Author Archive

Suzi Wu “Teenage Witch”

“Teenage Witch” opens with a lo-fi benediction: “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, the guys are fuckboys, the girls are sluts.” It’s very provocative and sets the tone lyrically, but doesn’t tip off the ambition of the music. The song is definitely pop, but in a very aggressive mid-‘90s way in which the hooks come at you with a sort of fuck-you violence and an off-kilter funk. Honestly, it’s refreshing to hear a very young artist tap into this sort of energy – I’ve found it troubling how much music in 2017 has been chill or sedate. I realize that there’s a lag to when and how songs get released, but regardless of when Wu recorded this, “Teenage Witch” has a nervy, abrasive, and defiant edge that feels necessary right now. And that chorus feels right too: “I’m too scared to live / too stoned to die.”

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Game Theory “An Overview of Item Response Theory”

The name of the final Game Theory record is Supercalifragile, which is definitely the best album title to come along this year, and a perfect example of Scott Miller’s wit as a lyricist – a mawkish bit of Disney nostalgia broken in half to reveal a vulnerability that was always right there in front of us. I can imagine his delight upon first thinking of the joke, and then a moment of reflection and self-identification: “Yup, that’s me, super Cali fragile.”

Scott Miller was a clever and funny guy. I listened to his music – primarily his Loud Family work, though his Game Theory discography is what made him an indie hero – for a very long time before noticing how much of it is about depression. That didn’t become obvious to me until after he killed himself in 2013, and then it became very hard to not hear it on every record. Anxiety and misery was present in an alarming number of his songs going back to the beginning, and sometimes it was not even a subtextual thing. This is a guy who wrote a song called “Slit My Wrists” with a chorus that goes “what I need is not ways to go on / what I need is to slit my wrists and be gone.” That song came out 20 years before he actually killed himself. He was living with this for a very long time, and even when he stated it plainly everyone just nodded and thought “Scott Miller is a clever and funny guy.” Maybe it was a literary reference or something.

Miller was working on Supercalifragile before he died. It was his idea to revive the Game Theory name – to bring things full circle, I suppose, but also because the name would draw a little bit more attention than making it another Loud Family release. Maybe he wasn’t happy with how it was coming together. Maybe he felt stuck. I have no idea why he didn’t finish it before ending his life, but I figure there were many other factors in making that decision that weren’t directly related to the music he was writing. The record was completed by his friends and fans – Aimee Mann, Ted Leo, Ken Stringfellow, Mitch Easter, Peter Buck, Will Sheff, Doug Gillard, Matt LeMay, Spiral Stairs, and Nina Gordon among others. The songs were in various states of completion at the time of Miller’s death, and a few of them are sung by someone other than him. I find it harder to deal with those. All I hear is his absence.

Supercalifragile doesn’t sound like a cry for help. It mostly sounds perky and melodic but a bit skewed, like almost all of Miller’s music. Reading through the lyrics doesn’t yield much in the way of “oh, now I get it,” but there is a certain calm and distance to his perspective in most of the songs, and a sense that he’s taking stock and tying off some lose ends. He reckons with his sideline careers as a programmer and a music critic, he visits a sick friend in the hospital, he writes a love song for his widow that is absolutely crushing to hear in the context of how he died. “An Overview of Item Response Theory,” an up-tempo psychedelic jangle rocker with a typically obtuse title, is where he flat-out says what he must’ve been wondering at the end: “Is your life worthwhile?” It’s there, clear in the mix, hiding in plain sight like so many other bleak lines throughout his career. I hope that despite how he decided to end things he realized that it was worthwhile. It really was, and the music always will be.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Nosaj Thing “U G”

There’s two vocal samples here, but your immediate attention goes to the one that takes up the most space – a rhythmic loop of a blues or R&B singer singing “you got” over and over until the words stop registering as words. It’s a great hook, and clicks well with beat. The sample that makes the song actually arrives first – a blurted “yeahhh” that sounds like it was recorded slightly off mic, and serves as the punctuation to a rather mournful two-chord organ riff that opens the track. These elements set up an intriguing atmosphere for the groove, an emotional space that’s somewhere in the vicinity of sadness but isn’t quite there. The beat seems as though it’s running away from this minor key dreariness, but those vocals act like a tether. It gets away, but only so far to get jerked back into position.

Buy it from Amazon.

