I Need You To Listen To…

475.Song:Teenage Dream

Artist:Katy Perry

Album:Teenage Dream 

It opens quietly, with a guitar line so unpronounced it is in danger of melting away, like cotton candy, Katy Perry’s vocals coming in breathlessly overtop some of the softest drums possible. “You and I/ Will be young forever!”. The emotional eruption of the chorus shouldn’t be this good, it is a fireworks display when compared to what came before. “So take a chance and don’t ever look back/ don’t ever look back”. Sure, a platoon of writers was needed to get this song over the top, but oh, how it reaches. One can critique Perry’s vocal presence, but I think her range suits the aspirations of this song perfectly, rushing towards a hazy dream with all of the headlong intensity of foolhardy love. Every pop song aspires to take us somewhere, to capture an intense emotion for the world to consume, “Teenage Dream” takes us to the clouds and keeps us there. “Let’s go all the way tonight/ no regrets, just love”. A perfectly produced gem.

474.Song:Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are)

Artist:Pras feat. Ol’ Dirty Bastard

Album:Ghetto Supastar 

Here is a rap song whose sampled melody vastly improves over the original, to the extent that that original becomes an infuriating listen. The key difference is literally the timing of a scotch snap, in the original, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton “Islands In The Stream”, they snap on “and we rely on EACH other/ Uh Huh”. Mya’s moves that snap to the “Uh Huh” and thus ruins whatever cachet “Islands” ever had. “Ghetto Supastar” rides Mya’s momentum as far as it can go, which is substantially far considering Pras’s noticeably lacking flow when compared to Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s guest verses. ODB’s personality infects this song so thoroughly that I have to put a disclaimer on its inclusion on this playlist. Sometimes being just “good enough”, as compared to surrounding greatness, is the key to success . “Run away with me/ to another place/ we can rely on each other, uh huh/ from one corner to another, uh huh”.

473.Song:The Boys Of Summer

Artist:Don Henley

Album:Building The Perfect Beast 

“I can tell you/ my love for you will still be strong/ after the boys of summer have gone” For a hit with such a catchy, propulsive, chorus, the rest of the song seems strangely dire, like Don Henley was chasing something ethereal, unknowable. The FM synths and digital drums that open the song are wracked with guilt,  very intentionally played in the key of D#min, “Those days are gone forever/ I should just let them go”, the song ascends keys strategically, allowing joy to burst through in the chorus with the relative F#Maj progression. I write all of this, not to bore you with tedious theory, but with amazement at how meticulous the craftsmanship is here in the songwriting. It lays you low then bounds joyfully skyward. For a song so steeped in the sounds of 80’s synths, it has also lucked into a timely re-assessment of the strengths of that soundscape, and of the strong craft buried beneath the glistening digital sheens of yesteryear. Nostalgia chasing forever.

472.Song:Don’t Stop Believin’

Artist:Journey

Album:Escape 

When those iconic piano chords first crash into the speakers overlooking the landscapes of everyone’s personal Jour,…ahem, lived experiences in life, it is hard to not see the lighters thrown up in the air in shared communion. “Just A small town girl/ living in a lonely world” Steve Perry is a Greek chorus, behind every gamble, every cheap thrill that allows his subjects yearnings for a meaningful existence. Bruce Springsteen’s seminal album Born To Run tried to capture this feeling over an entire album, Journey accomplishes its goals in one glittering starburst. “Streetlights, People/ Livin’ just to find emotion” The rhythmic churn of the verses builds tension until the band lets the pent up aspirations of its lyrics morph into a glorious, anthemic, rallying cry cheering everyone on to a life well lived. “Don’t stop believin’/ Hold on to that feeling”. With a presence this outsized, only the stadium of life could fit this song within its confines.

471.Song:Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)

Artist:Green Day

Album:Nimrod

The moment Billy Joe Armstrong stumbles over the acoustic guitar intro, tries again, fumbles, and just says “Fuck”, is when you find a rare moment of “leave it in” imbuing the whole song with potent symbolic energy. One of the all-time great breakup songs, “Good Riddance” continues the tradition of “Yesterday” by the Beatles, finding a sense of serenity in those moments of heartbreak familiar to every human being. “Tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial/ For what it’s worth, it was worth all the while”. There is a bittersweetness in Billie’s performance, like his vocals were recorded immediately post-breakup, the tears still caught in his throat. Maybe it’s partially out of guilt, as the line “It’s something unpredictable, but in the end is right” seems to suggest, maybe there is real anger behind the title of the song. Whatever the case, like a person looking back with maturity and grace, “I hope you had the time of your life”.

