100-91
100. Deathwish - Christian Death
Deathwish (L’Invitation Au Suicide / 1984)
The fact that Roger Alan Painter (aka Rozz Williams) took his stage name from a gravestone inscription he came across while hanging out in a cemetery pretty much sums up the appeal of this song for me. Dude is mental and he knows it, but instead of immediately killing himself (that won’t happen ’till the late 90s) he makes it work for him. Shitty-perfect guitar tones, horror-of-everyday-life goth worship, and one big Christian Dior reference only add to the mystique of Painter’s own preemptive self-apocolypse. I see the end! I seee the endddd!!!
99. Any Old Time Will Do - Roy Wood
Mustard (Jet / 1975)
Roy is here, and he is drinking wine with you, but don’t believe much else he says. While “any old time” might do for the moment, this is a man far too polite to ask for exactly what he really wants. This is Wood half-buzzed on shitty zinfandel and literally dancing with himself in your living room, and the waltzy all-too-brief post-chorus bits are testaments to the moments when these facts seem to catch up to him. Lyrically, while Wood may seem like a complete pushover, the saxophone solo and spot-on ELO-inspired arrangements suggest he might, sooner than later, stop showing up at your place.
98. Bad Drug - Sun Dial
Acid Yantra (Atlantic / 1995)
To assume that, in his day, frontdude Gary Ramon has eaten a boatload of weirdo drugs, would probably be to assume correctly. But here’s the dilemma. In the same breath, Ramon at once half-heartedly denounces being fucked up while being completely fucked up himself. Admittedly, shit is fun for a while, but god-damn it’s become guilt-free no longer. Acid Yantra-era Sun Dial shows the band in their growing-up-while-coming-down stage (ie you’re mostly sober, you’re mostly head-banging). And while this record might not be as pungent as their back catalogue, it predates the mantra of contemporary neo-psychedelia which, while aesthetically more evolved, is similarly both slacker and pro-active all at once.
97. The Day The World Turned Dayglo - X-Ray Spex
Germfree Adolescents (EMI / 1978)
X-Ray Spex may have been dubbed as “deliberate underachievers”, but you would’ve been too if you owned a rocketship. There’s all that maintenance to be done, ever-increasing rocketship taxes to be paid, and above all (pun intended) the ability to lift-off and leave our atmosphere. Who could resist? Not me. There’s a trick to it though. In order to start the ignition, the astronaut must first shriek a barely distinguishable “YOU KNOWWW????” sound, in addition to a hearty “WAHHHOH!” sound. If possible, confine the two sounds to one single word. Do it well enough, and suddenly you’ll find yourself blasting off in the rickety plastic spacecraft, ears stuffed-up with insulation that might as well be cotton candy. You feel great because Poly Styrene is your co-pilot and she’s wearing rainbow colored face-paint, and wow does that one-man brass section sound perfect from the moon.
96. Stop Singing - Mount Eerie
Black Wooden Ceiling Opening (Elverum & Sun / 2008)
Few moments in 2008 were as cumbersome and slow-head-bang-worthy as the huge-mother fucking-boulder of a mark that sits 4:10 into “Stop Singing”. Admittedly, after the last couple of forlorn records that Mr. Elverum had released, I wished he’d titled this song “Stop Fucking With Me”, which included lyrics that outlined my theory of his self-enforced habit of periodically releasing intentionally mediocre work, and (in the same breath) go on to thank me for helping him come to grips with his deliriously narcissistic ego. And I’d have completely forgiven the man. Luckily enough for Phil, the gigantic riffage in “Stop Singing” makes “Stop Fucking With Me” no longer necessary, but, knowing him, it will probably be released on vinyl next month anyway.
95. Back To Nature - Fad Gadget
Back To Nature 7” (Mute / 1979)
“It’s gonna rain all night, but we’ll be alright.” Please try and feel good when the Fad Gadget man himself (Frank Tovey) tells you he’s got your back. Please also count your lucky stars, when you take a moment to consider that Tovey is toting an electric drill and he wants to kiss you on the mouth. The problem is, the drill sounds a lot like the scariest fucking rain forest you’ve never heard of, plus there’s mad duct tape on that shit, so you know dude has been doing some serious tinkering. This early-era Gadget stuff pretty much sounds a lot like Joy Division’s bleakest material, except instead of hovering like a ghost in a cave, you’re on the ground, soaking wet and sleeping on carpenter screws.
94. Die Sleeping - Kap10Kurt
Die Sleeping 12” (Memory Boy / 2007)
There are a number of reasons why I should hate this. For starters, “Kap10Kurt” is hands down one of the worst aliases I’ve ever fucking heard of. Ever. Especially when you discover that dude’s birth name is actually Kurt. And Kurt (as we’ll now call him) hails from Switzerland, but recently moved to the East Village where he (according to his website) “focuses on extremely rhythmic and muscular basslines and strong drumbeats that fly straight into your ears like blazing starfighters”. And while none of those things ever happened at all, Kurt does us a huge favor by not singing on the track himself, but instead enlisting would-be-virgin-suicide Nellie McKay, who, within the first five seconds of the song, has me convinced that floating away with her forever sounds too sweet an invitation to pass up.
93. So Lonely - Tim Buckley
Blue Afternoon (Straight / 1970)
According to a posthumous 1977 article in Down Beat magazine, it was claimed that “Buckley’s heart was not into the Blue Afternoon sessions” and that the record was only released in an attempt to please his “business” people. Well, I call bullshit. His heart may sound like it’s beating a little off-time, but that’s because it is. Picture Tim with his arms gently folded, aware that life sucks pretty bad sometimes and also kinda high on morphine. But it’s not the opiates that do the talking; these are just one of the many tools in his belt. After all, cops do treat you dirty, definitely, and children can be pretty mean. “But it’s sooooo lonelyyyyyy mamaaaa” was easily one of my most favorite single lines and vocal deliveries of the year. This song finds me, more than often, nodding “yes, yes” to Tim as he beats my heart to the punch with every single chorus.
92. Baby (Caetano Veloso) - Gal Costa
Gal Costa (Philips / 1969)
I’ll be the first to admit it: I do not and most likely never will learn to speak Portuguese. If somehow you find this statement entirely offensive, I’m only sort of sorry. Don’t get me wrong, I think the language is beautiful, but I’m just not so sure a guy like me has the chops to pull it off. Luckily, Maria da Graca Costa Penna Burgos does. Bigtime. And not only that, in the 1960s Costa was at the forefront of Brazil’s Tropicalia movement. Meanwhile, I’m sitting in my parent’s house in my underwear completely confident that I cannot even pronounce her full name properly. Few things are as lush as this chorus: string arrangements windswept by ocean waves coupled by that little lonely word in English. That word is “Baaaabyyyyy” and :blush: it sounds just as whimsical as it does devastating. You go, gal.
91. Are You Receiving? - Killing Joke
Almost Red 12” (Island / 1979)
Well, are you?? Clearly, these Brits don’t believe you are. So with each distorted guitar/organ swell, the powered-by-human-flesh machine that is Killing Joke licks back up every word it’s just spit out onto your fat face. The swells work like the reset button on your first Nintendo: restarting something for the sole purpose of restarting something, and after 7 glazed-over hours, you’re convinced you don’t want to play “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” ever again . But you do. And much like “Tom Sawyer”, this song is not about figuring out what the message means; it’s about receiving the message in the first place: you either get it or you don’t.
