playlist

Playlist #143

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Monday on this rather chilly morning! We’re back at work for a relatively short week (though not nearly as short as last week, y’know?), and I’ve got a bunch of jumped-up raves to get you motivated to face that work week.

  1. Green Day, “Panic Song”: If this song doesn’t get you pumped up and jumping out of bed, ready to face the day, then you might wanna check your pulse because you might just be dead.
  2. Sleater-Kinney, “Turn It On”: Hey, these awesome ladies just released a new album last Friday! No, this song isn’t off that album; it’s off the seminal Dig Me Out.
  3. The Record Company, “Turn Me Loose”: This one’s a slow burner, with some excellent build-up.
  4. Old 97s, “Champagne, Illinois”: If you’re going to borrow a melody from someone, why not borrow from Bob Dylan? And why not borrow the melody from “Desolation Row,” if you’re going to borrow from Bob Dylan? And why not make the lyrics a travelogue of the Midwest?
  5. The New Pornographers, “Sing Me Spanish Techno”: Is Spanish techno well-respected in the techno community? Are there lots of people out there searching for that particular sub-genre? I just don’t know.
  6. The Pretenders, “Middle of the Road”: Chrissy Hinde rarely sounds so gnarly as she does in this song. There’s real menace here. I dig it.
  7. REM, “So. Central Rain”: Okay, so REM don’t generally go hard as a rule of thumb, and this song doesn’t, but it’s still very good.
  8. Lucero, “Downtown (Intro)” and “On My Way Downtown”: Okay, so I paired these two because “Downtown (Intro)” is, as it so clearly states, an intro to the full song “On My Way Downtown,” and I just really dig the way they feed into each other.
  9. Bob Dylan, “32-20 Blues”: It’s just Dylan and an acoustic guitar, and it still has more energy and forward momentum than most other songs you’ll hear.
  10. Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, “Friends”: Okay, so we gotta cool it down for the end of the playlist here. This is one of the best songs Ryan Adams ever wrote, on the best album he ever released.

Playlist #142 – Latter-Day Dylan

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

It’s Monday, it’s snowing, and I’ve had Covid again all weekend. Here’s a list of Dylan songs from post-Time Out Of Mind that prove the old man can still write a damn fine tune.

  1. “Workingman’s Blues #2”: From Modern Times, it sort of encapsulates a lot about latter-day Dylan stuff I really admire: the damn-near stately instrumentation, the rumination on man vs. society, and its allusions to older musical traditions and musicians.
  2. “Duquesne Whistle”: From Tempest. It opens the album with a railroad rhythm and some choice slide guitar work. Dylan’s wry sense of humor comes through on this one pretty well, too.
  3. “Goodbye Jimmy Reed”: From Dylan’s latest, Rough and Rowdy Ways. This messy blues shuffle memorializes the great Jimmy Reed in a style that wouldn’t sound out of place on Dylan’s own Highway 61 Revisited.
  4. “Shake Shake Mama”: From Together Through Life. A lot of the songs on this one were written Robert Hunter, including this particular song. It’s also a bit unusual in that it features accordion heavily, a sound that livens up a lot of Dylan’s more staid arrangements.
  5. “Tell Ol’ Bill”: From Bootleg Volume 8. As with the rest of his career, it seems that some of Dylan’s best songs end up on the cutting room floor for reasons I’ll never be able to understand. It’s a simple three-chord blues song, but damn if it isn’t compelling.
  6. “High Water (For Charley Patton)”: From “Love And Theft”, which remains to this day my favorite latter-day Dylan album. “High Water” is a, well, a high point on a record that seems composed of high points. The standup bass and banjo really carry it for me.
  7. “Early Roman Kings”: Tempest again. A slow-burn blues that proves that all men, even Bob Dylan, spend a lot of time thinking about the Roman Empire.
  8. “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”: From Shadow Kingdom. Dylan is famous for reframing, recontextualizing, and reimagining his songs, especially as his voice has gotten older and rougher. Shadow Kingdom is a live-in-the-studio type of album, where he and his backing band took a bunch of old Dylan tunes and reimagined them in their current style. It’s just about all-acoustic, very subdued, and all-around lovely.
  9. “My Wife’s Hometown”: From Together Through Life. “Hell’s my wife’s hometown,” Dylan croons wryly. It’s great and snarky and fun as hell.
  10. “Ain’t Talkin'”: From Bootleg Series Volume 8. I prefer this version to the one that ended up on Modern Times, mostly because the drums are a bit more prominent here and Dylan’s vocals feel looser and more natural. Honestly, though, either version is pretty damn solid.

