 'cause prince wouldn't want it that way...

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #112

2009-05-19T00:01:00.003-05:00

#112: "1234" (2007) - Feist

I'm a senior class sponsor at my high school, and I teach five classes of senior English, so when all those guys and gals--that I've spent five days a week with for the past ten months, and some I've even taught for three years--graduate this Friday night, I'm going to be watching people I know almost as well as I know my close friends walk across that stage, wearing proudly their maroon caps and gowns, to grab that diploma cover and come back to their seats only to then throw their maroon caps high up in the air and walk to a breakout room and take off their gown and hug their family, and most of them will disappear from my life forever.

I'll try and congratulate the ones I see, and the response I'll get will be a smile and a nod. They won't say thank you. They won't say goodbye. I've listened to their worries and fears, I've seen them cry, I've consoled, I've offered praise and encouragement, I've written letters of recommendation, I've given them second and third and fourth chances at learning and passing, I've ignored countless curses and shows of disrespect and public displays of affection, and I've made sure they've enrolled in college.

You know how I'll feel when they walk out that breakout room with real diploma finally in hand, smiling 'cause they never have to see me again? Elated! I'll be almost as ready to be away from them as they are of me. If I shed a tear, it'll be because I'll have to pack up the caps and gowns that I'll later have to take back to the school--after all the other teachers are through for the year--while everyone else is enjoying the smorgasboard of culinary delights laid out for them in the convention center. They'll be smiling and eating, and I'll be sweating.

I'll be glad, though. I'll be tired, but I'll be relieved. If I had the energy at the time (and I won't), then I'd go out with my pal Foot Foot and cut a rug somewhere.

Why so happy? Is it because I hate these kids? No, I love many of them. I've been close friends with a handful. I've a few who discussed NFL football with me every Monday and college football with me every Friday. I've a couple/three with whom I discussed drumming and rock music. I've a select few who talked religion and politics with me on an honest and deep level. Heck, they've all listened intently to my ghost stories, and they've all laughed at at least half of my jokes. Why would I be so keen to rid myself of people like this, people who think I'm pretty cool and a halfway decent fellow?

They're teenagers, that's why.

The teenage mind is literally configured differently than adult minds. Teenagers make stupid decisions because they're teenagers. It's not just some old adage, some truism; it's a scientific fact.

Oh, some of the mistakes they make, and oh, some of the choices they, uh, choose. Why oh why didn't you sign up before the deadline? Why oh why do you still date that guy? Why oh why didn't you tell your mother where you were going? Why oh why didn't you verify the truth before you hit her? Why oh why didn't you set your alarm clock so that you wouldn't miss the ACT? Why oh why didn't you give your boyfriend's switchblade (that you confiscated from him for fear of what he'd do with it) to your teacher or principal as soon as you got to school that day? Why oh why oh why oh why?

Too much drama is the reason I'm glad I don't have to see these friends** of mine ever again. They break my heart. They remind me of the stupid decisions I used to make. Their geekiness reminds me of my geekiness. Their failed attempts at romance remind me of mine. All in all, they remind me of high school.*

I didn't like high school very much. Now, I had some great friends, and the last three years of high school were much better than the first three, but I look back upon those days with very little fondness. In fact, I believe I've only gone back inside that building twice: once was when I substitued before I began teaching fulltime, and the second was for a job interview to teach fulltime (mercy, what was I thinking, teaching at a place I--more often than not--loathed) before I began teaching fulltime. I don't care to ever go back again.

I do, though--figuratively. Not as often as I used to (as my years away have, thankfully, now grown greater than my years there), but still, every year, just about every week, I'm reminded of me being a teenager, and I don't like to be reminded of that. I didn't know who I was then; I didn't have a clue. I, therefore, wasn't confident.

I know who I am now, and I (for the most part) like who I am. I like being a father and a husband and a goofy yet demanding teacher and a son and a DJ and a drummer. I'm all, and I contain multitudes, and I've a separate place for each one, and I can put them all together seamlessly. I know who I am.

From August to May, though, the further the school year marches, the more and more I'm reminded of a time when I didn't, and the more and more I'm ready for those memories to walk out that door with the graduates. I'm ready to toss them into the air, and I'm ready to celebrate.

What in the world does all this have to do with Feist's "1234"? She feels the same way. She's matured, and she's talking to someone who hasn't yet, to someone who's having a difficult time relinquishing from her teenage hopes. She speaks of not being able to go back, of the fruitlessness of it, of the stupidity of the drama, of celebrating who you are now.

She's feeling some of those nostalgiac fears and worries, too, but she recognizes that fact, and with that recognition comes freedom. With that freedom, comes jubilant celebration, and that feeling of unbridled joy, of personal independence from the past, of relishing the individual, builds and builds throughout the song. "1234" starts with simple banjo plucking and softly-sung vocals, but it climaxes with the most exhuberant commemoration of any folk-pop song in the history of folk-pop songs, with Feist's sandpaper whispery wisps in that follow-the-bouncing-ball melody grown into a full-blown and full-throated yawp of unadulterated happiness that seemingly lasts forever, the Penny Lane trumpets blaring, the barrelhouse piano rolling and tumbling, the drummer marching across the snare, the confetti flying, the caps in the air, the parents applauding, the cameras flashing, and then, right before the end, she dials it all back to next-to-nothing, the graduates out of the room, while she and the rest of the senior sponsors sit and quietly much on the remaining scraps of chicken tenders and pineapple, the party going on without them.

They're much the better for it. All of them.

It's all pomp and circumstance anyway.

NOTES

*Don't say it. I know.

**In all honesty--and, just so you know, I hate being all honest--I will miss a few of them. Overall, I enjoyed teaching this year's class better than any since, oh, 2001. I didn't have to turn in any behavior referrals this year. I wrote a handful, but thankfully the offending students seeing my writing of the referrals was enough of a deterrent to cause them to behave better. I felt myself with these kids this year and often I felt like I was almost communicating with adults. Sometimes--with a few of these students--I was, these few individuals (and they know who they are) had maturity and intelligence levels easily the match for a good number of the people with whom I normally come in contact.

For those few students whom I've come to closely befriend: don't be a stranger. Drop by the house sometime. I promise not to make you write (though Foot Foot will make you watch the slide show of family photos--just a warning).

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #113

2009-05-18T23:01:00.002-05:00

#113: "The Sweet Escape" (2006) - Gwen Stefani

It's summertime! It's official! That being so, what better way to start the season than this past decade's official summertime singles queen, Gwen Stefani.

The Madonna of the new millenium, Stefani's best solo track* begins with some Bahamian guitar and the catchiest "Whoo-oo" of the decade, making the song immediately catchy. By the second round of "Whoo-oo"s, it becomes nigh-impossible not to smile. Just try singing along. The beginning of the song is guaranteed to make you grin one way or another. The rest of the track is just as likeable and fun and fluffy and bright and chirpy and cheerful, as it waves and sways better than any faux reggae Blondie ever performed.

Gwen's singing, though, if taken in snatches, is just as positive and optimistic, as she sounds as if she's updating Madonna's "True Blue" for the new age, eschewing with that song's girl-group pastiche and instilling instead her own Caribbean-flavored pop.

Ah, summer....I wish it was here.

Sadly, it's not.

Not yet.

We teachers and students still have a week to go, and we've so much to do this week, more in these upcoming five days than in any five months of the rest of the year. So much stress and headache and paperwork and bother to come, the only way to stay sane is to take a mental trip to a peaceful place. We need a fantasy.

That's what Gwen gives us. Not just in the sound, but in the lyrics, too: Stefani's song isn't about creating a sweet relationship with her boo. No, it's not. The song's about her wish to do so. See...she can't do it. They don't have a relationship anymore. They don't have a future together. Really. The entire song is the protagonist's fantasy of wishing to have a perfect romantic utopia. The song is titled thusly because the the protagonist can't have the life she wants, so she needs to create her own world, a world in which she doesn't defeat herself.

This bittersweet undercurrent I didn't catch until about the fiftieth time I heard the song. I don't know why I never noticed it before, as the sadness colors Stefani's vocals throughout the chorus. Sure, the verses are all shiny happy people, but then there's a definite come-down in tone from verse to chorus. She sounds almost defeated, as if this fantasy, this escape, was the only thing anchoring her, her fantasy creating the only reality in which she can survive.

We teachers--especially this last week of school--understand this concept all too well. It's not summer yet, and we can't make it that way, but what if we could? Stefani offers us the closest chance we'll get at it this week.

NOTES

*I must confess that though I love Stefani's vocals on "Hollaback Girl," I don't like the music. It's too skeletal throughout the song. Whenever Stefani sings, the music's perfect, as--thematically--it matches her lyrics, but when she's not singing, I quickly grow impatient because the music offers no support at all. It might as well be acappella during the down time the music's so anemic. Just for the weird cheer of "bananas" at the end, I almost included it. Couldn't get into--or past--the music (or lack thereof) though.

The Tournament of Metal: Round 3, Bracket 5

2009-05-17T19:21:00.000-05:00

The all-important third round is now upon us, as the top 94 songs battle it out, and this time, there's not a stinker among them. This week, we have 50 songs, with bands A-L competing; next week, we'll have 44 songs, with bands M-W duking it out. That'll give us--in three weeks--47 songs remaining, and then we'll add the five losing songs with the most votes from those two weeks' worth of battles, and we'll have a total of 52. We halve that the next week to 26, then we halve that, and we'll have the Top 13 Metal Songs of the Metal Era, 1980-1992 (a thirteen-year era).

The tournament will then take a week-long breather, as we spotlight two metal songs a day (and one on the last day), detailing why these songs are so important to not only the world of heavy metal, but to the world of popular music, the culture thereof, and the total impact of these songs upon society as a whole and us as individuals.

Make sure and check back every Sunday night, you headbangers, as we watch how the Tournament of Metal evolves and revolves, culminating in the winning song announced during the last week of July.

Now...on with the countdown....

This past week, the following metal acts left us:

Saigon Kick
Saxon
Slayer
TNT
Tora Tora
Trixter
Vinnie Vincent Invasion
W.A.S.P.
XYZ
Y&T
Zebra

while the following headbangers soldier on, and we'll see them again in two more weeks:

Queensryche
Scorpions
Skid Row
Slaughter
Steelheart
Stryper
Tesla
Twisted Sister
Van Halen
Warrant
White Lion
Whitesnake

Anyway, exact results of this past week's intra-band battles:

3 Queensryche’s “Eyes of a Stranger” v. Y&T’s “Summertime Girls” 1
1 Saigon Kick’s “Love Is on the Way” v. Styper’s “To Hell with the Devil” 2
0 Saxon’s “Denim & Leather” v. Van Halen’s “Everybody Wants Some” 5
5 Scorpions’ “Rock You Like a Hurricane" v. Tora Tora’s “Phantom Rider” 0
4 Scorpion’s “Wind of Change” v. Winger’s “Miles Away” 1
5 Skid Row’s “I Remember You” v. Zebra’s “Tell Me What You Want” 0
3 Skid Row’s “18 and Life” v. Winger’s “Headed for a Heartbreak” 1
4 Skid Row’s “Youth Gone Wild” v. W.A.S.P.’s “Wild Child” 0
4 Slaughter’s “Fly to the Angels” v. Slayer’s “Angel of Death” 1
3 Steelheart’s “I’ll Never Let You Go” v. Van Halen’s “Unchained” 1
3 Tesla’s “Signs” v. Whitesnake’s “Still of the Night” 3 *
3 Tesla’s “Little Suzi” v. Vixen’s “Edge of a Broken Heart” 2
3 Tesla’s “Love Song” v. Van Halen’s “When It’s Love” 2
1 TNT’s “10,000 Lovers (in One)” v. Van Halen’s “Panama” 3
1 Trixter’s “Give It to Me Good v. Van Halen’s “Jump” 3
4 Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” v. Van Halen’s “(Oh) Pretty Woman” 1
2 Twisted Sister’s “I Wanna Rock” v. Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” 3
2 Van Halen ‘s “Feels So Good” v. Warrant’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” 3
4 Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” v. Vinnie Vincent Invasion’s “Boys Are Gonna Rock” 0
3 Warrant’s “Heaven” v. Whitesnake’s “Is This Love” 1
5 Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” v. XYZ’s “Inside Out” 0
5 White Lion’s “Wait” v. White Lion’s “When the Children Cry” 0

*Whitesnake's "Still of the Night" wins this tiebreaker based on the fact that my son liked that title better than he did "Signs."

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #114

2009-05-15T00:01:00.002-05:00

#114: "No One Knows" (2002) - Queens of the Stone Age

This California desert band live up their title, as they give us both the pop and the rock. The Queens of the Stone age craft a slice of metallic fudge-funk about living in an anesthisized society in a Big Brother world. Like the Geraman oompah march-step music of the verses, they fall in line, but--like Charlie Rich and his woman--when they get behind closed doors, they not only get jiggy wit' it, they let it all hang out, and they get their freak on...their Middle Eastern freak on.

That's significant, 'cause this one made the top 50, and Josh Homme sounds like he's chanting some Islamic mantra in the chorus, which was a pretty daring move in 2002. The song rocks, too, with Homme and Lanegan and Oliveri thrashing out some Slayer-like riffs in the chorus, while Dave Grohl--in his this-album-only stint with the Queens--not only brings the bang and the rock as he thunders around the toms, but he also brings some funk, too, especially in the verses, his snare popping on and around the backbeat like he was Benny Benjamin. With Grohl in tow, the Queens not only rock the house, but they also house the rock, making a raucous song that you can slam and dance to.

Swallow those pills, Mark Ronson.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #115

2009-05-14T00:01:00.000-05:00

#115: "No One Knows" (2007) - Mark Bronson featuring Domino

For the third* time in this chart, Mark Ronson covers a song by flipping it onto its funky side. Ronson and this this-time-only cohorts Domino take the Queens of the Stone Age song and strip it of its metal. They change the rock riffs into bursts of horn, they change the drums from heavy on the toms to heavy on the hi-hat, and they take Homme's pedestrian vocals and replace them with Domino Kirke's sultry come-ons. By doing all this, Ronson and Domino change a head-banging anthem with its menacing undercurrent into a dance track of the highest order, something akin to what Otis Redding did with the Beatles' "Day Tripper"...except (and I can't believe I'm about to say this, being the humongous Otis fan I am) their cover is better than Otis's cover.

'Cause Otis's drummer never quite brought the funk like this.**

NOTES
*The other two times (plus a third for a co-producer credit) can be found here.

**I'll fully admit, though, that this drumming could be sampled, but if so, it's not from any Otis track (probably from a James Brown track).

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #116

2009-05-13T00:01:00.002-05:00

#116: "Falling Slowly" (2007) - Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova

One of my favorite movies is The Commitments (1991), a film shot and set in Dublin about a man who sees all the poverty around him and wants to give his people a little bit of joy in their lives by managing the world's greatest band, a soul band, an Irish soul band. The film's chock full of wonderful soul music classics performed by struggling musicians in their first (and for many, only) acting gig. It's funny, it's warm, it's bittersweet, and the poverty issue gives it depth without it being the sole focus of the film. I need to fish out my old VHS tape of it I copied from HBO years ago. Actually, now that I think about how poorly those tapes stand the test of time, I need to buy the DVD.

Anyway, of all the young musicians in the movie, one clearly stood out as a supreme talent: singer Andrew Strong. He was sixteen when the movie was shot, but he sounded (and looked) much older. Strong was (and, I assume, still is) a red-headed, pony-tailed hulk gone to pot, his manners as sloppy as his speech and dress. He looked like a ruffian, a lout, a bum, but when he sang, he transformed into a powerful life force, his voice and performance elevating a solid backing band into the world's greatest band. I'm not talking just about the characters from the movie, either; I mean the performers in the movie. For the few songs that they perform en toto with Strong singing, in 1991, The Commitments were the hottest band in the world. Too bad they were fictional.

Andrew Strong signed a record deal, and his career bombed. He made three records, none very good. He didn't have the songs to best showcase his talent.* There were two other amateur actor/musicians from that cast who've touched popular greatness.

Andrea Corr and her sisters auditioned for the movie, but only Andrea was given a part, and it was in a non-singing role (as the manager's sister). She and her sisters--The Corrs--have achieved multinational fame (though America isn't one of those nations where they achieved stardom, not quite), recorded with Bono and other famous musicians, and won an award or two.

Glen Hansard is the other Commitment (he's the guitarist in the movie) who's since achieved popular and critical acclaim. Hansard wasn't quite an amateur when The Commitments was shot. A year earlier, he formed the Irish folk/pop/rock band The Frames (with whom he still occasionally performs), and he also attended film school in New York. He began his entertainment career at thirteen, as a busker, singing for coinage in his native Dublin. Hansard achieved international fame by playing what (I gather) is more-or-less the same role that in real life started his journey to be a professional musician.

The 2007 movie Once is about...independent musicians...who fall in love. I've not seen it yet.** As I've a few friends who are professional musicians, some doing well, some making ends meet, some not, I've quite a fire to see this one. It stars a Commitment, too, and he's a musician in the movie, so it has to have a few redeeming factors. Sure, it looks a bit too treacly for my tastes, and a little too sad sack for my cynical critic's heart o' stone, but hey...it's got that song!

That song is "Falling Slowly," and I first heard it in full right after the 2008 Academy Award nominations were announced. I don't follow film anymore, so I'd never heard of the movie. The song was news to me. I listened to a thirty-second sample on iTunes, and I wondered what in the world Cat Stevens was doing changing his name again. Had he re-converted from Islam? A few minutes of research later, and I discovered that no, that wasn't Cat Stevens singing "Falling Slowly;" it was Outspan Foster! Wow! I had to have it, and so I bought it. I listened to it, and I was taken aback. Where was the soul? What was Outspan Foster doing singing a Damien Rice*** song?

I didn't listen to the song again till the night of the Oscars. Wow again! This time, though, I was impressed. Was this the same song that I kibbitzed two/three months earlier? After the telecast, I climbed down into my man-cave, and I listened to it. Sure enough, it was.

Usually, I don't like this type of singer-songwriter stuff because it usually comes across as too precious and too delicate and too pretentious without any sense of rhythm. Well, "Falling Slowly" fits those criterion, but the song's fragile intimacy isn't surrounded with the typical Adult Contemporary arrangement. No drums here, no synthisizers either, no useless background vocals, nothing that makes it sound like any other contemporary popular song.***** What it sounds like is chamber music, folk chamber music, folk chamber pop music. No matter its reasons, hearing austure folk chamber pop music on mainstream American radio is a monumental accomplisment, especially knowing how formulaic a record must be for ClearChannel to play it on one of their stations.

For all its apparent flaws (the song is easy to mock), heard at just the right moment, it works. The vocals are shakily sincere, and the music--and this is the best part--rises astutely, the violin and viola and cello displaying the protagonists' passion the same way and at the same time the singers portray their vulnerability. It's a little sad, too, given Hansard's whispered admonition at the end.

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova may not be the greatest band in the world, and they may not save Dublin with their own brand of soul music, but they are the greatest folk chamber pop music duet of the decade.

NOTES
*Similar to what happens to many of the top talents from American Idol .

**I have seen very few films since my first child was born, and the few I've seen have all been either horror movies or children's movies. I used to watch independent movies quite often, traveling to our capital city to be able to watch them. I then began having kids, which means I've franchised myself, and when a franchise****** comes to town, the little independent productions are shown the door. Thus....

***"Falling Slowly" is not a Damien Rice**** song--it just sounds like one.

****And I like Damien Rice.

*****Not pop song, though, as pop songs with this similar sound are numerous. None of them were this popular, though.

******I may have franchised myself, but I've not been given the franchise tag. That honor belongs to you, Berd.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #117

2009-05-12T00:01:00.001-05:00

#117: "All I Wanna Do" (2008) - Jamie Lidell

German musician Jamie Lidell was once an electronic/techno artist. You wouldn't know it from listening to his last two albums, both of which have been superb slices of soul. The menu on his latest album lists "All I Wanna Do," a smooth palate-cleanser where Lidell channels his inner Sam as he cookes up a swaying Spring brisket of a ballad, garnished with airy synth waves, lightly-plucked acoustic guitar, and breezy background vocals (all supplied by the head chef, Lidell himself).

Come sit outside and enjoy a light cocktail with your dish, as the wind wisps through the gentle evening. If you've a partner, then feel free to rise and glide to the supple rhythms; if not, don't worry, for we've plenty who will just lean back and inhale the bouquet of our dish, watching the sun as it inches down the horizon. It's as easy as Sunday morning, this one; it's as delicate and confident and assured and patient as anything we've ever had on our menu.

If you have the means, we highly recommend it. It's so choice.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #118

2009-05-11T23:11:00.003-05:00

#118: "When the Crying Is Over" (2008) - Ian McLagan & the Bump Band

This past Saturday night, I attended the local Relay for Life cancer-benefit event at a local high-school football stadium. It was the first time I'd attended in several years. The last time I went, I did so because my wife's [relative] had died of [some type of] cancer, and my wife wanted to go; I used to go every year to help run sound, but I stopped because Relay was always (previously) held the night of my school's graduation (since I'm a senior sponsor, I have to help). This year, Relay was held earlier, so Foot Foot and I packed up our children (and our son's friend) and went. It wasn't long before I was ready to go home.

When we pulled in the parking lot, I realized we'd left the bug spray and my daughter's socks and shoes at home, so I had to return home, retrieve the missing items, and return back. We walk to the football stadium, and my son and his friend run off to play. A few seconds later, Foot Foot and I look around, and there stands our son...without his friend. We then find the friend and try to find some food, while I am concurrently trying to ensure my two-year-old daughter--who refused to be held or to hold my hand--isn't trampled by some unsuspecting teenager or overly-rambunctious kid.

