90-81
90. Cry Baby Flowers - Hisuto Higuchi
Butterfly Horse Street (Family Vineyard / 2007)
Everybody knows that the Japanese are better than white people at almost everything. One obvious example would be gardening. Case and point: “Cry Baby Flowers” happens to sound a lot like how the cover of Butterfly Horse Street looks: A bit dense and maybe even confusing at first, but each element becoming more imperative and beautiful with each dig-through-the-topsoil deeper. This is the fertilizer-induced fever dream of the lawncare professional who’s passed out on your lattice, and it plays like those Discovery Channel time-lapse photography videos look. Because you’ve been wondering what a guitar made out of 100 years worth of dead leaves sounds like.
89. Never My Love - The Association
Never My Love 7” (Warner Bros / 1967)
Ever been so emotionally wrecked that you’ve forgotten proper punctuation usage? The Association has. Clearly, these are some sad boys. So, when the mopey 20-somethings say to you “never my love”, what they really mean is “never (comma) my love”. The difference is a big one. It’s like saying “No” when you really meant “Yes”. Or admitting “I’ve never loved you” instead of “I’d never hurt you”. It would be like walking up to your special somebody’s doorstep with every intention of dropping down on one muppety knee to propose, and instead, accidentally chucking a backpack full of garbage at her storm door and sprinting up the street. Luckily, after a few listens, I got what they really meant. But shit, man.
88. Slow Heart - Moonbeam
Spring Story 12” (Traum Schallplatten / 2008)
Remember when people went to raves? I don’t. I also don’t remember a whole lot about the “rave scene” in general, aside from MTV’s millisecond of commercial interest early in the 90s, when Kurt Loder would show up at some warehouse wearing a KMFDM t-shirt and interview any scraggly rave-orphan he could get his hands on. Kurt showed us the obvious: weirdo laser light shows, weirdo basement drugs, weirdo dudes from Germany, and an unquestionable abundance of weirdo pants. But, I ask you Kurt, what happens to the rave when all the ravers grow up? It’s hard to say, but “Slow Heart” probably sounds a lot like the deserted warehouse just before dawn. 15 years after the fact. This is truly strung-out stuff, but somehow also eerily calm…. Ok, so you’re still on drugs.
87. Oh My God - Ida Maria
Oh My God 7” (Nesna / 2007)
A plausible dialogue. Friend: “Hey John, there’s this song you should listen to”. Me: “Oh yeah? What’s the name of the band?” // Friend: “Ida Maria.” // Me: “UGH. That sounds really gay.” // Friend: “No, it isn’t.” // Me: “Hmm. Well, where are they from?” // Friend: “They’re from somewhere in Scandinavia.” // Me: “UGH. That sounds actually gay.” // Friend: “No, it really isn’t.” // Me: “Wait, wait, let me guess. They have really cute accents and wear purposely dowdy clothing and have a girl with swoopy bangs who plays the clarinet.” // Friend: “No. This song’s got bar chords. And I think it’s about being mentally insane. And the singer has this fucked up condition called synesthesia which makes her hallucinate all the time. And she’s also kind of fat.” // Me: “Cool. Put it on.” // Friend: “Ok, but before I do, you have to promise me that you’ll never listen to any other song they’ve ever recorded.” // Me: “I promise.”
86. Not The Average - Jeru The Damaja
Wrath of the Math (Payday / 1996)
Ah, hip-hop with a positive message. It saw its heyday in the dawn of the 90s. Then it got pretty bad and people stopped caring. Then LL gave it a shot but the song sucked (not that you believed him anyway). Then that dude wrote that song about skateboarding. Whatever. So, when Jeru tells you “Girlfriend, I’m not chya average nigga”, it wouldn’t be unreasonable of you to expect more of the same regardless of how fucking cool my man sounds saying it. After all, everybody’s hood-rich these days. And as we all know, the un-average nigga is the new average nigga. So, then how are you supposed to “out-nigga” your homeboys in 2008? Prophylaxis, that’s how!
