Archives for January 2016

Certain Songs #437: The Feelies – “Crazy Rhythms”

January 31, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: Crazy Rhythms
Year: 1980

On their debut album, 1980’s Crazy Rhythms, The Feelies had it both ways: they looked like total nerds, what their preppy shirts, normal haircuts and not one but two guys wearing glasses.

But their music was weird and unpredictable: they often started with a couple of nicely strummed guitars, and usually ended up with a big ole rave-up with offbeat percussion instruments coloring the song throughout.

Certain Songs #436: Father John Misty – “I’m Writing a Novel”

January 30, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: Fear Fun
Year: 2012

Because everything he does feels like it’s coated in five layers of irony and then dipped into a vat of insincerity, it’s hard for me to get a read on Father John Misty, who has now released two albums of otherwise relatively conventional Laurel Canyon rock.

But anyone who can cover the Ryan Adams cover of Taylor Swift’s “Blank Slate” with a drop-dead Lou Reed impersonation is going get extra attention from me.

Certain Songs #435: Fatboy Slim – “The Rockafeller Skank”

January 29, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby
Year: 1998

Heh. One thing is for sure: if you have a problem with repetition, you probably can’t stand “The Rockafeller Skank,” which repeats its only — sampled, natch, cos no actual human could sing it — verse dozens, hundreds, millions of times.

Check its Google Play lyrics page to see what I mean.

That repetition meant that half of the people who loved “The Rockafeller Skank” as a novelty song; the other half loved it as a disruptive piece of art and the third half loved it as both!

Certain Songs #434: Faces – “Ooh La La”

January 28, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ooh La La
Year: 1973

It must say something about Faces that their greatest song wasn’t just the last song on their last studio album, but also wasn’t even sung by Rod Stewart or Ronnie Lane, but rather Ronnie Wood.

Apparently both Rod Stewart and Ronnie Lane tried singing lead, but their producer — the incomparable Glyn Johns — suggested Ronnie Wood give it a try, and that’s the take they went with.

Certain Songs #433: Faces – “Debris”

January 27, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: A Nod’s As Good As a Wink… to a Blind Horse
Year: 1971

I’ve been trying to figure out for decades why I don’t unreservedly love the Faces. I mean, there isn’t anything in their sound or style that isn’t completely up my alley.

And their influence on things that I do love unreservedly — like The Replacements — is well-documented.

So it must be as simple as the fact that Rod Stewart kept all of his best songs for his solo albums, and — with a couple of exceptions — Ronnie Lane was never his equal as a songwriter.

Certain Songs #432: The Everly Brothers – “Wake Up Little Susie”

January 26, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Everly Brothers
1957

Not so different than “Bye Bye Love” in a lot of respects — written by Felice and Bordeaux Bryant; opening with a super cool acoustic riff — “Wake Up Little Susie” zips right past those surface similarities almost instantly.

The timeless tale of a couple of high school students who fell asleep during a drive-in movie and now are in deep shit because of it, “Wake Up Little Susie” just drips with fear and worry from the very start.

Certain Songs #431: The Everly Brothers – “Bye Bye Love”

January 25, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Everly Brothers
Year: 1957

What a cool opening this song has: that acoustic guitar, played almost indifferently for a couple of measures, until Phil & Don Everly lead with their strength: the rough beauty of their voices singing in harmony.

The key, of course, is not just that their voices sound great together, but that they also just slightly rub each other wrong, like each one is double-dog-daring the other to slide his voice just wrong enough to fuck the whole thing up.

Certain Songs #430: Everclear – “Now That It’s Over”

January 24, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: Songs From an American Movie Vol 1
Year: 2000

While they had some decent radio songs and hit singles in the late 1990s (which I’m not sure have aged all that well), Everclear never made an album I liked start to finish outside of 2000’s Songs From an American Movie, Vol. 1.

Maybe because it was the first album to really expand from the power-trio format, so the added instrumentation finally obscured the fact that Art Alexakis’ songs tended to sound alike: circular riffs that usually didn’t threaten to break out the the circle they created.

Certain Songs #429: Eurythmics – “Would I Lie To You?”

January 23, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: Be Yourself Tonight
Year: 1985

I thought about writing about “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” but even after all these years that song still seems unknowable by mere human beings while the glam-soul-trash aesthetic of “Would I Lie To You?” is right up my alley.

And as one of the few people in the U.S. who really enjoyed Dave Stewart’s and Annie Lennox’s pre-fame band, The Tourists — I’ll forever swear by 1980’s Luminous Basement — I wasn’t surprised that once they figured out how to get her voice and look on top of the weird-but-accessible soundscapes that seemed to come naturally to Stewart, they’d become a world-wide sensation.

Certain Songs #428: The English Beat – “Save it For Later”

January 22, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: Special Beat Service
Year: 1982

Saving the best Beat song for last. And not just the best Beat song, but one of the very very very greatest songs of the 1980s, and a song that feels like a miracle every single time it comes on.

It’s so simple. It’s so complex. It’s so straightforward. It’s so transcendent. It’s pretty much everything a great pop song should be wrapped up into a single package. Riffs, harmonies, hooks, beats, words. It’s all there.