We buy my son and his friend some catfish (fried, of course), but Foot Foot doesn't want catfish; she wants a burger. The last time we tried to feed the family at a fun outdoor venue of this type, we all ordered chicken strips and fries, and trying to eat those with dipping sauce and catsup on bleachers became a messy ordeal; so, this time, she wanted something less fussy, thus the burger. Well, we visit about six hundred tents before we finally arrive at one that sold hamburgers. We buy the burgers, and then we have to maneuver through the throng, across the football field, down the sidelines, around the fence, and down the fence to the bleachers. Then, we realize that our daughter doesn't have anything to drink. She doesn't want my Dr. Thunder 'cause it burns her lips, so Foot Foot takes foot. She comes back with a bottle of water, and the boys are now ready to go play. Sheesh. Go play, just stay together.

We finish eating, walk around to the field, and Nicholas's friend is nowhere in sight--they didn't stay together. We find him, and I tell the two boys that if they separate from each other again, that I will impale both of them upon the fence. Nicholas's friend looked at his arms and said, "I don't look pale. I'm not sick. Do I look sick? Are you gonna make me look sick?" Nevermind.

We take our sole lawn chair and put it by the Popeye's tent, and by then, it's a quarter to ten, which means the band on the stage is about to quit, which means that my band is soon to set up. I call my brother and ask him if he's ready to get his congabonga drums from my truck, and he tells me he can't because he's in charge of turning out the lights in ten minutes. Ten minutes? Shoot. That's plenty of time, right?

I guess it's not. That's what he said, anyway. I take a deep breath, walk the half-mile to the parking lot, and then tote two congabonga drums and one congabonga drum stand back the same half-mile to the football field. Right about the time I get to the gates, the lights are out, and there's video of something (I've terrible eyesight) on the big screen, and I hear a woman narrating. I lean the stand and drums against the fence and listen.

The woman describes the life and travails of her daughter, Jedidah Moore Horne. Jedidah contracted cancer in 2002, when she was twenty-five years old. She succumbed to the disease at thirty, two years ago. Jedidah graduated high school with my younger brother, and she was married to a guy I went to high school with.

Jedidah's mother finishes speaking, and then everyone is instructed to take one lap around the track in memory of those who have died from cancer. I pick up the stand and the drums, and I walk through the gates and across the track. Perpendicular. I felt like I was a scab crossing the picket line. I don't know if those walkers gave me any strange looks, but I was imagining that they were. I felt like a pariah. I thought about walking aroung the track with the stand and drums in tow, but doggone those things were heavy. My shoulders and arms were already hurting, and I still had to play drums for forty-five minutes. What to do?

I think to myself that most of those walking have had to carry a much bigger burden with them than the one I'm toting. I think to myself that those that died from cancer had to carry a much bigger burden with them than the one I'm toting. I think to myself that okay, I'm not Christ, and Christ wasn't a drummer, so I believe that I won't be expected to lug my brother's drum around the track to signify or symbolize anything, and if I do, others will only tell me to put them down, or ask to help carry them somewhere, and really, do I want to trouble them, and do I want to cause that much more of a scene...no, I don't. I tell myself that those who died of cancer would have done the same, given similar circumstances. I absolve myself.

I put the drums down near the stage, and I look around the infield for my family, but I don't see them. Now, I don't see well in broad daylight, but in a black night with only bagged luminaries to light the area....I look anyway, and I don't see them. I decide to hit the track. First, if I make a lap, all tinges of guilt from crossing the picket line will dissipate, and second, if I walk fast enough, I may be able to catch my family.

I walk at a brisk pace at first, for about an eighth of a mile, but I'm not seeing them. I need to up my tempo, I tell myself, if I'm to catch them before the lap is over, and I need to catch them, for I dread Foot Foot admonishing me for missing the luminary lap with her. I speed up, and I'm pumping my arms. I must have resembled a power walker. I move in and out of lanes, dodging and darting, and I hear the announcer state that the luminary lap is over. I look around me, and I've made it one-and-a-half way around the track. I lapped people.

I look for my family, and it's useless. Too many people now going back to the infield or walking out the gates. I think I see people near the stage, and those people might be my bandmates, so I make my way over. As I approach the stage, I see my wife and daughter. I ask her where she was during the luminary lap, and she tells me that she and Georgia decided to sit it out.

I catch my breath while the sound guy (my dad) starts playing some music again, and it's some mid-tempo gospel song. I look at my wife and daughter, and I feel a strong surge of love and appreciation and happiness. I soon feel sad, too, for I think to myself that we don't have long, and one day one of us could be here for a reason more immediate than the one that brought us here tonight. I smile. I ask where Nicholas is, and she tells me he's off playing with his friend. He's happy.

Actually, everyone around seems happy. In a way, this much glee is strange. Not five minutes ago, everyone was luminary lapping because someone they knew and loved was dead. It was dark. Candles were lit around the track. Bagpipes were playing. Everyone should've been crying, right? Snifles should have been sounding throughout the county. I look around again, and I see not a wet eye in the stadium. I see laughter, and I see conversation, I see excitment, but I don't see grief.

Why not?

One reason* is the music. Not the bagpipes, no...those are used to illicit feelings of sympathy and respect. The music my dad's playing now: gospel. The lyrics in most gospel songs speak of and promise two things: God/Jesus/Holy Spirit and death (or sometimes it's Death. Capital D. Big difference. Really). How hard is it to feel excited when half of every song is about death? Not any type of murder ballad death, or teenage ballad death, but death of a loved one, of a beloved, of a child, of MFSB....People clap along, sing aloud, and some even groove--to death. Sure, sure, I know, death is only half the equation, but hey--it's still death! Mix half arsenic, half pineapple juice in a punch, and though it may taste good at first....

Ah, but people are used to death, especially people in the Deep South. We know it well. We open our doors to it. It's our neighbor. Oh, it's you again? Sure, you can have a cup of sugar, and brother Bob, too. See you next time!

In service and song, we welcome death/Death. We expect it. Our lives here have been so sorry for so long, that for the longest time, they weren't much worth living. Just endure, long enough for Death to come calling, and he'll take you away from all that you love, all that you know, and you'll be in a better place.

Why is it better? 'Cause God's there? Sure, there's that, but I think--and I could be wrong, but I don't think I am--that most people (eventually) look forward to walking along with Death is because they know that they'll be going to a place where they can see their loved ones, their most beloved, their children, their MFSB, and they can see them and hear them and visit with them and hug them forever and ever, Amen. I know that when I die, I don't care where I go, and I don't care if God and Jesus or whatever deity is there, as long as I can see my wife and my son and my daughter and the rest of my family (well, most of them) and friends (well, most of them) there happy. Or, I could go wherever (Hell, Purgatory, oblivion) and be fine with it as long as I knew that they'd be happy wherever they were, for I know in this life, at many points in their lives, they'll all be sad, and that they'll all be heartbroken, and that they'll all grieve, and that some might not be able to completely get over that sadness or heartbreak or grief. I don't like that fact. It makes me sad. I love my family. If walking with Death means I'll see them forever, then I welcome Death. Take me to the river. Wash me down.

Gospel music reminds and reinforces this concept of the glory of death, and for those not accustomed, gospel music will introduce the concept to 'em on their first listen. Guaranteed. You can tune in to any gospel song, and you'll get the message before the song's half over. In a way, that certainty of song is great. It's like being able to miss three weeks of The Office, watch a new episode, and then being completely caught up to date before 8:15 p.m. CST. Gospel isn't like prog rock, in which you have to listen to half an album (nevermind a song) before the bigger picture becomes clear, or punk or rap where you have to listen to a song numerous times to glean the meaning. Rock, pop, soul, country: their thematic range is deep and wide. With gospel, you know what you're getting every time. Praise music is different, mainly because the music is different, as it dresses itself in different clothes, as often it takes some concentration to tell what is praise and what isn't.

Gospel music is like naked lunch:** you can see exactly the contents on the fork every time. Thematically, it's perfect: its lyrical predictability matches its lyrical promise. You want to be saved, then there's only one way. You listen to gospel music, then there's only one message and only one sound. It's a rousing and celebratory sound, and it's sympathetic, and it's highly rhythmic--even slow gospel songs move. It's participatory, too, as it's call-and-response choral singing comes straight from the Southern Baptist church (and from Africa, too). These elements make gospel music the most reassuring music that's ever existed, as it--if one buys into its message--can take your hand and dance with you until the grief is exorcised out of your body. Even if one does not buy into the lyrical conceit, the music itself still moves, and under its greatest practitioners, still touches and calms and uplifts.

Ian McLagan is not one of gospel's greatest practitioners. In fact, he's not a gospel singer at all. He played keyboards (and various other instruments) with the Small Faces and the Faces and toured with the Stones and was almost a member of the Who. He's been playing rock n' soul music for over forty years, and he's never made a gospel album. He's cut a few straight soul numbers, but primarily he records R&B-influenced rock and roll.

In 2006, McLagan's wife died. He then wrote and recorded an album whose tunes are paeans to her memory, the most moving of which is "When the Crying Is Over." It's not quite gospel, but it's close. McLagan doesn't praise God/Jesus/Holy Spirit, but he does promise Heaven, if not for himself, then at least for his wife. His wishes are those of all of us who've walked the luminary lap, metaphorically or lyrically: he wants to see his wife again. He wants his grief to end, he wants to stop weeping, but more importantly, he wants to be together with his beloved.

Until he gets there, though, he'll have to satisified with the promise--one that he gives himself--of a reunion, and the Bump Band and the gospel background singers give him the blessed assurance he needs. The tempo's slow, but it rolls and sways, enabling McLagan to continue to endure, rocking him gently, and then McLagan himselfs plays the solo on his Hammond B3, and we feel not only the depth of his grief, not only his longing for reunion, but also his hope for a better world where he'll see his wife and hold her hand, forever and ever, and they can walk the luminary lap together, forever and ever. Amen.

NOTES

*There are many reasons for everyone's apparent happiness, but this post is already running long, so I'm going to keep it down to one for now.

**All apologies to Mr. Burroughs.

The Tournament of Metal: Round 2, Bracket 4

2009-05-10T14:00:00.000-05:00

Up this week: bands S-Z. The battles are over on the right sidebar, so go vote!

This past week, the following metal acts left us:

Man O' War
Megadeth
Mr. Big
Nelson
Aldo Nova
Pantera
Rainbow
Ratt
David Lee Roth

while the following headbangers soldier on, and we'll see them again in three more weeks:

Metallica
Motley Crue
Motorhead
Night Ranger
Ozzy Osbourne
Poison
Quiet Riot
Rush

and...

Queensryche.

Why them? Because I forgot to include their song "Eyes of a Stranger" in the battle. I've included it this week, though.

Anyway, exact results of this past week's intra-band battles:

2 Manowar’s “Kings of Metal” v. Quiet Riot’s “Metal Health (Bang You Head)” 9
3 Megadeth’s “Peace Sells” v. Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” 8
2 Metallica’s “Fade to Black” v. Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” 9
7 Metallica’s “One” v. Motley Crue’s “Don’t Go Away Mad” 4
7 Metallica’s “Sad but True” v. Ratt’s “Round and Round”4
5 Metallica’s “The Unforgiven” v. Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” 6
1 Mr. Big’s “To Be With You” v. Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian” 7
7 Motley Crue’s “Too Fast for Love” v. Ratt’s “You’re in Love” 1
3 Motley Crue’s “Live Wire” v. Ozzy Osbourne’s “No More Tears” 6
9 Motley Crue’s “Shout at the Devil” v. Nelson’s “(I Can’t Live Without Your) Love and Affection” 0
9 Motley Crue’s “Dr. Feelgood” v. Aldo Nova’s “Fantasy” 0
5 Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home” v. Poison’s “Life Goes On” 3
8 Motley Crue’s “Girls Girls Girls” v. David Lee Roth’s “California Girls” 0
6 Motley Crue’s “Kickstart My Heart” v. Pantera’s “Cemetery Gates” 5
8 Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades” v. Rainbow’s “Street of Dreams” 1
1 Night Ranger’s “When You Close Your Eyes” v. Ozzy Osbourne’s “Goodbye to Romance” 9
7 Ozzy Osbourne’s “Flying High Again” v. Poison’s “Unskinny Bop” 3
6 Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me” v Ozzy Ozbourne’s “Mr. Crowley” 5
8 Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” v. Queensryche’s “Silent Lucidity” 3
6 Poison’s “Nothin’ but a Good Time” v. David Lee Roth’s “Yankee Rose” 3

7 Quiet Riot’s “Cum On Feel the Noize” v. Rush’s “The Spirit of Radio” 3

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #119

2009-05-08T00:01:00.001-05:00

#119: "Old School" (2008) - Lyfe Jennings featuring Snoop Dogg

I was fortunate enough to be born into a middle-class family. I never had to know from want. I had what I needed and mostly what I desired, so it wasn't until around high school that I really began to notice any sort of class disparity. Clothes, automobiles, houses--the obvious and immediate identifiers of social strata--we had as much if not more/better than many, and not near as much/good as a few. I didn't care, though. I had my comic books, my video games, my music, my family, my friends, and none were hard to come by, and none ever went away. My mother always told me I was going to be rich and successful. My grandparents were apparently poor, but it never seemed to bother them. Sure, they weren't very sophisticated, and they didn't sound very educated, but, hey, they had television, and one was (eventually) even in color. They had money to give me every weekend. Life was good for me, so why shouldn't it be for everyone else?

My mother always told me that I should be grateful and thankful for what I have, for many others weren't as fortunate. I nodded, and I said "Thank you," and "I enjoyed it," and I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. Everyone had it good enough, and if not, then he or she could just study harder or just get a better job.

Then came college. I couldn't go to my university of choice because I had a full scholarship to a community college, but only a partial one to Mississippi State University. I had to attend the community college. I was angry. Why didn't my parents save enough money? Why didn't my dad get a higher-paying job? Why didn't my mom complete her college education after she had my sister and me (and later my brother) so that she could get a good job? We weren't poor. I should have been able to go to whatever college I wanted to. It's all my stupid parents' fault. Wasn't the reason Dad came home so late every night during my childhood because he had to work overtime or sometimes two jobs so we'd have money? Well...where did all that extra money go? Wasn't the reason that we couldn't ever get a real swimming pool because we had to save money for college? Whatever.

Years later, and I'm a teacher, and a goodly proportion of my students come from a low socio-economic background. I make a few home visits during my first couple of years of teaching, and I begin to see what my mother tried to impart to me for so many years. I start completely supporting myself, living on my own, and I finally understand about paycheck-to-paycheck. I get married, and I now know what Sonny & Cher meant when they sang, "Before it's earned/The money's all been spent."

I get several years experience under my belt, and I'm now ashamed at how I treated and blamed my parents for trying their best to rise above their station in life. I research a few books, and I see concrete, statistical evidence that corrorborated what I had seen over the past few years of teaching, of how difficult it is to shift from one socio-economic class to a higher one. I learned more than I ever wanted to about generational poverty.

Generational poverty is what Lyfe Jennings means when he says, "Old School." In the chorus, Jennings equates "Old School" with "soul food," using detailed imagery to nostalgiacally describe the culinary delights of his class, but in the verses, he details his problems with poverty, about not being able to live paycheck-to-paycheck, about multiple jobs, about mounting and impending debt, about increasing prices and decreasing income, about the folly of pride when it comes to harsh reality ("I'm a king/but my crown's in layaway"). If "Old School" is "the color of soul food," and that color is any color but green, then his life has always been that way, as that's how he was raised, and that's all he knows. It was his parents' life, is his life, and (he's afraid) will be his children's life.

He doesn't see an end to it, either. By surrounding his words with sumptuous and sympathetic horns and strings straight from the early '70s seminal soul records that first brought national attention to the sorry situation of African-Americans in the ghettoes and sub-suburbs that was caused by poverty and caused rampant crime, Jennings hopes--like the socially-concious records by his spiritual soulfathers Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder and Percy Mayfield and Sly Stone and War and the O'Jays and the Temptations--to again shed light on poor and disenfranchised before they turn into the dead and the buried.

Jennings uses the term Old School in a darkly ironic way, as he knows that the good old days weren't always good, and romanticizing them can lead to further degradation of a race and a class. Glossing over and glorifying the past is as much of a crime--and can do as much damage--as ignoring it completely. Hopefully, Jennings' records attests, someone will open their eyes to the problems while they're current, before time runs away and we're left blaming people who were only trying their best to provide and warn us in the first place.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #120

2009-05-07T00:02:00.001-05:00

#120: "Your Man" (2006) - Josh Turner

Two months ago, when describing Josh Turner's record "Would You With Me", I hailed that song as Turner's best. I was wrong. Mea Culpa. I changed my mind. It happens often, especially with music, and especially when deciding between two different types of songs from the same artist. I mean, how does one choose between, say, "Stairway to Heaven" and "Whole Lotta Love,"* or between "What's Going On" and "Let's Get It On"? I know the answer: mood.

If I'm driving to work in the morning, then--as much as I love the song--I don't want to listen to "He Stopped Loving Her Today;" I'd much rather listen to "The Race Is On." If I'm driving back late at night from a gig somewhere, I don't care to hear the Black Crowes tear through "Hard to Handle," as I'd prefer the languid dregs of them playing "Wiser Time." Music sets a mood, but it reflects one, too, and I'm a moody person. Just ask my wife.

This list is about the best music, though, regardless of mood. Well...It basically comes down to preference. There's no objective criteria for determining exactly why one song is better than another. Artistic quality is subjective. I know plenty of people whose opinions I value and whose intelligence I respect who do not like some of these songs. I know plenty of people who know more about music than I do who think some of these records are trash.** I know plenty of people who write much better than I do who laugh at some of these selections. Know what? They're wrong. Know why? It's my list.

It's not*** just a list of personal favorites; I hold music to the upmost standards****, and if I've listed a song on here, then I've found (and hope I've noted) at least one reason why that song is exceptional. On "Your Man," I'll give you five:

1). Great steel guitar lick.

2). Josh Turner's Possum-like delivery.

3). Josh Turner's voice.

4). The lyrics (though not as deep as on "Would You Go With Me") offering devotion by a man with a slow hand.

5). My wife thinks it's sultry and sexy.

I think that last one trumps 'em all. "Your Man" is a song that can put you in the mood even if you weren't in it to start with, and if that ain't art....

NOTES
*Yeah, I'm on an Adam Lambert kick right now.

**They'd be right, too. Some of these are trash. Popular music often is. That's part of what makes it great.

***It is a list of personal favorites, but not just a list of personal favorites. The difference between those two is almost as great as the distance of empty space between my ears.

****Even if some of those standards are--seriously--"It's a trip, it's got a funky beat, and I can bug out to it."

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #121

2009-05-06T00:01:00.001-05:00

#121: "Choctaw Bingo" (2002) - James McMurtry

After my massacre of the Spanish language yesterday, I decided to lend today's narrative to one of the best songwriters working today, James McMurtry. Son of the famous novelist "Lonesome Dove" Larry, McMurtry has been playing Texas rock n' country n' folk for twenty years now. He's often hailed for his powerful political protest songs, but I find that he's much better at storytelling than he is at polemics.

McMurtry has about a dozen superb story-songs, but this one's my favorite, and it's the funniest, and as most any low-to-middle class folk from the South can attest, this one contains whole heaping trunkfuls of truth, as McMurtry takes us on an intrastate trip with family and kids in tow. He's also backed by the best music of his career, as his band boogies and shakes and rumbles and syncopates some of the meanest Texas snakeskin rock and roll of the past ten years. If Bob Dylan and the Band would have all been from Texas, this might be what Blonde on Blonde and Music from Big Pink would have sounded like. Lyrics, too. They're as detailed and direct and descriptive and funny as anything Dylan ever wrote.

"Choctaw Bingo" is the best road song of the decade, and it's length--eight minutes and thirty-three seconds--is needed, 'cause when you've got to visit a relative who's cooking crystal meth because his moonshine doesn't sell well anymore, then you know you're in for the long haul, and it's time to strap those kids in, give 'em a little bit of vodka to calm 'em down, and blast some James McMurtry 'cause it'll be one great big ol' party like you never saw.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #122

2009-05-05T00:01:00.001-05:00

#122: "A Border Tale" (2005) - Robert Earl Keen

¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo (o si mi compadre Mr. Mitchalotchovitch en Philly, PA está leyendo, entonces ¡Feliz Cinco de Marko!), amigos!

¡I have for you un regalo especial! Senor Robert Earl Keen, a Texas troubadour who's been a part of the Austin music scene for durante vienticinco anos, nos da the funniest and most organic mash-up of the past ten years (y primer en esta lista). Senor Keen weaves together "El Juego Se Fue," "Cancion Mextica," "Streets of Laredo," and "Cieleto Lindo," with his own short composition about the owners of a nightclub in (Ciudad) Acuna and his friends and how their infectious laughter in the adjacent alley effects some frat boys and a girl who looks like the Virgin of Ciudad Acuna.

Realmente.

Él sala su historia con una mezcla de mandolin, mariachi horns, a marching snare, and seventy-nine year-old Ray Price (who here sounds like Tex Ritter), all in waltz time, one element on top of another. ¡Está loco!

So order up a round of Vampiras and smoke yer Delicados if ya got 'em, 'cause it's Cinco de Mayo, and Robert Earl Keen está aquí entretener, but he can't stay long, porque se enciende el camino por siempre, y el partido nunca termina.

¡Ole!

The Tournament of Metal: Round 2, Bracket 3

2009-05-04T01:54:00.001-05:00

Up this week: bands M-R. The battles are over on the right sidebar, so go vote!

