I was watching another video with some clips from the movie Snatch, and this song is the music cue after Brad Pitt’s character Mickey lays out a man twice his size. I loved it when I first saw the movie and finally tracked the tune down: it’s by the Stranglers, an early punk band, in 1982.
Additionally, I’ve got this one stuck in my head alongside it, after finally watching the eponymous movie:
A beautiful, sad, haunting track. I have my issues with Billie Elish’s voice, but this works.
I’ve had the groove from Ocean Size by Jane’s Addiction stuck in my head for several days now.
I like watching this video and remembering how weird and exciting they looked and sounded in ’88, when I showed this to some of my high school friends. This album got me out of hair metal and into a whole new world.
A man named Tony Baker played bass on three of my favorite songs from the early 80’s, in three different bands:
Apparently he played in a band with Pete Townsend’s younger brother, and got the gig to work with Pete on his first solo album.
Big Country had one big hit here in the states, and a huge part of that is the fluid bass line he lays down throughout. This song rips.
When their founding bassist and guitarist died within a week of each other, new players had to be brought in. Tony Baker sat in on this track and Back on the Chain Gang.
Apparently Jane’s Addiction is touring with the Smashing Pumpkins this year into the next, and there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that Eric Avery is back with the band; apparently they worked out their differences again, and providing everyone doesn’t turn into a dick they can continue to make music together. The bad news is that Dave Navarro has long COVID and isn’t touring with them, thus negating any reason to see them. This would have been a dream tour up until about fifteen years ago but I have no desire to see Smashing Pumpkins anymore—I’ll hang on to my memories of seeing them in their prime, thanks—but it would be cool to see JA live before they have to detune the songs another full step to account for Perry’s aging vocal cords.
“Giant Peach” by Wolf Alice has been stuck in my head for the last couple of days. They were recommended to me on the YouTubes with a different song, so I fell into their catalog and found a bunch of tracks I really like. This one has a great beat, excellent guitars, and some fantastic double-tracked vocals.
The other one that’s been on repeat in my head is “Moaning Lisa Smile”:
There are some elements to both of these tracks that remind me of shoegaze from the late 80’s, which is, I suppose, why I like them so much.
OK, Pitchfork released a “250 Best Songs of the 1990’s” list; as with many of these lists I have concerns. The top five songs are:
5. Missy Elliott: “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)”
4. Liz Phair: “Fuck and Run”
3. Aaliyah: “Are You That Somebody?”
2. Björk: “Hyperballad”
1. Mariah Carey: “Fantasy (Remix)” [ft. Ol’ Dirty Bastard]
Missy Elliot: sure. The Liz Phair track is absolutely a top five, for what it says and what it meant for women in the early 1990’s. I don’t know much about Aaliyah; the song is OK, I guess. There are better Björk tracks to choose from—”Human Behaviour” and “Army of Me”, for starters. And then there’s Mariah Carey.
In a note describing how the list was put together, Pitchfork’s editor explains their reasons:
…because our understanding of it changes the more we learn; because there is still a thrill in discovering something we didn’t know about (or quite get) before; because taste evolves and grows, enriched by the passing of time.
Their previous list, from 2010, ranked the top five as
5. Wu-Tang Clan “Protect Ya Neck”
4. Radiohead “Paranoid Android”
3. Dr. Dre [ft. Snoop Doggy Dogg] “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang”
2. Pulp “Common People”
1. Pavement “Gold Soundz”
Five bands featuring posturing males either bragging or complaining; not a woman in sight. So yeah, I support re-examining these lists, and putting them through new lenses; I just don’t think I would have put Mariah Carey/ODB at the top here. Especially as the original version of Fantasy is better anyway.
I’m playing this one on repeat not only because I love the chord progression and melody structure, but because I’m also trying to wipe Fleetwood Mac’s “Everyone” out of my head after hearing it eighty times on Sunday afternoon watching football. This is “Brushed” by Quicksand, a band that scraped the ground floor of fame in the 90’s before breaking up; I’ve mentioned them before here but they put a new album out last year that I really dig. This song builds and builds but right where you think there should be a soaring chorus to release that tension, it fades back and ends abruptly.
Here’s a quiet, gripping song called Nothing to See by a woman named Miya Folick:
This is a fantastic melody paired with some devastating lyrics, and it’s on repeat in my brain. She’s got some other really good tracks available on Spotify—Bad Thing is another standout.
Wow! The Smithereens are releasing a “lost” album from 1993, when they were between labels and had some time to record. This comes chronologically after the 1-2-3 punch of Especially For You, Green Thoughts, and 11, three albums that were on heavy rotation for me in college.
This is a song called Maria También, by a band named Khruangbin, from Houston. I heard about them a couple of years ago and use them for background grooves when I’m working on projects; I heard this tune in Austin while waiting for coffee and it’s stuck in my head ever since. This is just a monster jam.