Volume 10, Track 14
“Trilogy – z) Eliminator Jr.” by Sonic Youth (1988) Two things to note here: 1) “Trilogy,” which ends Daydream Nation is over fourteen minutes long and is basically comprised of three disparate songs, of which “Eliminator Jr.” is the final song and the one that I am including in this volume; 2) Kim Gordon’s vocals [...]
Volume 10, Track 13
“Fuck And Run” by Liz Phair (1993) Liz Phair has claimed that Exile In Guyville, her stunning debut album, is a song-by-song response to The Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main Street. While I think that Guyville is definitely a response to Main Street in an abstract sense–it is hard to compare the two on a [...]
Volume 10, Track 12
“Fountain” by PJ Harvey (1992) “Fountain” penultimately ends PJ Harvey’s masterpiece Dry and it may be one of the most subtly chaotic yet sensical songs about loss that I have heard. The song starts out very slowly and quietly with its escalating thick, swampy riff before Harvey begins singing about being cleansed from a fountain [...]
Volume 10, Track 11
“John Saw That Number” by Neko Case (2006) I have no idea what Neko Case’s religious or spiritual views are; for all I know the recording of “John Saw That Number” could serve as nothing more than a desire to have a traditional cover start side two of Fox Confessor Brings The Flood. Or, maybe [...]
Volume 10, Track 10
“If Love Is A Red Dress (Hang Me In Rags)” by Maria McKee (1994) Based solely on the title of the song and the name of the artist, you may not remember off the top of your head at what point this track plays in Pulp Fiction. This is the track that plays when Bruce [...]
Volume 10, Track 9
“…Sudden Stars” by Stereolab (2004) As I wrote in my review of Stereolab’s Emperor Tomato Ketchup for the Top 80 Albums list, what hangs in the balance for those who have not heard a Stereolab song is Lætitia Sadier’s voice. If you cannot get on board with it you will have a difficult time with [...]
Volume 10, Track 8
“Lately” by Massive Attack (1991) Shara Nelson was the lone female vocalist on Massive Attack’s 1991 masterpiece Blue Lines and while “Unfinished Sympathy” is the crown jewel of the album, “Lately” makes a valiant run at the top spot.[1] The beat of the song is so simple, so polished (I love the well-timed iron-on-iron clinking-like [...]
Volume 10, Track 7
“Everything Is Everything” by Lauryn Hill (1998) I have always readily admitted that rap and hip-hop are two musical genres that fundamentally do not speak to me–mostly because most rap and hip-hop songs don’t have, to me, a good balance of great music and great vocals (it is either one or the other, or neither). [...]
Volume 10, Track 6
“Sea Of Love” by Cat Power (2000) If you have seen Juno you will know this as the song that penultimately ends the movie; it is used in its entirety for the post-delivery hospital scenes and, most poignantly, when Jennifer Garner’s character takes the baby home for the first time and there is the shot [...]
Volume 10, Track 5
“Wise Up” by Aimee Mann (1996) “Wise Up” is probably most notably known for being on the Magnolia soundtrack. (In fact, until I did a remedial background check on this song I had assumed that it was an original song written for Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie in which raining frogs occur. You learn something new [...]
Volume 10, Track 4
“Criminal” by Fiona Apple (1996) Wow, where to begin? “Criminal” may very well be one of the most powerful songs written in the last twenty years. And by powerful, I do not necessarily mean epiphanical or profound, but as in mesmerizing or show-stopping, especially when you factor in all of its contextual parts. First, this [...]
Volume 10, Track 3
“My City Was Gone” by The Pretenders (1984) “My City Was Gone” presents a question that anyone who is older than twenty five has probably grappled with recently: at what point does progress just become too much to bear and everything just comes across as being crass development for the sake of itself? “I went [...]
Volume 10, Track 2
“Well It’s True That We Love One Another” by The White Stripes (2003) Elephant is probably the most accessible White Stripes album out there—thanks to “Seven Nation Army” and the hard-to-resist cover of “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself”—but it ends with the seemingly goofy and off-beat number “Well It’s True That [...]
Volume 10, Track 1
“Summertime” by Big Brother & The Holding Company (1968) To me, there are two defining albums that truly unleashed the California scene on the rest of America: one is Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane and the other is Big Brother & The Holding Company’s live album Cheap Thrills. While the former introduced us to white [...]
Volume 10 Introduction
“Girls want things that make common sense The best for all concerned Don’t want to have to go out of their way And the girls want to be with the girls” —“The Girls Want To Be With The Girls” by Talking Heads (sung by David Byrne) Like so many other sectors before it throughout the [...]
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