I Need You To Listen To…

200.Song:Fixed

Artist:Stars

Album:The Five Ghosts  

There’s a very specific moment I want you to listen to that will convert you into a believer; After the lyrics “It’s all in your head/ Wonder if I’m fixed to cut” play for the first time, I guarantee that the swirl of guitars that come in will send you into a light sense of physical careen. This is the gift that the tight rhythms and steadfast synths beforehand have granted you, the ability to almost literally, be physically moved by a song. Amy Millan’s waif-like vocals are the backbone of the maelstrom, keeping us centered through her recitations “What you want, you are, you always were”. The music video emphasizes minute moments of clarity as cascading imagery plays all around the band, fitting perfectly to the beats given to us. Eventually things come to a climax as all the elements combine into a moment of pure joy after “Is it your fall?” recites itself into our heads. “You, you’re sinking so they say”, playing us out, leaving us plenty of room for hope.

199.Song:California Dreamin’

Artist:The Mamas And The Papas

Album:If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears 

As a native Edmontonian, I can sympathize strongly with people who yearn for warmer climates. It’s not just the fact that the temperature can dip to body-numbing extremes, it’s also the fact that you are often trapped inside physically with people who you may or may not want to be around. The emotions become as icy as the weather. “If I didn’t tell her (If I didn’t tell her)/ I could leave today (I could leave today)/ California Dreamin’”. This is why this song sounds as haunting as it does, it recognizes our innate need for warmth, physical and emotional, and speaks to what separates us from it. The call-and-response harmonies, alternating between the speakers, act like the devil and angel on the shoulders of every pondering soul, except that they eventually end up agreeing on the necessary point. The crescendo at the end feels like it’s pushing you towards a final conclusion.; “California Dreamin’/ On such a winter’s day”.

198.Song:Train In Vain (Stand By Me)

Artist:The Clash

Album:London Calling 

“You didn’t stand by me/ No, not at all”.  Punks from this era of music had a knack for turning some of the most difficult emotions into joyful outbursts. The Ramones could craft whole albums of surf-rock adjacent power pop, The Sex Pistols made raucous rebellion sound like the only possible avenue for teenage angst, and The Clash sounded like they were going on a Magic School Bus field trip through popular music history. Dropping in as a hidden track on the seminal London Calling album, “Train In Vain” is just about the happiest sounding breakup anthem I’ve ever heard, and it takes seemingly every known compositional trick to accomplish that feeling. We’ve got organs, snappy guitar licks, harmonicas, heavily syncopated vocals by Mick Jones and, of course, cowbells, cowbells people!. All this to sound like breaking up is the best thing to do for all involved.”All the times, when we were close/ I’ll remember these things the most”.

197.Song:Psychosocial

Artist:Slipknot

Album:All Hope Is Gone 

In the film Gladiator, when the main character Maximus asks the audience at the gladiatorial arena, after he’s just brutally killed a few people right in front of them, “Are you not entertained?”, he already knows the answer; After all, this is what they are here for. Written in a world dominated by turmoil in the Middle East, mostly precipitated by the US invasion of Iraq, little did Corey Taylor know how prophetic his lyrics for “Psychosocial” would still prove to be nearly twenty years later. “Fake anti-fascist lie/ I tried to tell you, but/ Your purple hearts are giving out”. The beauty of metal is that the crushing sonics and cliffs of compression allow us, the audience, to vent our most extreme emotions. What gives “Psychosocial” its special power is the dichotomy between its dense guitar riffage and the comparative beauty offered by the chorus. “And the rain will kill us all/ Throw ourselves against the wall”. Bleak, but it is what we are here for.

196.Song:I Want To Take You Higher

Artist:Sly & The Family Stone

Album:Stand! 