This past week, the following metal acts left us:

Enuff Z'nuff
Extreme
Firehouse
Lita Ford
Frehley's Comet
Giuffria
Great White
Hanoi Rocks
Helix
Helloween
Keel
Kix
Krokus
Loudness
Love/Hate
Lynch Mob

while the following headbangers soldier on, and we'll see them again in three more weeks:

Europe
Faster Pussycat
Guns N' Roses
Sammy Hagar
Honeymoon Suite
Billy Idol
Iron Maiden
Jackyl
Judas Priest
Kiss
L.A. Guns
Lillian Axe

Anyway, exact results of this past week's intra-band battles:

2 Enuff Z’nuff’s “Fly High, Michelle” v. Honeymoon Suite’s “New Girl Now” 5
6 Europe’s “The Final Countdown” v. Frehley’s Comet’s “Rock Soldiers” 2
2 Europe’s “Carrie” v. Faster Pussycat’s “House of Pain” 6
1 Extreme’s “More Than Words” v. Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain” 7
0 Firehouse’s “Don’t Treat Me Bad” v. Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell” 7
4 Lita Ford’s “Kiss Me Deadly” v. Billy Idol’s “Rock the Cradle” 4 *
0 Giuffria’s “Call to the Heart” v. Judas Priest’s “You Got Another Thing Coming” 7
3 Great White’s “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” v. Junkyard’s “Hands Off” 5
8 Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” v. Billy Idol’s “Dancing with Myself” 0
8 Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine” v. Love/Hate’s “Blackout in the Red Room” 0
8 Guns N Roses’ “Paradise City” v. Iron Maiden’s “The Number of the Beast” 0
8 Guns N Roses’ “Patience” v. Kiss’s “Forever” 0
1 Guns N Roses’ “Used to Love Her” v. Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” 7
8 Guns N Roses’ “Don’t Cry” v. Helix’s “Heavy Metal Love” 0
7 Sammy Hagar’s “Heavy Metal” v. L.A. Guns’ “Sex Action” 0
2 Sammy Hagar’s “I Can’t Drive 55” v. Kiss’ “Heaven’s on Fire” 6
2 Hanoi Rock’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” v. L.A. Guns’ “Ballad of Jayne” 5
0 Helix’s “Rock You” v. Kiss’s “Lick It Up” 6
0 Helloween’s “I Want Out” v. Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills” 6
5 Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without a Face” v. Kix’s “Don’t Close Your Eyes” 1
3 Jackyl’s “The Lumberjack” v. Lynch Mob’s “Wicked Sensation” 3 *
7 Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law” v. Keel’s “The Right to Rock’ 0
5 Kiss’s “Crazy Crazy Nights” v. Loudness’ “Crazy Night” 1
2 Krokus’ “Screaming in the Night” v. Lillian Axe’s “Misery Loves Company” 3

NOTES

*Both of these tied battle were decided by my son Nicholas. He knew none of the songs. I asked him which titles he liked best, and...there ya go!

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #123

2009-05-04T01:13:00.000-05:00

#123: "Paper Planes" (2007) - M.I.A.

Even under a new administration, and even with the recession and the swine flu capturing everyone's attention currently, Americans--and most of the world--are still concerned with the war/military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that concern still carries with it an anciallary xenophobia as well as worry for our soldiers in those countries who sometimes have to face military insurgants under the age of twelve. Couple these fears with the recent urban anxiety over killer cops and cop killers, and the result is a widening disparity between social classes.

In "Paper Planes," M.I.A. reflects this disparity, feeds it, provokes it, acting as a catalyst, not merely reporting on the undercurrents in the world's hotspots, but gleefully bucking the establishment (and not just of America). "All I wanna do is BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM and CLICK CLICK and take your money" she sings in the chorus. The onomatopoeia there isn't onomatopoeia; the words are aurally replaced with sound effects for (respectively) shotgun shots and guns being cocked. To magnify the situation, she doesn't sing alone on the chorus: she's got a chorus of children singing with her. She singsongs the verses, tossing them off as if they're nursery rhymes.

It's frightening, the ease she brings to this song, as if terrorism and crime are matter-of-fact. In some parts of the world, though, they are.

At the end of Prince's "1999," a child asks, "Mommy...why does everybody have a bomb?" In "Paper Planes," it's the mother that's doing the asking.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #124

2009-05-01T00:01:00.001-05:00

#124: "American Skin (41 Shots)" (2000) - Bruce Springsteen & the E. Street Band

While mother and the DSS contemplate their decision, we take our leave and head over to the the Bronx, where on February 4, 1999, we and the NYPD find Amadou Diallo, who looks an awful lot like a rapist, so we accost him, and he takes off running, and we shout for him to put his hands up, and he reaches into his jacket, and he pulls out his wallet.

Not before we shoot him, though.

Nineteen times.

Missed on twenty-two.

Bruce Springsteen--and the rest of New York City--hears about this, and the Boss writes a song about it, and he debuts the song live sixteen months later (to the day), and this record is the result of that performance, where Springsteen brings it all back home--the prejudice, the fear, the ghosts of the past and present, the sins of our fathers, the shame of our mothers, the rage against society's ill--when, 3/4 through the record, he repeats, acapella, "You can get killed just for living in," and no one responds. The band remains quiet. The audience remains quiet. The sound of one man and his cry, his gospel shout, his call to witness: and silence is his answer. We all sleep alone. We have to wake ourselves.

Springsteen wakes himself soon, on the record, but his passion, his rage against the dying of the light...it's all gone. He's resigned. "Your American skin." His wife comes in as Springsteen tails off: "forty-one shots" she reminds him. She reminds us. Clarence Clemons then offers a mournful liturgy as the chorus sings the refrain, and they grieve, and we grieve, and we despair and wonder if we're really any better off today, or if there's any hope, and we listen to what these artists have to play for us, and we know the answer, and they sing the song.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #125

2009-04-30T00:01:00.000-05:00

#125: "The State of Massachusetts" (2007) - The Dropkick Murphys

From the hicks to the Micks: we depart the rednecks and the coloreds of the South, and we ship our poverty-class social problems up to the Irish descendents in Boston Mass where we find the Celtic-punk band the Dropkick Murphys, in their bar, somewhere between the one owned by Green Day and the one the Pogues used to own (but left solely to the care of Shane McGowan). Amidst all their revelry and fist-pumping anthems celebrating their heritage, their beer, and their knack for violence, we find perhaps the most sexually and culturally insensitive hit songs by a left-of-center music act in the past thirty years.

In "The State of Massachusetts," Boston's favorite sons excoriate a mother for not being able to straighten out her life and take care of her two sons. It doesn't matter to them that she's been victimized by her abusive husband; it only matters that she isn't taking, uh, matters into her own hands for the sake of the children. Whoah, man, that's some heavy baggage and guilt heaped atop this pitiful woman. What about the husband? Why don't they attack him? The reason they don't is perhaps the most tragic part of the song: they've given up on him already. The husband has no hope. Since, of course, these characters are mere representatives of an entire culture of disaffected, inner-city, paycheck-to-paycheck 9-5 blue-collar Southies and Quincies, what does this tell us of the state of the typical sub-Boston man? Ouch.

Ouch again, if you consider that most of the Dropkick Murphys' other songs regale the typical sub-Boston man for his penchant for alcohol and his pride and his ability to fight. All this, from all those drunken Dropkick songs, and then they release a song condemning a woman for not being a good mother? Arrogant much? You betcha. Sexist? Maybe. Maybe.

Maybe the Murphys just see the situation for what it is, that these men simply cannot be relied upon, and if future generations are ever going to succeed by leaving this level of poverty--if, only by a rung on the social ladder--then it's the mothers who are going to have to do it. The men won't. They can't.

I don't know. I could be wrong. Maybe this is sexist. It's troubling. I've been back and forth on this one for months and months now, whether or not I should list it or not. I read interview after interview, and I find no insight. I read review after review, and I find no insight. I'm just not sure. I play it one more time, and I realize that there's one thing I am sure of: the music's smoking hot.

Tim Brennan picks the dickens out of that banjo, Matt Kelly plays almost the entire song rolling and tumbling sixteenths and thirty-seconds on the snare, Marc Orrell and James Lynch find their inner Mick Mars power chording in some metal to the mix, and vocalist Al Barr uses his gargling voice to its most-belligerent effect, and all push the tune past the typical oi! and hurrah! of past Murphys music into righteous anger at the hopelessness of society's ills and the loss of childhood and the sins of their fathers and lay it all at their mother's feet, kicking and screaming that she'll wake up and take charge, for if not, then there won't be anything left worth singing for.

NOTES

*Well, it was a hit on Billboard's Modern Rock charts, and it still gets play on alternative stations, and it's their second-most popular song, so it's as big a hit as any Celtic-punk band is ever likely to get.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #126

2009-04-29T00:01:00.001-05:00

#126: "Decoration Day" (2003) - Drive-By Truckers

The dirty south: from the sins visited upon our fathers to the sins of our fathers themselves, we'll stay below the Mason-Dixon line, where the ghosts of the past are so intertwined into the culture that one wonders if they ever went to the grave in the first place. They oh so often haunt the region--legally, socially, economically, politically, and (depending on who you ask and who you believe and what you believe) literally--that it's no wonder so many Southern artists (musical, literary, etc...)--conjur up these insular, defeatist, patriotic, rebellious, rustic Gothic works of schizophrenia. Down here, we're not all hicks, we're not all poor, and we're not all backwoods...but none of us are more than two generations removed from it. We're all part of the Collective Southern Social Unconscious.

No band today mines these Jungian waters as well (or as much) as the Drive-By Truckers. Most other Southern musical acts--no matter the genre--write about the culture because it's second nature (or, in some cases, affectation influenced by commerce), and they write about it as a given; they don't question--they just observe. The Truckers, however, have spent album-upon-album analyzing and criticizing and honoring the quick and the dead of those who are and were American by choice, but Southern by the grace of God. This band does so by copping the most obvious (and much parodied) aspect of the most popular Southern rock act of the past ever: Lynyrd Skynyrd's triple-guitar attack.

The Truckers, though--unlike so many other Southern Rock acts of the past thirty years--use the triple-guitar attack as a means to an end, not the end itself. They use that sound--the Skynyrd sound--to deliberately evoke images of Skynyrd, its legacy down here--to at least 10% of the population--as not only the greatest rock band ever, but as one of the two symbols of the grandness and rise and fall of the region. Most every region and culture around the world has (and forever has had) a coming-of-age moment or rite or ritual for its young men, but has any other culture in the history of mankind ever had that rite centered on one* singular sole that wasn't a deity? I don't think so. In fact, I know so. In the Deep South, though, it's different. Every Southern born-and-bred white boy must drink a beer and sing all the words to at least one Skynyrd song before he graduates. Those who don't are socially outcast from the majority. I don't exaggerate, either. Lynyrd Skynyrd is that important.

Patterson Hood--leader of the Truckers--knows this, and he and the Truckers emulate the Skynyrd sound in order to call attention to the complex conflicts and contradictions of the South, and the people the Truckers are calling are--primarily--Southerners. Hood and company use a familiar form--one in which they excel--to entice and invite, and then they hope that their music is strong enough to keep the audience's attention while their messages slowly seep in and through. In this aspect, the Truckers--at their best--easily rival Skynyrd--the world's greatest rock and roll band for the entire span of their existance--in reach and grasp. In fact, with the Truckers' third album Southern Rock Opera, they surpassed Skynyrd, at least in terms of artistry.

Southern Rock Opera--released in 2001--is a sprawling double album, a concept record, a song cycle that opens and examines what they call "the Southern thing." In doing so, in so bracing and honest and painful and intelligent and passionate a fashion, the Alabama natives deconstruct and construct and deconstruct again the great mythology of a region in as expert a fashion as any artist has ever done before. It's as great a rock record--for what it does--as any ever recorded. In its own way, it's the thematic and lyric** equal of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On or Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions....

That album, though, didn't yield a single,*** and there's not one single cut on that album that would even seem like a radio single****. Southern Rock Opera is as singular an LP as has been recorded this past decade. The Truckers' follow-up album Decoration Day, though, offered not one but two impressive single-cut songs. The title track is (obviously, huh) one of them.

Decoration Day (the album) was made after fellow native Alabamian Jason Isbell joined the band. Going from strength to strength, Isbell's addition gave the Truckers another first-rate songwriter (Hood and co-guitarist Mike Cooley). In fact, Isbell might even be the best writer of the group.***** One wouldn't doubt it after hearing the title track. "Decoration Day" takes the essence of Southern Rock Opera and boils it down to 5:48. In the song, Isbell tells the tale of two warring families who've forgotten why they fought in the first place...yet still continue their battle. Sure, on the surface it sounds like the Hatfields and the McCoys, and it is, but that's just the hook.

The song's poison's in its details, in Isbell's examination of a culture of ignorance and violence, of the corruptive and destructive effects of pride. It's a metaphor for "the Southern thing", of course, but it also works as a story itself, as a tale of evil male hubris, of fathers hurting their children and their children's future out of their own hurt and their own lack of understanding and compassion and kindness, learned at the harsh hands of their own fathers, and the effects of all this on the son, and the complex, tortured feelings of the child who must honor his father because that's how he must prove he's worthy and prove he's a good son and a good brother and how important and painful familial love can be, and of the sin of obligation.

Isbell's singing sells the song--which could easily arch into camp under many another singer--as he sounds haunted and determined himself, and then the triple-guitar attack of Isbell, Hood, and Cooly reach into the song not to exorcise the demons, but to inflame them, as the guitars here are as incendiary as any we've heard these past ten years, and music this searing can only call forth the demons and the ghosts and demand that we Southerners confront them, whether to pay them heed on Decoration Day (for every day is Decoration Day down here) or to spit on their grave...or maybe a bit of both. It's the Southern thing to do, ya'll.

NOTES

*Okay, it's not just one musical act; it's two: Skynyrd and Hank Williams, Jr.

**Muscially, though, Southern Rock Opera isn't on a par with those two records. Don't get me wrong, the music's great: it's tough and honest and skilled and full of sound and fury; however, the Drive-By Truckers, musically, didn't break any new ground, not the way Marvin Gaye or Public Enemy did. The Truckers make great use of the Skynyrd sound, and they even add a few new wrinkles here and there, but essentially, it's still the Skynyrd sound.

***Not that an album yielding a single has stopped me from pulling in album cuts before (I mean, just yesterday--with Otis Taylor--I did that), but still....

****Heck, even Radiohead's phenomenal and radio-unfriendly Kid A had one song that would've worked by itself.

*****Apparently Isbell thought so, for he split from the group a couple/three years ago, and he released his first solo album last year. It's a good one, too.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #127

2009-04-28T00:01:00.000-05:00

#127: "Saint Martha Blues" (2001) - Otis Taylor

Last week, several of my former students dropped by unannonced to shoot the breeze. After about an hour of chit-chat, the topic turned to ghost hunting. We talked about various alleged haunted places around the area and about different amateur expeditions we've all taken. One student--let's call her Belle--told us about a time recently when she and another friend (who wasn't at my house) went out in the woods to investigate an old house in which someone had recently--within the past three years--been murdered. Once Belle told us exactly which house she and her friend tried to investigate* some small bit of tension arose in the room.

See, to various degrees, we all knew the victim and the culprits of that murder. The unease we all felt was based upon the turn of the tone. No longer was Belle's ghost-hunting an exciting and fun and titillating adventure; now, it encroached upon matters earnest and grave. These people weren't legendary: these people were real. These ghosts were real. Belle's tale was no longer thrilling; it was harrowing. It was as if we had switched from the fourth chapter of The Haunting of Hill House to the fifth chapter of In Cold Blood without the benefit of Capote's prosidy to ease the way.

Contemporary bluesman Otis Taylor's "Saint Martha's Blues" (from his stunning and bracing album White African, one of the best albums of this decade) tells a similar supernatural tale, one in which the switch from haunting atmosphere to stark tragedy and terror is troubling. The record begins with a creepy synth drone. On top of it, Taylor lays a riff that rings and shudders with the use of the echoey chorus effect. Whooh, buddy! Now we're in Spookville. "My great-grandfather," Taylor speaks and pauses, and let's the guitar line fill the space. Yup. This is an ol' fashioned haint story. Taylor continues: "back in Lake Providence, Louisiana,"--okay, then, we know now the sound Taylor's replicating with his guitar: the bayous. Heck, we may even have another "Legend of Wooly Swamp" on our hands. Taylor pauses in his speech again, plays the second half of the guitar riff, and we've eased up in our seats, eager to hear and ready to be frightened. Taylor comes back with, "...he was lynched."

The air leaves our chest, and our breath our throats. The carnival has shut down for the night, folks, and the spook show is over. Go home to your family, 'cause this ain't the type of fun you're here for. This is serious business. You wanna stay? You sure? I'm a turn out the lights, now, and you ain't gon' hear nothing but my voice and my guitar. That drone? You don't want to know what that is. I'm here to tell you the truth, and it sure ain't pretty. It's gon' rock you to your soul. It's gonna still you, and it's gonna hurt, but it ain't nothin' compared to the hurt they had, my great-grandfather and his wife, Martha Jones. You gon' remember this one for the rest of your days, 'cause I ain't gon' let you forget it. I'm only have to tell it once, and it won't never leave yo' mind. You ready? Remember, now, this ain't no creepshow. This is the real deal. Cryin' won't help you; prayin' won't do you no good. It sure didn't Martha. It still doesn't. This type of hurt, it don't never go 'way. Never.

*NOTES

*Tried being the key word in that phrase, as Belle and her friend never quite made it to the porch before chick...uh...deciding to postpone their investigation and return to their automobile.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #128

2009-04-27T02:52:00.003-05:00

#128: "Four Winds" (2007) - Bright Eyes

About a year or so before I got married, a close friend talked me into seeing a fortune teller. This oracle lived in a trailer* right on the side of a four-lane highway, right underneath a gigantic billboard proclaiming her Sister status. My friend and I were just riding around one night, and she spotted the sign. It sported a nifty, hieroglyphic-like eyeball. The sign was yellow, the test was red, and the writing was on the wall. We had to go.

I knocked, and Sister Mary opened the door for us. I walked in and nearly tripped on a child's pop-up/bubble mower. I then nearly tripped on a child. Sister Mary shooed her half-naked young'uns** back to their bedroom, and she ushered us through some love beads*** into her sanctum sanctorum.**** She sat down behind a small wooden table, and I sat opposite her. I think my friend was behind me, but I didn't know, for there wasn't room enough to turn my head. Sister Mary then asked us what we wanted. I don't remember anymore what fortune we ordered (Ooh! I'll have the #13, the Voodoo Hoodoo Chooka Chooky Choo Choo special), but I remember Sister Mary pulling out her deck o' Tarot cards with the fancy pictures and layin' 'em straight. She then stared at the cards, looked up at my friend, and asked her to leave the room.

After my friend left,***** Sister Mary asked me if I liked this woman,****** and I told her that I did. She returned to the cards, and she grimaced, and then she grabbed my hand and looked into my eyes and said, "the cards do not lie." She unclamped the vise grip and then explained what each card represented, and I have no recollection of what stood for what, and I didn't much listen to her closely. Not because I thought it was mumbo jumbo, but because her intense glare and hand clamp had mystified me. "Why so serious," I wondered.

After she finished her analysis of the signs of the Tarot, I asked her, "Tell me, what does it all mean?" She glared at me again--not angrily, but...I don't know...seriously. She held her gaze and grip--without speaking or moving--for a good five seconds. I know, now, that five seconds doesn't seem to be a long time, but...okay, I got it. Imagine sitting in small wooden chair in a small cramped closet of a room with someone squeezing your hand and looking you in the eyes. Got it? Okay, now let's count: one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi. See? That's a long time, my friend. I mean, imagine if someone you knew well held your hand while staring in your eyes that long without speaking...it'd creep you out, wouldn't it? Well, imagine a total stranger doing it. Uh-huh. I thought so.

It didn't matter the future and fortune she foretold; what mattered was her delivery...and the atmosphere. The whole time she was reading the cards and staring into my eyes, I could still hear her children in the living room, but that dose of realistic background noise greatly reduced the level of hokum: it didn't seem like a show. Sister Mary was dressed in ordinary, lounge-around-the-home clothing, and she never lit any candles or incense, nor did she ever darken the lights, or play any mood music. All she had were her instruments and her words and her versimilitude and her presence. These qualities, against a realistic backdrop--all unaffected--made for a compelling and believable performance.

Hence, Bright Eyes' "Four Winds," Conner Oberst's & co.'s cerebral re-imagining of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" for a new era. Oberst--in full symbolist form*******--pens a satiric-apocalyptic poem full of heavy doses of Yeats and Twain and Lovecraft and Rushdie and Dylan. Lyrically, it comes across more-than-a-mite pretentious and arrogant. Musically, it's brilliant. Oberst's best vocals lie in this song, as he suppresses his worst tendencies--his too-sincere breathing, his too-precious pauses, his adenoidal delivery--in favor of singing the melody straight but passionately, all archness away. The country-folk instrumentation (Bright Eyes is a band) sounds sincerely country, and then there's the fiddle. Oh, my! Anton Patzner's licks are not only melodically memorable, but full of country soul also, as he seems to slightly rush and squeek at the end of a line, or dip and sway, pulling us in and letting us go and pulling us back again. In fact, Patzner's performance here is one of the best individual instrumental performances on a pop record in the past, oh, eighty years.

The music on this record is so good, that I believe it undercuts Oberst's message: what he's condemning in the lyric his band's in fact invoking. The spiritualism that Oberst (perhaps too********) smartly********* deconstructs he first has to construct, and his band gets a hold of that construction and never lets go. No matter the message, the messengers are so convincing and adept that we have no choice but to ride along and go with the flow, as we fall under sway, the words themselves mere constructs, conduits for what we perceive to be the spiritual truth because the tellers tell us so as they gaze and grip with such intensity that we dare not look away. We cave.

NOTES

*I want to note that I am not putting down trailers, as I once lived in one.

**I want to note that I am not putting down half-naked young'uns running around a toy-strewn living room. I might have back then, but I would never do so now. You should see my house. Then again, maybe you shouldn't.

***I want to note that I am not putting down love beads. If it were completely up to me, I'd put ours back up.

****This private and sacred shrine occupied what was once a closet.

*****She told me that she then went and played with the kids, but I distinctly remember hearing the trailer door shutting.

******I assumed she meant my friend, but she could have meant her--her meaning Sister Mary, speaking of herself in the third person. I mean, who knows sometimes, right?

******* All you college grads and religious researchers will have some serious party-time fun noting and detailing this song's every analogy.

********I've known several people who've believed this record was a religious song.

*********Smart, at least, in the sense that the lyric's symbolism (pretentious or not), though cryptic at first listen, actually works well as poetic symbolism, meaning it not only seems literary but it is. Second-rate poetry, maybe, but dead-on target.

