Random 10 for Oct. 22, 2007
1. Art Brut, “Direct Hit.” Eddie Argos is like a less dyspeptic Mark E. Smith, a man who clearly relishes the power of rock ‘n’ roll just as much as the ridiculousness of it. “Direct Hit” is from Art Brut’s follow-up to “Bang Bang Rock and Roll,” “It’s a Bit Complicated,” and it doesn’t have anything nearly as giddy/brilliant/stupid as “Good Weekend,” but it is still a great tool to use on friends who don’t believe that rock is fun.
2. The Budos Band, “His Girl.”
3. The Screaming Blue Messiahs, “Bikini Red.”
4. Midlake, “Head Home.”
5. TV On the Radio, “Snakes and Martyrs.”
6. Bruce Springsteen, “Girls in Their Summer Clothes.” I have said many times that there are simply no good reasons for me to ever spin Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” again — I heard it so much during 1984-86 that it is a dead album for me. That said, “The River” lives on as a great slab of big-and-brilliant traditional rock, and it’s also the last Springsteen album that I truly loved — I admire and respect “Nebraska” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” but that’s not love.
“Magic” recaptures the classic E Street Band sound, and “Girls in Their Summer Clothes” (and “I’ll Work For Your Love”) is archetypal 1973-78 Springsteen. The lyrics play in that rough, rusty Jersey playground of his classic period and would read like self-parody if Springsteen didn’t thoroughly own this stuff. It’s also his best melody in years: it gave me chills when I first heard it, and if it catches me in the right mood two weeks after its release, it still does.
7. Feist feat. the Postal Service, “Mushaboom.”
8. Brian Eno, “1/1.”
9. Mew, “The Zookeeper’s Boy.”
10. Soft Cell, “Sex Dwarf.” I hate when this shows up in my shuffle, but it is what it is: a self-consciously decadent piece of leather-strap New Wave by Marc Almond, who did much better music as a solo artist in the late-’80s. The repetition was probably designed to sound lurid, but it veers closer to idiocy. An artifact from the black turtleneck/floppy hair days.
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1. Green Day, “Uptight”
2. The Postmarks, “Leaves”
3. The Raconteurs, “Store Bought Bones”
4. Mark Ronson ft. Paul Smith, “Apply Some Pressure”
5. Bright Eyes, “Ship in a Bottle”
6. Ryan Adams, “Avalanche”
7. The Beatles, “If I Needed Someone”
8. Bob Dylan, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”
9. Blur, “Dan Abnormal”
10. Dirty Pretty Things, “The Gentry Cove
A fine shuffle today, i do believe. Lovely.