Magic Potion “Rest Yr Skull”

Gustaf Montelius is the type of indie rock guitarist who makes it all sound incredibly easy, as if anyone could pick up a guitar and casually pluck out a slightly off-kilter but immediately pleasing riffs and leads. He’s got this and a mellow, slack relationship with the beat with Stephen Malkmus, but Magic Potion’s similarities to Pavement is more of an aesthetic kinship and shared philosophy than a direct A-sounds-like-B thing. Montelius’ songs have a sort of impish quality, and a melodic style that strikes me as bit more ‘60s. “Rest Yr Skull” reminds me a little bit of Donovan in particular, and has some of his playful qualities, but perhaps a bit more so. The part that really gets me in this song is the guitar solo section, which is so loose that it almost feels tentative and improvised, and manages a weird and lovely balance of wooziness and grace.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Four Tet “Planet”

Most of the Four Tet songs that I love are very similar, and are built around a tiny clip of the human voice looped at an interval that feels much slower than the actual tempo of the music. The sample in “Planet” seems to hover gently in midair as the percussive and melodic parts move along busily. It sounds very urban to me, like the feeling of moving in a slight daze through crowded, busy public spaces. I’m sure very commuter is well acquainted with this sensation, and in my experience it can be sort of satisfying. Physically alert, but mentally checked out. Moving in sync with everyone else while lost in your own head.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Knifeplay “Greasr”

guitar that thuds along in a way that’s both hazy and overbearing, the muffled yet sensual coo of a human voice that’s almost completely drowned out by the volume of the guitar. But the key difference in this composition is the addition of what I must assume is some sort of keyboard making strange, expressive, high-pitched sounds that would work pretty well as the “voice” of a new droid in Star Wars. It knocks the song off-kilter, and serves as an odd and playful contrast to the bombastic heaviness of the guitar.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Sales “Talk A Lot”

Sales’ earlier material reminded me a lot of both Beach House and Blonde Redhead, and though those apparent influences are still in their music, their new single “Talk A Lot” sounds like a band who’ve found their own lane. It’s mostly in the rhythm – the beats are crisp and snappy, and the guitar is strummed so those clean, bright chords seem to bounce off the groove. Lauren Morgan’s voice is well framed by this arrangement, and she comes off like a generally shy person tapping into a more assertive and confident part of their personality. The lyrics are fairly confrontational – “your friends they seem to talk a lot / you know I’m not that type” – but the song seems to be more about shrugging off some kind of drama rather than diving into it. The key line here: “Free me of that bullshit.”

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Ted Leo “The Hanged Man”

“Moon Out of Phase” opens Ted Leo’s first album in seven years, The Hanged Man with a heavy riff that sets up an expectation for a familiar sort of hard rock song but then leaves you in suspense indefinitely as you wait for the drums to come crashing in. They never do arrive, and the only percussion that makes it into the track is some gently ringing sleigh bells that keep the rhythm while Ted plays a brief solo.

I like this as a meta move signifying that things are different now, and that, yeah, it’s just Ted here, the Pharmacists aren’t around for this one. But it also sets up a lot of moods and themes for the record as a whole – life isn’t gonna go the way you want it to, sometimes you gotta make it your own way, disappointments can be opportunities. This is a great showcase for Ted’s voice, which hovers over the rhythm with a gentle grace at odds with the sludgy distortion on the guitar. He’s worked in this mode before on “Stove By A Whale” from the first Pharmacists record, but the absence of the rhythm section changes the dynamic completely – it ends up sounding less like metal and more like a private ritual, or a prayer.

Buy it from Amazon.

LCD Soundsystem “Tonite”

LCD Soundsystem’s American Dream has all the familiar components of an LCD Soundsystem record, but the feel of the music is different in ways that are not easy to articulate. It’s like having a set of ingredients for a recipe you know well, but changing up the cooking methods. Some parts have a very different character – there’s a lot of lead guitar parts through the album that indicate that James Murphy has spent much of the past few years obsessing over Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew – while the beats click and hit with characteristic precision.

Another metaphor: It’s all the same furniture, but rearranged, and with the addition of some accent pillows and maybe some new art on the wall. As if to say, “you can go home again, but it just feels a bit weird.” But the weirdness seems to be part of the point, and this greater feeling of loss and being lost and frustration and exasperation and doubt. James Murphy could – should? – be returning to LCD Soundsystem as a conquering hero, but instead he’s just as shellshocked and anxious and powerless as anyone else these days.

“Tonite” is the album’s banger, and the song that would’ve made the most sense alongside the group’s earliest material. It’s also the song where Murphy’s acute self-awareness seems to collapse on itself. The whole album is like him trying to talk his way through his feelings, like he’s doing talk therapy and hoping that he lands on something profound in his ramblings. There’s a lot of good observations in “Tonite” – the remarks about other artists’ music are clever, but as usual, it’s the lines about aging that really get under the skin. The big question this time around: If we can acknowledge that the current version of ourselves is probably the best one, or at least less embarrassing than previous attempts at getting it together, then why do we romanticize the past and youth so much? Sure, the clock is ticking, but we can at least try to go out on top.

Buy it from Amazon.

