Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

This is the sixth in my series of 1980s survey mixes, which are moving backwards in time from 1989 to the start of the decade. These compilations are designed to give more context to the music of the ‘80s, and give a sense of how various niches and trends overlapped in this cultural moment.

1984 is a pretty huge year for music, with a lot of major releases that changed the course of pop, rock, and rap history. It’s also a transitional year that bridges the gap between the more artsy new wave of the early ’80s and the sort of schlock pop that ends up dominating the next few years. As with 1985 and 1986, there’s a major aesthetic divide between mainstream and underground aesthetics, to the point that it’s surprising to realize that, say, Minor Threat was happening at the same time as Foreigner and REO Speedwagon. But that’s kinda the point of these surveys, right?

Thanks to Paul Cox and Chris Conroy for their help in compiling this survey. All of the previous 1980s surveys are still available: 1989, 1988, 1987, 1986, 1985. The 1983 survey should be ready at the end of April.

DOWNLOAD DISC 1

Prince and the Revolution “When Doves Cry” / Madonna “Material Girl” / Pointer Sisters “Jump (For My Love)” / Van Halen “Jump” / Wham! “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” / Huey Lewis and the News “If This Is It” / Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band “Dancing in the Dark” / Kenny Loggins “Footloose” / Billy Ocean “Carribean Queen” / Chaka Khan “I Feel For You” / Tina Turner “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” / Bananarama “Cruel Summer” / Deniece Williams “Let’s Hear It For The Boy” / New Edition “Cool It Now” / Cristina “What’s A Girl To Do?” / Sheena Easton “Strut” / ZZ Top “Legs” / Don Henley “All She Wants To Do Is Dance” / Dan Hartman “I Can Dream About You” / Cyndi Lauper “Time After Time” / Pat Benetar “We Belong”

DOWNLOAD DISC 2

U2 “Pride (In the Name of Love)” / The Smiths “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” / The Replacements “I Will Dare” / Game Theory “Shark Pretty” / R.E.M. “So. Central Rain” / Echo and the Bunnymen “The Killing Moon” / Billy Idol “Eyes Without A Face” / Thompson Twins “Hold Me Now” / Wang Chung “Dance Hall Days” / The Go-Go’s “Head Over Heels” / The Cars “You Might Think” / Michael Jackson “Thriller” / Metallica “Creeping Death” / Killing Joke “Eighties” / Paul Oakley and Giorgio Moroder “Together in Electric Dreams” / Nena “99 Luftballons” / Aztec Camera “Still On Fire” / Shannon “Let the Music Play” / Queen “Radio Ga Ga” / Steve Perry “Oh Sherrie” / Phil Collins “Against All Odds”

DOWNLOAD DISC 3

Frankie Goes to Hollywood “Relax” / INXS “Original Sin” / Run-D.M.C. “It’s Like That” / Six Sed Red “Beat ‘em Right” / Eurythmics “Sex Crime (1984)” / Art of Noise “Close (To the Edit)” / Bronski Beat “Smalltown Boy” / T-La Rock featuring Jazzy Jay “It’s Yours” / Whodini “Freaks Come Out At Night” / Egyptian Lover “I Cry (Night After Night)” / Depeche Mode “People Are People” / The Human League “The Lebanon” / Sonic Youth “Brother James” / The Minutemen “Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing” / Minor Threat “Straight Edge” / G.G. Allin “Drink, Fight, and Fuck” / Frightwig “My Crotch Does Not Say Go” / Yellowman “Nobody Move Nobody Get Hurt” / Stevie Wonder “I Just Called to Say I Love You” / King Crimson “Three of a Perfect Pair” / The Pretenders “Thin Line Between Love and Hate” / Leonard Cohen “Hallelujah”

DOWNLOAD DISC 4

Duran Duran “The Reflex” / Phillip Bailey & Phil Collins “Easy Lover” / Rod Stewart “Some Guys Have All the Luck” / The Fall “C.R.E.E.P.” / New Order “Thieves Like Us” / Man Parrish “Boogie Down Bronx” / Doug E Fresh “The Original Human Beat Box” / Davy DMX “One for the Treble” / Jah Screechy “Walk and Skank” / Special AKA “Free Nelson Mandela” / Konk “Your Life” / Grandmaster Flash, The Furious Five & Grandmaster Melle Mel “Step Off” / Herbie Hancock “Mega-Mix” / Missing Brazillians “Gentle Killers” / Skinny Puppy “Glass Houses” / Laurie Anderson “Sharkey’s Day” / Talking Heads “Burning Down the House (Stop Making Sense live version)”