The Tournament of Metal: Round 2, Bracket 2

2009-04-26T00:01:00.003-05:00

Up this week: bands E-L. The battles are over on the right sidebar, so go vote!

This past week, the following metal acts left us:

Accept
Anthrax
Armored Saint
Autograph
Bad English
Bang Tango
Black n' Blue
Britny Fox
Alice Cooper
Danger Danger
Dangerous Toys
Dokken

while the following headbangers soldier on, and we'll see them again in three more weeks:

AC/DC
Aerosmith
Bon Jovi
Bulletboys
Cinderella
The Cult
Damn Yankees
Danzig
Def Leppard
Dio

as well as...Jon Bon Jovi. Solo. See, I made a boo-boo. So, in three weeks, we'll see Mr. Jovi's solo hits take on some of these survivors. We may even pit him against his own band. Hmm....

Anyway, exact results of this past week's intra-band battles:

10 ACDC’s “Hells Bells” v. Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got a Gun” 2
12 ACDC’s “Back in Black” v. Anthrax’s “Caught in a Mosh” 1
7 ACDC’s “Thunderstruck” v. Accept’s “Balls to the Wall” 4
12 ACDC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long” v. Britny Fox’s “Girlschool” 0
7 ACDC’s “Who Made Who” v. Autograph’s “Turn Up the Radio” 5
7 ACDC’s “For Those About to Rock” v. Def Leppard’s “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak” 5
4 Aerosmith’s “Rag Doll” v. Def Leppard’s “Photograph” 8
3 Aerosmith’s “Love in an Elevator” v. Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” 9
9 Aerosmith’s “Angel” v. Bad English’s “When I See You Smile” 3
1 Anthrax’s “Madhouse” v. Def Leppard’s “Rock of Ages” 9
1 Armored Saint’s “Reign of Fire” v. Cinderella’s “Night Songs” 10
3 Bang Tango’s “Someone Like You” v. Damn Yankee’s “High Enough” 8
1 Black ‘n Blue’s “Hold on to 18” v. Cinderella’s “Heartbreak Station” 7
8 Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” v. The Cult’s “Love Removal Machine” 2
7 Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” v. Def Leppard’s “Foolin’” 4
9 Bon Jovi’s “Runaway” v. Dio’s “Rainbow in the Dark” 2
3 Bon Jovi’s “I’ll Be There for You” v. Def Leppard’s “Hysteria” 8
9 Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer” v. Cinderella’s “Don’t Know What You’ve Got” 2
7 Bulletboys’ “Smooth Up in Ya” v. Dangerous Toys’ “Teas’n, Pleas’n” 2
9 Cinderella’s “Shake Me” v. Dokken’s “In My Dreams” 1
3 Cinderella’s “Somebody Save Me” v. The Cult’s “Firewoman” 7
4 Alice Cooper’s “Poison” v. Danzig’s “Mother” 6
7 The Cult’s “Wild Flower” v. Danger Danger’s “Naughty Naughty” 3
5 Dio’s “Holy Diver” v. Dokken’s “Dream Warriors” 3

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #129

2009-04-24T00:01:00.001-05:00

#129: "Yeah!" (2004) - Usher, featuring Lil' Jon & Ludacris

In a re-worked--and much improved upon--version of Petey Pablo's "Freek-a-Leek," Lil' Jon and Usher take tha' Dirty South's rough and tumble crunk music and give it the ol' mainstream sheen, and with Usher's smooth R&B tenor, it works to marvelous effect, almost like some mythical marriage of Stax and Motown. The music here ain't nothin' but synth and drums, more simplified than Prince's best stuff, but it works just as well, as the Dirty South finally celebrates its arrival onto the national music scene in full force, with as happy and joyous and bouncy and slinky a record as has been on the charts since the Purple One lost his way about a decade-and-half ago.*

"Yeah"'s titular shouts--well, sometimes when it the excitement builds and builds and it finally arrives, then exclamation is all know and all we need to know, especially when the excitement is over tomorrow's 2009 NFL Draft!

Football's not over; it's only just begun. Yeah!

NOTES

*Yeah, but he's making his way back!

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #130

2009-04-23T00:01:00.000-05:00

#130: "Hit the Ground" (2005) - Lizz Wright

Again ( #284 before), we hear Wright's voice--a more soulful, jazzy update of Joan Armatrading's. Here, Wright offers shelter and support and open arms, but she does so by walking with her feet on the ground, as there's little joy in her voice this time around. Her tone bespeaks of optimistic fatalism, her voice strong and sure and knowing, offering unconditional love and nuturing, a voice that shows if not joy then hope and confidence, a voice of experience that knows of the world and all its travails and travesties and sees them clearly yet still refuses to run, instead inspiring, nay asking, her loved one to do the same, to come to her, for as though the skies may be dark and the future bleak--as represented by not only Wright's voice, but by the stark, desolate music with its empty spaces and its Duane Eddyesque tremoloecho guitars--Wright's still there, waiting, her faith in her love and in her ability to beat back the encroaching abyss strong...she's Danny Rand's mother, taking the wolves herself while she sends her son across the bridge; she's Banquo thinking only of Fleance's safety, she's Ms. Berryhill, Mrs. Zimmerman, Mrs. Satterfield, giving their husbands not only encouragement but themselves, refusing to admit defeat, staying the course when so many would have surrendered to inevitability, believing that there's always hope, that there's always a chance to keep the wolves at bay, perservering, fighting back, not letting their loved ones slip away into the abyss, telling their lovers to not go gentle unto that good night.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #131

2009-04-22T23:24:00.002-05:00

#131: "Beloved Stranger" (2007) - Cindy Lee Berryhill

Last week was strangely serendipitous for me. I received updates on the situations of three people in similar, uh, situations, on consecutive days. It was this that prompted me to include this song in this position on the chart this week (as before, I had it ranked higher). The stories of the three people and their families I'm going to mention are touching, sad, sweet, and uplifting, and I hope I'm up to the task of conveying their importance to me. As best I can, today, I'll refrain from hyperbole and invention and treacle and smarminess and smugness, and I'll try to let these stories speak for themselves.

My very dear friend Sarah Satterfield, who lives in Atlanta with her husband Shawn (both pictured above) and her five-month-old daughter Sophie, called me last week to tell me of some good news. Her husband had finally been accepted into one of the country's top brain research, treatment, rehabilitation, and recovery programs in the country. It's in Atlanta. Sarah was delighted, for this meant that--in addition to the obvious fact that the facility was close to home--someone thought that Shawn had a chance of improving his condition.

Three weeks ago, on a Monday morning, Shawn took some new prescription pain medication. On her way out of the house with Sophie, Sarah found Shawn on the floor in the living room. She had him rushed to the hospital, where he lapsed into a coma. Shawn's reaction to the medicaton had caused him to seizure, which caused a loss of oxygen to his brain. The doctors, who (at least at the time) didn't know how long Shawn's brain had been without oxygen, weren't very optimistic, nor at the time had they reason to be. Shawn wasn't responding to stimuli. Once, he opened his eyes and squeezed Sarah's hand, but this was viewed as an anomaly, because for three days--otherwise--Shawn hadn't moved. The physicians tried taking Shawn off his ventilator to see if his body could breathe on its own, but when they did, Shawn's heartbeat increased to an unhealthy rate. Fearing cardiac arrest, the doctors put Shawn back on the ventilator. Within the next two days, the doctors repeated the procedure, but Shawn's body reacted in the same fashion.

A few days later, Sarah was apprised of (some of) the doctors' prognosis: Shawn was essentially brain dead. Sarah would either have to care for his comatose body, or she would have to decide to have the physicians remove all means of artificial resperation. Sarah had three weeks to make her decision.

As of yesterday, Shawn was walking almost completely unassisted, eating regular food by himself, and was speaking in coherent, complete sentences.

In two (or three) weeks, Shawn will move in with his mother in Tupelo (MS) while Sarah soldiers on--with their baby--in Atlanta. When Shawn is released, he'll need constant care, and right now, Sarah can't provide that for her husband. Sarah's insurance is covering Shawn right now, so Sarah can't leave her job and still pay for Shawn's care and medication.

. . .

Last November, Sports Illustrated writer Paul Zimmerman suffered three successive strokes.

Zimmerman--known as Dr. Z to his many readers and admirers (he's not only the best sports writer I've ever read, he's one of the best writers period)--has had a slow rehabilitation process. He can know speak, but stringing sentences together proves to be painful if not impossible. He's slowly learning to move again, but this too has been an arduous process. He has to work at visual recognition and recall. He hasn't learn to write again. Most likely, he never will, certainly not at his previous level.

There is a program that has had enormously-high success rates at rehabilitating stroke victims; unfortunately, this program is extremely expensive, and as of right now, his wife Bailey--the Flaming Redhead whom Dr. Z spoke so highly of in each of his twice-weekly columns for SI.com--cannot afford it.

Fortunately, Dr. Z's fellow Sports Illustrated NFL writer Peter King has put together a benefit dinner and auction for Dr. Z and his wife to take place on May 18, at 7:00 p.m., at Mayfair Farms in West Orange, New Jersey. King will host a round-table discussion of this Saturday's NFL draft and the upcoming season with New York Giants' coach Tom Coughlin and New York Jets' coach Rex Ryan--and a few other prominent NFL guests as well--with the auction to follow. A few items will be auctioned online.

For more information about what both Dr. Z and his beloved Flaming Redhead are going through, you can check her blog here. You can find out more information about Dr. Z's benefit dinner and auction here (though that link is a couple of weeks old, it still contains all the prescient information. Check Peter King's Monday and Tuesday's columns on sportsillustrated.cnn.com for updates).

. . .

Two years ago, anti-folksinger Cindy Lee Berryhill (who appeared earlier on the chart at #296) released her album Beloved Stranger. The title track tells in heartbreaking, painful detail the

(Paul Williams, son Alexander, Cindy Lee Berryhill; photo courtesy of Kathryn Cramer)

mental and emotional struggle that Berryhill goes through daily.

In 1995, Berryhill's husband Paul Williams--noted rock critic (one of my favorites, and his book Rock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles was one of the inspirations for this blog of mine; he founded the now-defunct rock magazine Crawdaddy...and pretty much founded rock criticism in general), sci-fi editor (ever heard of Philip K. Dick? You can thank Williams for that), and philospher--had a bicycle wreck. The resultant brain trauma triggered what physicians believed to be an early onset of Alzheimer's disease.

As Williams is an author and freelance journalist, and Berryhill a musician, neither had insurance to cover the costs of rehabilitation and treatment. They still don't.

Last week, I received an email from rock critic Dave Marsh's Rock N' Rap Confidential. The email quoted from a David Fricke article in Rolling Stone, which detailed Berryhill's and Williams's situation, and pointed to a new website-- http://paulwilliams.com/ -- where donations can be made to help Berryhill cope with the costs of managed care for her husband while she also tries to raise their son.

Cindy Lee Berryhill's album Beloved Stranger is on iTunes and Amazon. The album is very good, and it contains two fantastic tracks, one of which is this one listed here, "Beloved Stranger." I'd link to a video, but there's not one. The single itself can be had for ninety-nine cents. It's one of the most personal songs on this list, and Berryhill's pain and longing for her beloved husband is evident in her twangy voice, whose passion cannot completely cover the inherent weariness and sorrow. Willie Nelson provides vocal support, but the loss and heartache is still apparent.

It's sad, and it's sweet, much like the situations of all three of these wonderful people who've been struck down by fate recently. Their recovery has been helped by their tireless, courageous, devoted wives, but sometimes, even love ain't enough. I'm not asking anyone to donate money here, 'cause most of the people I know need every cent they have to help themselves and their own loved ones. I'm just wanting to acknowledge and shed some light on their situations, for I know others reading this would, like I, hope for as speedy a recovery as possible.

The Haunting in Connecticut

2009-04-21T00:18:00.000-05:00

Director: Peter Cornwall
Writer: Adam Simon & Tim Metcalfe
Photographer: Adam Swica
Score: Robert J. Kral
Cast: Virginia Madsen, Elias Koteas, Martin Donovan, Kyle "Billie Joe Armstrong" Gallner, Amanda Krew, Sophie Knight, Ty Wood.

Sunday, I couldn't find a date for the show--as my bruher mysteriously lost his phone between the hours of 1:30 and 4:15 (just like he has for the past three Sundays)--so I decided to stag. I'd been wanting to see The Haunting in Connecticut for since it opened and stuff, but my wife wouldn't go with me 'cause she wouldn't let me take the kids with us (even though I told her we could just cover their eyes and ears when the scary parts--or most of 'em (hee hee!)--came). I decided then just to go by myself.

And then it rained. Cats and frogs it rained, almost like I was watching a rerun of Katrina or something, it rained. My wife and the childs left to go to my in-laws, but it was raining too hard for me to go to the movies...and then it stopped! Poof! It was gone! I jumped in the Jeep and raced to the theater, but by the time I got there it was 2 and the line was twofold and about twenty people deep each line and so I said, "Yeah, right! As if!" and came home and went to the bathroom and next thing I know it it's 4:15 and I go to the theater and this time I get in ontime and I get my popcorn and Dew and I walk in the theater and there are two of my students and one of them the guy tells me to shut up and drink my beer and I'm thinking, "Yeah...he's my student alright," 'cause that made no since, even if the back of my shirt said it or not and stuff.

Okay, now, here comes the movie, and here's one of the first lines:

"You never plan on having a child with cancer," mom Virginia Madsen tells her hubby Martin Donovon about their teenage son, Kyle "Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong Is My Idol" Gallner, and Gallner overhears. Whoah, dude! Way to saddle a cheap horror movie with emotional baggage so early on! What kind of movie did these filmmakers think they were making, anyway? It's a horror movie, right? Where are the jump scares? The totality of night shots even when it's day? The young child in danger? The blood? The near-sex scenes? Where I ask you? How am I supposed to be scared when all I'm thinking about is this family's personal turmoil and Gallner's eyeshadow? The one teenage chick in the movie never even attempts to look sexy or come on to her cousin, and where's the fun in that? Madsen--a hotty for over twenty years now--never even bares any cleavage! WTF?

Okay, sure, we're given a few jolts, a few stingers here and there, a few "Oh snap! He's behind you!" and "Oh snap! What was that shadow?" moments, but the out-and-out startles and boo moments and high-pitched screams and murdering fiends and ZOM-BAYs and obscured ghosteses and spooky Asian broads with long stringy hair give way to character development and sub-plot development and actual acting. Who wants this, people? It's a modern-day horror movie; it's not supposed to be some stuffy period piece (and hey, since it's set in the '80s, where are all the pop-culture tee shirts and hair dos? Huh?) about the pall that death and cancer can hang over an entire family, about how fear can develop into neurosis and neurosis into depression and depression into hallucinations and voices.

Horror movies nowadays (yeah, if ever) aren't supposed to make us think, doggonit. If I wanted to think, I'd have read a book, but no...I had to see this movie, and I had to think, and I had to care about the stupid characters, and I had to stop myself from crying over Virginia Madsen's heartbreak and grief, and who wants to cry at a horror movie? Not I, said the fly. Speaking of The Fly (the Jeff Goldblum, David Cronenberg version), where was the gore? The guts? You know what we get instead? Ectoplasm. Manifestations of evil. I mean, we don't even see, like, dead bodies--not any significant ones anyway--until the very end. Where's the fun? I want mortification!

I mean--and this is the last one, really it is--people...it's a haunted house movie. The ghosts? Where were they? The possession? Where was the head-turning? Where was the bodies banging against the wall? All you give is are a few doors opening and shutting and plates falling on the floor? Really? What year is this? 2009! It's 2009, not 1929!

Okay, okay, there is that creepy guy with the glasses, and that one scene in the bedroom, with Madsen in the dark, about 2/3 of the way through. That scene was great! Everybody in the theater screamed (but me...I laughed at 'em all!)! What we needed was more of that! See...these filmmakers aren't stoopid; they know how to make us jump. They're just dull and intellectual and hippies and communists and Puritans (where's the Virginia Madsen skin, huh?), and they don't belong making films in America. They need to be shipped to like Australia or something, making movies for those Albino people over there, you know, the natives that live in the land Down Under where women go with the thunder! Those Albinians might be scared at this, might like this, because their lives are all boring and stuff anyway, just spear the rabbit, spear the rabbit, spear the rabbit! (and the kangaroo! and the koala!).

True story? Right. The only true story is that I made it out of there without falling asleep. I think it's still playing in town, too. But if you decide to go see it, then don't say I didn't warn ya!

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #132

2009-04-21T00:01:00.003-05:00

#132: "Step in the Name of Love (Remix)" (2002) - R. Kelly

The most old-fashioned R&B song to hit the top ten in the past ten years, R. Kelly's "Step in the Name of Love (Remix)*" sounds like something Johnny Taylor or Z.Z. Hill or Marvin Sease could have released twenty-five to thirty years ago, a last concession to the more dance-oriented, disco market before these guys (and many of their contemporaries) were dropped from their major labels, only to find homes (if they ever did) at smaller labels (such as the Jackson, MS standout label Malaco), where their records would soon thrive again, but on a much smaller level and in a much smaller market. These artists would have to work the chit'lin circuit again, but Malaco (and it wasn't the only label for those whom the charts left behind, but it was the most prominent one) afforded these soul/blues artists a sense of independence that they never had at their major labels, where they had to record the dance/disco records that ultimately proved their undoing (on a national level).

Ironically, most of these artists (that didn't turn gospel) retained that part of that smooth disco style that buried them, and often, these hybrid disco-soul-blues records were their most lively, their most entertaining, as if this combination of styles seemed to squeeze out sparks when each rubbed against the other ones. There are a slew of great dance records from these Southern soul/blues/dance artists--from the late '70s up till today--with only a handful of songs ever reaching any national chart. Most of these great songs only resonate with older--primarily African-American--audiences in the South.

I've deejayed many a time and had numerous requests for, say, Little Milton or Denise LaSalle or Tyrone Davis, and all of these requests have come from folk older than thirty five. Many of these same older folk also frequently request "Step in the Name of Love" by R. Kelly. Why? Not only does this song sound like those older Malaco numbers, but it's also a song about dancing, about a particular type of dancing: stepping. Stepping derived from the Jitterbug, but over the years--via L.A. and later Chicago--the motion grew less frantic, the steps slowed down as the music did, and the focal point of the dance changed to the offbeat. Steeping--in its current variation--has been around now for about, oh, thirty years or so, but it started to grow beyond its Chicago/L.A. (and, via migration and transmigration, the Deep South) roots into a more national limelight with the (relative) popularity of the Spike Lee joint School Daze, in which fraternities have a stepping contest. Now, this type of stepping is different from the stepping dance, but the term got thrown about often, and eventually, we get what he have hear today: a song by a black man about a dance first made popular--sixty years ago--by white folk, only to have their dance adopted and adapted by black folk, only to....

It's all cyclical, mostly. R. Kelly doesn't originate anything new here; he just recycles, but he does so with panache and care and a melody half lifted from Marvin Gaye and a voice straight lifted from Marvin Gaye. Like Isaac Newton said, we stand on the shoulders of giants, and like R. Kelly said, we step in the name of love.

NOTES

*It's a remix that was issued on the same album as the original, and it's the remix version that hit.

The Tournament of Metal: Round 2, Bracket 1

2009-04-20T03:29:00.000-05:00

The first round is now over! Bands will now battle...OTHER BANDS! Rock!

Four brackets this round, with the first bracket covering bands A-D. Next week, it's E-L; in two weeks, we'll see bands M-R, and in three weeks, it's S-Z. One month from now, we'll mix n' match, getting all Garanimal on your heinie.

The results from this past week are as follows:

Saigon Kick
2"Love Is on the Way" v. “Body Bags”1

Saxon
3"Denim & Leather" v. "Wheels of Steel" 1

Scorpions
8"Rock You Like a Hurricane" v. "Still Loving You" 0
5"Wind of Change" v. "No One Like You"4

Skid Row
6"I Remember You" v. “Sweet Little Sister"2
8"18 and Life" v. "Monkey Business"0
6 "Youth Gone Wild" v. "Slave to the Grind" 0

Slaughter
2“Up All Night" v. "Fly to the Angels"5

Slayer
1"Raining Blood" v. "Angel of Death"3

Steelheart
5"I'll Never Let You Go" v. “She's Gone" 1

Stryper
4"To Hell with the Devil" v. “Honestly"

Tesla
3 "Getting Better" v. “Signs" 5
4"Little Suzi" v. "Modern Day Cowboy" 2
5"Love Song" v. "Heaven's Trail" (No Way Out)" 1

TNT
3“10,000 Lovers (in One)" v. “Everyone's a Star" 1

Tora Tora
1"Walkin' Shoes" v. “Phantom Rider" 3

Trixter
5“Give It To Me Good" v. “Surrender" 0

Twisted Sister
9“We're Not Gonna Take It" v. “Captain Howdy" 0
3“Burn in Hell" v. “I Wanna Rock" 5

Van Halen
7“Everybody Wants Some" v. “Why Can't This Be Love" 2
3“Mean Street" v. “Feel So Good"5
5"Unchained" v. "Finished What Ya Started" 3
7"(Oh) Pretty Woman" v. "Best of Both Worlds"2
8"Jump" v. "Black and Blue" 1
7"Panama" v. "Love Walks In"2
8"Hot for Teacher" v. "Dreams"1
3"I'll Wait" v. "When It's Love" 5

Vinnie Vincent Invasion
4“Boys Are Gonna Rock” v. "Love Kills" 1

Vixen
3“Edge of a Broken Heart" v. "Cryin'"3 - TIE ("Edge..." wins tiebreaker*)

Warrant
5“Heaven” v. "Sometimes She Cries" 1
1"Down Boys" v. “Cherry Pie” 6
6"Uncle Tom's Cabin" v. "I Saw Red" 0

W.A.S.P.
1"I Wanna Be Somebody" v. “Wild Child” 4

Whitesnake
9"Here I Go Again" v. "Slide It In" 1
7"Still of the Night" v. "Slow and Easy"2
7"Is This Love" v. "Give Me All Your Love"2

Winger
5"Headed for a Heartbreak" v. "Seventeen"3
3"Madaline" v. "Miles Away"3 - TIE ("Miles..." wins tiebreaker*)

XYZ
3"Inside Out" v. "What Keeps Me Loving You"0

Y&T
4"Summertime Girls" v. "Contagious"0

Zebra
4"Tell Me What You Want" v. "Who's Behind the Door"0

NOTES
*Tiebreaker: I asked my son which song titles he liked better. That's how those winners were determined. He knows none of those songs. He's not a metalhead...yet!

