the cranberries

Playlist #234

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Happy Tuesday, folks. Yesterday was Diwali, a Hindu holiday, and one that FCPS takes off now. So naturally, I spent the day taking various individuals to the doctor – the cat, my wife – and doing laundry. So much laundry. Where did we even get all these clothes? Anyway, here’s some songs to get you through the week.

  1. The Dead South, “In Hell I’ll Be In Good Company”: Whistling and stand-up bass and a title that’s entirely too long? Yup, hits a lot of points on the checklist.
  2. The Bridge City Sinners, “St. James’ Infirmary”: I was unaware I needed to hear a version of “St. James’ Infirmary” with the word “fuck” in it. And now I know.
  3. Glass Animals, “Heat Waves”: A random student walked by while I was playing the guitar outside last Friday and asked me if I knew how to play this song. I did not, so I looked it up. Seems easy enough to play, if a bit of a challenge for me to sing.
  4. Holly Golightly, “My Get Back”: How had I never listened to Holly Golightly until now? This is some good stuff. Blues-inflected, rough around the edges in just the right way. I dig it.
  5. Jakob Dylan, “Lend A Hand”: Spent most of yesterday listening to Dylan’s Women + Country on repeat for whatever reason, and this song still grabs me by the lapels and shakes me.
  6. Radiohead, “There, There (Live)”: The live Hail to the Thief versions are all great, especially this one, but I’m a little disappointed that it doesn’t include “Drunken Punch Up At A Wedding.” Sad.
  7. George Harrison, “Stuck Inside A Cloud”: It still amazes me that Harrison was able to craft such beautiful, touching music while in the grips of cancer, dying from it. We need more folks like him.
  8. The Pixies, “Where Is My Head?”: So supposedly a Taylor Swift song sounds a lot like this song? And that’s a . . . bad thing? If she wants to become a Pixies cover act, I’d probably be okay with that.
  9. The Cranberries, “Salvation”: It’s a song where they basically chant “Salvation” in the chorus over and over again. Of course I love it.
  10. Elliott Smith, “Bottle Up And Explode!”: One of his best off XO, which is also his best album in my humble (and correct) opinion.

Playlist #203: The Wearin’ o’ the Green

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Wear some green, run some snakes outta your island, and listen to this Irish-themed playlist all while doing so!

  1. Van Morrison, “(Straight To Your Heart) Like a Cannonball”: Is there any more Irish singer than Van? The guy oozes Irishness. Or maybe just surliness. He’s a pretty surly dude.
  2. U2, “Hawkmoon 269”: This song is always fun to sing and play on the guitar. I also apparently made up a whole outro thing that the backing vocalists are in no way actually singing in the song, but that fits with the song and that I love and that I may have to actually end up putting in a song of my own someday.
  3. Sinead O’Connor, “Nothing Compares 2 U”: Yes, it’s cliche and the obvious choice, but it’s the obvious choice for a reason: it’s a damn good song.
  4. The Cranberries, “Zombie”: Again, an obvious choice, but it was this or “Linger,” and I prefer this song.
  5. Hozier, “Take Me To Church”: Okay, yeah, I know, take me task for going the easy route on so many of these. But there are songs that we like to think of as standards, and they are the standard for a reason: their approach to the song or to the concept is so perfect that it’s hard to imagine topping it, and those songs become rather iconic.
  6. Christy Moore, “Beeswing”: A Richard Thompson cover. I do love me Richard Thompson covers and wish there were more of them out there. Christy Moore is also apparently one of the most beloved singers in all of Ireland? I dunno, but I dig him.
  7. Thin Lizzy, “The Boys Are Back in Town”: I wasn’t really aware these guys were Irish, but they do kick a considerable amount of ass for a ’70s rock band.
  8. The Dubliners, “Raglan Road”: We ate at an Irish restaurant in Disney Village this summer called Raglan Road. That’s how famous this song (and, I guess, the actual road) are. It’s a beautiful song, to be sure.
  9. The Chieftains, “The Long Black Veil”: I’m more familiar with the Johnny Cash version of this song, but this version (with Mick Jagger providing vocals) is suitably gloomy and dark.
  10. Dropkick Murphys, “I’m Shipping Up to Boston”: Is it Irish? About as much so as the green river in Chicago. Does it still feel Irish? Hell, yes.

Playlist #199

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Happy Tuesday, everyone! As is my wont, I took yesterday off ’cause it was a federal holiday. Anyway, here’s this week’s playlist. Enjoy!

