Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

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.

Tricky “Diving Away”

One of the most distinctive qualities of Tricky’s music is his tendency to have his raspy, muttering vocals shadow a melody sung by a conventionally good singer. In the early days of his career this typically highlighted the ever-shifting dynamic between himself and his singer and real-life partner Martina Topley-Bird – the power play between the singer and the svengali; the older man and the younger woman; the dominant and the submissive. In other cases, like this loose adaptation of an old Porno for Pyros song, it’s more like creating a beautiful proxy for himself. This track makes me think of all the times I’ve ever fantasized about being able to shape-shift into a traditionally attractive body, and what I’d do with that privilege even if I had it for just a little while. I think even in a fantasy scenario like that, it’d be hard to not just be myself with all the hangups and fears I’ve built up from a life of not having that form. This track is like that – as lovely as the voice up front is, the seams are showing. It’s a broken mask.

Buy it from Amazon.

Flume featuring Vince Staples and Kučka “Smoke and Retribution”

Flume’s arrangement for “Smoke and Retribution” is jagged and unstable, with the beat and pretty much everything else in it reacting against a harsh keyboard part that sputters and bleeps like a malfunctioning alarm. It may be the freshest, most original rap track that I’ve heard in a few years, and the kind of thing that would only come from a hip-hop outsider like Flume. Vince Staples’ verses ground the song, and his emotional performance adds to the extreme dynamic of the track. The contrast gives the impression of someone trying to stay focused in a chaotic world, and the only relaxed moments come when the song shifts into sung parts by Kučka, which quickly shift from introspective to miserably fatalistic.

Buy it from Amazon.

Massive Attack featuring Tricky “Take It There”

It was sad to read a bunch of aggregated news items about this song that didn’t even mention why it’d be significant that Tricky would be on this track. I suppose that even though so much popular and cool music today owes a massive debt to the work of Bristol acts like Massive Attack, Tricky, and Portishead, it’s all been more or less written out of the story, and what amounts to a Blue Lines/Protection reunion after more than 20 years is somehow not particularly noteworthy. Deeeep siiiiiigh! I don’t think any topic triggers a “get off my lawn” anger in me more than everyone under 30 having virtually no awareness of Tricky.

“Take It There” doesn’t sound like a reunion. There’s so much overlap in Tricky and Massive Attack’s aesthetics that they sound like they’re lurking around in the space they’ve always been. If anything, that space has become darker and more claustrophobic with time, and more like where Tricky was in the late ‘90s. The low piano chords in this track sound oppressively heavy, like a weight bearing down on the rest of the music that forces the beat to drag. Tricky and 3D rap in the odd way they do – a bit hazy on the rhyming, but just enough on beat to qualify. Their rasps are even deeper than ever, as though whatever darkness they had growing in them in the ‘90s has metastasized. There’s an ascending guitar part in the second half of the track that shakes off some of the weight, but it never stops feeling hopeless.

Buy it from Amazon.

Sunflower Bean “Come On”

There are certain types of rock songs that are clearly written to be played live, in which all the dynamic shifts are there to specifically jolt an audience. These kind of songs are most typically found on debut records, which are typically written and workshopped extensively in concert before being recorded, and so it’s not a big surprise that a lot of bands lean on that material for the rest of their careers. (Look at the setlist for most any reunion tour – most acts strongly favor playing the songs from their early years, which they also probably have better memories about, and whatever the last record was before the breakup is either ignored or barely touched.) “Come On” is definitely this sort of song, and is basically a bunch of time-tested moves artfully strung together into a piece of music that seems to just glide by you like a speeding car. The best bit is the rather Peter Buck-ish arpeggio played on the chorus, which contrasts with a chunkier guitar riff and the “right now” vocal hook.

Buy it from Amazon.

Rihanna “Love on the Brain”

Rihanna’s new album has no bangers, an awkward flow, few obvious hits, a spectacularly botched release via Tidal, and a total absence of Kanye West despite him being attached as the record’s “executive producer” up until very recently. But it does have a couple of the best ballads of Rihanna’s career. That’s not the most difficult bar to clear – ballads have never been her strong suit as a pop star – but I’d rate “Love on the Brain” and “Higher” near the top of her catalog in terms of songwriting quality and vocal performance. She pushes herself a bit further on “Higher,” but “Love on the Brain” is the true revelation, with her getting across just the right mix of vulnerability and toughness on an old school soul track. She reminds me of Millie Jackson on these tracks, particularly in how she leans into the low grit of her vocal range, and how a line like “it beats me black and blue but it fucks me so good” echoes Jackson’s incredible 1973 hit “It Hurts So Good.”