**Somehow, I left the mighty beast White Lion off of this past week's poll. No worry though, as both of their hit songs will appear in the second round in this bracket (which we'll see in three weeks).

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #133

2009-04-20T03:26:00.000-05:00

#133: "Right Out of Your Hand" (2003) - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

For a couple of decades, I--like many of my friends--was an album guy. Sure, I'd read and loved Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made and Spin's and Rolling Stone's greatest singles issues* (the issues released in the '80s; I'm sure they've released a couple since, but if I've read them, I don't remember), but for the most part, I believed in the LP as the height of musical artistic achievement, an album to a single being what the novel was to a short story: lengthier, therefore more complex, therefore more artistic merit, right? Wrong. I was an idiot for a long time.** Still, even if I would have believed back then that the single was just as great (if not greater***) as the album, I still would have been an album guy. Why? Proximity.

After the cassingle started appearing (and as quickly disappeared), 45s started slipping from shelves, and the single was done, the spindle tossed in the trash. If I wanted to hear new music, I had to buy the album...so I did. I bought my weight in wax (or tape) a week. The onset of CDs didn't change my habit. Working at a radio station, however, did change my mindset, as I listened to every new**** pop, rock, R&B, rap, hip-hop, gospel, and country track that was released every week, and most of the great ones never appeared on a great album. I then began to be much more discriminating in my tastes, reading every review I could before I'd spend chunks of money on rotten records. Still, if an artist I admired released a record, I'd buy it on the spot, and at least half the time, I'd regret my purchase, because other than the Beatles, nobody hits (or hit) it out of the park every time.

It was because of this disappointing track record with some of my favorite artists (Prince, Springsteen, R.E.M., etc...) that I bought a computer*****, roughly ten years ago, and from there, I discovered the wonderful world of downloa....uh...uh...of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds! I'd only heard one of their songs before. It was "I'll Love You Till the End of the World" from the wonderful soundtrack to the dreary and dull and endless Wim Wenders 1991 film Untill The End of the World. In that song, Cave & co. displayed many of their typical trademarks (which have inspired, among others, My Chemical Romance and H.I.M.) : heavy on strings, apocalyptic lyrics, heavy romanticism, and Cave's theatrical vocals that landed just this side of camp. It was full of pomp and circumstance, and I loved it (and I still do, too). I then went searching record stores for more from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, but none had any. The store managers all said that they could import****** them for me, but I didn't want to have to pay the extra shipping fees for I had little money, then*******. I waited and bided my time, hoping someday I'd find Henry's Dream and Let Love In as well as the back records. Five years I waited, and nothing. Until....

One day (five years later), I found the band's Murder Ballads at Wal-Mart.******** It was righteous, as it sparked my inner Goth. The next year, another album, The Boatman's Call...even better. Great. Superb. 'Twas nothing like the previous album, a complete turnaround from lascivious to lush, from fighter to lover, with a stately, standout opening track. Four years roll 'round, Cave releases another album, and I never knew of it. By this point, I had my computer, and I'd stopped my subscription to Rolling Stone, so--somehow--I missed it (found it later, though). It wasn't until 2003 that I bought a new Cave record, the one I thought was the first one he'd released since The Boatman's Call. I saw it at Wal-Mart, and I bought it. I didn't bother with browsing reviews or downloading the tracks (which would've taken me forever back then, on dial-up); it was a Nick Cave record, the last two were great, so this one was bound to be as well.

I was wrong. The 2003 record--Nocturama--was a dreary slog. The romanticism, the lush arrangements were there, but the melodies weren't. The songs seemed too similar to the ones on The Boatman's Call. It was too derivative, and it was uninspired. After listening to it once, I found some critical reviews of the album, and most of the reviews marched step with my ideas. "That's it," I told myself, "no more albums for me without reading the rushes first." I put the album away. Cave released another album the next year, but it received mixed reviews, so I didn't bother with it. In 2006, though, he put out an album with Grinderman (which was actually the Bad Seeds minus one or two members), and I listened to a few tracks, and they were great, so I bought the album. I wasn't disappointed this time. Inspired, I then went to iTunes and bought a slew of individual Cave tracks, and I aimed to make myself a 3-CD compilation of Nick Cave tunes, arranging them in chronological order (of course). In preparation, I listened to Nocturama for only the second time since I'd bought it three years prior, and guess what? The album still stunk...except for one track.

The track was--obviously--this one: "Right Out of Your Hand." The music is stately and romantic, with Cave's piano and Bad Seeds' Blixa Bargeld's pedal steel and (especially) Warren Elllis's violin creating a landscape of longing, the power coming from the impassioned reserve in Cave's and Mick Harvey's and Conway Savage's singing. It's lush only in its eroticism, as it smolders and builds, as it seethes and pulses slowly, the releases determined and deliberate and delayed, as these musicians exert expert control, not allowing anything to be rushed, allowing intimacy but not withholding passion. By taking their time with this beautiful melody, Cave & the Bad Seeds made their best record this decade, one that still gives reason to believe that the truly great artists, though they may falter a time or two, can create great art at anytime throughout their careers, and that they are never to be dismissed, their albums not ignored, no matter how the first go 'round may sound. Buy only the singles and risk missing some of the greatest work of a great artist's career. I almost did this time. "Right Out of Your Hand" was never released as a single, no video ever recorded, never been added to a soundtrack. It's an album cut, but it sure ain't filler music.

NOTES
* I don't think there any two lists of similar subject matter published by, uh, similar publications that are as widely divergent as these lists were.

** Yeah, I know. Don't say it.

*** And the single is greater, too.

****I also listened to, I think, every one of the 45s the station had, both sides, and they had a bunch, and I can tell you that if you think music is strange now, you should have heard some of the off-the-wall (not the Michael Jackson album, mind you) B-sides (and A-sides, too) released from the late '60s through the mid-'70s, before arena rock and FM radio completely changed the landscape of radio forever. Really weird stuff by some people who had no business making a record of any sort. You think artists like Jessica Simpson and Lady Gaga (etc...) are talentless? Well, you ain't heard nothin', yet.

*****My word processor finally breaking beyond repair might also have had something to do with the computer purchase. Might.

******Later I discovered that the Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds' albums were distributed in America, too, and that these record stores wouldn't have to import them, but they just told customers that so that they wouldn't have to go through the hassle of special-ordering an album that they hadn't heard of.

*******Still don't today, either.

********Ironic, that of all of Cave's work, the first one to appear at Wal-Mart--notorious (among music junkies, at least) for their censorship and wariness to stock even the slightest controversial album--was the one entitled Murder Ballads.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #134

2009-04-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

#134: "Duplexes of the Dead" (2007) - Fiery Furnaces

We round out this week with one of the strangest songs on the chart, at least in terms of structure. That fact shouldn't be surprising coming from The Fiery Furnaces (previously seen here on the chart), whose every studio LP & EP are filled with non-traditional song structures. The Furnaces--Brooklyn siblings Matthew and Eleanor Friedlander, plus a semi-regular combo of musicians, including drummer extraordinaire Robert D'Amico--throw oddball twists and about-faces in their songs, changing time signatures and key melodic lines at often seemingly inopportune moments, just when the songs' hooks start to catch.

In "Duplexes of the Dead," songwriter/producer Matthew Friedlander plays it fairly straight (for a Furnaces' record): the song's tempo never changes, the time signature doesn't change, and no extra melodies or song segments are dropped or lifted. What's odd about this one is that it lacks a chorus. The vocal melody is catchy, though, and as are Eleanor's vocal dips, as are the string segues, as is the interlude; with as many hooks as this two-and-a-half song offers, it doesn't need a chorus. Blink and you'll miss the fact that you missed it. It's great pop music, avant-garde or not. It'd work great as the soundtrack to a movie trailer, a thriller perhaps, for as background filler, it's a killer.

The song deserves a better fate, though, because it's not just a catchy tune; there's something deeper afoot. The lyric's an elliptical narrative, an existential short story, and the characters--a husband and wife on their honeymoon--highly resemble Port and Kit Moresby from Paul Bowles's novel The Sheltering Sky. Like those two characters, the husband and wife in "Duplexes of the Dead" have an emotional and sexual disconnection. The husband immerses himself in his work, in trying to grasp the ungraspable, in trying to locate the mystique of the abyss, and his wife wanders, and if you remember the novel....

Matthew Friedlander augments the sense of alienation and displacement with hazy, alluring yet disorienting production. He adds strings that seem to have traveled from Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir," and a wonky, pulsing synth background that might have made a trip over from The Rolling Stones' album Their Satanic Majesties Request. This Eastern sound placates for a bit, but then Friedlander drops D'Amico's surf drum rolls and some Kid A-era Radiohead synth blips and bleeps to add tension. Eleanor's vocals add to the exoticism and eroticism, as her tone is somewhat confessional and somewhat distant, mirroring the conflict in the music.

By mixing all these disparate elements together that never quite properly congeal (and I believe that's purposeful), the Fiery Furnaces have given us a record that correlates to America's current fascination and revulsion of the Eastern world, of a people and a culture we can't quite grasp, a lifestyle so completely and utterly foreign that we can't help but stare and ask, "What does it all mean?"

I've often asked the same about the Fiery Furnaces early records, where the experimentation seemed without purpose. Here, in "Duplexes of the Dead," I believe they've found their purpose, as the form matches function. I don't believe they've found the answers to their questions, but their questions now make sense, and they're all the more disconcerting because of their soundness. It's fascinating. I can't look away.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #135

2009-04-16T00:01:00.000-05:00

#135: "Valerie" (2007) - Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse

Okay, we're looking at some cover-song spillover from last week's "Imitation of Life and Artist and Song" week, and what we've got here is fab-producer Mark Ronson (with two other songs on this chart to his credit/co-credit so far: #209 and #326) taking a Zuton's record from 2006, speeding it up a notch, tightening the beat, adding in some horns (possibly sampled or synthed), some handclaps, and one of the best soul singers of the decade, Amy Winehouse (who's also appeared before on this chart at #196), and making a record that wouldn't sound completely out of place in 1967*. It dances, it swings, it sways, and Winehouse's vocals are so strong yet so casual she almost makes you forget that--now that she's singing it--the song has been transformed into a love song from a woman to a woman. "I Kissed a Girl" indeed.

NOTES

*In fact, the opening bass line sounds almost identical to James Jamerson's bassline in the Supremes' 1966 hit "You Can't Hurry Love," so much so that the first time I heard Ronson's version, I expected Diana Ross to start singing "I need love, love/To ease my mind"--either her or Phil Collins...whose voice causes me to need something more concrete (and mind-altering) to ease my mind.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #136

2009-04-15T01:50:00.004-05:00

#136: "On a Bus to St. Cloud" (2001) - Jimmy LaFave

Now that Bob Childers has went and gone, who's going to take his place as the Godfather of Red Dirt Music? Nobody. This ain't the Cosa Nostra, people; it's Oklahoma, and in OK, there's only one Bob Childers. Still, if anyone were to the new Dylan of the Dust, it'd be Bob Childers's protegee and peer, Texan/Okie Jimmy LaFave.
LaFave--who helped Childers record his first album--has been playing the Stillwater and Austin scenes for twenty years, bringing his expressive voice to his own brand of Red Dirt music, as well as to magnificent interpretations of Dylan and Guthrie (and he's a Guthrie scholar, too). His best interpretation--on record--that I've heard though is this rendition of the Gretchen Peters-penned/Trisha Yearwood 1995 record. Peters--as mentioned before--is a fantastic songwriter, and this is one of her best tunes. If anyone knows the song--it's been covered multiple times--it's from Yearwood's version.

Yearwood--one of the best country female vocalists of the early '90s--sings most of the Peters song as a wistful reverie, letting her powerful voice soar at the right moments while keeping her voice sweetly even-keeled during the rest of the song. It works well, and it's a solid record, as I've yet to find a Yearwood record that she didn't elevate to at least solid status just by the fact that it's her that's singing. Her singing on this song, though, doesn't mine the depths, the fragility, the soul-searing ache. LaFave's singing does.

The song itself tells of one who sees the face of his (or her, depending on the singer) departed lover in the crowd at every stop along a trek across America. It's more than just a song about heartbreak, though; it's about the loss of self, about how one's identity can be so subsumed by another--or, rather, the thought of another--in a relationship (that one eleveates to the notion of the perfect, ideal romance--the mental creation of some mythical, intangible, intertwined one: the soulmate, the "you complete me," the "made for each other;" like Clint Black once sang, "We tell ourselves/That what we've found/Is what we're meant to find") that when the other leaves, that one feels like part of one's self is now gone, that the now-separated lover has taken part of one's self because this lover was part of one's self...and it's all a false notion, all born of fantasy and Hallmark romanticism, all born of an elevated sense of the other (lover) and of self. No matter how ridiculous and farfetched the pre-breakup/separation expectations of permanency were, no matter how false the veneer, no matter the facade--'cause our self is just that; it can never be given or ascribed or intertwined--the hurt is palpable, and the empty feeling reverberates throughout the mind, and the dissipation of the ideal clouds perception and awareness with its vanishing vapor. It's worse than unrequited love. I know.

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

.........................HERE IT COMES; DON'T SAY YOU AIN'T BEEN WARNED..............................

I've loved silently and from afar and not had the love returned--more than once. Numerous times, actually. Only once, though, have I thought that that I'd found the one, my perfect counterpart, the one I was meant to find, the one I'd dreamed of since first grade. She loved me, too. She thought all my jokes were funny, she liked to talk to me, she liked to listen to me, she liked my music, she liked my writing, she thought I was cool, she thought I was smart, and she wanted to be my friend. Nothing wrong with that of course,* but come now...she and I were destined to be together, and I didn't even believe in destiny. I just needed time to work my magic, turn my illusions and sleights-of-the mind into something more magnificent. Within a few years, poof! The rabbit really appeared out of thin air! She was mine! She accepted me as hers, she as mine.

The next week, the phone rang: "I'm sorry, Andy. I tried, I really did, but it's just not....I just can't do it. It's not the same for me. You understand, right?"

No, I didn't. Talking to friends didn't help, nor did alcohol, nor did music, nor did prayer. Focusing on studies...no, couldn't concentrate. What did studies matter, anyway? They were to one day lead to success and happiness, right? How was I ever going to be successful and happy without her? She accepted me, when no one else** ever had, when all I'd ever had was rejection whenever I decided to come out of my shell? My mom always told me that I'd meet the right one in college, someone smart enough and nice enough to accept me...and college was almost over. There was never going to be another right one, how could there be? She...she...she was perfect for me. Now, she's told me she can't do it. She's told me that there was no us. No me.

Tried half a bottle of pills one night with a pint of Wild Turkey as a chaser, and you know what? Death wouldn't even accept me. Heh. That was funny. After spending that night trying to rid myself of the vestiges of self and only ridding myself of the means (via vomit) of doing just that, I spent the next hours till dawn laughing, longest I've ever laughed in my life. It was all a joke, and I finally got the punchline.

I dropped out of school. I went back home and worked full time at a drug store playing gopher and sodajerk. No shame, though, not after what in my mind was the ultimate humiliation. I soon grew bored of my job,*** and decided that since Death wouldn't take me, that since I was going to live, that even without a direction, without a goal, without a real life, I was going to have to find something to do that would keep my mind occupied. See, by this time, months down the road, I'd accepted my rejection, but the longing never completely went away; I'd not just been dumped by the "love of my life," but by my best friend, too, as she was both. My conversations with my other friends never lasted long anymore because I never had much to say. I had no pithy observations to make, because I didn't find anything humorous anymore. I'd already heard the world's funniest joke, and nothing else could measure up; so, I withdrew into isolation, and I started to see her...when she wasn't there. I'd hear her voice, too. I mean, I never heard her voice audibly, but I heard her in my head, knowwhatImean? Answering questions? Making her own observations and comments? Yeah? Good--because I thought I was the only who was going crazy at this point.

To stem the tide, I re-enrolled in school--different location this time--and I saw her face less and less. Her voice softened to a whisper. Soon both were gone--not for good, but for good enough. I then happened upon a girlfriend (or, rather, vice-versa), and she, distanced now, further in the horizon slipped. I soon met my pal Foot Foot, and over the course of the next year, I started falling in love for the second and last time in my life. Wary now, though, so I kept my options open, less I....

Close to the vest long enough, I eventually had to choose, had to sacrifice two close relationships. One of these was my then-girlfriend. I broke up with her; it was difficult. I cried, not because I loved her--as I didn't, not fully--but because I was afraid I'd hurt someone the way I'd been hurt. It wasn't the same, though, not for her. My then-girlfriend and I didn't always get along well, and we differed on many subjects, and she didn't get but about half my jokes, and she didn't understand my writing, and I know she felt the disconnect as well. It still bothered me, though.

The second relationship--ending that one bothered me more, mainly for selfish reasons. What if I had chosen wrong? What if Foot Foot never accepted me as her companion, as a friend and as a lover? I knew the woman in the second relationship did, and I knew I was safe there, and I knew we'd get along well, as we shared many things in common, and she understood me, and she made me feel that I was important as I, not just as a friend, or as a companion. I liked being with her. She was fun. She was deep. She was smart. She was ambitious. She was fearless. I admired her. When she left for good, I made her a mixed tape**** and told her to play it after she left my driveway. Other than the first song, I don't remember what I put on there. I do remember that first song, though. It was Bruce Springsteen's "Bobbie Jean." If you know the song, then I know what you're thinking: "What a nerd!" That'd be correct. I loved her, though.

What I felt for my pal Foot Foot, though, was something I never thought I'd feel again. I didn't want to feel it again. After finding myself initially infatuated, I guarded against it. Hell, I even tried to pass her off, set her up with a friend one time, just because I knew I was starting to like her far too much, and I needed to keep my distance. She kept on calling, though, kept wanting to go places with me, listen to me...just like she had. We grew closer, saw each other more often, and over the course I knew that I had to try. Even if I was completely rejected again, I had to try. I just...I just knew that I wanted to be with her every day: friend, lover, spouse--it didn't matter. If it didn't matter, then I'd risk it. If I had to, then I'd tell Foot Foot what I was too hurt and too damned proud to tell her: that I'd accept rejection, that I'd promise to remember to forget I ever proffered love, that I'd be willing to just be the friend, to listen to her problems about somebody else she loved...anything, I'd do anything, as long as she allowed me to be in her life. God, that sounds pathetic, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. I was pathetic. Couldn't help it though.

So guess what? I chickened out. I didn't tell her. Not when I told myself I was. It wasn't until much later, when we'd already promised to be with each other because, goshdarnit, we were just such good friends, that I told her. I asked her the same. Did she love me? One way or the other, wouldn't change the way I behaved, but I just had to know. StOOpid, right? Here's how it went:

In a church parking lot, at night, in the spring, in May, no one else around, the two of us standing near my truck, the church's streetlight substituting for the absent moon, she said:

"I'm sorry, Andy. I tried, I really did. I love you, I do, but I'm not in love with you. I'm so sorry. I can't help it."

You know...well...think of the funniest joke you can remember hearing. The one you laughed at the most. Was it as funny the second time? Yeah, you still laughed, and you still got it, and you still admired its keenness and sharpness and brilliant relevance and wisdom, but it didn't quite have the same gutwrenching, ROTFLMAO effect, did it?

No alcohol, no pills, and no pride, either. I kept my word. I accepted it. No, she didn't truly love me, but she would be with me, and that was enough. I'd steeled myself for this possibility, and I had pretty much given up the ghost on the belief in "true love," anyway. This time, the one I loved, the one who accepted at least part of me, the one I most enjoyed being around...this time she didn't leave. She stayed. She stayed. Assurance enough. I wouldn't be seeing her face imaginary nor hearing her voice illusionary because I would be seeing her real face and hearing her real voice from now on, whether her love--our love (to me, one-and-the-same)--was real or not. It's all sleight-of-mind, anyway.

Whenever I hear Jimmy LaFave singing this song, I hear all the aforementioned pain and loss and desperation and determination and useless, useless hope that Yearwood leaves out. His voice quivers, he clips some of his words and phrases, he pauses at off-times, his voice comes close to leaving him at times, too, hiccupping up like a pubescent boy's voice would; where Yearwood's voice takes flight and soars, LaFave's strains to rise, taking wing only long enough to be burnt by the sun, Icarus to Peters's Daedalus. It's that strain, that yearning, that quiver, that touches upon the romantic, the pathetic, the selfish, the failed magician in me. Maybe it's universal. I don't know. Nor do I much care. I'm pretty sure many of us have a certain song that brings back bittersweet memories. This one's mine. It's on this list 'cause it's good, too. It's not just nostalgia talking. Not that kind of nostalgia. I don't long for those days. It's been painful writing this vent. I've unearthed memories so deep that I've long since forgotten that I ever had them to bury. Hopefully, now that they're out, they'll dissipate into the ether. They've clouded my eyes long enough.

Oh, by the way: a couple of days after my pal Foot Foot told me that she wasn't in love with me, she came and told me that she'd discovered that now (meaning back then) she found that she did truly love me, that she was in fact in love with me. I don't remember what she said made her discover that revelation; in fact, I don't think I ever listened to her explanation. I didn't care for the reason. I only cared that she did, even though I'd have stayed by her side if she hadn't. Years later--and I don't know what prompted this--I started thinking about that night in the church parking lot, and the positive announcement a few days later. I believed her when she told me that she wasn't in love with me ('cause I remember it visibly pained her to say it), and I believed her when, a few days later, she told me that she was in love with me...though I think the only reason I believed it was because I wanted to believe it. Can a person transform love into in love in two/three days time? Hell, can a person to it at all? The latter...yeah, especially with special care and dedication over time, but the former....