On “I Want To Take You Higher”, Sly Stone harnesses the basic powers of his musical universe. Throwing together what seems like every possible instrument, he crafts a musical explosion, crackling with fiery intensity on every note. “I want to take you higher” works so very well on the musical layer that the implied drug usage barely registers. The heedless momentum of the soundscape is such that even when the lyrics devolve into complete nonsense, the famous “Boom Laka-laka-laka”’s, it feels completely natural. Name an instrument and it’s likely found somewhere within the mix, surfacing for air when needed for maximum impact. The Genius page highlights how powerfully this song hit when performed at Woodstock, but I, and other newer listeners, came across this song unhindered by historical context and found it just as meaningful, just as thrilling a listening experience as any great song before or since.

195.Song:I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)

Artist:The Electric Prunes

Album:I Had Too Much To Dream 

Listening to this song in a good pair of headphones almost induces a feeling of “I had too much to listen to last night”. Presaging trip-hop by three decades, the moody darkness of this song, where tape manipulations and sheer abyssal energy collide against the “traditional” psychedelic rock trappings, is a revelation today. The way that the guitars shimmer in one ear, and zap in the other, how the tape-reversed lines flit in and out of consciousness like a half-remembered dream, how they screech a moan of “No” in an uncanny-valley-like fashion, triggering primal fears in the listener, it’s not something I recommend listening to while stoned. The whole thing is delivered with such assuredness that it comes as a surprise to learn that Producer Dave Hassinger thought that the band could not write their own material, bringing in veteran songwriters Nancie Mantz and Annette Tucker to do so[1]. Oh well, what’s here is supreme sorcery.

194.Song:When I’m Up (I Can’t Get Down)

Artist:Great Big Sea

Album:Play 

“I am the fountain of affection/ I’m the instrument of joy” Alan Doyle sings. “I’m the boy/ I’m the boy”.  Growing up, Great Big Sea was one of the few bands that connected us western Canadians with their brethren in the Atlantic provinces, and “When I’m Up” was the band’s hallmark anthem of joy. I only found out it was a cover of a song, from an obscure English folk rock group Oysterband, when doing research for the playlist. Listening to their version very quickly reveals how beloved the cover has become. It simply radiates warmth from every note, you can easily imagine a camera rotating around the band onstage as they are feted by the audience. The dynamics on display, the quiet running headlong into the loud, allow each chorus their moment in the spotlight, each a sunspot of joy unto themselves “When I’m up I can’t get down/ Get my feet back on the ground”. A lush, harmonious, wellspring.

193.Song:Feel Good Inc.

Artist:Gorillaz

Album:Demon Days 

Sometimes you run into a song that defies convention so thoroughly that it circles around to being naturalistic, as if it couldn’t exist in any environment but the most conceited. “You got a new horizon, it’s ephemeral style/ A melancholy town where we never smile”. That bass line is so catchy that you suspect an insidious trap has been laid, luring you into complacency while the lyrics slice you to pieces. Is it the most ironic possible play to have two of three De La Soul members in on this? Let me ask you this, how long was it until you realized those “He he”’s in the beginning were actually “Feel Good”? Don’t lie. It doesn’t help when Trugouy The Dove is laughing alongside those shuffling nonsense verbs. “Feel Good Inc.” is simply priming you for disappointment in yourself, laughing at your inability to make out what should be blindingly obvious. One of the most incisive dark mirrors ever held up to the post-grunge era.

192.Song:Silver Stallion

Artist:The Highwaymen

Album:Highwaymen 2 

Of all of the 80’s supergroups, The Highwaymen were the ones who most capitalized on their appeal. Four country superstars writing a multi-layered fable of stealing a silver stallion and wooing a wild-eyed woman. Nothing more, nothing less. Perfect just the way it is. I’ve had a few theories running in my head as to how Country music has had an uncanny ability to glide over the mid-western experience, especially in the era of The Highwaymen. The one I believe in the most is those guitar tones, of which “Silver Stallion”’s oily lead tone is the best example. Listen to the way it “bubbles” up during the verses, and then to when it gushes up at the end of the choruses. Listen as well to the acoustic guitars that bed the lyrics as each singer takes his turn at the helm. The glide. Like in the music video where the sepia-toned Wild West intro morphs into a full-color motorcycle odyssey. A companion fable, musically, lyrically, legendarily.