The National “Turtleneck”

This is actually the first time I’ve featured The National on this site in over 15 years of publication, aside from being included in survey mixes or mentioned in passing in other entries. I guess I was just waiting for them to rock more.

“Turtleneck” is an abrasive, rowdy rock song, and as such is a major outlier in the National discography. It reminds me a bit of The Afghan Whigs in particular, though Matt Berninger’s voice conveys very different things than Greg Dulli – there’s no trace of sexual menace or seedy glamor, but in its place you get an acute anxiety and agitation. Berninger typically speak-sings his way through songs at the bottom of his register, but here’s he’s up near the top of it, with the treble signaling exasperation and a sense of feeling trapped in obligations. The lyrics move in a few different directions, alluding to romantic trauma, bad teenage memories, and Trump-era terror, but the through line is embarrassment and degradation. It’s a song about reckoning with living at the mercy of other people, and losing faith in them entirely. Berninger doesn’t sound like a guy who takes any pleasure in being cynical and pessimistic. If anything, he sounds like he’s being destroyed by feeling that way, but has no other valid way of reacting.

Buy it from Amazon.

Omni “Equestrian”

Omni is a contemporary band and “Equestrian” is a new song, but to my ears, it’s a dead ringer for the sort of playful, casually arty music you can find on Hyped to Death’s old Homework CD-R compilations of deeply obscure American DIY singles from the late 70s through the early 80s. If you’ve never heard these compilations, I recommended trying a few out. They make a strong case for the actual impact of English punk in America beyond the usual locales of New York City, Washington DC, and Los Angeles, and are full of great little songs that shouldn’t be essentially unknown. When I say this song reminds me of all that, it’s a compliment – it’s tapping into a very special energy and feeling that feels lost today, and I think it’s what Omni are aiming for as musicians. Part of it is in how they contrast rigidity in the rhythm with a bit of slack, so you get this tight herky-jerky structure but a loose, carefree vibe in the guitar and vocal. The lead guitar part is particularly alluring, and reminds me of the feeling of cruising around aimlessly in the suburbs at night.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

This is the ninth in the 1990s survey mix series, which I have been presenting monthly in chronological order through this year. You can find the previous mixes here. I’ve made a Spotify version of this survey which you can find here, though it is missing 34 tracks – including a few utterly crucial tracks – and has no sound editing for smooth listening.

The late ‘90s is such a strange and confusing time. On one hand, you have the ascendence of nu-metal and TRL pop, but on the other, a rise in artists embracing sophisticated ideas like post-rock and IDM. The eclecticism-as-virtue thing from the past couple years is still in the mix, but I think there’s also a backlash to it. In retrospect things in music feel very tribal and segregated in this moment.

• This is an excellent and very exciting period for rap, and a lot of the most interesting stuff was also commercially successful. Missy Elliott, Mos Def, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and Method Man are dominant figures in this moment, and all appear on several tracks in this survey. New York City is still very much the center of hip-hop, though Puff Daddy’s influence is beginning to wane. DMX and Jay-Z have their major pop breakthroughs in this year, J Dilla is emerging as a producer of note, and Canibus is really hot for a minute before totally imploding.

• One of my strongest memories of music in 1998 is this period of time around late summer/early fall when it seemed like something from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Beastie Boys’ Hello Nasty, or Air’s Moon Safari was playing anywhere I went in Manhattan. Similarly, I have very vivid memories of hearing Hole’s “Celebrity Skin” and Marilyn Manson’s “The Dope Show” at the old Virgin Megastore.

• I see this year as a major turning point in the history of rock music, or more specifically, a point of divergence. This is around the time when this feeling that rock music was over or boring was really starting to take hold among the cooler indie people, who were moving in the direction of more electronic music, eclectic record collector stuff, or rock music that did not actually rock very much. And in that moment, that was a pretty valid response to a rock scene in which nearly all the major mainstream and indie icons of the 90s had either flamed out or were winding down, and the underground was getting crowded with dull, uninspiring pop-punk and emo bands, not to mention the onslaught of aggressive, juvenile nu-metal bands. But from this point onward, rock basically splits along a class divide – upper class, educated people started gravitating to artsy or less rocking indie acts, and lower and middle class people stuck with either the heavy rock on the radio or the emo/pop-punk acts that would become gradually more mainstream over the next few years. There’s been some changes over the past 20 years, but we’ve never really gotten over this schism and it’s a major reason why rock is perceived to be a less relevant form of popular music today.

