Volume 6, Track 14
“Fiery Yellow” by Stereolab (1994) Here’s what you do: 1) Download “Fiery Yellow” 2) When it’s dark outside, play this song really loud while driving or while going for a walk/run outside 3) While it’s playing and you are driving/walking/running try not to imagine youself in a movie or a movie trailer For whatever reason, [...]
Volume 6, Track 13
“I’m Lonely (But I Ain’t That Lonely Yet)” by The White Stripes (2005) The last track of the half outstanding, half semi-flawed Get Behind Me Satan falls into the “outstanding” portion of the album. It is a solo song featuring only Jack White playing the piano yet it dials up just enough subdued humor and [...]
Volume 6, Track 12
“Farewell And Goodnight” by The Smashing Pumpkins (1995) I have had this unshakable feeling that Billy Corgan betrayed me after Mellon Collie was released. When “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” was released I hated it because it was played on seemingly every radio station twice an hour. The oversaturation of that song caused me to temporarily [...]
Volume 6, Track 11
“Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” by Nirvana (1993) When Nirvana’s Unplugged performance first aired, there was a definite sense that something was changing in terms of the band’s legacy. Starting the show with “About A Girl,” a song that most professed Nirvana diehards may have had a difficult time recalling once it began? Doing [...]
Volume 6, Track 10
“Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails (1994) “Hurt” is a show-stopper. Totally unexpected—when compared musically to most everything else on The Downward Spiral—and yet stunningly powerful (“What have I become?/My sweetest friend/Everyone I know/Goes away in the end”), Trent Reznor produced a song that not only overshadowed “Closer” but would also become arguably one of the [...]
Volume 6, Track 9
“I Can See It (But I Can’t Feel It)” by My Bloody Valentine (1988) As I have already written Loveless is quite the sonic masterpiece and one of the best albums of the last twenty years. But before Kevin Sheilds went on a well-documented series of near-breakdowns and bankrupting a label in the process of [...]
Volume 6, Track 8
“The Private Psychedelic Reel” by The Chemical Brothers (1997) The Chemical Brothers are, in very specific and static terms, the Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin of mainstream electronic music. The comparison to Bob Dylan is warranted because their single “Life Is Sweet” (off of their 1995 debut album Exit Planet Dust) is basically the electronic [...]
Volume 6, Track 7
“Maggot Brain” by Funkadelic (1978) Okay, so this live version of “Maggot Brain” technically was not the last track on the original release of One Nation Under A Groove (it was a bonus track) but almost every CD incarnation of the album since has included it and it occupies the last track on all of [...]
Volume 6, Track 6
“Rock And Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution” by AC/DC (1980) The best aspect, to me, about “Rock And Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution” is its deliberate pace. It isn’t in a hurry to end with a bang. Angus Young’s low-key guitar intro evokes a natural mellowness that makes for a nice departure considering how anthemic “Hell’s Bells,” [...]
Volume 6, Track 5
“Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World” by Ramones (1976) How do you end an album wherein every song is two or three chords played really quickly, the songs rarely encroach on the three minute mark, and the lyrics are sometimes muffled to the point that when you sing along you are just basically enunciating sounds [...]
Volume 6, Track 4
“Freedom” by Rage Against The Machine (1992) In 1991, I remember hearing “Bring Tha Noize,” the product of a Public Enemy and Anthrax collaboration, and thinking that it was the creative ceiling that rap metal or any of its mutations could reach. Then Rage Against The Machine’s eponymous debut album arrived a year later and [...]
Volume 6, Track 3
“Glad Tidings” by Van Morrison (1970) “And we’ll send you glad tidings from New York,” sings Van Morrison amongst the warm background of horns and a prominent bass line. “Glad Tidings” closes Moondance in the exact opposite way it began–”And It Stoned Me” begins the album with a very definite story whereas “Glad Tidings” is, [...]
Volume 6, Track 2
“Me In Honey” by R.E.M. (1991) For as much as I love music and love talking about it (and writing about it: 164 posts and counting between this site and the Top 80 Albums site) I rarely get passionately crazy about the albums/artists that I like (at least, I like to think that I don’t [...]
Volume 6, Track 1
“All I Want Is You” by U2 (1988) “All I Want Is You” is the type of song that perfectly straddles that finest of fine lines between sappy and unexpectedly gorgeous. This is the type of song that could never be covered adequately[1]. This song is so good, even its use in a Rachel and [...]
Volume 6 Introduction
“Call me Ishmael.” —opening line of Moby-Dick “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” —opening line of Anna Karenina “Gimme Shelter” —opening track of Let It Bleed “Smells Like Teen Spirit” —opening track of Nevermind How a piece of work begins sets the tone for the whole composition, [...]
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