191.Song:Highway 61 Revisited

Artist:Bob Dylan

Album:Highway 61 Revisited 

When Bob Dylan has “God say: you can do what you want Abe but/ Next time you see me comin’ you better run/ Well, Abe said, where do you want this Killin’ done?” is when you realize just how impressive he was as a lyricist. Mixing fantastical fable with cluttered whimsy, his weaving of a rough narrative around the titular Highway 61 starts as it means to go on; With a steam whistle beckoning us forward. The momentum doesn’t stop, with the guitars jamming along, some electrics mimicking the steam whistle from the intro, and a drum kit that has all the fun it can in the corner. What is this song about? Does it matter? Do lyrics like “But the second mother was with the seventh son” have any connection to the rest of the song? If I had to hazard a guess, it could just illustrate the surreality of reality, perceived and factual, as it collides with our personal narratives of the world. But that’s just one guess amongst a myriad.

190.Song:Shooting Stars

Artist:Bag Raiders

Album:Bag Raiders 

“Gave my love to a shooting star/ But she moves so fast that I can’t keep up, I’m chasin’” There is a certain high-wire balance that the most memorable of dance tracks must ride. Either they are so catchy that everyone and their mother knows about them and thus the general public tires of them, or they have enough cultural cachet to remain relevant despite themselves. There is no inbetween. “Shooting Stars” toes the line but ultimately falls into the latter category. The needle-nosed synth lead that plays throughout runs the danger of being an annoyance, but the way it melodiously rides the chords saves it from catastrophe, even if that would prove its most memetic element. The single best decision the Bag Raiders made was to delay the chorus until the very end, fulfilling the symbolic importance of its moment, allowing the discotheque elements to shine through, leaving us with a feeling of serene comfort. “When she falls/ I’ll be waitin’”.

189.Song:Schizophrenia

Artist:Sonic Youth

Album:Sister 

While Sonic Youth’s liquid guitar tones have always given their records an off-kilter appeal, it is with “Schizophrenia” that they attain the peak of their aspirations. Soft pillowy drums pin the listener in place as first Thurston Moore and then Kim Gordon air out their emotions. Thurston with the acid imagery of lyrics like “She said “Jesus had a twin, who knew nothing about sin/ She was laughing like crazy, at the trouble I’m in”, Kim with the Sphynxian “My future is static/ It’s already had it”. Meanwhile the guitars are slinking to and fro, melodic lines flicking in and out of consciousness, multiple guitar tones playing off of and intersecting with each other. A gorgeous kaleidoscope of detuned clumsiness. Eventually, like almost anybody who has ever had to take care of a loved one with schizophrenia, the entire band seems to collapse at the end, all hope leaving the ears with a detuned bass note the last thing we hear.

188.Song:(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay

Artist:Otis Redding

Album:The Dock Of The Bay 

The main quality that strikes you when listening to “(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay” is its assuredness, the steady workmanship that elevates the material. Consider the considerably on-point rhythm section, Al Jackson Jr. on drums and Donald “Duck” Dunn on bass. The way that their performances interleave with the rest of the instrumentation allows Otis’s main vocal the space it needs to breathe the ocean air. Steady, insistent, undulating like waves against the pier. Steve Cropper on the guitar and Booker T. Jones complete the general musical picture, with a small horn section for emphasis. All this to gain an air of serenity few songs have achieved. The ultimate tragedy of Otis’s untimely end before his completion of this song’s vocal parts just adds to its composure, as his whistling, originally recorded as a scratch track before the planned lead vocal, takes over. As if he is sitting alongside us, marvelling at life’s tranquility.