Playlist #141

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Monday, folks! It’s bright and clear here in Northern Virginia today, though tomorrow promises rainstorms. In January. Because we don’t get to have snow days anymore. Anyway, have some music.

  1. Terry Allen & The Panhandle Mystery Band, “All That’s Left Is Fare-Thee-Well”: Contemporary country that doesn’t suck? It’s more likely than you’d think! At least, it is when you’re talking about Terry Allen, who’s been at it since the mid-70s. And can you dig the name of that backing band?
  2. Neil Diamond, “Holly Holy”: Neil Diamond singin’ his heart out on this one, God bless ‘im.
  3. Bob Dylan, “Born In Time”: Sometimes, latter-day Dylan gets on even my nerves. He’s gotten to a point on many of his songs (you could easily make the argument that he was there from the very beginning) of getting too repetitive with the chord structures; it’s the same phrase, repeated over and over and over for six or seven minutes. But sometimes, he throws out a gem like this one, which didn’t even merit a regular release (it’s from The Bootleg Series, Volume 8. Though, come to think of it, there were several bangers on that particular set). So most folks will never hear this one, but thank God we got the three-disc Sinatra karaoke of Triplicate.
  4. Fleetwood Mac, “Seven Wonders”: Peak 1980s Mac. Which means my wife would hate it.
  5. Moby, “New Dawn Fades”: “Moby is so edgy,” said some vegan teen in 1998.
  6. Jenny Lewis, “Carpetbagger (Featuring Elvis Costello)”: Always sing a song with Elvis Costello if you get the chance. It just sounds good.
  7. Old 97s, “Jagged”: Is this from one of their best albums? No. It’s far too poppy for my tastes, generally speaking. Is this still a damn good song that just tears a hole straight through you? Yes.
  8. Josh Ritter, “Monster Ballads”: This is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard in the past twenty years. Just guts me every time I listen to it.
  9. Miles Davis, “It Never Entered My Mind”: One of my favorite jazz songs. I don’t talk much about jazz, because (1) It’s hard to talk about jazz in general and (2) most jazz is too up its own ass for my tastes. But this song is gorgeous and mournful and melancholy in all the best ways.
  10. Rhiannon Giddens, “The Angels Laid Him Away”: This woman knows her way around an old folk tune, as this particular ode reveals to great effect.

Playlist #140

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy New Year, folks! It’s now 2024, which means…well, not a whole lot, on the blog side of things. The playlists will continue until morale improves. That said, here’s this week’s.