• Some assorted great songs I’d like to call some attention to: Solex’s “Solex In A Slipshod Style,” a gorgeous and sexy song from one of the most sadly ignored debut albums of the era. Add N to X’s “The Black Regent,” which is funky yet menacing. The Make Up’s euphoric “Joy of Sound,” which opened the majority of mix tapes I made around this time. Robert Pollard’s “Subspace Biographies,” easily one of the 10 best songs in the greater Guided by Voices discography. RZA’s “NYC Everything,” his best-ever deviation from his signature production style. Wagon Christ’s “Tally Ho!,” which is built around a sample that sounds both goofy and maniacal and gets stuck in my head any time I hear it. “American Flag,” the first song from Cat Power’s finest and saddest album Moon Pix, and “Perfect World,” a simple and lovely track from Liz Phair’s very underrated Whitechocolatespaceegg.

• This survey contains the absolute worst hit of the 1990s: “One Week” by the Barenaked Ladies. A truly dreadful piece of music.

Thanks to Sean T. Collins, Dan Kois, Paul Cox, Rob Sheffield, and Eric Harvey for their help in putting this one together. The final survey in this series will be available at the beginning of October.

DOWNLOAD PART 1

Britney Spears “…Baby One More Time” / Beastie Boys “Intergalactic” / Pras feat. Ol Dirty Bastard and Mya “Ghetto Superstar” / Black Star “Definition” / Lauryn Hill “Doo Wop (That Thing)” / Jay-Z “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” / Outkast “Spottieottiedopalicious” / The Make Up “Joy of Sound” / Clinic “Monkey On Your Back” / Royal Trux “The Banana Question” / Hole “Celebrity Skin” / Marilyn Manson “The Dope Show” / Garbage “I Think I’m Paranoid” / The Smashing Pumpkins “Pug” / Madonna “Ray of Light” / RZA feat. Method Man “NYC Everything” / Buffalo Daughter “Socks, Drugs, and Rock N’ Roll” / R.E.M. “Hope” / Air “La Femme D’Argent” / Pulp “This Is Hardcore” / Black Box Recorder “Child Psychology” / Cat Power “American Flag” / Liz Phair “Perfect World” / Belle & Sebastian “The Boy with the Arab Strap” / Mercury Rev “Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp” / Silver Jews “Blue Arrangements” / Dub Narcotic Sound System feat. Miranda July “Out of Your Mind” / Fugazi “Floating Boy” / Pearl Jam “Do the Evolution” / Sonic Youth “The Ineffable Me” / Jon Spencer Blues Explosion “Talk About the Blues” / Sloan “Money City Maniacs” / Robert Pollard “Subspace Biographies” / Spoon “No, You’re Not” / Missy Elliott “Beep Me 911” / Busta Rhymes “Gimme Some More” / Tricky “Mellow” / Tori Amos “She’s Your Cocaine” / PJ Harvey “My Beautiful Leah” / UNKLE feat. Thom Yorke “Rabbit In Your Headlights” / Massive Attack “Teardrop”

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Tortoise “TNT” / Elliott Smith “Sweet Adeline” / New Radicals “You Get What You Give” / Harvey Danger “Flagpole Sitta” / Imperial Teen “The Beginning” / Shania Twain “That Don’t Impress Me Much” / Faith Hill “This Kiss” / Wilco & Billy Bragg “California Stars” / Dixie Chicks “Wide Open Spaces” / Lucinda Williams “Car Wheels On A Gravel Road” / Alanis Morissette “Thank U” / Dave Matthews Band “Don’t Drink the Water” / Quasi “The Happy Prole” / Stereolab “One Small Step” / Solex “Solex In A Slipshod Style” / Wagon Christ “Tally Ho!” / Fatboy Slim “The Rockafeller Skank” / Aaliyah “Are You That Somebody” / D’Angelo “Devil’s Pie” / Mos Def feat. Q-Tip & Tash “Body Rock” / Peanut Butter Wolf “Styles Crew Flows Beats” / Cornelius “Count Five or Six” / Big L “Ebonics” / Canibus “Second Round K.O.” / DMX “Ruff Ryders Anthem” / Brandy & Monica “The Boy Is Mine” / The Lox feat. Lil Kim & DMX “Money, Power, and Respect” / Zach De La Rocha, KRS-One, and The Last Emperor “C.I.A. (Criminals In Action)” / Cappadonna “Slang Editorial” / Aceyalone “The Guidelines” / Method Man “Torture” / Money Mark “Hand In Your Head” / Boards of Canada “Roygbiv” / Calexico “Gypsy’s Curse” / Beck “Nobody’s Fault But My Own” / Grant Lee Buffalo “The Shallow End”

