On my musical streaming app of choice, I’ve attempted to compile a master playlist of songs that I generally prefer to other songs. In a semi-weekly feature that will, as per usual, be worked on sporadically at best, I’m shuffling that playlist, and writing about ten songs at a time. This list is catch-all, so all genres and artists are in play. Nothing will be skipped over.
“Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe,” Okkervil River
The whole Stage Names record is a masterwork, and other songs might hit a more poignant emotional sweet spot, but “Our Life” is the album’s opener and most exciting song: flurried guitars, big fat “Be My Baby” drums, and Will Sheff yawping the best big-rock melody he’s ever penned.
“It Goes On and On,” The Avett Brothers
Not my favorite Avetts tune, I must admit — it might even fall outside the top twenty if I think about it hard enough — but it’s their only moment of jaunty, Ben Folds-y piano-pop that I can think of, and the full-bore harmonies are way too fun to sing in the car, which is 90% of the reason why this playlist exists in the first place.
“Massive Nights,” The Hold Steady
Ugh, that lithe, skittering guitar line and the moment ’80s keyboard trills dance over it in the first verse… this, this is why people used to call The Hold Steady the best bar band in the world. The song’s hardly heady or high-concept, but that pogoing chorus makes me want to floor it and that’s why I have points on my license. Worth it, Hold Steady, even if only for those background vocals on “there’s usually one or two” or that glorious key change.
“Me and Jesus the Pimp in a ’79 Grenada Last Night,” The Coup
Perhaps Boots Riley’s finest moment as a rapper, “Jesus the Pimp” frames a cautionary tale of prostitution and misogyny around the moment the murderer of our narrator’s mother gets out of prison; it’s smart and sad, yes, but it’s also incredibly groovy and often extremely funny. I guess a seven-minute narrative rap song has the room to accommodate tonal changes.
“Dum Dum Ditty,” The Downbeat 5
Odd subgenre: I like pop songs that try, through onomatopoeia or instrumental, to describe what their heart feels for their significant other. Emiliana Torrini’s “Jungle Drum” proclaims that her “heart is beating like a jungle drum”, and then takes a bar to clumsily beatbox, while in “Kick Drum Heart”, the Avett Brothers claim to have a “heart like a kick drum”, and then pause to demonstrate (“BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM”). Point being, I only know “Dum Dum Ditty” from some Little Steven compilation but the chorus is “he makes my heart go dum-dum-ditty, whoa-whoa” and that’s silly enough for me to love it unconditionally.
“You Better You Bet,” The Who
If anything, “You Better You Bet” makes me lament the death of Keith Moon, because I can’t imagine the manic Keith would have stood for the anemic drumming on this track; all is forgiven when Roger Daltrey unleashes one of his best, funniest, wryest vocals upon that behemoth of a silly, background-vox-heavy, keyboard-drenched chorus.
“Sherry Darling,” Bruce Springsteen
Apparently we’re in the classic rock section. Whatever; I love The River for a lot of reasons, but the most fun track on it is handily the sunny, frivolous “Sherry Darling”, wherein Bruce faces tons of obstacles on the way to his beloved, including an overbearing (apparently unemployed) mother-in-law who can “take a subway back to the ghetto tonight”. I think my favorite part of this track (sax solo aside, of course) is the way it comes out of the instrumental break with a sincerely sung “let there be sunlight, let there be rain/ let the brokenhearted love again”, a moment of weird earnestness in a silly, kind of sarcastic jam. It fits nowhere in the song, but it fits everywhere, because Bruce.
“Dreaming Of You,” The Coral
I literally know nothing about The Coral — I don’t even know where I heard this song. I do know that it’s fantastic, a grubby little pop-rock song with a terrifically raw vocal and — and this is key — KILLER background singing. It’s all harmonized oohs and aahs, but take ’em out and the bolts are removed and the song clatters to the ground, defeated.
“Honey Bunny,” Girls
Father, Son, Holy Ghost was the first Girls record I listened to; were it not for a beaut of a track like “Honey Bunny”, I might not have investigated. It’s a perfect pop song and that’s all you need to know.
“Never Forget You,” Noisettes
Remember that one time I gushed at length about The Pipettes’ “Pull Shapes”, and how by “that one time” I mean “all the time because ‘Pull Shapes’ is literally perfect”? When I say that “Never Forget You” is, so far, the best girl-group throwback track of this millennium, please remember that it only falters in comparison to true bliss.
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