Buy it from iTunes.

Bullion “Never Is the Change”

I’ve missed a couple stages of Bullion’s development as a songwriter and producer, but I’m happy to catch up with where he is now on this single. “Never Is the Change” is rather like Hot Chip at their best, at least in terms of being this very groovy dance track with vocals that are disarmingly lucid. It’s that thing of addressing emotional topics in this calm, thoughtful way, and while it can seem a bit aloof, it’s not indulging the sort of “I’m a robot-man making electronic music bleep bleep” routine that somehow never dies. (That shtick always strikes me as being influenced by Kraftwerk in only the most painfully literal ways.) The most interesting thing to me about this song is when he gets away from the microphone and plays this extended keyboard solo that’s very expressive, but also slightly awkward in an endearing way. The vocal and lyric sets up the idea, but I think the solo is where he really expands on it and gets across a deeper feeling.

Buy it from Amazon.

Space Captain “Two”

There’s a lightness and elegance to this song that’s at odds with its lyrical sentiment, which from the start is telling you to “keep your crippling fear, let nobody come near you.” This could be cheap irony, but it comes out sounding rather sincere, making it more like a lullaby for the severely anxious than a bleak joke. The trajectory of the song suggests something a lot deeper, too – it starts out in this weightless, jazzy zone before drifting into cosmic psychedelia, and climaxes with this spiky riff that brings out all the nervous energy and bad vibes that up to that point in the track had only been mentioned in the lyrics.

Buy it from Amazon.

Ty Segall “Emotional Mugger/Leopard Priestess”

This song is like a sculpture carved out of a big block of midrange, with jagged chunks of treble jutting out in all directions. This is about as menacing as psychedelic rock before it shifts into metal – it’s still got that hard psych vibe, but it’s very much a bad trip. It may be mostly treble, but Ty Segall’s guitar and synth parts are all very distinct, and overlap and contrast in ways that emphasis their melodic and rhythmic qualities. Segall takes a few different approaches with this voice, sometimes forcing it down to below his normal range, and other times embracing the tinniness of his tenor to approximate that “I have destroyed my mind” Ozzy quality from old Black Sabbath records.

Buy it from Amazon.

Little Shalimar featuring Killer Mike, Bun B, and Cuz Lightyear “Savage Habits”

In the Pitchfork review of the Rubble Kings soundtrack, Jonah Bromwich says that this song “doesn’t quite pound in the way you might hope” for a track featuring both Killer Mike and Bun B. I think I know what Bromwich is getting at, but at the same time I’m pretty sure “Savage Habits” is a better song than the sort of generic banger one “might hope” for. Little Shalimar’s arrangement gives Killer Mike and Bun B plenty of space for some prime alpha male chest-thumping, but offsets that with a strange looped sample – I think it’s a violin? – that induces a sick, paranoid feeling. That trilling sound just kinda gnaws at you, and while it doesn’t undermine the vocal performances, it does contrast sharply in a way that subverts the toxic masculinity on display. The sung chorus retains some of the aggression but amps up the melancholy, shifting away from the intimidating style of Mike and Bun for something more obviously tragic.

Get it for free from the Adult Swim site.

This is the fourth 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.

With this set we officially enter the middle of the decade, which I believe is the part that is best remembered today, at least in terms of cultural signifiers and cheesy songs that never seem to go away. This is an exceptionally dorky crop of songs, and while a lot of it stands on its own pretty well, it can feel a bit overwhelming or even stifling all together. It’s actually pretty understandable how flagrant rockism could thrive in this era – every song that feels even a bit raw and edgy seems like a miracle in this context.

Thanks to Chris Ott, Paul Cox, and Chris Conroy for their assistance in curating this set.

If you want to go back to previous collections in these series, they’re all right here: 1987, 1988, and 1989. The 1985 survey will be ready sometime in late February or early March.