DOWNLOAD DISC 5

Glenn Frey “The Heat Is On” / Hank Williams Jr. “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” / Dolly Parton “Tennessee Homesick Blues” / Los Lobos “A Matter of Time” / Miracle Legion “The Backyard” / The Dream Syndicate “The Medicine Show” / The Del Fuegos “Longest Day” / The Nails “88 Lines About 44 Women” / Talk Talk “It’s My Life” / The Psychedelic Furs “The Ghost in You” / Elton John “Sad Songs (Say So Much)” / Spandeau Ballet “Only When You Leave” / Chicago “Hard Habit to Break” / Paul McCartney “No More Lonely Nights” / Night Ranger “Sister Christian” / The Jacksons featuring Mick Jagger “State of Shock” / The Jesus and Mary Chain “Upside Down” / Malcolm McLaren “Madam Butterfly” / Madness “Michael Caine” / Lee Greenwood “God Bless the U.S.A.” / Felt “The Stagnant Pool”

DOWNLOAD DISC 6

Hüsker Dü “Something I Learned Today” / The Gun Club “Moonlight Model” / The Bangles “Going Down to Liverpool” / Barrington Levy “Under Me Sensi” / Sade “Your Love Is King” / George Michael “Careless Whisper” / Lindsey Buckingham “Go Insane” / Let’s Active “Blue Line” / Cocteau Twins “Lorelei” / The Cure “The Caterpillar” / Linton Kwesi Johnson “Making History” / LL Cool J “I Need A Beat” / The Fat Boys “Can You Feel It?” / Ray Parker Jr. “Ghostbusters” / Daryl Hall & John Oates “Out of Touch” / Rush “Distant Early Warning” / Black Flag “Can’t Decide” / Comsat Angels “Day One” / Meat Puppets “Plateau” / Yngwie Malmsteen “Black Star” / Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds “From Her to Eternity”

DOWNLOAD DISC 7

Corey Hart “Sunglasses At Night” / Twisted Sister “We’re Not Gonna Take It” / David Bowie “Blue Jean” / Billy Joel “The Longest Time” / Wynton Marsalis “Lazy Afternoon” / Miles Davis “Code M.D.” / Jandek “Ha Ha” / Siouxsie and the Banshees “Swimming Horses” / Laura Branigan “Self-Control” / Sheila E. “The Glamorous Life” / Krootchey “Qu’Est-Ce Qu’Il A (D’Plus Que Moi Ce Négro Là?)” / JYL “Positions” / Billy Squire “Rock Me Tonight” / Rockwell “Somebody’s Watching Me” / Janet Jackson “Don’t Stand Another Chance” / Captain Rock “Cosmic Blast” / Dhuo “Walkin’” / Marillion “Assassing” / XTC “All You Pretty Girls” / Midnight Oil “When the Generals Talk” / Ultravox “Dancing with Tears in My Eyes” / The Honeydrippers “Sea of Love”

DOWNLOAD DISC 8

Band Aid “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” / John Waite “Missing You” / Howard Jones “New Song” / REO Speedwagon “I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” / The Go-Betweens “Bachelor Kisses” / Cabaret Voltaire “Blue Heat” / Alphaville “Big In Japan” / Anne Murray “Just Another Woman In Love” / Alabama “Roll On (Eighteen Wheeler)” / Bryan Adams “Heaven” / Spinal Tap “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight” / Split Enz “I Walk Away” / Lloyd Cole and the Comotions “Rattlesnakes” / Newcleus “Jam On It” / Broken Glass “Style of the Street” / Blancmange “Don’t Tell Me” / The Stranglers “No Mercy” / UB40 “Cherry Oh Baby” / The Pogues “Dark Streets of London” / The Alarm “Sixty Eight Guns” / X “Wild Thing” / Foreigner “I Want To Know What Love Is”

The Range “Superimpose”

James Hinton pulled all the vocals on The Range’s new album Potential from videos of amateur performers on YouTube. It’s a great conceptual hook, and certainly gives a writer plenty of room to riff on, like, technology maaaan and we’re all connected all the time now and social mediiiiiiaaaa and what it’s DOING TO US ALLLLLLLLL. But I do not care about any of that. The most interesting thing about Potential is Hinton’s craft in building these scraps of audio into fully realized pop songs. “Superimpose” is particularly beautiful, with this earnest R&B vocal echoing in the space between clicking beats and looping piano notes. It doesn’t feel like the result of a high concept art project. The vocal is all raw emotion and Hinton just frames it.