470.Song:Noises

Artist:Pale Waves

Album:My Mind Makes Noises 

“Is this me?/ Tell me who I can be” One theory I have for how the recent 80’s revivalism in music has exploded is that a lot of those sonics weren’t just great at providing clear sounds for songwriting purposes, but that they provided an outlet for depressive angst without wallowing as in the Grunge/Alt-rock landscape that would follow. “And the faces that you love/ Are slowly giving up/ What you gonna do?” Heather Baron-Gracie’s lyrics strike at the heart of this revival, the sheer unstoppable force of this song pulls the listener through a goth-pop enlightenment, said momentum even had me imagining ghost notes for the background synths in the chorus. Producer Jonathan Gilmore crafts a glistening soundscape of rollicking guitars and enveloping synth pads, Ciara Doran’s drums hitting at all the right moments. Combine the 80’s renaissance with the benefits of modern production techniques, and you too can craft masterpieces like this.

469.Song:That Song

Artist:Big Wreck

Album:In Loving Memory Of… 

If ever a song has fully embodied its purpose, this song is one of those rarities. Consider; The mix truly sounds like a band playing at the local bar, the lead singer surveying the crowd and trying to avoid breaking down. The drums are crystal clear as the guitars stab and grind their way through the side-channels, the bass coming in warmly under center, the amps hissing during the quieter moments. Ian Thornley belts out lyrics such as “And when you hold him/ would you hear me/ scream at the top of my lungs?” as the rest of the band crescendos around him. The volume suddenly dies, as the guitars settle into quiet, delayed, arpeggios and strums, Thornley’s vocals ricocheting in the opposite speakers. The song breathes as he laments “So you crank that song/ and it might sound doom”. It’s such an effective usage of the Quiet-Loud dynamic that I actually think it must be mandatory for any songwriter to listen to. “And I love that song/ I love that song”.

468.Song:Bob In Your Gait

Artist:Julianna Barwick

Album:The Magic Place 

Ethereal. Too perfect for this world, as the dictionary suggests. Yet, here we have string scrapes and amplifier buzz bouncing around with the delayed guitar notes, the piano note dynamics threatening to burst through the barriers of good taste. Once Julianna Barwick starts singing it takes some work to discern exactly what she is vocalizing. All of the structures involved with making this song, as enthralling as it is, are very delicate, the scaffolding filled in with oceans of reverb and delays. But here we have a culmination of what Enya set out to achieve all those years ago, a soundscape bobbing along the tides of emotion rather than the dictates of convention. “Bob in your gait/ feeling alive/ Song in your heart”. Barwick layers in so many vocals, all of them overwhelmingly clear in the mix, that you have no choice but to allow yourself to be swept up in the pure majesty of it all. Ethereal, too perfect for this world.

467.Song:Everybody Wants To Rule The World

Artist:Tears For Fears

Album:Songs From The Big Chair 

The most surprising thing about this song is how clumsy it is structurally. Behind those glistening synths is a song whose dynamics jump wildly, from the familiar synth-pop aesthetics to power pop guitars and harmonies. Lead singer Curt Smith often sounds like he is holding back a monstrous hiccup, there’s a constant droning E note underneath everything that gets tiring once you notice it and the shuffling vibe of the rhythms barely holds together. All of this adds up to…one of the defining songs of the 80’s. Not only was it bespoke for the decade of yuppie greed,  “All for freedom and for pleasure/ nothing ever lasts forever”, but it’s very unwieldiness allows for those dynamic leaps to shine ever brighter, “There’s a room where the lights won’t find you/ holding hands while the walls come tumbling down”. If Lorde’s recent cover of it proves anything it’s that this song may be un-coverable, forever standing firm on its own shaky, sparkling, foundations.

466.Song:Refuse/Resist

Artist:Sepultura

Album:Chaos A.D. 

It opens with a distorted heartbeat, seemingly gaining in tempo, before the tribal drums pound out a primal rhythm that any protest movement will inevitably chain itself to. Taken as a wide scale metaphor for when those movements boil over, for when the tempest of tempers in society overtake the calls for decency and order, “Chaos A.D.” strikes a body blow against any attempts at moderation. The dense forest of guitar riffs sound for all the world like someone would have to take a machete to the strings to stop their momentum.   “Chaos A.D/ Tanks on the streets” Max Cavalera’s rough vocals seem like they are coming from a megaphone, narrating the ebbs and flows of the revolution. “Refuse/ Resist/ Refuse.  Then the tipping point, the blood-boiling, up-tempo shift into the cauldron of fire that is the guitar solo. As those flames flicker on, we can only listen in to the chaos and wonder where we all went wrong.