Listen, Andy (I'm addressing myself now for I'm sure that's what I've been doing all along, anyway), does it really matter? Yeah, it does, though not for the reason you/I might think. Even if she wasn't in love with you, she told you that she was because she loved you. Which is like...wow. You know what kind of sacrifice that takes? Sacrificing one's chance at ever finding a person to fall in love with, one that will return that love....doing all of that just to make a friend happy? Sounds like the type of person I need to do my everbest to keep, so I better write this down as a reminder. I don't ever want her to slip out of my view, to turn into a face in the crowd. I don't ever want to hear this song again and have it take on a meaning other than the one it has now. Some songs, sometimes, need to end. Let's bury this one together, shall we?

NOTES

Sorry, I'm beat. I've nothing left tonight, so just fill in your own notes about what the asterisks represent. Let my footnotes be yours. Just once.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #137

2009-04-14T00:01:00.000-05:00

#137: "Gone and Went" (2006) - Bob Childers

Red Dirt Music was born and bred in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and it lives there still. The music style's a dusty amalgamation of traditional country, bluegrass, Woody Guthrie-made folk, Bob Wills-styled swing, Delta blues, and Chuck Berry-esque rock and roll (with just the slightest touch of Tejano...on the side). Like most music styles, it was never truly invented in one fell swoop, but kind of just...came together. Once it did, the man who kept it together, who fostered the love of this type of modern Okie folk into any and all who ventured into Stillwater, was Bob Childers.

Childers helped foster the work of Cross Canadian Ragweed, Jimmy LaFave, and Garth Brooks, and he was open to jamming with whoever crossed his front porch. He was prolific as well, authoring over 1,500 songs, some dance records, some children's songs, some traditional ballads (folk and Western), some straight rock and roll, and plenty of other types in-between. He never necessarily had one signature song, 'cause no one song seemed to capture the variety of sounds (all Red Dirt sounds, though) in his thirty-year career.

"Gone and Went" will do as well as any. In this song from his last LP, Childers has his tongue most definitely in cheek, since we realize exactly why his little darlin's gone and went as Childers playfully (but not jokingly, as he never winks) unleashes a litany of favors, duties, chores, and jobs his honey used to do for him (while, we realize once the song's over, the protagonist has done nothing). It's almost a toss-off song, with the spare accompaniment there just to provide structure, something akin to the Beatles' "Her Majesty" in terms of simplicity and effectiveness and wit of lyric and tune and music, 'cept it's better 'cause it's more detailed, it's better detailed, and it mirrors many a neglectful husband...including this one. It's funny, yeah, and it's catchy, yeah, but it's a reminder, a warning, that those we cherish may soon be gone and went 'fore we know it.

Just like Bob Childers. The Godfather of Red Dirt Music died in April of last year.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #138

2009-04-13T21:09:00.001-05:00

#138: "Dick in Dixie" (2006) - Hank Williams III

Right...now! Yes, that's the Hank Williams III--son of Bocephus, grandson of the Hank Williams--throwing the Dio Devil Horns, covered in tattoes, with the pentagram sticker on his electric guitar. He's plays in a Satanic punk-rock band, he's convinced he's going to hell, he curses, he drinks, he smokes (those left-handed cigarettes and even plays his bong as an instrument on record); so, he's pretty much like his father and grandfather*--the apple didn't fall too far from the tree with this one.

There's a lotta things about him you don't know anything about. Things you wouldn't understand. Things you couldn't understand. Things you shouldn't understand. You don't wanna get mixed up with a guy like him. He's a loner. A rebel. And on this song, he announces this to the world. It's his statement of purpose. He doesn't believe in Nashville; he just believes in him. It took a year-long court battle for III (as he prefers to be called...you know, 'cause he's an outlaw, an individual, an original) to have a judge order Curb Records to release his album Straight to Hell--and they created a subsidiary--Bruc Records (get it?)--just to do so. No radio stations (of note) would play his music, and heck, even the Dixie Chicks get played south of the Mason-Dixon line a time or two. Wal-Mart refused to carry the record. It still made it to #17 on the Billboard Country Album charts (and #73 on the Top 200 overall).

That's a very significant feat--to find its equivalent, you'd have to go back thirty years to when the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen" hit #1 on the U.K. charts despite being banned from radio. III's song "Dick in Dixie" resembles the Pistols' single in another way: they both bite the hand that feeds them. The Pistols' railed openly (in a way not done so before in pop/rock music) against the honored figurehead of their country (and singer Johnny Rotten claimed he was the Anti-Christ in "Anarchy in the U.K."), but what III does here is just as alarming, not just because of his (semi)favored-son status (at least in Outlaw Country), but because he's doing so while peforming country music--bluegrass county, at that--and radio's not playing bluegrass country anymore (NPR on Sundays doesn't count). III--at least here--is more of an outlaw than his father or his father's friends ever were, 'cause back thirty-or-so years ago, when Waylon and Bocephus were decrying the state of the industry, Outlaw Country was being played on the radio (maybe not as much as the Music Row Countrypolitan records), as records by Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash (as well as Waylon and Bocephus) received significant airplay.

No country radio stations played any songs from Straight to Hell. They couldn't, even if they'd have wanted to. They'd have been fined out the wazzoo. III laces nearly every song on the album with a heaping helping of profanity**, he includes hardcore tales of drugs and sex, and on the double album's second side, III drops a forty-two minute long song comprised of voice mails, tape loops, live song snippets, musician dialog, monologue, and several stretches of silence. It's the most experimental piece of music I've ever heard a country artist make (though I don't think it belongs on this countdown, as it's more of an album to itself than a true song). What amazes me about this, is that III knew--of course he knew--that his songs from this album wouldn't be played on radio. Yet he made it anyway. And he made it (not counting the last song on side two) using traditional country song structure and instrumental arrangement (and the musicians on the album--especially on "Dick in Dixie"--are absolutely fantastic, showcasing some of the best, smoking-hot bluegrass playing I've ever heard). He made a country record, so that no country radio station would play it. And it almost went gold.

And that is rock and roll.

NOTES

*Hank, Sr. was kicked out of the Grand Ole Opry for his drinking and conniving, and he still hasn't been reinstated.

**The lyrics on this song are profane and offensive, and not just to Nashville. Let me share with you what I can share (I'm keeping my blog family-friendly; unlike III, I'm no rebel):

"Well some say I'm not country/And that's just fine with me..../They say that I'm ill-mannered/That I'm gonna self-destruct/But if you know what I'm thinking/You know that pop country really sucks"

And that's it. That's as far as I'll go here. I'm not going to even post a video. I'll give you this though:

I don't think Hank would've wanted it this way, though.

The Tournament of Metal: Results for Round One, Bracket Three

2009-04-12T00:40:00.005-05:00

Time to vote now on the last bracket of the first round (over at the sidebar to the right); starting next week, in round two, bands will battle other bands, so don't forget to tune in then, but first, look to the right, and rock the vote!

The results from this past week are as follows:

Manowar
1“Kings of Metal” v. “Blow Your Speakers”0

Megadeth
2“Peace Sells” v. “Symphony of Destruction”1

Metallica
3“One” v. “For Whom the Bell Tolls”2
1“Seek and Destroy” v. “Fade to Black”3
1“Master of Puppets” v. “Enter Sandman”3
1“Wherever I May Roam” v. “Sad but True”3
3“The Unforgiven” v. “Nothing Else Matters”1

Mr. Big
4“To Be With You” v. “Wild World”0

Motley Crue
3“Too Fast for Love” v. “Same Old Situation”2
3“Live Wire” v. “You’re All I Need”1
4“Shout at the Devil” v. “Looks That Kill”0
3“Dr. Feelgood” v. “Ten Seconds to Love”1
5“Home Sweet Home” v. “Without You”0
2“Smokin’ in the Boys Room” v. “Don’t Go Away Mad”3
3“Girls Girls Girls” v. “Too Young to Fall in Love”1
1“Wild Side” v. “Kickstart My Heart”4

Motorhead
1“Eat the Rich” v. “Ace of Spades”3

Nelson
2“(I Can’t Live Without Your) Love and Affection” v. “After the Rain”1

Night Ranger
4“Sister Christian” v. “(You Can Still) Rock in America”0
1“Sentimental Street” v. “When You Close Your Eyes”2

Aldo Nova
2“Fantasy” v. “Monkey on Your Back”1

Ozzy Osbourne
5“Crazy Train” v. “Bark at the Moon”0
4“Goodbye to Romance” v. “I Don’t Know”1
3“Flying High Again” v. “Suicide Solution”1
0“Shot in the Dark” v. “Mr. Crowley”4
2“No More Tears” v. “Mama, I’m Coming Home”1

Pantera
2“Cemetery Gates” v. “Cowboys from Hell”1

Poison
4“Talk Dirty to Me” v. “Cry Tough”1
2“I Won’t Forget You” v. “Life Goes On”3
2“I Want Action” v. “Nothin’ but a Good Time”5
5“Every Rose Has Its Thorn” v. “Fallen Angel”0
4“Unskinny Bop” v. “Something to Believe In”3

Queensryche
2“Eyes of a Stranger” v. “Jet City Woman”1
1“Another Rainy Night (Without You)” v. “Silent Lucidity”2

Quiet Riot
5“Cum On Feel the Noize” v. “The Wild and the Young”0
1“Mama, We’re All Crazee Now,” v. “Metal Health (Bang Your Head)”4

Rainbow
0“Stone Cold” v. “Street of Dreams”1

Ratt
4“Round and Round” v. “Way Cool, Jr.”0
1“Lay It Down” v. “You’re In Love”2

David Lee Roth
2“Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody” v. “California Girls”3
3“Yankee Rose” v. “Just Like Paradise”0

Rush
2“The Spirit of Radio” v. “Freewill”1
5“Tom Sawyer” v. “Limelight”0

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #139

2009-04-10T01:17:00.000-05:00

#139: "Ya Ya Ya (Lookin' for My Baby)" (2005) - Detroit Cobras.

From imitations of life to dedications of other singers' songs to imitations of other singers' songs, we now come to the ultimate imitation: the cover band. Ain't no shame in being a cover band folks; almost every band you hear on the radio or on your mp3 player or on your turntable began covering other bands' songs. and like Robert Randolph sang, there ain't nothin' wrong with that. And like Detroit Cobra's lead singer Rachel Nagy has said, if you can't write songs as worthy as the ones you love, then might as well play the ones you love, but just play them better than anyone else can in hopes that others can be turned onto and into the music just as you were. If imitation is the sincerest form of exaltation, then the Detroit Cobras are the most sincere cover band in the history of cover bands. Sure, there's Weird Al and Me First & the Gimme Gimmes, but their covers are crack ups; what the Detroit Cobras do is find the heart of each song, push it to the fore, play the hell out of it, and leave you dancing and shouting for more.

The Detroit Cobras excel in taking obscure (obscure to the mainstream, and often even to aficianadoes) singles by soul artists (some well known--Otis Redding, Irma Thomas, the Shirelles--and some not so well known--The Oblivians, The Gardenias, Dori Grayson) and filling them with enough ferocious energy (without punkifying them) so that the songs sound not just updated but fresh, yet still sound like themselves. The catalysts for all this combustion are singer Nagy and guitarists Mary Ramirez, the self-styled leaders of the band whose live performances are known for their take-no-prisoners, belles-to-the-wall raucousness. Ramirez brings the rock by immersing her guitar in echo and flanger and feedback, and Nagy brings the sultry soul, coming across with the attitude of Joan Jett and the decadent heartache of (the Shangri-La's singer) Mary Weiss. An apocrphyal adade of Bob Dylan goes that he could sing the phone book and make it sound interesting; well, Rachel Nagy could sing the phone book and make you want to look up her number.

The band's song selection is choice, too. Sure, most of the songs are relatively unknown, many of them B-sides, many never-released album cuts, but all of them are quality songs that for one reason or another, never hit nationally. That classification applies to "Ya Ya Ya (Lookin' for My Baby." Originally titled "Lookin' for My Baby (Ya Ya Ya)," the song was written and recorded in 1954 by Doc Starke and His Nite Riders, a Philly doo wop & roll band. The song hit regionally was well received in certain cities where Starke and band toured, but in '54, this single had little chance of charting anywhere--even the R&B charts--because it's a rock and roll record, not a jazz record, not a blues record, not a doo-wop record (and soul records hadn't been invented yet). You know how many rock and roll records hit in '54, white or black? Not many. Ike Turner had a few (and started rock and roll himself in '51), and Joe Turner (whose pianist, Van Welles, played on the "Lookin' for My Baby" track) had a few, but...that's just about it. Fats Domino, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, and Ray Charles all had yet to debut (or fully develop) nationally, so Starkes had slim chance of having his record become a national hit, 'cause the music was just too raw and too new (if you can track down the original, then please do, 'cause it's great, and it's rock all the way, and it sounds like it came from easily five years later) to cross over.

I'm glad the Detroit Cobras knew about it, though...or else I never would have. The Cobras' take doesn't necessarily best the original, but it does stake its own ground, and because of nigh-tangible crackle they give it--especially Nagy's vocals--it's their best cut. They didn't write it, but it's theirs as much as it is the Nite Riders'. It takes a special type of talent to eke out a living as a professional cover band, one with a recording contract and a couple of national commercials using their versions of someone else's songs. Someone once termed them, "God's cover band," and I wouldn't doubt that assertion, for if one day the Cobras are in Heaven, I could see all the other artists sitting in a club, paying admission to hear 'em, calling out requests, and watching Nagy and company rip all to shreds, only stopping to sweat when Ronnie Van Zant giggles and shouts out, "Freebird!"

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #140

2009-04-09T00:19:00.001-05:00

#140: "I Found Out" (2004) - Nathaniel Mayer

From one cover song that bests the original to another, but this one's a more impressive feat, for as great a songwriter as Barry Gibb was, overall, he doesn't hold a candle (or a rhinestone-studded white leisure suit) next to John Lennon. Lennon wrote and recorded the original "I Found Out" (with Ringo on drums, Klaus Voorman on bass, and himself on guitar) for his landmark* album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band in 1970. For those of you who don't know, this album marked Lennon's complete departure and disavowel from the Beatles, swearing them--and numerous other idealistic concepts and structures--off forever.** The album was a musical manifesto and a personal one as well, Lennon stating and re-stating his creed and exorcising demons using only guitar, bass, drums, and piano.***Lennon left the Beatles forever, and he left his imagination behind, too; no more fantasy (single or double) for him. Reality was where it was at for John Lennon in 1970.

Reality was where it was at in 1970 for Nathaniel Mayer, too. There was no fantasy for him, either, as he--once Detroit's answer to James Brown--was out of recording work. Eight years previous, Mayer had landed a huge local hit (and #22 nationally, while top ten in New York, Chicago, and L.A.) with his soul/doo-wop/gutter rock**** record, "Village of Love" for Detroit's other soul label, Fortune Records. That record brought Mayer national attention. He followed it with several more great soul/doo-wop/gutter rock records, but, as goes the maxim about diminishing returns....Mayer had his last "hit" with Fortune in '66, and then left over contractual disputes. In '68, he traveled over to Norton Records, recorded the song, "I Don't Want No Bald-Headed Woman Telling Me What to Do," and the company didn't release it*****. Mayer then dropped off the map...for thirty-five years.*****

Where'd he go? I don't know, but (now ex-) Detroit Cobra bassist/guitarist Jeff Meier found him earlier this decade, and with the help of Meier (and others), Mayer was able to wow the crowd at the 2002 Detroit Legends Show. Meier (and others, including the Detroit band the Fabulous Shanks) was then able to help Mayer get a record deal at Fat Possum Records, which in 2004 released Mayer's first album since 1963.

The album--I Just Want to Be Held--is solid, but Mayer is fantastic. For once, and most surprising, he sounds very little like he did in '62 or '66. His voice is down an octave (maybe two), and his vocal chords sound as if someone shredded their outer cortex and replaced them with dull barbed wire. In fact, his voice sounds like an instrument, a guitar playing through a amp with a busted vacuum tube. His fuzzbox vocals don't reflect a shattered spirit, though, as Mayer's vocals--especially on "I Found Out"--are enlivening as they wore forty years ago, if not more so, and it's Mayer's vocals--along with his interplay with the guitar--that help his cover surpass Lennon's, and as wonderful and soulful and gutteral a singer as Lennon was, that's no small feat.

Here, Mayer takes Lennon's lyric and makes mincemeat out of it. The original record--like most of the songs from that album--sounds nowadays (or it does to me now, as I've heard it dozens of times) more like it was intentioned as a scaffold for Lennon's polemic than it does a record whose purpose and function is solely musical. That's not to denegrate the original, though, as even though the music on it may just be a scaffold, that music is one hell of a scaffold, as on the original Ringo's at his funkiest, and Lennon's distorted guitar cuts and slices, and--at times--Lennon's vocals are at his gutbucket best. On the verses, though, Lennon enunciates well because he doesn't want his message lost in the music. Mayer and his band here (Tino Gross on drums, Greasy Carlisi--oh, what a great name that is--on bass, and on guitar Dale Beavers, whose raucus work here is on a level with Mayer's) take the inverse: they play and Mayer sings so that the music doesn't get lost in the message.

That's an all-important distinction here. Mayer and Beavers and Gross and Carlisi turn Lennon's manifesto into their own blues/rock/funk masterwork, transforming Lennon's message (of the inner freedom and happiness that can be found--or that he found--by taking charge of his own world and relinquishing any other group's hold on him) into one that actually feels liberating. Mayer and the Fat Possum musicians exemplify Lennon's meaning in the music in a way that Lennon's cut never did; Lennon seemed too intent on explaining how he achieved his newfound intellectual and (ahem) spiritual independence, where Mayer mushmouths the lyrics--he doesn't need to explain his creed because his performance embodies it fully. The interplay of Lennon's guitar and vocals plus Voorman's bass and Ringo's drums seem perfunctory and (almost) stilted compared to the interplay between Mayer and his band, who work up some of the most wicked and raucus and bluesy funk n' roll of the past decade.

The lyric's not completley neglible, though. Lennon speaks of relinquishing the hold all others (except Yoko) have on him, as he takes responsibility for his place in the world and comes to rely totally upon himself (and Yoko) for fulfillment. What fills the void? The music. When Mayer's life had been in the down in the valley for years, it took music to rescue him, With a little help from his friends, Mayer found out.

NOTES

*John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is most decidely a landmark album, but it's impact isn't what it used to be, where its subject matter and naked sound contrasted diametrically with the last Beatles album, the minutely produced Abbey Road. Methinks the album's influence will only grow lesser with time. It's just this side of didactic and pedantic, its personal politics saved only by the musicians, Lennon's voice, and the tough starkness of the production. Musicians are almost always woeful politicians, John Lennon notwithstanding.

**Much like Steve Ditko left fantasy for Ayn Rand's brand of Objectivism, pledging allegiance--as Lennon does on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band--to reality, where A=A. They both made their departure at about the same time, and they left most of their best work behind them, as both were much better as artists than they were as philosphers or politicians or essayists.

Inversely, Ditko never left a demarcation line of departure; throughout the '70s and the '80s, he still returned to fantasy sporadically, though the more and more he published his creator-owned material, the more and more he seemed to lose what made him great in the first place (though his talent still shone through). Lennon--who completely refused to play the fantasy game anymore--returned almost fully, making great pop records, full of rock and soul and romanticism, all the stuff he had left behind, not so long ago.

***And wind. Yoko Ono is credited with creating that on the album. Oh, the jokes and irony in that credit....

****I call it gutter rock because neither the band nor Fortune's producers showcased half of the pristine talent that Motown put on wax, the Fortune sound often muddy, often terribly mixed, and the guitars--when they stood out--didn't sound smooth or clean--hell, even the distortion sounded distorted. Matched with (often) superb singing, this mixture provided an odd listening experience. Fortune's drummer--whoever he was--was great, though. How he--or they, but probably he, because Fortune, heh, didn't have much money--kept those records from falling apart is a testimony to the importance of the consistancy of a well-timed backbeat.

*****Not until 2002.

******There's a blip, though. Mayer did resurface once. He recorded "Raise the Curtain High" for Love Dog Records in 1980...the year Lennon died.

PS: Nathaniel Mayer died in November of last year.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #141

2009-04-08T01:35:00.000-05:00

#141: "Run to Me" (2006) - Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs

I've listed several cover songs on this list, and this isn't the last one, but this is one that surpasses the original (by the Bee Gees), and this one almost solely by the strength of the one of the lead singers. Sweet's piano and acoustic guitar work are well-textured here, but he's not the star of the show. Hoffs is, and she's magnificient. Her voice has improved since she sang lead for the (much underrated) Bangles: she's not as tinny, her range seems to have somehow broadened (which usually doesn't happen at this stage of a singer's life), and she sings with more nuance than before. She showcases amazing timbre control, and her tone is spot-on, mixing breathiness, vibratto, and power with seamless grace.