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Squarepusher “Chunk-S” / DJ Spooky feat. Kool Keith “Object Unknown” / DJ Clue feat. Missy Elliott, Mocha, and Nicole “I Like Control” / Master P feat. Mystikal, Silkk the Shocker, Mia X, Kane & Abel “Hot Boys and Girls” / Run-D.M.C. Vs. Jason Nevins “It’s Like That” / Stardust “Music Sounds Better With You” / Rae & Christian feat. QBall & Curt Cazal “Anything U Want” / Shaggy feat. Janet Jackson “Luv Me Luv Me” / Deadly Venoms feat. Ol’ Dirty Bastard “Drug Free” / Portishead “All Mine (live)” / Mice Parade “Headphoneland: The Gangster Chapter” / The Afghan Whigs “66” / Shudder to Think feat. Jeff Buckley “I Want Someone Badly” / Robbie Williams “Angels” / Sheryl Crow “My Favorite Mistake” / The Cardigans “My Favourite Game” / The Divine Comedy “Generation Sex” / The Loud Family “Businessmen Are Okay” / Gillian Welch “Caleb Meyer” / Mogwai “Xmas Steps” / Modest Mouse “Never Ending Math Equation” / June of 44 “The Dexterity of Luck” / Rufus Wainwright “April Fools” / Sparklehorse “Sick of Goodbyes” / Semisonic “Closing Time” / The Tragically Hip “Bobcaygeon” / Arab Strap “Packs of Three” / Spiritualized “Come Together (live)” / Goldie feat. Noel Gallagher “Temper Temper” / Dälek “Swollen Tongue Burns” / Mack 10 feat. Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Buckshot “For the Money” / Cam’ron feat. Mase “Horse & Carriage” / MF Doom “The M.I.C.” / Dru Hill feat. Redman “How Deep Is Your Love” / Next “Too Close”

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Cher “Believe” / Janet Jackson “Together Again” / NSYNC “Tearin’ Up My Heart” / Usher “Nice & Slow” / Sarah McLachlan “Sweet Surrender” / Gomez “78 Stone Wobble” / Ozomatli “Cut Chemist Suite” / A Tribe Called Quest “Find A Way” / Maxwell “Luxury: Cocosure” / Add N to (X) “The Black Regent” / Trans Am “Prowler ’97” / The All Seeing I “The Beat Goes On” / Asian Dub Foundation “Buzzin’” / Ida “Turn Me On” / Flin Flon “Kamloops” / Joan of Arc “God Bless America” / Onyx feat. Wu-Tang Clan “The Worst” / N’Dea Davenport feat. Mos Def “Bullshittin’ (Remix)” / Saul Williams “Elohim (1972)” / Chocolate Genius “My Mom” / Gastr Del Sol “Blues Subtitled No Sense of Wonder” / Don Caballero “In the Absence of Strong Evidence to the Contrary, One May Step Out of the Way of the Charging Bull” / Shellac “Canada” / The Aislers Set “Long Division” / The Apples In Stereo “Seems So” / Of Montreal “Sing You A Love You Song” / Ben Folds Five “Emaline” / Brooks & Dunn “How Long Gone” / Martina McBride “A Broken Wing” / Mariah Carey “My All” / Natalie Merchant “Kind & Generous” / Manic Street Preachers “If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next” / Catatonia “Mulder & Scully” / Gangsta Boo feat. DJ Paul & Juicy J “Where Dem Dollas At” / Funkdoobiest “Papi Chulo” / Ghostface Killah “Cobra Clutch” / Archers of Loaf “Slick Tricks and Bright Lights” / Bedhead “Exhume”

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Sunny Day Real Estate “Pillars” / A Minor Forest “Look At That Car, It’s Full of Balloons” / Edith Frost “Walk on the Fire” / Jets to Brazil “Starry Configurations” / Rancid “Bloodclot” / Saves the Day “The Choke” / Jejune “This Afternoon’s Malady” / Collin Raye “I Can Still Feel You” / Gov’t Mule “Thelonius Beck” / Keb’ Mo’ “Muddy Water” / The Coup “Me and Jesus the Pimp in a ’79 Granada Last Night” / Timbaland & Magoo feat. Missy Elliott “Here We Come” / Jurassic 5 “Concrete Schoolyard” / Jimmy Ray “Are You Jimmy Ray?” / Mousse T “Horny” / Monifah “Touch It” / Mr. Vegas “Heads High” / Mystikal feat. Master P, Silkk the Shocker, Craig B, and Anita Thomas “Life Ain’t Cool” / Moby “Honey” / Danny Tenaglia “Music is the Answer (Dancin’ and Prancin’)” / 187 Lockdown “Kung-Fu” / Missin’ Linx “M.I.A.” / Six Organs of Admittance “Shadow of a Dune” / Blonde Redhead “Missile ++” / Korn “Got the Life” / Orgy “Stitches” / Placebo “Pure Morning” / Propellerheads “History Repeating” / Plastikman “Contain” / Björk “Hunter” / Jega “Kid Sista” / Autechre “Acroyear2” / Sunz of Man feat. Ol Dirty Bastard “Shining Star” / Juvenile “Ha” / Silkk the Shocker, Master P, Destiny’s Child, O’Dell & Mo B. Dick “Just Be Straight With me” / Snoop Dogg “Still A G Thang” / Prince “The Truth”