  1. Andrew Bird, “Auld Lang Syne”: How this went from a song sung when folks were being generally lauded to a song about the end of one year and the beginning of a new one is beyond me. Maybe someone should research that.
  2. Brian Fallon, “Forget Me Not”: I know I just featured this one a couple of weeks ago, but I really like this song and it’s basically been playing on repeat in my brain for those two weeks.
  3. Frank Turner, “The Gathering”: I always enjoy a Frank Turner rave-up, and one that features Jason Isbell? That’s just icing on the cake.
  4. The Horrible Crowes, “Mary Ann”: Maybe I just really like songs where Brian Fallon shouts someone’s name, okay?
  5. Huey Lewis & the News, “It’s All Right”: Even these guys, the whitest of white guys, know you clap on the two and the four. Get it together, white folks.
  6. Ingrid Michaelson, “Be OK”: I think we can all admit that 2023 was lousy for a whole lot of us. Here’s hoping we’ll all be okay in 2024.
  7. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Climb That Hill”: But it’s not enough to just be okay, is it? No, we want to reach the summit, achieve new heights, do great things. And we will. We just have to go out there and do it.
  8. Tom Waits, “Cold Cold Ground”: Read a thing last week that rated all of Tom Waits’ albums, and this one (Franks Wild Years, without an apostrophe because Tom Waits) was ranked mid-tier. Which is crazy to me, because any album that features this song is automatically top-tier if you ask me.
  9. Wilco, “Quiet Amplifier”: I find it hard to believe Jeff Tweedy has a quiet amplifier. I’ve seen Wilco in concert. He gets loud just like everyone else.
  10. Sting, “Brand New Day”: It is a brand new day, at the start of a brand new year. Make the best of it, folks.

Playlist #139: Boxing Day

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Tuesday! Of course I didn’t post a playlist yesterday, it was Christmas. I was eating my own weight in ravioli. But today is Boxing Day, and since I can never let a day where I can purposefully misunderstand the purpose of the day for a giggle, here’s a list of boxing-themed songs for this week’s playlist, the last of 2023!

  1. Simon & Garfunkel, “The Boxer”: You knew this was going to be the first, most obvious song on this list, right? Of course you did.
  2. Mark Knopfler, “Song For Sonny Liston”: A biographical look at the life of boxer Sonny Liston.
  3. The Gaslight Anthem, “Boxer”: I’m not really sure what this song has to do with boxing or being a boxer, but the chorus does include the line, “Remember when I knew a boxer, baby.” So there’s that.
  4. Bruce Springsteen, “The Hitter”: Bruce takes a look at an aging, worn-out fighter.
  5. The Extra Lens, “Cruiserweights”: John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats is apparently so engaged with the sport of boxing that he formed a second group, the Extra Lens, that recorded an entire album about a boxer.
  6. Survivor, “Eye of the Tiger”: It would have been very easy to just make this playlist all songs from the Rocky movies. Don’t think I didn’t think about it.
  7. Rush, “Cinderella Man”: A song about a man trying to achieve his dream against staggering odds and prog rock.
  8. Rachel Platten, “Fight Song”: Isn’t boxing just fighting with rules? I’m pretty sure it’s just fighting with rules.
  9. Ben Folds Five, “Boxing”: Apparently this song is designed to be an imagined conversation between Muhammad Ali and Howard Cossel, the sportscaster, who apparently made his name commentating on boxing matches.
  10. The Boxer Rebellion, “Spitting Fire”: The Boxer Rebellion was a fight between a small group of Chinese kung fu experts (called the Order of the Holy Fist, or “Boxers”) and the English, all about opium. It…didn’t go well for the Boxers.

Playlist #138

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy first Monday of Winter Break! We’re cozy, the cat is crazy, and I’ve got a new playlist for ya.

  1. Josiah and the Bonnevilles, “Anti-Hero (Country Version)”: It’s a Taylor Swift cover! Who doesn’t love one of those? This one is mostly acoustic with some nice harmonies.
  2. Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, “Look What You’ve Done To Your Brother”: The band cuts loose and rocks out hard on this one.
  3. Dawes, “That Western Skyline”: I love the harmonies on this one. It’s such a great song. Such a shame that they never did anything near as good as this song. It’s a hell of a way to kick off your first album, though.
  4. The Horrible Crowes, “Sugar”: It’s always interesting to hear Brian Fallon singing in a lower register.
  5. The Minus 5, “I Don’t Want To F**k Off Anymore”: I love the banjo in this song, and also the dark humor of the whole thing.
  6. Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, “Rude”: The best version of this song that there is.
  7. Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Match Box Blues”: See previous statement.
  8. Billy Preston, “Nothing From Nothing”: Billy Preston maybe isn’t known for his solo work, but damn maybe he should be.
  9. Counting Crows, “A Long December”: I always like listening to this song this time of year. Puts me in a reflective frame of mind.
  10. James McMurtry, “Choctaw Bingo”: This song is always so much fun.