The production is excellent, mirroring the production of the decade after which the song was written, adding a chorus effect, which--especially in the beginning of the song--gives Hoffs voice the sound of some voice from the hereafter, a goddess offering reassurance from the heavens, maybe even the voice of a mother, the voice of unconditional love, a muse, like Kate Bush in Peter Gabriel's "Don't Give Up," a voice telling us that Tom Wolfe was wrong, that we can come home again, the voice of the image of the mother running through the fields to embrace her son in A Trip to Bountiful; Hoffs surpasses the purely romantic notions of the lyric and elevates the song into something more all-encompassing, as when she's singing the verses mean nothing, as the only words that matter are in the chorus, the words that she surrounds with elegance and compassion and steadfastness and blessed assurance, the words that promise shelter from the storm, that can assuage primal fear, by encircling us in loving arms and voice, a voice that lets me know that though doom may be sweeping down upon the world, that I'll be safe, that my world won't end, that when the bough breaks--and it will, 'cause in that song, it always does, doesn't it--and the cradle falls, that she'll be there to catch me, big beard and all.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #142

2009-04-06T23:08:00.006-05:00

#142: "Slow Jamz" (2003) - Jamie Foxx, Kanye West, & Twista

I've been deejaying for over twenty years now, and I love spinning other people's records as much now as I did when I first started, but every now and then, certain members of the audience can make for a frustrating gig, especially when they decide to request songs that they--or their paramour--want to hear that either doesn't jibe with whatever mood I'm serving at the time or makes no dance sense whatsoever. Let me cite a few memorable moments from the request line:

A young man asked me to play Hank Williams, Jr.'s "Women I've Never Had" and letting him introduce the song by saying on the mic "This one goes out to all you [women] I ain't [loved] yet. Well...yo' time is comin'!"
A six-foot-seven behemoth with a John Deer mesh cap told me to "quit playing that [African-American] [excrement] and start playing some [expletive] Skynyrd," or he was going to "beat my [expletive] [derriere]"
A young woman asked me to "start playing some [African-American] [excrement] and quit playing that [Caucasian] mess 'cause it's making my sides hurt laughing at them [Caucasians] thinking they can dance."
As I was playing Ciara & Missy Elliot's "One, Two Step" at a junior high dance in the spring of 2005, a girl in her early teens asked me, "Sir, uh, do you think you could play some newer music, 'cause we don't like to hear old stuff like that anymore." That song "One, Two Step" had been released not quite six months prior.
Same junior high dance, a boy in his early teens asked me, "Hey...can you play 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' or 'In the End?'" I told him I could, and he said, "Really! Aww, man, thanks! Me and my friends wanna slam dance and get all bloody and hurt each other!"
About five years ago at a company orientation for employees who were mostly teenagers, the head honcho told me three separate times--before I ever started playing--not to play any "any urban songs, any hip-hop songs, any rap songs, any new R&B song, any new hard rock songs, any heavy metal songs, or any song with lyrics that glorified, mentioned, or even suggested sex, making out, body parts, violence, rebellion, or non-conformity." He first dropped this on me about thirty minutes before I was to start playing. I asked him what he wanted me to play, and he said, "Play some Beach Boys. Everybody likes them, right? Just don't play anything that anybody would ever find offensive, and make sure the music's all peppy and upbeat and fun...you know, stuff these kids like." About three-fourths of the way through the program, the orientation script called for me to play a song while the head honcho entered. I asked the head honcho if he was sure he wanted me to play that song, and he said, "It's in the script, isn't it?" and walked away. Well, when the time came, I played it. The song: "Back That Ass Up."
At a wedding reception about fifteen years (or so) ago, a group of about four or five college kids asked me to play the B-52's "Channel Z." I asked them why that B-52's song, and one of the guys said, "Play it for the Earth! Play it for the people! Dedicate it to the Earth!" And I did.
A man twenty-five years my senior wanted to hear some Percy Sledge because "that's good slide yo'self up against that [woman] music."

That last request is indicative of the most common type of request I get from older (meaning post-college and/or married) men: they want to hear a love song so that they can rub on their women on the dance floor...and they want to do this because they know that slow dancing in public is a precursor to horizontal dancing in private. Often, the love songs are the only songs that will lure men to the dance floor. Even the most stolid and stoic of men will aquiesce to a slow song, for I believe intrinsically all men know that women want to be held in public (if the venue is acceptable).

Now, women like to have their game trophies as well as men, and the women want all the other women to see it, to see them dancing with that man, because this dancing signifies a singular dedication to that woman, meaning that--at least for the course of one song--no other woman can have him. He's hers. She's captured him, and she wants all the other women to see it. Van Morrison said that all the girls dress up for each other, and he was right, but all the girls also dance with their men for each other, too. The man's just there. He holds no special place other than that of object. He's a placeholder, and it's her place.

It's her place, though, that the man wants to go after the dance is over, and if that man is smart, then he'll go up to the DJ and request some special songs, songs that have the ability to transform the man from object to subject because the songs' singers can make those songs personal, where the voice and presence transcend the lyric, where--if the sound system and recording are of high quality and the volume loud enough--the singers' vocal prowess and style can resonate at such a level that the walls of inhibition crumble so that--and I know this is going to sound like malarky (if it doesn't already), but it's true--both dancers stand revealed as individuals to themselves and one another, and this personal revelation leads to intimacy, on the dance floor and maybe beyond. Someone once stated that all great art is personal, and it is, but it can also be communal as well.

Kanye West and Jamie Foxx understand this. In "Slow Jamz," they present us with a woman who'll love her man, but only if he--or the DJ--plays records by a lauded list of soul singers. They oblige, and form follows function: they name drop a handful of great balladeers, and the duo make a record worthy of the best of Marvin Gaye or Luther Vandross or RFTW. West keeps the music slow and steadily pulsing, giving us atmosphere as aphrodisiac; and Foxx uses his velvet vocals for sensual seduction. The party starts swinging, the couple start dancing, and he's hers, and all the gals see it, and West's and Foxx's song is so good at what it does that she lets him take her home, and as long as the music plays, then she'll play, too.

Where does Twista come in during all of this? In the bedroom. Not all the action--dance floor or boudoir--can be a slow jam. Someone's got to up the tempo at some point. Your request for another slow song so you can grab your man will have to wait for a little while, m'am. I take all requests, yeah, but I only play some, but don't worry. Yo' time is comin'.

The Tournament of Metal: Results for Round One, Bracket Two

2009-04-06T02:12:00.006-05:00

The third week of the first round continues! Look to the sidebar to the right and rock the vote!

The results from this past week, with the winning songs in red text, and the final tally following:

Enuff Z’nuff
“Fly High Michelle” v. “New Thing” 5-1

Europe
“The Final Countdown” v. “Rock the Night” 8-0
“Carrie” v. “Cherokee” 7-1

Extreme
“More Than Words” v. “Hole Hearted” 9-0

Faster Pussycat
“Bathroom Wall” v. “House of Pain” 6-2

FireHouse
“Don’t Treat Me Bad” v. “Love of a Lifetime” 7-2

Kix
"Don’t Close Your Eyes" v. "Girl Money" 3-2

Lita Ford
“Kiss Me Deadly” v. “Close My Eyes Forever” 5-2

Loudness
"Crazy Night" v. "Like Hell" 3-0

Frehley’s Comet
“In the Night” v. “Rock Soldiers” 4-2

Giuffria
"Call to the Heart” v. “I Must Be Dreaming” 4-1

Great White
“Rock Me” v. “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” 7-2

Guns N’ Roses
“Welcome to the Jungle” v. “Mr. Brownstone” 6-4
“Sweet Child O’ Mine” v. It’s So Easy” 9-1
“Paradise City” v. “Rocket Queen” 6-4
“Patience” v. “One in a Million” 7-3
“Used to Love Her” v. “You’re Crazy (Acoustic)” 5-4
“You Could Be Mine” v. “November Rain” 7-2
“Don’t Cry” v. “Civil War” 5-3

Sammy Hagar
“Heavy Metal” v. “Three Lock Box” 3-2
“I Can’t Drive 55” v. “Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy” 8-1

Hanoi Rocks
“Boulevard of Broken Dreams” v. “Don’t You Ever Leave Me” 4-1

Helix
“Rock You” v. “(Make Me Do) Anything You 1Want” 4-1
“Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’” v. “Heavy Metal Love” 4-1

Helloween
“Halloween” v. “I Want Out” 4-1

Honeymoon Suite
“New Girl Now” v. “Feel It Again” 2-1

Billy Idol
“Rebel Yell” v. “Catch My Fall” 9-0
“White Wedding” v. “Flesh for Fantasy” 10-0
“Eyes Without a Face” v. “Mony Mony” 6-1
“To Be a Lover” v. “Rock the Cradle” 5-2
“Dancing with Myself” v. “Hot in the City” 8-0

Iron Maiden
“Run to the Hills” v. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” 5-1
“The Number of the Beast” v. “Trooper” 3-1

Jackyl
“The Lumberjack” v. “Down on Me” 3-2

Judas Priest
“You Got Another Thing Coming” v. “Freewheel Burning” 5-1
“Living After Midnight” v. “Breaking the Law” 6-2

Junkyard
“Hollywood” v. “Hands Off” 2-1

Keel
“The Right to Rock” v. “Because the Night” 3-1

Kiss
“Lick It Up” v. “All Hell’s Breaking Loose” 6-0
“Heaven’s on Fire” v. “Tears Are Falling” 4-3
“Crazy Crazy Nights” v. “Let’s Put the ‘X’ in Sex” 3-1
“Reason to Live” v. “Forever” 3-2

Krokus
“Headhunter” v. “Screaming in the Night” 3-0

L.A. Guns
“Sex Action” v. “Rip and Tear” 2-1
“Ballad of Jayne” v. “Never Enough” 6-0

Lillian Axe
“Misery Loves Company” v. “Show a Little Love” 3-1

Love/Hate
“Blackout in the Red Room” v. “Why Do You Think They Call It Dope?” 3-0

Lynch Mob
“Wicked Sensation” v. “River of Love” 2-1

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #143

2009-04-06T01:37:00.004-05:00

#143: "Imitation of Life" (2001) - R.E.M.

Here I am, up late at night, and for the first time since my initial college days, trying to decipher Michael Stipe's lyrics. Many years ago, I'd given up that practice for a few reasons: 1). I was no longer in college, 2). I suspected that Stipe was being deliberately obtuse--he was an obscurant lyricist, the meaning of the words resting rather in the effect the sounds the words made rather than the words themselves, and 3).Stipe's style evolved--he bacame a more personal, more pointed lyricist. Whether this change in writing style was the cause or effect of massive monetary success, I'm not sure--maybe a bit of both.

In the late '90s, R.E.M.'s drummer Bill Berry left the group for health reasons, and eve since, R.E.M.'s career has taken a significant downward turn. Their album release have grown more sporadic, their albums spottier, their sound softer (with more techno-influenced beats to make for Berry's absences)--and sales have plummeted. Their singles are still sublime, though, as is the case with "Imitation of Life."

Built on a baroque bed of contemporary chamber pop and dressed in linens of Peter Buck's ringing and chiming guitar arpeggios, spacey synth sounds, minor-key piano chords, Beatles-esque string arrangements, and a mid-tempo beat laid down by a drum machine and a trippy tambourine, the music here is ear candy of the finest quality, buffeted by Stipe's commercial-catchy melody and coarse, soaring tenor. When the verses rise to the chorus, R.E.M. sneds us flying through the clouds of sugar cane, ciannamon, lemonade, and hyacinth. While we're floating up here--what about those lyrics I was trying to understand earlier? Well--let's not worry too much, shall we? Let's give in to the moment, to the music, for no one can see us cry. Who cares if the end of the world as we know it? I feel fine! You should, too! This is who we are, this imitation of life. Forget all our real troubles! Who needs 'em? Who needs the real thing when the copy's this good?

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #144

2009-04-03T00:01:00.000-05:00

#144: "Put Your Records On" (2007) - Corinne Bailey Rae

After leaving the claustrophobic basement atmosphere in Soho and the dense weave of Robert Smith's hair in Crawley, England, we travel north to upscale Leeds to take a breather for the weekend, and we sip some tea in a bar by the roadside, and we let our hair down while we can, and we hear Bob Marley’s three little birds telling us to put Corinne Bailey Rae’s record on, the one with the pop/soul musical atmosphere (complete with horns and acoustic guitar) that’s as pleasant and airy and refreshing and sweet as the cinnamon in the air, and it’s the unadorned joy in Rae’s voice (and the cute little details, as minute and apt and accurate as those found in country music lyrics) that lifts us above the doldrums and reminds us that music need not be cynical and morose to be honest and true.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #145

2009-04-02T00:01:00.003-05:00

#145: "Bullets" (2007) - Tunng

From Sheffield to Robert Smith's pad at Crawley and now, we'll travel south into London's West End, into the bohemian rhapsody found in the basement of a Soho apartment, where we find Mike Lindsay modeling his electronics and keyboards and samples and found sounds around singer Sam Genders's folksy meanderings. The result of this combination is something to akin to mid-period Pink Floyd...had Floyd guitarist David Gilmour strummed an acoustic for his entire career, and before Floyd singer and songwriter Roger Waters's bombast surplanted all of his wit.

Instead of musical bombast, Lindsay turns Genders's cryptic, Orwellian lyrics into a bouncy, haunting, Weillian jaunt during the verses and the choruses. That stark contrast provide the song with an eeriely disquieting mood, one that's set by the strange singing--tribal chant? backmasking? both?--at the beginning (and is reprised near the end). Lindsay's production work here is splendid and inventive and ceaseless, as he drops disparate samples in pocket after pocket, resembling the work of DJ Shadow and the Dust Brothers (and, before them, the electronic/loop work of Terry Riley). His production work doesn't end with the samples, either, as several different atypical percussion instruments are used--some repeatedly, some in just one spot. It's a record constructed to be heard with the headphones, and it demands multiple plays just to be able to decipher all the different sounds, not to even mention what originated all those sounds. The effect is Brechtian (as is the communal sense of the group, as several of Tunng's members were recruited because neither Lindsay nor Genders were comfortable with performing on stage without some accompaniment).

What's also difficult to decipher are the lyrics. Genders's story here stems from an amalgam of symbolist and stream-of-consciousness writing, a mixture of Eliot and Woolf; the meaning is never clear, but the lyrics do have meaning--they're not just nonsense verse. Though the lyrics often use the pronouns "I," "your," "we," "us," and "our," the pervading sense is of a horror universal, of an overall sense of enforced malaise upon society, of a stripping of will and memory, of apathy abounded, of where not only do we not remember what we did--we don't remember why--and we don't care. Tunng use avant-garde pop to give us images of a world in the aftermath of the politics that Johnny Rotten railed against, and they find that Rotten was right, that we're all pretty vacant.

This avant-garde pop Tunng uses--it's very Beatlesesque. It's not derivative of the Beatles, though, at least not in the way most Beatles-influenced bands are deriviative of the Beatles. Lindsay and Genders don't mine the Liverpudlians' pop structures nor vocal harmonies; what they take is Lennon & McCartney's avant-garde expermentalism, the least copied/influenced aspect of the Beatles, the one most in need of further development. Lindsay and Genders do just that: they take the Beatles' (and Terry Riley's and DJ Shadow's) sonic experiments, adapt them into the twenty-first century by using DJ montage (instead of, say, scratch n' sniff) style mixed with the '70s singer-songwriter variety of storytelling, Brechtian/Wellian collage, and fester--at least in this song--black humor and satire of an Orwellian bent to give us something to ponder upon and nod to while the world spins madly on.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #146

2009-04-01T23:49:00.001-05:00

#146: "All of This" (2003) - Blink-182

That last entry
was an
April Fool's Day joke
on you
but the people who told me they read it
thought that I was serious
so I guess the joke
was on me
so to erase the musical memory
of Fergie Hung
I'll give you the Cure's Robert Smith
fronting Blink-182
in a song written by Blink-182
that sounds just like a Cure song
in sound and structure
not just the vocals
which is a phenomenal accomplishment
for two reasons
for a band that's never
had any song
sound anything like this
and
for a band that's never
had any song
sound anything like this
to write and record the best Cure song
in a decade
to write and record the best Blink-182 song
in a decade
...
which would be the length of the band's career
...
and
...
Robert Smith wasn't even in the same country
as Blink-182
when he recorded his vocal to the track
...
just thought of a third reason this song is great
:
Blink-182's fantastic drummer Travis Barker
punk style played with the velocity of speed metal
and still not sound too busy
completely dials back
playing Meg White
to Robert Smith's Jack
...
oh snap!
--a fourth reason!
(and the last one
--I think)

Robert Smith has the ability
to take out Mecha Streisand
with one punch
...
so how quickly
do you think
he'll be able
to knock out
Fergie Hung?

PDQ

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: APRIL FOOL'S!

2009-04-01T00:01:00.004-05:00

PSYCHE!: TIE: "My Humps" (2005) - Black Eyed Peas; "She Bangs" (2004) - William Hung

I have a friend who once told me that life--every aspect of it--was all about sex. War, religion, taxes, death, vegetables, space exploration, and every topic I could think of he reduced to its essence, to its origin, to sex. Even music? Especially music he said. To further prove his theory, we scanned the radio, and every song we heard that night--from the likes of "Stairway to Heaven" to "Wind Beneath My Wings" to "A Change Is Gonna Come"--he deconstructed till he unearthed the sexual center of each song. I was aghast at first, but come to find out...he was right. It's all about sex, even music, pop music especially.

Why beat around the bush here? Let's get straight to the point. If music is about sex, then musicians should be honest with themselves and with their audience, and no one is more honest on record than Fergie for the Black Eyed Peas. She reduces the pop song down to its essence by putting her wares and her derriere front and center. She knows that it's not her voice or her songwriting that we--the audience--care about; no, we want to know more about her breasts and her butt, and so she tells us, again and again, repeatedly repeating about her lumps and her hump, because the more we hear those words, the more we'll thing about her secondary sexual characteristics, and the more we'll think about sex, and--therefore--the closer we'll come to our true selves, our sexual selves. Music should free the mind, right? Well, it should free the body, too, and with "My Humps," Fergie and the Black Eyed Peas--who give her only the sparest of

backup, so as to not let the music get in the way of her message--do both. They want us to think about her hump and her lumps so that we can be unencumbered by any other profound thoughts; Fergie puts her butt in our face so that we can finally see the world. Like Michael Bolton sang, she makes us want to touch her there...and ourselves, too.

The second song listed here in this slot--and the only tie of the entire countdown--is as important as the first song in the slot; in fact, they're sister songs of a sort. In "My Humps," Fergie sings about herself so that we can be free to think about our own private parts; in "She Bangs," William Hung sings about a woman (could it be Fergie?) so that we can be free to admire the private parts of others.

I know you're asking why I included this version of "She Bangs" when Ricky Martin's original masterwork works perfectly well. The answer is that in this cover, Hung (so very apropro, his name matched with this song) uses his sheer unmatched enthusiasm for music (and sex, since the two are equivalent) to elevate his only moderately-gifted voice to the realm of the heavenly. He uses his horniness (for the woman in the song and for his Latin American idol Ricky Martin) to give him the lips of an angel, for only an angel could sing with the passion Hung expertly displays.

From his album Inspiration, Hung states: "I may not be the best singer in the world, but I sing from my heart, and I sing with passion. I enjoy what I do. Not for money, not for fame--I just enjoy singing." And that's what it's all about, right? Passion. Passion for music, passion for sex, passion for Ricky Martin songs...it's all the same. Music can be the great eqivocator. It can be the meaning in our lives; it can be the inspiration.* Who cares about vocal talent, or restraint, or discipline, or taste, or semi-intelligent lyrics, when you can have the lovely lady lumps of Fergie and the the humps of Hung? Not I, said the fly. Heh...I said fly. See what I mean?

The Tournament of Metal: Round One, Bracket Two

2009-03-31T08:20:00.003-05:00

The second bracket is up for this round, but I forgot to include two bands: Kix and Loudness, so you'll see those atop all the others.

Voting ends on Saturday at midnight, so don't forget to rock the vote!

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #147

2009-03-31T00:11:00.001-05:00

#147: "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time" (2007) - Jarvis Cocker

From Wales, we now travel northeast to the steel city of Sheffield, where we find Jarvis Cocker performing his own take of a song he wrote for Nancy Sinatra (who recorded it in 2004). Perhaps the distance created when writing a song for another performer is what makes this record atypical for Cocker.

The lead singer of the Britpop band Pulp, Cocker typically writes mordant songs of political, personal, sexual, and class conciousness, and in his pen runs ink of hues mixed equally from three noteworthy Johns: Swift, Steinbeck, and Fogerty. Cocker's voice--earnest yet lackadaisical, always just this side of being in tune, never shying away from its Yorkshire accent--reflects his protagonists' typical working-class/loser/slacker roots, and it gives the Pulp records some of their charm.

In this record, Cocker's voice and typical topics take a backseat to the song itself. The song is soul song for the brokenhearted, classic Motown stuff, so good, so perfect a fit for that mileau, that it sounds as if it's a long-lost Smokey Robinson or Holland-Dozier-Holland tune that the Temptations or a young Marvin Gaye might have once recorded. The lyric's of a guy who pines for a girl who's being strung along by a chap who doesn't want to commit to her, a lothario, and the narrator sees right through it. We see right through him, to...thanks to Cocker's vocals.

As noted before, Cocker doesn't possess a traditionally strong voice, but within his limited range, he's very effective. He sings the song at a bit of a distance, as if he's just a friend giving advice, but every so often, at just the right juncture, his voice tightens, his volume raises, and his voice slightly seethes, and we can deduce that his narrator abhors his friend's suitor. Cocker backs off his anger as quickly as he rises to it, as if he--the narrator (and Cocker, too)--has deduced that the woman has already made her decision to stick with the guy, and that he--as her friend, and as the man who secretly loves her, who's truly dedicated to her--is giving his last warning before the girl leaves with her suitor for good, leaving him behind.

There's a strong sense of defeatism here--as is the case with many of Cocker's songs, and it's this sense of defeatism that moves this from a formulaic* soul song of the personal into the realm of universal class consciousness. The narrator knows that he won't be able to move beyond his lot, and that knowledge comes across in Cocker's vocal style: his vocals are distanced because the song's narrator has distanced himself from the situation, afraid from showing his feelings outright because he knows it will do no good. There's only the slightest glimmer of hope, here, and in that glimmer of hope lies the inherent tragedy. The song's both an affirmation of true love and a rejection of the concept all at once. Yeah, Marvin Gaye could have sung it better, but he wouldn't have sung it any truer. Maybe Temptation Jimmy Ruffin could have, though. He knew what became of the brokenhearted. Jarvis Cocker does, too.

NOTES

*Yeah, after listening to hundreds of Motown songs, one starts to see the formula, but hey....what a formula!