85. No Alibis - Chisel
Tatterfrock Compilation 7” (Tatterfrock / 1996)
Although he still mostly looks like he’s 20 years old, there was a point in time when Ted Leo was actually 20 years old. Ted, at 20, was a dapper (and, I’m guessing, smart alec-y) lad attending the (you guessed it) University of Notre Dame, where he started a band called Chisel. But, as you’re grandfather or other weird older father figure has told you, life was tougher back then. “You’ll never make it kid, you’re too small to play guitar at Notre Dame”, they would exclaim. But Ted stuck to his guns. Chisel put out awesome records, and Chisel went on tour with Karate; but only a few people cared. Nonetheless, shortly thereafter Chisel broke up only to see Ted get super indie-famous with his band The Pharmacists who, while more consistent, never quite matched the desperate youth and heart of “No Alibis”. ROOOOO-DEEEEEE!!!!!!
84. Graduate - Third Eye Blind
Third Eye Blind (Elektra / 1997)
“Graduate” feels like the 90s. And yeah, my brother and I got it on CD (a technology brand new to us at the time) when I was 7th grade, but I’d be lying if I said that those first 10 seconds still didn’t get me pretty stoked. After that 10-count, when the rhythm literally bounces in, so does Stephen Jenkin’s lisp (and you’re “moshing”) in a ‘92 Nissan Sentra. It kind of makes you want to egg a bunch of old people’s houses just because they don’t deserve it. “Graduate” is a great example of the what I’ll refer to as “last-wave alternative rock”: completely by-the-book in terms of its sound and not “alternative” at all in terms of its intent. But this song represents a rare case in said genre in that it, despite those two traits, somehow finds a way to connect in a concrete way that even today, for me at age 24, feels completely relevant.
83. Golden Lady - Stevie Wonder
Innervisions (Motown / 1973)
More than once in 2008, I had this bizarre dream where I was one of those weird guys who free-climb up the faces of mountains. In the dream, I have a pack full of climbing ropes and, although I’ll need them to reach the summit, I refuse to use them. So instead I just stand there. And I am very thirsty. And there are all these strange birds walking around and some of them have troll doll heads. One time “Golden Lady” was playing from the forest somewhere. Dreams are pretty strange, eh? Mostly the troll doll hair part. And like troll doll hair, the song’s strength lies in the fact that it is dense and at the same time entirely weightless. At the first snip, that shit is ready to forever float away into the sunset. Like the weird one on the Innervisions cover. Or like the weird one from my dreams.
82. Chambers of Horror - Tales of Terror
Tales of Terror (CD Presents / 1984)
Do you like the Dead Boys? Tales of Terror pretty much sound a lot like the Dead Boys. But scarier. And more psychotic. And like many of the great punk bands of the early 80s, a couple of these dudes are long dead (most notably guitar player Lyon Wong, who was literally curbed outside a venue by a high school quarterback and later died of head trauma). A couple reasons to like this: Cops hated them, Kurt loved them, and the final minute of “Chambers of Horrors” is flawless, either because you’ve never heard someone make the word “Hello” sound so unreal or because you’re trapped down there in the dark and you don’t a choice but to like it.
81. Come Wander With Me - Bonnie Beecher
Unreleased (1964)
Though originally written for a Twilight Zone episode of the same name, you may best know “Come Wander With Me” from it’s occupance on the soundtrack of Vincent Gallo’s ego-fest The Brown Bunny. Bunny’s appearance at the 2003 Cannes Film Fest resulted in a (AND I QUOTE) “war of words between Gallo and film critic Roger Ebert, with Ebert writing that The Brown Bunny was the worst film in the history of Cannes, and Gallo retorting by calling Ebert a “fat pig with the physique of a slave trader”. Ebert then responded, paraphrasing a statement attributed to Winston Churchill, that “one day I will be thin, but Vincent Gallo will always be the director of The Brown Bunny.” Gallo then claimed to have put a hex on Ebert’s colon, cursing the critic with cancer. Ebert then replied that enduring his colonoscopy would be more entertaining than watching The Brown Bunny. Gallo subsequently stated that he had been misquoted, and that the hex had actually been placed on Ebert’s prostate, and that the whole thing had been meant as a joke which was misinterpreted by a reviewer.” A+