Playlist #137: Weather, Frightful, Etc.

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Monday, folks! It’s the last week before Winter Break, so it’s time for a Holiday-themed playlist! I promise there’s no Wham! on here. I’m not a monster.

  1. Paul McCartney, “Wonderful Christmastime”: Okay, I’m a little bit of a monster.
  2. Darlene Love, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”: Simply the best Christmas song ever written. I will hear no arguments.
  3. The Beach Boys, “Little Saint Nick”: Beach Boys harmonies just sound better when they’re telling reindeer to run.
  4. Bing Crosby, “Winter Wonderland”: I’m not against old-fashioned Christmas songs. I like a lot of ’em. Bing Crosby’s stuff is always a swingin’ good time, for instance.
  5. Elton John, “Step Into Christmas”: I’ve never fully understood the premise of this song. Is Christmas a physical location into which one can step? What are the boundaries of Christmas? Enquiring minds want to know.
  6. Robert Earl Keen, “Merry Christmas From the Family”: REK takes a slightly more cynical approach to the holidays than a lot of these others, but it’s still a good time to get together with family members and drink lots of spiked eggnog.
  7. Gayla Peevey, “I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas”: Who doesn’t, honestly? They’re way cooler than a puppy and they can eat a watermelon whole.
  8. Ringo Starr, “Come On Christmas, Christmas Come On”: If there’s one Beatle who seems well-suited to singing Christmas songs, which are inherently kinda cheesy and goofy, it’s the dude who sang “Yellow Submarine” and “Octopus’s Garden.”
  9. Frank Sinatra, “Mistletoe and Holly”: Another holiday classic, I think we can all agree.
  10. Chuck Berry, “Run Rudolph Run”: You need more Chuck Berry in your life, admit it.

Playlist #136

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Monday, folks! It’s time for a brand-spankin’-new playlist for your ears’ enjoyment!

  1. Silverchair, “Tomorrow”: I never really listened to these guys back in the day. They were still in high school when they got signed. High school! Back in high school, I was worried about pimples and whether or not my girlfriend would leave me, not signing record contracts and going out on tour.
  2. Peter Gabriel, “Olive Tree”: When an artist takes twenty years to record an album, then releases it with at leas three different mixes, it’s usually a bad sign. This album is an exception to that sort of thinking. Gabriel has put together a beautiful, thoughtful, and touching set of songs. “Olive Tree” is a standout, but honestly I could have put virtually any song from this album in this spot and said the same thing. It’s just so damn good.
  3. Gorillaz, “Tomorrow Comes Today”: Heard it as an interstitial on NPR this morning, and now it won’t stop playing in my head. So you get to hear it, too.
  4. Drive-By Truckers, “Used To Be A Cop”: These folks are such good storytellers. You almost manage to feel sorry for an ex-cop who got kicked off the force for…reasons.
  5. XTC, “The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead”: I have an unabashed, non-ironic love for XTC. They just made such fun, joyful music. It’s fantastic. This song is fantastic. Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding deserve better.
  6. Michael Penn, “No Myth”: This dude just always amazes me with his way with a melody or a lyric. He’s great. This song is peak ’80s but also great.
  7. Sting, “All This Time”: One of my favorite lines of all time came from this song: “Men go crazy in congregations/They only get better one by one.”
  8. Norah Jones, “The Long Way Home”: Who doesn’t love a Tom Waits cover? No one. No one doesn’t love a Tom Waits cover.
  9. Mark Knopfler, “We Can Get Wild”: This man just struggles to write a bad song, y’know? Yeah, they’re out there, but they’re few and far between. He just crafts with such a high level of skill and thought that even his bad songs have something interesting going on in them.
  10. James McMurtry, “Just Us Kids”: This guy tells fun stories about losers and folks who think they’re winning, even if only in their surface thoughts.