  1. Kendrick Lamar, “Not Like Us”: Yeah, I’m several months behind the zeitgeist on this one, but in my defense I’m usually several years behind, so this is progress for me. It’s also a damn good song and a textbook case of how to destroy a rival’s image. I know everyone harps on the “and it’s prob’ly a minoooooooor” line, and rightly so, but the bit about Drake being a colonizer are just….*chef’s kiss*
  2. Jesse Welles, “That Can’t Be Right”: You’ve possibly seen this dude, standing in a clearing on a stump, singing songs about the South in a raspy drawl reminiscent of John Fohgerty if he’d gargled sand and glass for a few hours before singin’. There’s humor and heart in it, and I dig that.
  3. Gregory Alan Isakov, “Sweet Heat Lightning”: Blame Clyde for this one. He insisted I needed to listen to this guy over the weekend after he first sent me a text slagging the guy for always playing the same chords at the same pace. And, yeah, some of the songs do sound a bit samey, but there’s also some very clever songwriting in there and the guy’s clearly found his groove.
  4. The La’s, “There She Goes”: After watching a video about the disastrous efforts to create their first (and only!) album, I had to go give it a listen. Sure, I was already well-aware of this song, which is all chorus repeated ad-infinitum, but the rest of the record (which the lead singer and songwriter has disavowed as not part of his vision) feels like ramshackle ’60s British Invasion pop, with all the jangle and three-part harmonies that implies.
  5. Vaydra, “Learning to Love”: It’s always good news when Kelly and company put out new music. They’ve cut back on the psychedelic touches that tinged their first LP, but her voice remains the driving force it’s always been.
  6. The Cranberries, “Ode to My Family”: Listened to their debut, No Need to Argue, last week, and it sounds…exactly like what you’d expect a Cranberries album to sound like. If you’ve heard “Zombie” or “Linger,” you’re already pretty familiar with their sonic palette. This is by no means a criticism, more an observation that they’d found their niche pretty quick.
  7. Wilco, “Handshake Drugs (11/13/03 Sear Sound-NYC Version)”: A Ghost Is Born remains one of my all-time favorite albums by any band ever, and I’m also down as a guy who loves listening to the iterative process of how the musical sausage gets made. Getting to hear early versions of the songs from this album is a treat, and also the reason I’m seriously considering dropping $150 on the 9-disc version they just released.
  8. Neko Case & Her Boyfriends, “The Virginian”: Early Neko Case is a strange beast. Her voice is as powerful and emotive as you’d expect, but the songwriting polish just isn’t there quite yet (in another song off this album, she rhymes “away” with…”away”). It’s also much more honky-tonk country than the strange alternative singer-songwriter stuff of more recent vintage.
  9. Phil Collins, “I Don’t Care Anymore”: A stark, angry kiss-off song from one of the most unassuming guys in pop, the guy who usually sang stuff like “Sussudio.” Very strange way to start an album.
  10. Tom Petty, “You Saw Me Comin'”: An outtake from the Wildflowers sessions, still one of the best periods of songwriting in Petty’s career.

    Playlist #131: My Alternative Heart

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    Happy Monday, folks! Or as I like to call it, “Dear God, why did I think owning that many books was a good idea?” Moving is hard, y’all. But hey, I have a new book coming out Wednesday, and a new playlist featuring some great songs from the ’90s for you today, so it can’t be all bad, right?

    1. Eve 6, “Inside Out”: These guys were apparently barely out of high school when they recorded this album. Their Twitter feed is still pretty damn solid to this day.
    2. Better Than Ezra, “Desperately Wanting”: Still really digging on this song and it’s still a helluva lot of fun to play.
    3. Bush, “Everything Zen”: Why is this song so long? Why did it need to keep going on and on? I think that everything time I listen to the song. “Oh, it’s still happening? I thought this song would’ve been over after the first two and a half minutes.” But no. It goes on for a full four and a half minutes. Unbelievable.
    4. The Cranberries, “Zombie”: Still just one of the best anti-war songs I’ve ever heard.
    5. Everclear, “I Will Buy You A New Life”: I will maintain for the rest of my days that this guy just needs therapy rather than to write another song about how daddy didn’t love him or he was poor or whatever.
    6. Foo Fighters, “Monkey Wrench”: Nothing really gets your blood pumping like a Foo Fighters song.
    7. Gin Blossoms, “Found Out About You”: For the life of me, I will never understand how I did not instantly grasp this band with both hands when their first album came out. Why I waited until nearly three decades later to even begin to appreciate their stuff is a question for the ages.
    8. Semisonic, “California”: My wife said, “Oh, I’d forgotten they did this song.” I sang along to the course, with the weird (and weirdly unnecessary) pronunciation of “Californ-i-uh.”
    9. Spacehog, “In The Meantime”: Can we stop for a second and talk about how this band’s name is basically “Intergalactic Penis?” Because that is all I can ever think of when I see their name.
    10. Primitive Radio Gods, “Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand”: And the award for most awkward song title goes to…

    Playlist #105

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    Happy first day of May! Here’s this week’s playlist.

    1. The Gaslight Anthem, “The Diamond Church Street Choir”: Re-listened to a lot of the Gaslight Anthem last week, and damn does this song (and the album it’s from, American Slang) slap. They released a new single last week, by the by.
    2. Placebo, “Without You I’m Nothing”: From the album of the same name, which remains my favorite release from this band. It’s just so damn good and so 1998.
    3. Fugazi, “Waiting Room”: Also been watching a Youtube channel that goes in-depth into various music genres and bands, and their video on Fugazi (a DC-area post-hardcore punk band) was really good. I’d never listened to them before, but now I have and now I love them.
    4. Bloc Party, “Banquet”: Another band picked up from that Youtube channel (it’s called Trash Theory, and while it’s definitely more Anglo-centric in its musical taste and focus, it’s still quite good).
    5. The Cranberries, “Zombie”: I defy anyone to not sing along when that chorus hits.
    6. Squeeze, “Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)”: Squeeze is a strange little band. I quite like them for more than just that one song, “Tempted.” This one is also pretty good.
    7. The Specials, “Pressure Drop”: Yeah, I only heard about these guys from the Grosse Pointe Blank soundtrack, but I’ve played this song live before and it’s just too much fun.
    8. The Who, “Eminence Front”: Possibly the worst Who song in existence.
    9. The White Stripes, “Jolene”: Do they do it justice? Not really. Is Jolene a good enough song that it doesn’t really matter? Pretty much.
    10. Elvis Costello, “Waiting On The End Of The World”: At this point in the school year, it feels like that’s all we’re doing.