Volume 9, Track 4
“Send Me On My Way” by Rusted Root (1994) We all have an Inner Hippie. Some of our Inner Hippie’s may find it hard to resist the smell of patchouli, while some of us dig Birkenstock’s, or cannot help but think that God may just be the Sun or something, or that Nineteen Eighty-Four is [...]
Volume 9, Track 3
“Leeora” by The Sea And Cake (1995) As I have referenced them previously, The Sea And Cake is a very good band that has made some of the best mellow indie rock I have heard. “Leeora,” the second track from the band’s third album, starts with Sam Prekop’s guitar, by itself and jangly, before everyone [...]
Volume 9, Track 2
“Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley (1994) With all due respect to Rufus Wainwright’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s timeless “Hallelujah” that he did for the movie Shrek, Jeff Buckley’s version still resonates more powerfully. Wainwright delivered a beautifully polished rendition on the piano, but Buckely’s version—with its sometimes lazy guitar and his crooning vocals—is one that benefits [...]
Volume 9, Track 1
“Burn” by The Cure (1994) First, some background. I have several theories about the music that took place during my formative teenage years (how Sheryl Crow forever ruined mainstream music, how Oasis would be liked by no one if they were an American band, and that you should never ask anyone who wore a Tool [...]
Volume 9 Introduction
What this volume is: a collection of overlooked songs from my high school years, 1991-1995. Additionally, this volume’s size will be increased—instead of the normal fourteen song limit, this list will be expanded to twenty nine entries. What this volume is not: a definitive collection of songs from 1991-1995. While all attempts were made to [...]
Volume 8, Track 14
“Big Train” by Mike Watt (1995) On the album cover for Ball-Hog Or Tugboat? is the phrase “Sex with you is like watching scientific wrestling.” This most likely falls into line with Mike Watt’s overall humor. (Watt was the bassist for Minutemen, whose songs, with titles like “Political Song For Michael Jackson To Sing” and [...]
Volume 8, Track 13
“I Will Dare” by The Replacements (1984) “How young are you? How old am I? Let’s count the rings around my eyes How smart are you? How dumb am I? Don’t count any of my advice” The opening lyrics of “I Will Dare” are nothing if not blunt and so too is the music. Aside [...]
Volume 8, Track 12
“Star Sail” by The Verve (1993) “Star Sail” begins The Verve’s debut full-length album A Storm In Heaven with a textural and mesmerizing quality that makes it the clear favorite to win the award for “Best Shoegazing Album Since Loveless“. Richard Ashcroft’s vocals and the guitars are almost surgically arranged in layers and at times [...]
Volume 8, Track 11
“Margaret vs. Pauline” by Neko Case (2006) The ‘vs.’ in the title of this song is what everything hinges on. Because it does not denote physical competition or even an implied mutual hatred here, the song is free to act merely as a story, with the vs. acting as a device to give the commentary [...]
Volume 8, Track 10
“Wish I Could” by Norah Jones (2007) Norah Jones absolutely confounds me. Part of me genuinely believes that she is capable of creating a modern equivalent of Astral Weeks: someone who could seemingly excel at singing stream-of-consciousness-style lyrics amongst a sea of complex and minimalist music. This part of me, unfortunately, is usually beaten down [...]
Volume 8, Track 9
“From Out Of Nowhere” by Faith No More (1989) Faith No More’s debut album The Real Thing was such a breath of fresh air when it was released because it really couldn’t be quantified or categorized as something definitive, or be assigned a static label. This was, however intentional, in direct defiance to the labeling [...]
Volume 8, Track 8
“Bye Bye Love” by Ray Charles (1962) Never has a song that is so fundamentally sad and depressing (“Bye bye love/Bye bye sweet caress/Hello emptiness/I feel like I could die”) been done up so beautifully and wonderfully energetic. Like many musicians growing up before WWII, Ray Charles was influenced by country music and in 1962 [...]
Volume 8, Track 7
“Nature Boy” by The Sea And Cake (1995) For whatever reason, “Nature Boy” is a tough song for me to adequately describe. Logically, it can be described as such: it begins with some rolling drums that steadily get louder before mildly exploding into an indie rhythm that is equipped with energetic-yet-mellow guitars and a nicely [...]
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