In a way, this is like the reverse of Disclosure’s second album, in which all the collaborations seem mandated by corporate synergy. It’s also a record that feels very sociable, like two young guys eager to interact with all these singers. On the other hand, Potential sounds very much like something made in solitude, and the vocal parts always retain a lo-fi quality that reminds us that it’s all just pulled from a video. He’s using these strangers as emotional proxies in the songs, but that’s what we’re always doing as listeners, right?

Buy it from Amazon.

Jessy Lanza “It Means I Love You”

There’s only three major elements to this arrangement – drum machine, keyboard, vocal – and while they’re all in sync, they vary quite a bit in urgency. Jessy Lanza’s vocal part is the most relaxed thing in the mix, with her sounding light and conversational, and only partly tethered to the tempo. The beat is considerably more busy and intense, and it’s the main structural element of the song in the way the guitar would provide the primary structure in a standard rock song. The keyboard parts bridge the gap between the two, roughly keeping with the tempo while complementing the loose, slightly detached vibe of the vocal. I like the way this all comes together in the context of Lanza’s lyrics – she’s singing about the earliest stages falling in love and while her tone is casual and playful, the percussion implies a nervous energy that’s driving the feeling but is tactfully being kept under the surface.

Buy it from Amazon.

Basia Bulat “Long Goodbye”

“Long Goodbye” is a song about coming out of a relationship that you know wasn’t very good and still being angry about how it ended. How could they be so careless with your heart? How could they string you along for so long? How did you fall for any of it? You blame yourself for being blinded by love, and maybe that’s it. Basia Bulat sings this song with a steely, bitter tone, and the words are rather cutting. But as much as the lyrics are a string of recriminations ostensibly directed towards the ex, it’s clear that this isn’t for them at all. This isn’t for their ears; it’s all directed inward. It’s the story you need to tell yourself over and over so a narrative sticks, and you can write off a bit of the past and move on.

Buy it from Amazon.

A Giant Dog “Sex & Drugs”

I wonder if the hook to this song, in which the singer shouts “I can’t even remember being young!,” would’ve seemed defiant to me if I’d heard it a decade or so ago. Maybe it would’ve hit me as a cool line, but I don’t think it would’ve resonated as much. It feels genuinely rebellious to hear a rock band play a very fast and loud song about how conflating rock music with youth is total bullshit, and the mythology built around living fast and dying young is empty and dumb. “Sex & Drugs,” which is followed by an equally great up-tempo number called “& Rock & Roll,” is an earnest celebration of the fun side of rock, and I think for this band, a way of reclaiming it from everything in culture that’s made it seem tired and clichéd.

Buy it from Amazon.

Kendrick Lamar “Untitled 06 (06.30.2014)”

I love the way Kendrick writes about being infatuated with women. He always seems so consumed by his fascination, like he wants to learn everything about them and take in every last detail, as if there was a way for him to crack the code of what makes them so beautiful and compelling. As smooth, clever, and laid back as Kendrick gets, he still sounds a bit flustered thinking of this woman, and he seems so eager to impress her. He’s putting her on a pedestal in some ways, but at the same time, this song is mainly a meditation on imperfection, and how closely someone’s strengths are connected to their flaws. The really sweet sentiment here isn’t so much the “you’re beautiful exactly as you are” thing, but more that he sees this woman as an equal, and is drawn to her because they both are a bit out of step with the rest of the world. It makes some sense of the intensity of his crush – he’s a guy who can have his pick of available women, but he’s only fixating on the one who’s attuned to the same odd frequency he’s on.

Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge’s track is gorgeous, and could stand on its own quite well as an instrumental with that lovely, lyrical flute part becoming the most expressive element of the arrangement. There’s a light, slick feeling to the track, and it suits the infatuated tone – in this context, Kendrick sounds flirty and cool, and the words flow like they’re carried on a cool breeze. Cee-Lo’s vocal is great too, rooting the track firmly in mid 20th century R&B without making it feel overly retro.

Buy it from Amazon.