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Phish “Moma Dance” / Train “Meet Virginia” / Neutral Milk Hotel “The King of Carrot Flowers, Part One” / Eagle Eye Cherry “Save Tonight” / Third Eye Blind “Jumper” / Death Cab for Cutie “President of What?” / Snow Patrol “Starfighter Pilot” / Vic Chesnutt “Bernadette and Her Crowd” / Ty Herndon “It Must Be Love” / Pernice Brothers “Crestfallen” / Trisha Yearwood “Perfect Love” / Mojave 3 “Give What You Take” / µ-ziq “Brace Yourself Jason” / Wamdue Project “King of My Castle” / Roger S. feat Soulson “Wrek That Discotek” / Lo-Fidelity Allstars feat. Pigeonhead “Battle Flag” / Drag-On “We All Can Get It On” / Will Smith “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit’ It” / Scratch Perverts “Love Rap Routine” / Pete Rock feat. Inspectah Deck and Kurrupt “Tru Master” / Man or Astroman? “Cuts and Volts” / Komeda “It’s Alright, Baby” / Tuscadero “Paper Dolls” / The Donnas “Checkin’ It Out” / At the Drive-In “Chanbara” / moe. “Stranger Than Fiction” / Ui “Drive Until He Sleeps” / 2Pac “Changes” / Xzibit “What U See Is What U Get” / Los Amigos Invisibles “Ultra-Funk” / Lootpack “The Anthem” / The Beatnuts feat. Grand Puba “RU Ready II” / Grandaddy “AM 180” / Everlast “What It’s Like” / System of a Down “Sugar” / Foo Fighters “My Hero” / MxPx “I’m OK, You’re OK” / Mineral “Palisade” / Mary Lou Lord “She Had You” / Braid “A Dozen Roses” / Dirty Three “Distant Shore” / Dump “Clarity” / The Minders “Hooray for Tuesday” / Jewel “Hands” / Lambchop “The Saturday Option”

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Alan Jackson “Right On the Money” / Steve Earle “Carrie Brown” / U2 “The Sweetest Thing” / Clint Black “Nothin’ But the Taillights” / The Verve “Sonnet” / James Iha “Be Strong Now” / Tim McGraw “Just To See You Smile” / Public Enemy “He Got Game” / Funkmaster Flex feat. Charli Baltimore & Cam’ron “Incarcerated Scarfaces Freestyle” / Redman “I’ll Bee Dat!” / Noreaga “Superthug” / Nicole feat. Missy Elliott “Make It Hot” / David Holmes “No More Time Outs” / Meat Beat Manifesto “Acid Again” / Rob Zombie “Dragula” / Girls Against Boys “Park Avenue” / Queens of the Stone Age “Regular John” / Monster Magnet “Space Lord” / Pedro the Lion “Of Up and Coming Monarchs” / The Gloria Record “Grace, the Snow Is Here” / Blink-182 “Josie” / Samiam “Factory” / Patty Griffin “One Big Love” / Soul Coughing “Circles” / Eels “Cancer for the Cure” / Morcheeba “Shoulder Holster” / Chef “Chocolate Salty Balls (P.S. I Love You)” / Killah Priest feat. Ol Dirty Bastard “If You Don’t Know” / Lil’ Mo feat. Missy Elliott “Five Minutes” / Mya & Sisqo “It’s All About Me” / Scarface feat. 2Pac and Master P “Homies & Thuggs” / The Rock*A*Teens “Don’t Destroy This Night” / Cadallaca “You’re My Only One” / Tommy Keene “Long Time Missing” / Remy Zero “Prophecy” / Unwound “No Tech!” / Blur “Movin’ On (Peel Session)” / Shed Seven “She Left Me On Friday” / Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci “Let’s Get Together (In Our Minds)” / Super Furry Animals “Ice Hockey Hair” / Cake “Never There” / Robert Wyatt “Heaps of Sheeps” / Virteous Humor “Why Are You So Mean To Me?”