The Tournament of Metal: Results for Rd.1, Bracket 1

2009-03-30T02:01:00.000-05:00

Okay, folks, first an apology. Somehow, bugs snuck in my blog. I squashed them, but not before they disconnected the Tournament of Metal polls for Round One, Bracket One. Sure, the polls were over, but I had yet to notch the exacting polling numbers, though I did log the victors. Here they are (with the winning songs in red text):

AC/DC
“Hells Bells” v. “Stiff Upper Lip”
“Back in Black” v. “Moneytalks”
“Shoot to Thrill” v. “Thunderstruck”
“You Shook Me All Night Long” v. “Sink the Pink”
“Have a Drink on Me” v. “Who Made Who”
“Rock & Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution” v. “For Those About to Rock”

Aerosmith
“Rag Doll” v. “The Other Side”
“Dude Looks Like a Lady” v. “Love in an Elevator”
“Hangman’s Jury” v. “Janie’s Got a Gun”
“Angel” v. “What It Takes”

Accept
“Balls to the Wall” v. “Fast As a Shark”

Anthrax
“Madhouse” v. “I’m the Man”
“Caught in a Mosh” v. Anti-Social”

Armored Saint
“Can You Deliver” v. “Reign of Fire”

Autograph
“Turn Up the Radio” v. “Blondes in “Black Cars”

Bad English
“When I See You Smile” v. “Forget Me Not”

Bang Tango
“Someone Like You” v. “Breaking Up a Heart of Stone”

Black ‘n Blue
“Hold On to 18” v. “I’ll Be There For You”

Bon Jovi
“Bad Medicine” v. “You Give Love a Bad Name”
“Lay Your Hands on Me” v. “Wanted Dead or Alive”
“Runaway” v. “In and Out of Love”
“I’ll Be There for You” v. “Never Say Goodbye”
“Born to Be My Baby” v. “Living on a Prayer”

Britny Fox
“Girlschool” v. “Long Way to Love”

Bulletboys
“Smooth Up in Ya” v. “For the Love of Money”

Cinderella
“Shake Me” v. “Shelter Me”
“Somebody Save Me” v. “Gypsy Road”
“Night Songs” v. “Last Mile”
“Take Me Back” v. “Heartbreak Station”
“Coming Home” v. “Don’t Know What You’ve Got (Till It’s Gone)”

Alice Cooper
“Poison” v. “Feed My Frankenstein”

The Cult
“She Sells Sanctuary” v. “Firewoman”
“Wild Flower” v. “Peace Dog”
“Love Removal Machine” v. “Lil’ Devil”

Damn Yankees
“High Enough” v. “Come Again”

Danger Danger
“Naughty Naughty” v. “Bang Bang”

Dangerous Toys
“Teas’n, Pleas’n” v. “Scared”

Danzig
“Mother” v. “She Rides”

Def Leppard
“Bringing on the Heartbreak” v. “Let’s Get Rocked”
“High and Dry” v. “Rock of Ages”
“Foolin’” v. “Women”
“Photograph” v. “Animal”
“Pour Some Sugar on Me” v. “Armageddon It”
“Hysteria” v. “Love Bites”

Dio
“Holy Diver” v. “Mystery”
“Rainbow in the Dark” v. “The Last in Line”

Dokken
“In My Dreams” v. “Into the Fire”

“Dream Warriors” v. “Alone Again”

Round One, Bracket Two will start later in the day, sometime before 7:00 p.m. CST.

This bracket will contain songs by artists that fall alphabetically E-L.

You'll get to vote on what you think are the best songs of artists such as:

Europe
Lita Ford
Guns N' Roses
Sammy Hagar
Billy Idol
Judas Priest
Kiss
L.A. Guns

and many more. So check back in later tonight, look at the sidebar on the right, and vote on your favorite songs by each band. There will be over forty battles this week, and you get to determine the outcome.

So make sure and bookmark this page and get your one way ticket to midnight.

We call it heavy metal.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #148

2009-03-30T00:51:00.002-05:00

#148: "Mercy" (2008) - Duffy

The British Invasion starts today*, folks, and Welsh singer Duffy leads the way with this neo-soul/disco smash. It's not all new, though: the structure hails from sixties' girl-group singles, the music's staightened-out and glossed-up reggaeton, that synth line seems mighty similar to Danny Red's "Rolling Stone Girl," and the bass riff takes the same from "Stand by Me" and speeds it up. What's new, then? Duffy's retro vocal style, that's what.

Give this song to most any current (American)** female pop singer, and you'll hear--for better or for worse--singing that doesn't vary greatly in dynamics from verse to chorus. Give this song to Duffy, and she eases back during the verses, cutting down on her wailing and pinching her lines, all of which leave plenty of space for the lyrics to connect and the beat to hit and the background vocals to accentuate the rhythm. The chorus then arrives, and she still holds back, and doesn't finally let loose until the end of it. And when she finally does release her passion, it has impact.

Duffy's vocals are precise (even if her voice isn't crystal clear), and her techniques intelligent, and though I'm sure all her talent comes naturally, it seems to hew from the Atlantic, Stax/Volt, and Phil Spector schools of singing, where in-verse dynamics and drama are brought about through tension and release. Singers like Aretha Franklin and Mavis Staples and Darlene Love were experts at this type of soul singing*** (which derived from a mixture of gospel's call-and-response and Tin Pan Alley-style pop/jazz effeciency), and Duffy's well on her way. She even adds her own stylization to the mix by adding that quick-little rap near the end of the song, the one that runs right underneath the mix, as it's more about riding the rhythm than it is about enunciating the lyrics. In this Duffy shows her soul smarts, as she does by waiting until the very last moment to cry for mercy, just when she--and the song--really need it. The rest is form metting function, the vocal and the instrumental matching the lyric...paradoxically so, though, as when Duffy finally cries out for release is just when we never want to let her go.

NOTES

*Actually, on this chart, the British Invasion began way back with Teddy Thompson at number 319, but who's counting?****

**British too, in a way, for even the fabulous Amy Winehouse doesn't have the sense of vocal dynamics that Duffy does.

***Motown's female singing style was two-fold: one was similar to this Atlantic/Stax/Volt/Spector model, but the Motown singers who followed this model usually didn't have the vocal chops to belt it out; the second was similar to most of today's styles, in which Motown let its strongest singers (like Martha Reeves) shout their lungs out on every line.

****Apparently, I am.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #149

2009-03-27T00:01:00.003-05:00

#149: "Portions for Foxes" (2004) - Rilo Kiley

Back when this song first dropped, (as it never really hit, not the mainstream anyway) someone called it "the indie-pop song of the summer." Indie-pop? This song? Puh-lease. This is a rock and roll song all the way. Listen to the chorus, to the guitars ripping those power chords, to the drummer flaying the cymbals, to singer Jenny Lewis trying her best to control her inner Pat Benetar. The verses might be pop, but they're only pop for the purpose of rising action, for the sake of dynamics. All the filigree work on guitar is just icing. Courtney Love only wishes she could have written a rock song this fine this decade.

The lyrics are as astute an observation on sex and lonliness and forgiveness as anything Elvis Costello or Roy Orbison or Don Henley ever wrote. When's the last time you heard a pop-rock song by a girl about a cheating lothario that didn't condemn the man?* As much as I've always hated the way that some girls (some meaning all) always fawned over the bad news, I understood. I didn't like it ('cause I wasn't bad news), but it certainly made sense. The fact that it made sense made it even worse, I believe. Dunno. I'm not at that stage anymore (thank goodness). I remember it well, though, and everytime I think about it, and the old seething jealous and envy rile themselves up again, I need to try to think of this song so that I can understand and sympathize, just like Lewis does here.

NOTES

*Probably the last time I've heard a woman praise a less-than-heroic man was Sheryl Crow in "Strong Enough," but the early '60s girl groups did so quite often.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #150

2009-03-26T20:00:00.001-05:00

#150: "Can't Get You Out of My Head" (2002) - Kylie Minogue

What Minogue says in the title is what I have to say about this song. Everything else is pure eroticism.

The Countdown Capsule, Part IV: 200-151

2009-03-26T00:01:00.002-05:00

Past the half-way mark, now!

#200: "Underneath Your Clothes" - Shakira
#199: "Things Have Changed" - Bob Dylan
#198: "Piece of Me" - Britney Spears
#197: "List of Demands (Reparations)" - Saul Williams
#196: "You Know I'm No Good" - Amy Winehouse featuring Ghostface Killah
#195: "What's Your Fantasy" - Ludacris
#194: "A Woman" - JJ Grey & Mofro
#193: "Since I Left You" - The Avalanches
#192: "Country Grammar" - Nelly
#191: "Stutter" - Joe
#190: "Don't Cha" - Pussycat Dolls & Busta Rhymes
#189: "Don't Matter" - Akon
#188: "Pon de Replay" - Rihanna
#187: "Comeback (Light Therapy)" - Josh Rouse
#186: "Int'l Players Anthem (I Choose You)" - UGK featuring OutKast
#185: "Idlewild Blue (Don'tchu Worry 'Bout Me)" - OutKast
#184: "Hash Pipe" - Weezer
#183: "Dreaming of You" - The Coral
#182: "Jerk It Out" - Caesars
#181: "Galang" - M.I.A.
#180: "Dancing on Our Graves" - The Cave Singers
#179: "With You" - Chris Brown
#178: "Black Girl" - The Paybacks
#177: "Yeah Baby" - The Fondas
#176: "Dani California" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
#175: "Which of the Two of Us Is Gonna Burn This House Down" - The Star Spangles
#174: "Grace Kelly" - Mika
#173: "Dashboard" - Modest Mouse
#172: "The Underdog" - Spoon
#171: "Oops!...I Did It Again" - Britney Spears
#170: "Inside of Me" - Starlight Mints
#169: "What Goes Around.../...Comes Around" - Justin Timberlake
#168: "That's How I Got to Memphis" - Solomon Burke
#167: "Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down" - R.L. Burnside
#166: "Done Got Old" - Buddy Guy
#165: "Look What All You Got" - Buddy Guy
#164: "I Want You to Want Me" - The Holmes Brothers
#163: "Would You Go With Me" - Josh Turner
#162: "Like Water into Wine" - Gretchen Peters
#161: "Turn My TV On" - Van Hunt
#160: "Irreplaceable" - Beyonce
#159: "Good Luck" - Basement Jaxx
#158: "1 Thing" - Amerie featuring Eve
#157: "Shake It Fast" - Mystikal
#156: "Beautiful" - Flickerstick
#155: "Beautiful" - Christina Aguilera
#154: "Ex-Guru" - The Fiery Furnaces
#153: "The Blues Are Still Blue" b/w "Sukie in the Graveyard" - Belle & Sebastian
#152: "N.Y. Doll" - Robyn Hitchcock
#151: "Young Folks" - Peter Bjorn & John

The capsule list from 201-249 can be found here.
The capsule list from 250-300 can be found here.
The capsule list from 301-333 can be found here.

#150 will be posted later tonight, 'cause it's my birthday, and I'm going to party like it's...well, like it's just another day. But still!

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #151

2009-03-25T00:01:00.001-05:00

#151: "Young Folks" (2007) - Peter Bjorn & John

Upon hearing the line in the chorus that sings, "We don't care about the old folks," my son replied, "Dad! That's disrespectful! I don't want to listen to that song anymore. And you shouldn't either!"

My wife looked at me, smiling (and a bit smug, I think), and I started to argue with him, but I soon said, "You know what, son: you're right." I turned it off, and he said thanks.

And then I heard him humming the tune. I backed him up by whistling, just like they do in the song. And he never said anything else about it.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #152

2009-03-24T00:01:00.002-05:00

#152: "N.Y. Doll" (2006) - Robyn Hitchcock

One of the difficulties I had in formulating this list was differentiating between songs I liked and songs I thought were great. Those two terms are not always synonymous. I can think right off hand of about three dozen-or-so songs that I liked that didn't make this list because, when I listened to them again, I could find no reason for greatness, no reason I liked 'em other than the fact that they were catchy or silly, and I thought this list--if I was being serious about it--should reflect artists (singers, bands, songwriters, producers, etc...) who--whether they meant to or not--accomplished something noteworthy in their recording of their songs. On the other hand, I've placed songs on here that just don't touch me or shake me or rock me on a visceral level, though I can recognize their importance or influence or originality or artistry*. Though they're not on this list (one reason for this should be obvious), I feel this latter way about the New York Dolls.

The Dolls were punk progenitors. They recorded their first album of glam-rock (mixed w/R&B covers) in 1973, recorded one more album, then split, never recording another studio album together again...not with all the original members, that is. Guitarist Johnny Thunders died in 1991, and bassist Arthur "Killer" Kane died of lieukemia in 2004. Their influence spread wide and deep, as they inspired the Sex Pistols, Blondie, the Talking Heads, the Ramones, Kiss, Motley Crue, and many others. As important as their music is, I've just never been able to feel it on a gut level, not like I have with, say, the Sex Pistols, Blondie, the Talking Heads, etc....I can appreciate the artistry in their music, though, as can Robyn Hitchcock.

Hitchcock--an old punk/New Wave guy himself, co-founding the Soft Boys in the late '70s--has been recording his literate, idiosyncratic (at times whimsical, at times satirical, often both) pop/rock songs for over twenty-five years, and he's never cut a more emotionally-affective record than this one, "N.Y. Doll," a tribute to Arthur Kane. After the Dolls split in '74, Kane jumped from band to band, turned to the bottle too often, and became an alcoholic, living much of his life in poverty. In the late '80s, he--while drunk--jumped through a plate-glass window and landed two stories below, messing his body up royally, incurring nerve damage from which he never completely recoverd. He then turned to God and lived the rest of his days as a Mormon librarian in Los Angeles.

In this song, Hitchcock sings first person from Kane's perspective, and it's that narrative trope that allows Hitchcock to comment upon Kane's life (his punk career, his alcoholism, his near death, and his Christian conversion) without seeming pedantic, and it also allows him to touch upon life's mutability without resorting to sentimentality. Hitchcock also alludes to the power that art and religion can have to uplift, but that ultimately, neither will save, and that we're all doomed to die, that the inevitable will come, and there's nothing religion nor art may do to change that. Life may not end, but we will, individually, and the universe cares not. That's a depressing thought, and thus the song's a downer--at first. Hitchcock uses some haunting vocal techniques to reflect the sadness of the lyric, as his breathiness and his dip into sotto voce come across rather ghostly, as if Kane's spirit came out of repose to softly and matter-of-factly describe his lot in life. It's an effective technique; it's distancing, and this distancing makes the song all the sadder, for if Kane doesn't even seem to think his life important, then who will?

Hitchcock will. He wrote and recorded and published the song so that Arthur Kane's name will never be forgotten by those who have heard this song, and I've listed and discussed and published this review for the same reasons. Death will come for us all one day, and we'll go gentle or we'll go kicking and screaming, but we'll go with her nonetheless. Worse than this is the fact that not too long after (say, at best for most of us, 150 years), no one will be around to remember us anymore, and before two-hundred years roll 'round, no one will be around to even remember the tales our descendants told of us. If we're fortunate, though, someone as respectful and sympathetic and intelligent and talented as Robyn Hitchcock will pass through this world and take a long look and say that we--as he--were one in a million.

NOTES

*I don't consider myself a fraud for including these (latter) songs, for it's not as if I dislike them; it's just that if I want to take my writing here seriously, then--as a critic--I have to be able to recognize greatness, whether I love it or not. That's why you won't see, let's say, "Yahhh!"** by Soulja Boy Tell'Em on this list, though I just listed Mystikal's "Shake It Fast" earlier this week. If given a choice, I'd prefer to listen to the former, though I recognize that the latter one is a better record in many different ways (though not all).

**"Yahhh!", at times, is brilliant, and it's fun, and it's funny, but overall, methinks, it's just too dumb and too repetitive and too irritating for me to include here, as I can't listen to it repeatedly without getting annoyed. It's an obnoxious song. Purposely so, though.

The Tournament of Metal

2009-03-23T00:02:00.001-05:00

Calico, my rock band, has decided to host The Tournament of Metal, and we decided to host it here (mainly because setting up these polls on Facebook proved too difficult), on my blog, because I'm the drummer, and I rock. The bands in the tournament do, too. Or they did.

The Tournament of Metal consists of over 350 songs released between and among 1980* and 1992** by heavy metal, hair/glam/pop metal, speed metal, power metal, thrash metal, and hard rock bands (or bands who were marketed as such) . All you have to do is look over at the sidebar on the right and vote on as many different song choices as you desire. Vote early, and vote often.
This first round, we whittle down the list to what's essential in each band's oeuvre. Next round, we'll pit band against band, like against like, hair metal against hair metal, speed metal against speed metal, etc....In the third round, we'll stage dive, throwing one type of metal song into the pit with another, and we'll continue that way until it's all over.

When is that? Oh, I'm no mathmatician,*** but the end will arrive sometime near the end of June.

Why so long? With over 350 songs in the tournament, it's not feasible to list over 175 battles at one time; therefore, we've quartered the list, and the first round should finish in four weeks, with the second round finishing in two weeks, and each subsequent round should take a week each, and with eight rounds, that puts around the last week of June when the champion song is crowned.

Why is my band, Calico, sponsoring this tournament? Three-fifths of our members are heavy metal fans and have been since youth,**** and we just wanted to throw our Dio demon horns in the air as a salute to those who rocked, if only for a brief bit.

Once again, vote! This week's list o' metal songs (from bands falling alphabetically A through D) will only last...uh...a week. Next week, another eighty/one-hundred songs will be pitted against one another, so vote now, and don't miss your chance, 'cause if--say--the Bulletboys' lame cover of the O'Jays' "For the Love of Money" tops the B'boys deliciously-raunchy hit "Smooth Up in Ya," then don't come crying to me.

We'd like to give one last ROCK! before we leave, and that's to Shane Woodard Hardy, for without him, this list might never have seen the light of the computer screen.

So get your one way ticket to midnight, people. Call it heavy metal.

NOTES

*Yeah, I know, heavy metal didn't start in 1980; however, 1980 was when heavy metal finally made a huge sales dent in the American market with the debut and incredible success of AC/DC's Back in Black album, making it much safer for metalheads from Philadelphia, Mississippi to Fargo, North Dakota to come out of the closet with their heads banging.

**Yeah, I know, heavy metal didn't officially end in 1992, but that was it's last gasp, and grunge officially dethroned metal, as marked by Nirvana's seminal album Nevermind reaching #1 on the Billboard album charts.

***Why do English teachers teach English? 'Cause they can't do math.

****Yeah, I know, three-fifths of a band does not unanimity make, but it does make majority, and since the other two of our five either play triangle or play stool, then we three kings of metal rule the rock shed.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #153

2009-03-23T00:01:00.000-05:00

#153: "The Blues Are Still Blue" b/w "Sukie in the Graveyard" (both 2006) - Belle and Sebastian

Belle & Sebastian are quite possibly the best British melodists since the Beatles, but more about B&S later. Let's talk about the Beatles. Among their many musical accomplishments, the Beatles released more hit B-sides than any other musical act in history, so many that some historians began (subsequently) calling them "Double A"-side singles. Okay...that's enough about the Beatles, 'cause they're done. The 45" single is, too...in a way.

For all intents and purposes, the 45" single died sometime in the mid-80s. The Walkman and boom boxes and tapedeck car components became affordable to the masses, and since these were much easier to transport than a record player, vinyl took a huge hit, so much so that were it not for a few recording artists and a cult of aestheticists and club DJs, it would have--like the eight-track tape--died completely.

Still, the "single" did not completely disappear when wax did, though, as cassette singles (cassingles) were produced. These cassingles, though, didn't last long. Retailer profit margin wasn't anywhere near as great as it was for an album-length cassette, and--in order to sustain production viability--prices for cassingles rose, and the audience for cassingles shrunk, as consumers couldn't see spending four dollars for two songs, only one of which they wanted; therefore, rather than tie up limited shelf space with low profit-margin product that didn't sell well, retailers stopped ordering cassingles, and then record companies stopped producing them, and then CDs came along, and then the mp3, and then Napster, and then iTunes, and then we get what we have now: afforable single recordings. It took about twenty years for them to return, but return they did, and I'm glad, as without them, I wouldn't have this list.

The one thing missing from most singles these days, though, is the B-side. It's not completely gone, as artists/record companies will often release B-side type material in a digital EP (extended play single) format, but these B releases don't sell well because the audience doesn't have to get them in order to get the A side; thus, most B-side material isn't heard except by artists' hardcore fans. Mostly, this is regrettable, as though--typically--B sides weren't as catchy as A sides, they were usually quirkier, more experimental, and every now and then a real gem appeared.

This is the case with these two songs by Belle & Sebastian. "The Blues Are Still Blue" is an insanely catchy tune, a ditty that's as hook-laden as a commercial jingle. It's the A side: brighter mood, catchier melody, less sordid/morbid subject matter. It's not all fluff, though; it's just breezier.

The B side--"Sukie in the Graveyard"--is a funny narrative song--whose melody is almost as catchy as the A side--about a pubescent girl who strikes out on her own, grows up quickly yet remains realistically optimistic and fiercely independent, teaching the art-school snobs a thing or two about practical life and the soul and the necessary comprises that many must make to succeed in this world.

Belle & Sebastian never seemed to have to make these compromises. They've been playing their own version of pop-rock with an independent sensibility, a penchant for literate lyrics, an ear for the hook, a quick-witted mind, and the strongest rhythmic sense of any indie band (perhaps Spoon notwithstanding) of the past fifteen years. Here, they present us with a proud, peculiar protagonist who understands the dichotomy of art and commerce, yielding to no one who would squash her will, much like the band itself.

I must confess, though: these two were never released as a double-sided single. "The Blues Are Still Blue" was released as a single, but--since this was 2006 not 1986--it had no B side. If it did, though, I'm sure it would have been "Sukie in the Graveyard," and I'm sure that one would have charted as well. We all live in a musical world of make-believe at times, and this time it's my turn, for after a week off for Spring Break, it's back to school today, and I need all the make believe I can get. Reality's hard enough as it is.