Beach House @ Webster Hall 3/15/2016
Beyond Love / Walk in the Park / PPP / The Hours / Silver Soul / Space Song / 10 Mile Stereo / One Thing / Wishes / Rough Song / Master of None / Bluebird / Take Care / Elegy to the Void / Myth // Sparks

Beach House “Space Song”

I spent a lot of this show focused on Alex Scally’s guitar playing and wishing I could get a better view of what exactly he’s doing with the instrument. His style is so distinct but also oddly understated – for one thing, I think most people think of the keyboard drones as the most notable thing about Beach House’s sound, despite his guitar being the actual focus of their compositions. But then, a lot of what makes their songs work is this sort of emotional equilibrium between Scally’s parts and Victoria Legrand’s vocals. They usually take turns playing the emotive or meditative parts, so there’s this sustained soul-searching quality to their music. Legrand’s voice grounds the music, but it’s Scally’s guitar that gives the tunes drama and grace, and a low key romanticism that few of their immediate peers can match.

Buy it from Amazon.

TV Girl “(Do The) Act Like You Never Met Me”

I guess it was about time that sad boy indie dance music came back into style, right? TV Girl is a guy named Brad Petering who making tracks that would’ve sounded very suave and urbane back in the late ‘90s, and singing like Ben Gibbard’s lovelorn little brother about the sort of hopeless, haphazard relationships people typically have in their early 20s. “(Do the) Act Like You’ve Never Met Me” is a sad sack tune about the frustration of having to pretend like you’ve never been intimate with someone and acting like total strangers, even though part of your brain is screaming “THIS IS ALL A LIE! DON’T YOU REMEMBER???” This could easily be awful “nice guy” stuff, but Petering has a sense of humor about it – he doesn’t undermine his own emotions, but does put them in proper perspective with a nod and a wink.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Salami Rose Joe Louis “I Miss You So”

Everything about this is strange in the best way. The band name is totally confounding – like, are those the names of the members? Is one of them called “Salami”? Is Salami Rose Joe Louis actually one woman? Why would a woman call herself that, if she’s indeed a solo artist? Who can say!

“I Miss You So,” like the other tracks available in advance of the full record coming out in a couple weeks, is zonked-out low-key funk, and at times sounds like a record that’s been slightly warped by the sunlight. The singer shifts between breathy girlish whispers and restrained soul vocals, like some kind of severely stoned jazz singer child. The music reminds me a bit of the sort of stylish vaguely R&B-ish, trip-hop-ish stuff that was big in upscale bars and shops circa the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, but a lot more psychedelic and hazy. A lot of the time it sounds like an extremely drowsy funk/R&B band, and it totally works. This song sounds very romantic and intimate, like something being whispered in bed in the middle of the night.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

The Orielles “Jobin”

This is a pretty simple garage rock song, but it has the presence of something a lot more grand and ornate. A lot of that is in the main lead guitar part, which cuts through the song with the grace of a gentle folk tune while the drums bash out a simple beat that echoes like something a lot more epic. “Jobin” is just over two minutes long, but The Orielles do a lot with very little in that time, all at the service of a lead vocal that gets across some very critical words with just the right balance of seriousness and sass.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Quilt “Hissing My Plea”

I wasn’t surprised when I read a thing in which the singer of this band explained that “Hissing My Plea” was built out of bits of other abandoned songs. Not in the sense that the song is fragmented or doesn’t hang together well, but in that there’s several strong melodies and grooves in this, and it sounds very carefully crafted. I love the way they contrast this casual, stoner-ish bass groove with a very regal string arrangement, and the way Anna Fox Rochinski sounds so poised as she sings. There’s a delicate quality to her voice, but also this very grounded confidence in her phrasing, particularly as she expresses frustration and desperation. She makes the darkest feelings seem sorta serene.

Buy it from Amazon.

Animal Collective “Vertical”

There’s very little ego in Animal Collective. When they sing about personal relationships, it’s always in this gentle, supportive way, and appreciative of small moments with people they care about. When they sing about the world around them, it’s with a bit of awe or bemusement. That comes through in the sound of the music too, as they favor these sort of upbeat melodies that signal amiable generosity, or stoned introversion. “Vertical” is a great example of this, as the harmonies and syncopation are just odd enough that a rather straightforward melodic theme feels scattered and swirled. I love the effect this has on the way you hear the lyrics – these snippets of images and stray thoughts are evocative, but are scrambled enough that it’s less about a statement, and more about a sensation of feeling like everything’s spinning around you.

Buy it from Amazon.