Playlist #135

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Cyber Monday, folks! That’s the Monday after Thanksgiving where everyone buys all their cybers for the coming year. I suppose you could buy one of my books if you were so inclined. Or you can order a CD directly from me! Anyway, here’s a new playlist for ya!

  1. Blind Melon, “No Rain”: Best video featuring a girl dressed in a bee costume you will ever see.
  2. Jason Isbell, “Relatively Easy”: The more I hear songs by this guy, the more I love him. The more I listen to particular songs by him, the more I’m convinced he’s probably one of this generation’s best songwriters.
  3. Adeem the Artist, “Dirt Bike”: Adeem the Artist has found ways to distill youth and youthful energy into each one of their songs and make it sound humble, playful, innocent, and nostalgic. It’s a good skill to have.
  4. Natalie Layne, “Grateful For (Piano Version)”: I didn’t realize this musician was a Christian ArtistTM until I had already downloaded the song. It’s a good song despite this fact? I dunno. Listen and judge for yourself.
  5. Iron & Wine, “Judgement”: Speaking of judgement…
  6. Gin Blossoms, “Just South of Nowhere”: Why do I like this song so much? Is it because it feels very much like a late-night drive where things are just starting to go off the rails and there’s very little you can do other than hold on and pray for dawn? Probably.
  7. Andrew Bird, “Frogs Singing”: I just love the harmonies and the rhythm of this one.
  8. The Avett Brothers, “Will You Return?”: Every time my wife hears them count in at the beginning of this song, she gets so excited that it’ll be OutKast’s “Hey Ya,” and every time she is disappointed.
  9. David Gray, “What Am I Doing Wrong?”: Sell, Sell, Sell is still the peak of early David Gray. I will not be taking any questions at this time.
  10. Pearl Jam, “Porch”: It’s hard to tell with Eddie Vedder’s singing what the actual lyrics are to any given song, but I don’t think this song mentions porches or sitting on them or even standing on them even once. Just a real missed opportunity, that.

Playlist #134

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving Week, everyone! Well, to everyone except those of you who don’t have to go to work this week. You guys suck.

  1. Iron & Wine, “About A Bruise”: Started listening to the live album Who Can See Forever this morning, and it’s pretty damn solid. The version of “About A Bruise” from that one is excellent, but so is the the original studio recording from Beast Epic, which I’ve included here.
  2. Elvis Costello, “Blame It On Cain”: We seem to forget, because he just seems like an amiable old fart nowadays, but Costello was a firebrand and a troublemaker back in the day, and this song is a good reminder of that.
  3. Dolly Parton, “Long As I Can See The Light (Featuring John Fogerty)”: Dolly finally released her long-threatened rock’n’roll album, Rockstar. It’s alright. There are some great tracks on there (like this one and her rendition of “Purple Rain”), though most of it feels too slick and over-produced for my tastes.
  4. Them, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”: Who doesn’t love a Bob Dylan cover first thing in the morning? Nazis, that’s who.
  5. Thom Yorke, “And It Rained All Night”: Thom Yorke’s first solo album, The Eraser, is weird. It’s all electronic squiggles and squelches and super-processed drum loops and for some reason I can’t stop listening to this particular track from it.
  6. Townes Van Zandt, “Racing In The Streets”: I always like hearing Townes interpret someone else’s song. This Bruce Springsteen cover is a good example of why.
  7. XTC, “Senses Working Overtime”: I just love the transitions between verse and chorus on this song.
  8. Leo Sayer, “More Than I Can Say”: 70s soft rock called, and it said, “Whoa, whoa, yay, yay.”
  9. Kenny Wayne Shepherd, “Everything Is Broken”: Two Dylan covers on one playlist? Is he mad? Doesn’t he know what horrors that might unleash?
  10. Kendrick Lamar, “DNA.”: This one is just on here to throw you off at the end of the playlist and get you ready for your racist uncle at Thanksgiving Dinner telling you everything was better before they came to the US.