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Lenny Kravitz “Fly Away” / Big Punisher “Still Not A Player” / Beenie Man “Who Am I” / Five “When the Lights Go Out” / Puff Daddy feat. Jimmy Page “Come with Me” / Kid Rock “I Am the Bullgod” / Godsmack “Whatever” / Limp Bizkit “Faith” / Eve 6 “Inside Out” / Fastball “The Way” / Goo Goo Dolls “Iris” / Ani DiFranco “Glasshouse” / Backstreet Boys “I’ll Never Break Your Heart” / Jennifer Paige “Crush” / Billie “Because We Want To” / B*Witched “C’est La Vie” / Boyzone “No Matter What” / Bran Van 3000 “Drinking in L.A.” / Frank Black and the Catholics “All My Ghosts” / Local H “All the Kids Are Right” / American Football “Letters and Packages” / Nada Surf “Hyperspace” / Dropkick Murphys “Barroom Hero” / Nashville Pussy “Go Motherfucker Go” / Hot Water Music “Better Sense” / Buddha Monk feat. Ol’ Dirty Bastard “Got’s Like Come Thru” / Jo Dee Messina “I’m Alright” / Garth Brooks “Two Piña Coladas” / Total feat. Missy Elliott “Trippin’” / Gang Starr “Moment of Truth” / Flipmode Squad “Cha Cha Cha” / Bizarre “Butterfly” / Kurupt “We Can Freak It” / Dilated Peoples “Work the Angles” / Jayo Felony feat. Method Man & DMX “Whatcha Gonna Do” / Daz Dillinger feat. Snoop Dogg & Nate Dogg “O.G.” / DJ Q-Bert “Beats & Sounds” / Def Squad “Full Cooperation” / Cocoa Brovaz “Still Standin’ Strong” / Danielson Famile “Pottymouth” / Caesars Palace “Kick You Out” / Melanie B feat. Missy Elliott “I Want You Back” / Sparkle “Be Careful” / Anita Cochran & Steve Wariner “What If I Said” / K-Ci & Jojo “All My Life” / Barenaked Ladies “One Week” / Aerosmith “I Don’t Want to Miss A Thing”

Mr. Muthafuckin’ Exquire featuring Meyhem Lauren “Bebop & Rocksteady”

It’s a good thing Mr. Muthafuckin’ Exquire is a bold, forceful and charismatic rapper because I think a lot of rappers – especially a lot of current emcees who mumble and mutter their way through simplistic chant raps – would get bulldozed by this track. The piano chords seem like a pretty basic loop at first, but as the track proceeds the lead notes spiral out into the verses a long longer that you’d expect, and at intervals that sound instinctive and improvised. The melody is very pleasing on its own terms, but I love the way it punctuates Exquire and Meyhem Lauren’s voices. It’s a very dynamic track, and at some moments it feels like the rappers are nimbly dodging or skipping over the piano lines.

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A Giant Dog “Fake Plastic Trees”

This isn’t a Radiohead cover. This is an original song that in no way references the famous Radiohead song “Fake Plastic Trees,” or even uses any of those three words in the lyrics. It’s hilarious to me that a band would do this, but hey, it’s not as if Radiohead’s the only band with a song called “Creep,” and Stone Temple Pilots beat them to that title by a year!

A Giant Dog’s “Fake Plastic Trees” is glammy garage rock song about being a cool loser. It starts off with Sabrina Ellis and Andrew Cashen asking for a ride somewhere – “it’s on the way, it’s on the way!” – and digresses into verses about being bored and depressed, eating at Whataburger, smoking weed and eating tangerines, and their favorite scene in Terminator. I love the way the song doesn’t focus its attention on anything for long, and in doing so sketches out a detailed portrait of a troubled but fun protagonist. There’s a few musical curveballs to go with the lyrical twists too – the strings come out of nowhere on the bridge and give a fairly bratty song a few moments of grandeur and elegance.

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Hercules & Love Affair featuring Sharon Van Etten “Omnion”

Sharon Van Etten’s voice has a much colder tone on “Omnion” than anything I’ve ever heard her do on her own, but somehow that just amplifies the heart of this song. She sounds incredibly serene as she sings lyrics that are essentially a prayer to some greater power for strength and grace in the face of adversity. The arrangement for the piece sounds like a dance track that’s been hollowed out and converted into a chapel – there’s a holy hum to the keyboards that makes it all sound like a hymn. The line that crushes me comes early on – “If I am your child, why have you put so much in my life to fight?” Van Etten doesn’t sing the line with rage or frustration, though it’d be totally justified. She sounds like she already knows there’s no good answer to the question, and moves on to requests for more reasonable things: love, deliverance from fear, working to be a better person. She’s asking for help, but sings with a clarity of mind that suggests she’s on the right track without it.

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El Ten Eleven featuring Emile Mosseri “I’m Right Here”

“I’m Right Here” is a song about being stuck in an emotional limbo, with Emile Mosseri singing about a relationship that just doesn’t quite take off because these two people are never quite on the same page. He seems to be the one who wants more than what he’s getting, but he’s also the guy singing “I don’t feel it half as much as you do,” so go figure. These things get complicated, and his vocal performance and El Ten Eleven’s atmosphere of claustrophobia and melancholy suggest a lot of confused yet agonizing feelings. It crushes me when he sings the title phrase – despite everything, he’s holding on to a bit of hope and faith, and it’s incredibly beautiful and possibly tragic.