DOWNLOAD DISC 1

Peter Gabriel “Sledgehammer” / Genesis “Invisible Touch” / Paul Simon “You Can Call Me Al” / Nu Shooz “I Can’t Wait” / Prince “Kiss” / Cameo “Word Up!” / New Order “Bizarre Love Triangle” / Stacey Q “Two of Hearts” / Janet Jackson “When I Think of You” / Robert Palmer “Addicted to Love” / Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark “If You Leave” / Crowded House “Don’t Dream It’s Over” / Howard Jones “No One Is To Blame” / Madonna “Live to Tell” / Heart “These Dreams” / Cocteau Twins “Love’s Easy Tears” / The Smiths “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” / Sonic Youth “Expressway To Yr Skull”

DOWNLOAD DISC 2

Pet Shop Boys “West End Girls” / Bananarama “Venus” / Duran Duran “Notorious” / The Bangles “Manic Monday” / Wham! “I’m Your Man” / Kool and the Gang “Stone Love” / Dolly Parton “Think About Love” / The Moody Blues “Your Wildest Dreams” / Talking Heads “Wild Wild Life” / R.E.M. “Fall On Me” / Big Black “Kerosene” / Killing Joke “Adorations” / The Art of Noise “Paranoimia” / Beastie Boys “Paul Revere” / Boogie Down Productions “South Bronx” / Cyndi Lauper “True Colors” / Berlin “Take My Breath Away” / Depeche Mode “Stripped” / Arthur Russell “Let’s Go Swimming”

DOWNLOAD DISC 3

Lionel Richie “Dancing on the Ceiling” / Jermaine Stewart “We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off” / Samantha Fox “Touch Me (I Want To Feel Your Body)” / Run-D.M.C. and Aerosmith “Walk This Way” / Huey Lewis and The News “Hip to be Square” / Slayer “Angel of Death” / Metallica “Master of Puppets” / Megadeth “Peace Sells” / Peter Cetera “Glory of Love” / Whitney Houston “The Greatest Love of All” / Whodini “Funky Beat” / Schoolly D “Saturday Night” / Teena Marie “Lips to Find You” / Tina Turner “Typical Male” / Eurythmics “Missionary Man” / The Jets “Crush On You” / Zapp “Computer Love”

DOWNLOAD DISC 4

James Brown “Living In America” / Farley Jackmaster Funk “Love Can’t Turn Around” / Mantronix “Bassline” / Five Star “Can’t Wait Another Minute” / Siouxsie and the Banshees “Cities In Dust” / Human League “Human” / Wang Chung “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” / Belinda Carlisle “Mad About You” / Primal Scream “Velocity Girl” / Public Image Ltd “Rise” / Big Audio Dynamite “C’mon Every Beatbox” / Erasure “Oh L’Amour” / Alabama “She and I” / Hank Williams Jr “Mind Your Own Business” / Van Halen “Why Can’t This Be Love?” / Kenny Loggins “Danger Zone” / Eddie Money “Take Me Home Tonight” / The B-52’s “Girl From Ipanema Goes To Greenland” / Mr. Fingers “Can You Feel It?”

DOWNLOAD DISC 5

Europe “The Final Countdown” / Falco “Rock Me Amadeus” / LL Cool J “Rock the Bells” / MC Shan “The Bridge” / The Descendants “Enjoy” / Dag Nasty “Circles” / Gang Green “Alcohol” / Rites of Spring “All Through A Life” / Lee “Scratch” Perry and The Upsetters “All Things Are Possible” / Oran “Juice” Jones “The Rain” / Simply Red “Holding Back the Years” / Bruce Hornsby “The Way It Is” / The Feelies “Let’s Go” / XTC “Grass” / We’ve Got A Fuzzbox and We’re Gonna Use It “Console Me” / fIREHOSE “Chemical Wire” / Shop Assistants “I Don’t Want To Be Friends With You” / The Fall “Living Too Late” / Elvis Costello and The Attractions “I Want You” / Hüsker Dü “Hardly Getting Over It” / Randy Travis “On the Other Hand”