465.Song:Family Affair

Artist:Sly & The Family Stone

Album:There’s A Riot Goin’ On 

One of the things that strikes you as you listen to “Family Affair” is how you can almost feel the heat, see the glistening sweat, coating the group. The intense warmth of the bass guitars and primitive machine drums, with some wah-wah’d guitars completing the murky soup of the soundscape, it’s almost too much to bear. The lyrics justify this atmosphere of hostile intimacy, cooing and scatting about how family dynamics can overwhelm its participants “You can’t leave because your heart is there/ but, sure, you can’t stay because you’ve been somewhere else”. When you consider the pressures that Sly Stone was constantly under, from groups as disparate as the Black Panthers and his record label, It’s astonishing that this song came out of the drugged out ether as perfectly as it did. For a nation then under titanic cultural and social evolutions, “Family Affair”  was the perfect release for the public’s angst, or maybe its symbolic cage given form.

464.Song:Pennies From Heaven

Artist:Louis Prima

Album:The Call Of The Wildest

“Everytime it rains, it rains/ Pennies from heaven” If there is one thing to take away from this song, it is that Louis Prima is a criminally overlooked artist. Taking a page from the great bandmasters of the early twentieth century, the King Of Swing earned his moniker by being as relentlessly, overwhelmingly, exuberant as he could get away with. What’s more is that his energy was capably captured on tape, unlike a great many of his contemporaries who languish in a hell of low-fidelity recordings/production. From the opening bars onward, he and his band are having the time of their lives, and inviting you to partake. This is a guy who can get his backing singers to say “Macaroni” in response to “Sunshine and ravioli” and not have the audience sneer, who can scat out complete nonsense (“oh boldily boy zoy” ) as if it means something and make it sound sincere. This is a song that has been covered countless times, he alone has mastered it.

463.Song:We Will Rise Again

Artist:Meredith Godreau/ Hammock

Album:Far Cry 5:Into The Flames/ We Will Rise Again 

When composer Dan Romer and audio director Tony Gronick assembled a vast collection of folk, country and post-rock talent to populate the sonic landscape of Far Cry 5, I highly doubt even they knew the gold they would strike. The way that Meredith Godreau’s voice lilts and flutters, flickering like a light in the darkness, as some background apocalypse looms large overhead, can’t help but send shivers down the spine. “In the west shall rise/ A sinister creed/ The rich will get what they want/ The poor will lose what they need”. The warm bed of acoustic guitars and subdued strings allow us crucial breathing space as the full breadth of the catastrophe envelops us. Hammock, a post-rock ambient group of some acclaim, would turn that same passage into a lullaby for the damned, with the listener swallowed up by the oceans of reverb and distant vocal hymns. Both versions prove essential listening, but the beauty comes with a cost to your sanity.

462.Song:Tom Sawyer

Artist:Rush

Album:Moving Pictures 

It might come off as cheesy nowadays, because of its inevitable seepings into popular culture (most notably its space invaders line that allowed it to sneak on Futurama for a classic episode), but “Tom Sawyer” remains a titanic testament to Rush’s catalogue. Neil Peart’s squeaky vocals masterfully dodge any accusations of un-listenability, his voice riding the chordal changes like a rubber duck bobs along the tides. The guitars present themselves with thick slabs of distortion , grinding their way through the verses in a vaguely doom-inducing manner as Peart sings “What you say about his company is what you say about society” .Those iconic synths permeate the dense chord structures and complicated drum patterns, adding layers of candy-like texture precisely when needed. The lyrical themes of alienation, and the hope of changes to come,“Changes aren’t permanent/ But change is”, scream epic. This is the theme park of prog-rock.

461.Song:How High The Moon

Artist:Les Paul And Mary Ford

Album:Les Paul & Mary Ford Greatest Hits 

The progenitor of studio guitar wizardry, Les Paul, alongside his muse Mary Ford, would craft one of the earliest examples of virtuoso guitar pop. “How High The Moon” is a perfect little slice of early rock nirvana, as short as it is sweet. Mary Ford utilized early tape recording technology to double, nay triple, her vocals, creating musical crescendos with her voice that still hit with the force of a hurricane (Clock in at 1:08 to hear this technological climax). Even when compared to the multi-track technological advances that bands like The Beatles and The Beach Boys would use to revolutionize music production, this phenomenal tune still stands tall as one of their shining predecessors. “Somewhere there’s music/ how faint the tune/ Somewhere there’s heaven/ How high the moon” Oh and that guy, Les Paul, sure can play the guitar pretty well. Thought I’d mention that.