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The Mynabirds “Golden Age”

Even now, when musicians have the power to immediately release a new song to a variety of digital platforms, there’s usually a lag between a song being recorded and it being available to the public. This is part of why we haven’t had a lot of music responding to the election of Trump just yet, though –- I dunno, maybe it’s time to get that rage and grief out there into the world? I find myself having to go back to music from the ‘90s to find suitably angry and topical songs to listen to in 2017.

“Golden Age,” from the Mynabirds’ new album out this week, sounds like it had to have been written sometime around late January/early February, just after the inauguration. The line that dates it most obviously is when Laura Burhenn sings “I think even I could punch a Nazi in the face” in reference to the viral clip of Richard Spencer getting a knuckle sandwich, though that could just as well have been from last week. The song is a pensive ballad that perhaps deliberately evokes the feeling of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” and borrows some of that song’s approach to rhetoric. This is a song inspired by anger and distress at what is happening in the world, but that’s not the tone of the lyrics or music. Burhenn is being calm and reasonable, and making a case for regular activism and holding on to the best of humanity while pushing back on the worst of it. She gets sentimental in moments, but her message is practical and optimistic in its belief that we can get through this. But only if we do it together.

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Alvvays “Dreams Tonite”

Molly Rankin sings “Dreams Tonite” with a pleasant wispiness that serves the song very well, both in the way it renders the main melody and portrays a specific type of thoughtful, self-effacing introversion. She’s singing about a relationship that’s gone cold, but the real tension in the song is trying to interpret raw, visceral feelings through a practical, cerebral mindset. There’s two rhetorical questions posed at opposite ends of the song, and they seem to answer each other. First, “Who starts a fire just to let it go out?,” and then “Who builds a wall just to let it fall down?” Clearly, the walls are the problem here.

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Liyv “Weeknight”

The sound of this song – perky and feminine, minimal in its arrangement but maximalist in the way its vocal hook is chopped up and reconfigured as a sort of drop – would’ve seemed ahead of the curve five years ago, and trendy two years ago. Now it just sounds like the zeitgeist, and only slightly stranger than the pop radio version of this aesthetic. Liyv’s vocal melodies make this song particularly sticky, and there’s something very compelling about the way her voice moves around the more jagged edges of the arrangement, like water rushing to fill the void. It’s the chopped up chorus that gets you though, but I will warn you in advance that it can be a little annoying to have this melodic phrase that sounds like it should be a set of words loop in your mind, because I find my brain keeps trying to interpret it as a lyric: “I want a kitten, I want a lil kitten.”

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Kesha “Let ‘Em Talk”

There is an urgency to Kesha’s new album Rainbow that is very noticeable when you hear in the context of current mainstream pop music – it doesn’t sound like something that’s been calculated and revised several times over in the hope of finding success; it sounds like something that had to be made. Kesha sounds absolutely thrilled to making music after what can succinctly and understatedly be referred to as an ordeal with Dr. Luke, and every moment is cathartic in some way. I’m particularly attracted to “Let ‘Em Talk” because it so perfectly articulates this feeling of “I’M FREE!!!!!,” and Kesha has always been at her best when she’s singing about being joyful as a form of defiance. A lot of “fuck the haters” sentiment in pop music strikes me as petty vanity and delusion, but that’s not the case here. This really is about pushing back at the miserable, angry, hateful people in the world and finding the strength to be fully yourself and enjoy your life. Songs like this feel necessary now, and a lot more political than they used to be.

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The Rock*A*Teens “Across the Piedmont”

This song is nearly 20 years old, but I’ve only known it for a little while, after Carl Newman from The New Pornographers was tweeting about his deep love of The Rock*A*Teens. “Across the Piedmont” hit me right away and has been lingering in my mind for months. I wish I could have known it around the time it came out, mostly just so I could have an additional 19 years of it in my life.

The two most striking things about The Rock*A*Teens is their distinctive use of reverb on guitars, which lends the music a ragged ’60s garage rock aesthetic, and Chris Lopez’s incredibly emotive voice. Lopez sings with the maximum level of commitment, to the point that he’s often pushing his voice beyond its natural range because he clearly would not settle on underselling any feeling. The lyrics of “Across the Piedmont” are vivid in their specificity but vague in narrative, but Lopez belts out key lines with a red-hot passion that makes you wonder why he’d have such an urgent feeling about “the summer when I turned 23” in the first place. He’s implying so much more than what’s in the song, and that I can’t quite figure it out just makes it all the more compelling to me. I don’t know why he’s got this melancholy and nostalgia, but I am definitely acquainted with this emotion.

Buy it from Bandcamp.