DOWNLOAD DISC 6

Eric B. and Rakim “Eric B. Is President” / Kool Moe Dee “Go See the Doctor” / Lovebug Starski “Say What You Wanna Say” / Biz Markie “Make the Music With Your Mouth, Biz” / Regina “Baby Love” / Mike and The Mechanics “All I Need Is A Miracle” / Mr. Mister “Kyrie” / Gene Loves Jezebel “Desire (Come and Get It)” / Iggy Pop “Real Wild Child” / The Georgia Satellites “Keep Your Hands To Yourself” / John Cougar Mellencamp “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. (A Salute to ‘60s Rock)” / Echo and the Bunnymen “Bring On the Dancing Horses” / The Go-Betweens “Spring Rain” / The Chills “Pink Frost” / This Mortal Coil “Come Here My Love” / Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds “The Carny” / Dead Or Alive “Brand New Lover” / Cutting Crew “(I Just) Died In Your Arms”

DOWNLOAD DISC 7

Volcano Suns “White Elephant” / Billy Joel “A Matter of Trust” / Murphy’s Law “Beer” / Embrace “Money” / Sly Fox “Let’s Go All the Way” / Stetsasonic “My Rhyme” / Wired “To the Beat of the Drum (On the Burn Mix)” / Robert Owens “Bring Down the Walls” / El Debarge “Who’s Johnny” / Bronski Beat “Hit That Perfect Beat” / Adonis “No Way Back” / A-Ha “The Sun Always Shines On TV” / Bon Jovi “Livin’ On A Prayer” / Chris De Burgh “Lady In Red” / Chris Isaak “Blue Hotel” / Giant Sand “Thin Line Man” / The Mekons “Hello Cruel World” / James “So Many Ways” / The Housemartins “Happy Hour” / Game Theory “Erica’s Word” / Carly Simon “Coming Around Again” / New York Mets “Get Mets-merized!” / Kronos Quartet “Purple Haze”

DOWNLOAD DISC 8

Queen “One Vision” / Steve Winwood “Higher Love” / Michael McDonald “Sweet Freedom” / The Pretenders “Don’t Get Me Wrong” / Doctor and the Medics “Spirit in the Sky” / Boston “Amanda” / The Damned “Eloise” / Sigue Sigue Sputnik “Love Missile F1-11” / Pointer Sisters “Goldmine” / Half Man Half Biscuit “All I Want for Christmas Is A Dukla-Prague Away Kit” / The Lyres “No Reason to Complain” / Cleaners from Venus “Living with Victoria Grey” / Roxanne Shante “The Def Fresh Crew” / Timex Social Club “Rumors” / Steve Earle “Guitar Town” / Cowboy Junkies “Baby Please Don’t Go” / Billy Ocean “There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)” / Dionne Warwick featuring Stevie Wonder, Elton John, and Gladys Knight “That’s What Friends Are For” / Linda Rondstadt and James Ingram “Somewhere Out There” / Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam “All Cried Out”

Teen “All About Us”

Teeny Lieberson’s sense of melody has been strong from the start, but improves with every new Teen record, to the point that we now have a song like this which could easily pass as a Girls Aloud tune. (High praise, trust me.) “All About Us” is a rather harsh break up song that dissects a man’s unawareness of his own sexist impulses, and asks him to own up to his “lack of confidence and sexuality” rather than blame it on her. I like how blunt this song is, and honestly, if you’re going to try to get through to men who’ve convinced themselves that they’re “nice guys,” you have to be this direct and question their assumption that they’re not “that type of guy.” As much as this song can sting, I don’t think Lieberson is coming a cruel place at all – it’s more about resenting having to delude oneself to deal with someone, and deciding it’s better for everyone involved to break out of delusions altogether.

Pre-order it from Amazon.

Anchorsong “Oriental Suite”

Anchorsong’s music bears a striking resemblance to that of Four Tet, at least in the sense that they’re both working within the same set of rhythmic, melodic, and textural parameters, and have similar ideas about how a song should progress. There’s a shared internal logic, and a similar way of conveying a lot of soulfulness and emotional nuance in the tiny fragments of the human voice. “Oriental Suite” is mainly focused on its instrumental melody line – I think it’s some sort of mallet instrument? – but those vocal snippets give the song its depth. It’s rarely anything more than a syllable, but it suggests a mindset somewhere between focus and distraction, like fading out from the world around you to zone out on some random thing in your line of sight.

Buy it from Amazon.