460.Song:Spirit In The Sky

Artist:Norman Greenbaum

Album:Spirit In The Sky 

The iconic guitar riff  for this song, imbued with a fuzzbox tone that has never been successfully replicated, has a profoundly moving, cinematic, quality to it. You can easily picture it accompanying the opening credits to a road-trip film or, as in the 1996 film Michael, a redemptive feel-good comedy. The dynamics are wild, flailing about like a frantic jazzy horn section, but it provides potent propellant for the lyrics. These gospel inspired verses do pin it to christian leanings, but I fully believe that its intentions weren’t to preach, but to inspire. As Norman himself would state “It appeals to one’s inner self and the need for redemption, plus, heck, who wants to go to hell?” Listening to great music is a deeply spiritual experience. Irregardless of any particular religious leanings, there is something enlightening about extracting meaning from sound vibrations in the air, like some “Spirit In The Sky” is here for you, whenever needed.

459.Song:Jesus Christ Pose

Artist:Soundgarden

Album:Badmotorfinger 

I swear “Jesus Christ Pose” next to “Spirit In The Sky” was completely serendipitous, I only noticed this placement when starting to write this very blurb. Despite that, I feel that there’s a good lesson to be drawn from this delightful dichotomy; “Jesus Christ Pose” is such a harsh, angry, listening experience that its placement next to the joyous outburst of the previous tune should reveal the strength of my methods for this playlist’s creation. Quality, not any notion of “importance” or “tonality”, is the be-all. Chris Cornell’s screaming vocals, as powerful as they are crystal clear amongst the resentful chugging of the guitars, hold us in place as the lyrics deliver a powerful rebuke to the notion of the “persecuted artist”. Ben Shepherd’s bass guitar barely seems able to contain itself, loudly spasming underneath every chord. Matt Cameron on the drums plays as if he is the pot lid barely containing the band from frothing over. “Like I need to be saved”.

458.Song:Bring Me To Life

Artist:Evanescence

Album:Fallen 

To get an idea of how vital the hard rock guitars and rapping were to this musical outburst, take a gander at the band’s most recent orchestral reimagining of it on Synthesis. I want to focus on the chorus in particular; contrast 0:56 of the orchestral version with the original. Yes, Amy Lee’s vocals are as soaring as ever, but without the element of anger that the nu-metal guitar stylings and angsty rap vocals brought to the table, it is just another casualty of its own hubris. With those elements added, this is one hell of a breakdown. Lee, with all of the backing her hugely powerful vocals demand, elevates it into an angelic lament, an appeal to love that surpasses its gothic/nu-metal trappings.”[Wake me up] Wake me up inside/ [I can’t wake up] Wake Me Up Inside/ [Save Me] Call my name and save me from the dark”.  It turns out that sometimes you do need a little rage to help capture inherent beauty.

457.Song:Maniac

Artist:Kid Cudi Feat. Cage & St. Vincent

Album:Man On The Moon Vol.2: The Legend Of Mr. Rager 

St.Vincent’s “Strangers”, off of the fantastic album Actor, was a song that tackled the inner sadness of a brat spoiled by “decadence and leisure” [1]. Kid Cudi decided that those vibes were a perfect fit for him to wrestle with his own struggles and sampled “Strangers” heavily on “Maniac”. This mixture of Vincent’s stuttering grace (“Paint the black hole blacker”) and Cudi’s liquid persona is an effective one. The guitars that surround Cudi in the chorus, “I am a maniac”, swirl around nauseously, the harmonic blips peppered throughout the verses are the audio equivalent of stars in your eyes, and the booming kicks contribute to an increasingly manic atmosphere. All of this combines into a song where a closed off Kid Cudi reaches one of the discomforting core truths of depression: That some of us prefer it. “I love the darkness/ Yeah, I’d like to marry it/ It is my cloak, it is my shield/ it is my cloak”.

456.Song:That Lady, Pts. 1 & 2/ i

Artist:The Isley Brothers/ Kendrick Lamar

Album:3+3/ To Pimp A Butterfly 

Imagine a soul song with vibes so immaculate that anyone attempting to harness its energies can’t stand to alter it for their own ends. The shimmering guitar chords with overlain solo leads, which burn with a blue-flame intensity, ensure the song a frothy momentum that the rest of the band gamely coasts on. Ronald Isley’s smooth vocals ride over the chords as he dispenses syrupy love “Who’s that lady?/ Beautiful lady?”. If we all had the charisma and zest of this song, there would be no loneliness in the world. Kendrick Lamar intuits this and repurposed the main riffs for his own efforts with “i”, though you would be advised to stick with the album cut, he did re-record the guitar parts rather than directly sample, but the effect is stunning nonetheless as he raps about the need for love and unity “Dreams of reality’s peace/ Blow steam in the face of the beast”. Both of these versions are just as empowering, for whatever ends you need them for.