Lucy Dacus “Direct Address”

Lucy Dacus keeps singing “I don’t believe in love at first sight” in this song, but every other line suggests otherwise, as she describes feeling totally paralyzed with lust for these men she sees in passing. Now, of course, that’s not real love, per se. But it is exactly what “love at first sight is;” the feeling of sudden intense infatuation with someone you see and feel very strongly that you need. “Direct Address” describes this feeling so well, examining the odd dynamic of filling in as many details about a person as you can from inference, and never acting on the attraction but holding on to the memory for years because the feeling was more eventful than most actual events. Dacus’ performance is lodged somewhere between frustrated irritation and coy flirtation, and the pace of the song feels impatient and restless. She sounds like she’s trying to shake herself out of a bad habit, but in the end when she recalls a man she saw in an audience years ago, the details are rendered with so much affection that she makes a good case for these moments being actually quite meaningful and beautiful.

Buy it from Amazon.

Esperanza Spalding “Unconditional Love”

The main melody of “Unconditional Love” is so gorgeous and graceful that it’s hard to imagine that it was actually written, and didn’t just always exist somehow. Esperanza Spalding’s vocal is like this very elegant curved line that gently curls up to lovely high notes at the top of her range. She leaves a lot of negative space in the arrangement to keep that sound from getting too heavy and rich – the main chord progression is offset slightly, and the percussion seems to trace around the bass notes rather than click into a steady groove. The song sounds beautiful and confident but slightly off-balance. This fits the tone of the lyrics rather well, as Spalding is singing about redefining the traditional narrative of love to be more progressive and less restrictive. She’s absolutely certain about what she wants and has a very clear vision of an ideal situation, but it’s all sort of theoretical. Any bit of distance and doubt in the sound of this song is just the gap between the idea and reality, and the rest is a dare: Let’s do this, what do we have to be afraid of?

Buy it from Amazon.

This is the fifth in my series of 1980s survey mixes, which are moving backwards in time from 1989 to the start of the decade. These compilations are designed to give more context to the music of the ‘80s, and give a sense of how various niches and trends overlapped in this cultural moment.

We are now in the weird, dark, ultra-Reagan/Thatcher center of the 1980s. This year lends itself to the survey concept pretty well, because if you only focused on representing 1985 in hits, you’d get this rather stifling and cheesy mix of pop and rock songs, and if you only focused on the cool music – the punk, the rap, the indie, the early techno – you wouldn’t get a crucial sense of opposition. People talk about the ‘80s in terms of “monoculture,” and lament that we can’t have that anymore, but I don’t think that’s true right now. We absolutely have monocultural things now; it’s the thriving oppositional subcultures that have faded away.

Please note that the majority of disc 5 in this set covers the “Roxanne Wars,” a key moment in early rap history. It was basically a meme.

Thanks to Rob Sheffield and Paul Cox for their help in compiling this survey. All of the previous surveys are still available – 1989, 1988, 1987, 1986. The 1984 survey should be ready at the end of March.

DOWNLOAD DISC 1

R.E.M. “Feeling Gravity’s Pull” / The Smiths “How Soon Is Now?” / Tears for Fears “Head Over Heels” / Level 42 “Something About You” / Til Tuesday “Voices Carry” / Prince “Pop Life” / Madonna “Crazy for You” / The Cure “Close to Me” / Whitney Houston “How Will I Know” / Scritti Politti “Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)” / Aretha Franklin “Freeway of Love” / DeBarge “Rhythm of the Night” / Sade “Smooth Operator” / Sheila E “A Love Bizarre” / Phil Collins “Sussudio” / Wham! “I’m Your Man” / U2 “Bad” (Live)

DOWNLOAD DISC 2

Simple Minds “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” / A-Ha “Take On Me” / Huey Lewis and the News “The Power of Love” / Hüsker Dü “Celebrated Summer” / Minor Threat “Good Guys (Don’t Wear White)” / David Lee Roth “Just A Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody” / Run-D.M.C. “King of Rock” / Schoolly D “P.S.K. What Does It Mean?” / Tina Turner “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)” / Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers “Don’t Come Around Here No More” / Paul Young “Every Time You Go Away” / The Commodores “Nightshift” / Village People “Sex Over the Phone” / Klymaxx “I Miss You” / Wayne Smith “Under Me Sleng Teng” / Don Cherry “I Walk” / Yello “Oh Yeah” / Jellybean featuring Madonna “Sidewalk Talk” / Grace Jones “Slave to the Rhythm” / Siouxsie and the Banshees “Overground”

DOWNLOAD DISC 3

INXS “What You Need” / Talking Heads “And She Was” / New Order “Love Vigilantes” / Prefab Sprout “Faron Young” / Camper Van Beethoven “Take the Skinheads Bowling” / Volcano Suns “Jak” / Game Theory “Curse of the Frontier Land” / The Mary Jane Girls “In My House” / Sheena Easton “Sugar Walls” / Book of Love “Boy” / Dead or Alive “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” / World Class Wreckin’ Cru “World class” / Chicago Bears “Super Bowl Shuffle” / Marshall Jefferson “Move Your Body” / Ready for the World “Oh Sheila” / Tenor Saw “Ring the Alarm” / Kurtis Blow “If I Ruled the World” / Morris Day and the Time “Jungle Love” / Faith No More “We Care A Lot” / The Hooters “And We Danced” / The Verlaines “Lying In State” / Lone Justice “Sweet Sweet Baby (I’m Falling)” / Mötley Crüe “Home Sweet Home”

DOWNLOAD DISC 4

The Jesus and Mary Chain “Just Like Honey” / The Fall “Cruiser’s Creek” / The Minutemen “Tour-Spiel” / Black Flag “Annihilate This Week” / Megadeth “Killing Is My Business…and Business is Good” / Big Black “Racer X” / 10,000 Maniacs “Scorpio Rising” / The Replacements “Swingin’ Party” / Phranc “Amazons” / Ronnie Milsap “She Keeps the Home Fires Burning” / Professor Longhair “Mardi Gras in New Orleans” / John Cougar Mellencamp “Small Town” / Reba McEntire “How Blue” / Suzanne Vega “Marlene on the Wall” / Dolly Parton featuring Kenny Rogers “Real Love” / The Blasters “Dark Night” / Artists United Against Apartheid “Sun City” / Duran Duran “A View to A Kill” / Big Audio Dynamite “The Bottom Line” / Felt “Primitive Painters” / Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds “Tupelo” / Simply Red “Holding Back the Years”

DOWNLOAD DISC 5

U.T.F.O. “Roxanne, Roxanne” / Roxanne Shanté “Roxanne’s Revenge” / The Real Roxanne “The Real Roxanne” / Sparky D “Sparky’s Turn (Roxanne You’re Through)” / Dr. Freshh “Roxanne’s Doctor – The Real Man” / Doctor Rocx and Co. “Do the Roxanne (Dance)” / Gigolo Tony and Lacey Lace “The Parents of Roxanne” / Crush Groove “Yo My Little Sister (Roxanne’s Brothers” / Ralph Rolle “Roxanne’s A Man” / The East Coast Crew “The Final Word No More Roxanne (Please)” / Mantronix “Needle to the Groove” / Marley Marl featuring MC Shan “Marley Marl Scratch” / Word of Mouth featuring DJ Cheese “King Kut” / Too Short “Girl” / Strafe “Set It Off” / Miles Davis “Human Nature”

DOWNLOAD DISC 6

Kate Bush “Running Up That Hill” / Eurythmics “Would I Lie to You?” / Cameo “Attack Me With Your Love” / Stevie Wonder “Part Time Lover” / LL Cool J “I Can’t Live Without My Radio” / Alexander Robotnik “Problems D’Amour” / Talk Talk “Life’s What You Make It” / Depeche Mode “Shake the Disease” / Sonic Youth “Death Valley ’69” / Shriekback “Nemesis” / Circle Jerks “American Heavy Metal Weekend” / Bruce Springsteen “Glory Days” / Jimmy Barnes “Working Class Man” / The Judds “Girls Night Out” / Meat Puppets “Away” / Dead Milkmen “Bitchin’ Camaro” / Rosanne Cash “I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me” / Tom Waits “Jockey Full of Bourbon” / Jason and the Scorchers “Last Time Around” / The Cult “She Sells Sanctuary” / Godley & Creme “Cry”

DOWNLOAD DISC 7

USA for Africa “We Are the World” / Starship “We Built This City” / Katrina and the Waves “I’m Walking On Sunshine” / Mick Jagger & David Bowie “Dancing in the Streets” / Eddie Murphy “Party All the Time” / John Parr “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)” / Bryan Adams “Summer of ’69” / John Fogerty “Centerfield” / Fetchin’ Bones “A Fable” / Robyn Hitchcock “The Man with the Lightbulb Head” / Einsturzende Neubauten “Yu-Gung” / Model 500 “No UFO’s” / Lola “Wax the Van” / Nile Rodgers “State Your Mind” / Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam & Full Force “I Wonder If I Take You Home” / JM Silk “Music is the Key” / ABC “Be Near Me” / Teena Marie “Lovergirl” / Double “The Captain of Her Heart”