455.Song:The Sounds Of Silence/ The Sound Of Silence

Artist:Simon And Garfunkel

Album:Wednesday Morning, 3 AM/ Sounds Of Silence 

“Hello darkness my old friend/ I’ve come to talk with you again” The producers of “The Sounds Of Silence” wanted a hit. Absorbing the contact highs of the new folk rock craze, notably the dynamics of the Byrds and Bob Dylan, they went about recruiting a drummer and an electric guitarist. They then welded the power of rock onto an already recorded folk song, to call the results ungainly is an understatement. The new version reportedly horrified Simon And Garfunkel, at one point you can hear the drums slowing down to allow the singers to catch up, but a hit was a hit. Still, let’s not go crazy here. The original “stripped down” version is the best. Carrying all the delicate melodicism of their illustrious partnership, “The Sounds Of Silence” is a haunting tune, familiar to all on the verge of isolation or death. It has successfully embedded itself into the popular psyche through its own quiet insistence, an accomplishment too vaunted to question.

454.Song:The Twist

Artist:Chubby Checker

Album:Twist With Chubby Checker 

It is terribly easy to forget that music consumption was not easy at all in the late 50’s and early 60’s. People were limited to the radio, sporadic television performances,  the tyranny of jukebox selections and random chance at the record store. Madness. Little wonder that people had the reactions they did to this record, arguably the most energetic dance song released to the public at the time. Just watch the Mad Men episode “The Hobo Code” and see the excited reactions of the girls as the record starts playing, and those reactions are reportedly not far off from the real thing. Chubby Checker sounds like he’s having the time of his life as he calls on girls to “Come on and twist/ Yeah, baby, twist”, throwing in as many innuendos as he could get away with (“We’re gonna a-twist, a-twist, a-twistin’/ ‘Til we tear the house down”) and never letting up as he barrels his way through the speakers and into our hearts.

453.Song:It’s Not Unusual

Artist:Tom Jones

Album:Along Came Jones 

It’s only two minutes long but it might be the purest audible concentration of joy on this playlist. This is despite its lyrics containing this little whopper “Oh, I wanna die”, despite the back-up singers and clapping having a charmingly laissez faire approach to rhythm and technique, and the song’s structure floating freely without a recognizable chorus. What gives? The one lesson I feel should be taken from “It’s Not Unusual” is that it pays to be so undeniably exuberant that cynicism simply fades away. Tom Jones’ vocals are just so damn joyous, how can you have hate in your heart for him? This is why the eventual declaration of “It’s not unusual to find that I’m in love with you” works so well, he earns our adoration. Note: Several sources list Elton John as playing the piano on this recording (under his pre-stagename moniker Reginald Dwight), if true, that’s another legacy of joy forever attached to it.

452.Song:Black

Artist:Pearl Jam

Album:Ten 

Pearl Jam was a band that seemed to embody the grunge aesthetic the most, especially when considering their sound. Those earthy guitar riffs, seemingly soaked in pine tar, and working class drums, those insistent bass-lines interplaying with Eddie Vedder’s nearly operatic vocals. They convincingly immersed you in a world of emotional and moral decay, ground your face into the dirt and spoke to hidden truths. This was not for the purposes of wallowing, this was to help the listener attain a spiritual release through a sense of shared communion. Hence, we have lyrics such as “All five horizons revolved around her soul” resolving into “Now the air I tasted and breathed has taken a turn”. It’s how the steady buildup of this titanic song devolves into seemingly endless falsetto “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doooooo”’s and still leaves us standing abject, but still hopeful. This is the band, at the height of their powers, knowing you as well as themselves.

451.Song:Love And Affection

Artist:Joan Armatrading

Album:Joan Armatrading 

Here is a song that continuously evolves the listeners expectations. Layers of guitars, at first stark, then enveloping, a constant trickling in of musical instrumentation as it builds inevitably towards its climax. Few songs earn their denouement as gracefully as here. I haven’t even mentioned Joan Armatrading’s vocals or lyricism, which are both deft and intimate. Consider the quick notes as she sings “Why can’t I feel love, really love, really love?” and then the sustained flourishes “Just take my hand and lead me where you will”.  Occasional backing vocals, warmly provided by Clarke Peters, accentuate all the right moments. This is a production masterclass. Not a note feels out of place or over-played. The warmth of the music and of Joan’s ear for intent is profound, her steady hand guiding us through emotional upswells with aplomb. If you still aren’t convinced to listen,  remember, “I am not in love./ But I’m open to persuasion”.