DOWNLOAD DISC 8

Dire Straits “Money for Nothing” / Mr. Mister “Broken Wings” / Boogie Boys “A Fly Girl” / Newcleus “I Wanna Be A B-Boy” / Jan Hammer “Crockett’s Theme” / Tangerine Dream “Love On A Real Train (Risky Business)” / Allison Moyet “Lover Resurrection” / The Fat Boys “Fat Boys Are Back” / Barrington Levy “Here I Come” / Alabama “Can’t Keep A Good Man Down” / The Chills “Kaleidoscope World” / Fishbone “Party at Ground Zero” / Foetus “Pigswill” / Shannon “Don’t You Wanna Get Away” / The Style Council “Walls Come Tumbling Down” / Marillion “Kayleigh” / Bryan Ferry “Slave to Love” / Corey Hart “Never Surrender” / Kenny Rogers “Crazy”

Lou E “What Do You Do It For?”

A lot of indie acts think they know how to write a jangly, melodic pop tune like this, but focus too much on the jangle and only give you the most basic effort with the melody. Not so with Lou E! There’s a richness to the vocal melody and bass line in “What Do You Do It For?” that could pass as vintage British Invasion – maybe not Lennon/McCartney level, but certainly on par with your better Hollies and Kinks songs. There’s never too much going on at any point in this song, but every moment has some variation on a melodic theme that’s just, well…very pleasing. Everything in this track is aiming for maximum pleasantness, and it achieves that goal with style and grace. Frankly, if this guy is going to be this good, he ought to consider a better name than “Lou E.”

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Wild Nothing “Reichpop”

I love the way the mallet instrument being played in this song – marimba, I think? – immediately creates this feeling that you’ve entered some strange and heavily atmospheric place. The rest of the instruments seem to react against that sound and its hypnotizing repetitive beat – the drums fill in the rhythm, and the guitar and keyboard parts kinda bounce off it, like there’s some implied force field. The vocal melody is lovely, and makes great use of Jack Tatum’s wispy, airy voice. There are other Wild Nothing songs where his voice can seem a bit too nondescript, but here it clicks into place rather nicely and fills out a tonal range rather than blending into a haze of treble.

Buy it from Amazon.

Milk “‘No Evil’ Oil”

I love the way Milk songs can have this lazy, laid back and spacious feeling to them while also being weirdly overstuffed with sound. There’s bit of guitar and piano overdubbed all over this track like clothes and papers cluttering the floor of a messy room, but it never quite gets in the way of the main vocal melody and guitar hook. All these extra sounds are fairly subtle in the mix, and come together to make this otherwise straight forward indie rock ballad feel off-balance and disorienting. It sounds kinda like walking around drunk in broad daylight, but in “pleasantly stumbling around” way and not a “about to puke or do something embarrassing” way.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Eleanor Friedberger “Because I Asked You”

“Because I Asked You” has a very loose, casual, and friendly tone, which makes sense for a song in which Eleanor Friedberger is basically listing off a bunch of things that her boyfriend does at her request. She’s not asking for any major sacrifices or significant personality changes, and some of it is kinda silly. There’s a bit of tension, but not much – it’s really just about an adult person knowing they can ask for things, and that there’s a give and take in healthy relationships. It’s pretty easy to go through life accommodating other people without ever realizing that you can ask for things too without seeming needy or demanding. A lot of the time it’s just kinda chill, like in this song.

Buy it from Amazon.

Lake Street Dive “I Don’t Care About You”

It’s funny how once particular retro sounds become popular enough, they end up belonging to multiple eras. A few years ago a soul-rock tune like this would’ve seemed like an outlier, but with the massive success of an act like Alabama Shakes, it’s now just a good example of what popular rock music sounds like right now. Not complaining, though! This is a very well-made song from top to bottom, and Rachael Price’s vocals are terrific in conveying a feeling of wounded pride as well as putting on a big theatrical show. This is the type of band that trades on people being like “wow, but the pipes on that singer!,” and Price certainly delivers on that.

Buy it from Amazon.