187.Song:Levi Stubbs’ Tears

Artist:Billy Bragg

Album:Talking With The Taxman About Poetry 

When you hear the guitar chords being strummed and some of the strings detuning in Billy Bragg’s hands, when you hear the stark spring reverb accompanying the hard strikes of the picks, nothing can separate you from the lived in reality of this song. The details are all gummed up in the gears of life’s momentum, Bragg’s voice bends and breaks on lines like “When the world falls apart/ Some things stay in place” the immediate warmth of the follow-up “Levi Stubbs’ tears run down his face” suggest a narrator who cares enough to notice that the subject even existed. Connecting folk traditions to their soul counterparts like this lends a universal air to the grim events. Describing the woman, a widow living in abject poverty, who was just shot by her lover “It hurt her more to see him walking out the door”. The horn that accompanies Bragg in the fadeout plays like an army band playing Taps to fallen warriors. “When the world falls apart…”

186.Song:Anchor

Artist:Novo Amor

Album:Bathing Beach EP

“Took the breath from my open mouth/ Never known how it broke me down” The vast expanse of the oceans pulsing up against the shoreline has generated reams of poetic imagery since time immemorial; Our modern wealth of artistic and technological capabilities now finally allow us to capture its magnitude. With acoustic guitars that sound like the embodiment of old wooden sailing ships, creaking as the waves batter them, buzzing strings accenting the delicate fingerings, Welsh artist Novo Amor’s heart is laid bare. His falsetto vocals drift  gently through phrases such as “Caught the air in your woven mouth/ I’ll be hearing how you went/ in search of someone else”. While some may find the imagery basic, “Anchor up to me, love” is the climax for instance, it’s the perfect way that Novo Amor weaves together his musical and  artistic elements that give this song the space it needs to breathe, to rise and fall with the emotional tides.

185.Song:Walk This Way

Artist:Run DMC feat. Steven Tyler and Joe Perry/ Aerosmith

Album:Raising Hell/ Toys In The Attic 

To think that it took a lot of convincing by Rick Rubin for Run DMC to agree to re-recording “Walk This Way” with Aerosmith rather than merely sampling it and calling it a day. We might have gotten a far clumsier, and therefore less vital, listening experience. To be sure, it still took an inspired performance by Steven Tyler, with his chaotic dynamic vocal swings, and Joe Perry’s guitar had to conform itself to hip-hop rhythms in order for this hybrid to stand a chance. It cleared the bar, setting the stage for countless rap-rock acts to come, whether they leaned toward the heavier end of the scales, ie:Rage Against The Machine, or simply grafting rock guitar onto the template like nu-metal would do. Let’s not sell the MC’s short either, Run Rey and DMC’s call and response rhythms perfectly ape Joe Perry’s iconic riffage, giving the song a chance for it to find its optimal aesthetics. Steven Tyler joining in on the fun is simply perfect symbolic excess.

184.Song:Levels

Artist:Avicii

Album:Levels (Remixes) EP

“Levels” is a song that has layers to it, like a cake there is no use to prying those sheets of sugary delight off individually, you just have to bite down and take it all in at once. Hence, this bouncy, energetic outburst. Going back to the cake analogy, I may just be really hungry as I’m typing this so bear with me, the synth lines that open weave their way up and down the notes like icing being applied in intricate patterns. Taking that and the bass line in, which is pumping to the max, and we have a neat way of building towards the main synth riff, which is that bounce, the verve, that gives this song its dynamism. The bass line comes roaring back in, allowing everything to rebound off of its overpowering rhythm. Then Etta James’ voice enters, “Oh, sometimes I get a good feeling”, her soulful inflection contrasting with the saw wave’s bubbling below. Sometimes you just have to let the good feelings overtake you. Now excuse me while I eat some cake.

183.Song:Superfly

Artist:Curtis Mayfield

Album:Superfly Original Soundtrack 

It’s curious that some of the greatest civil rights minded soul/funk came out of the multimedia world of the Blaxploitation era in cinema. Alongside his output on films like Shaft, Curtis Mayfield wasn’t one to await the eye of the storm, he created sonic hurricanes to bring people towards it himself. “Superfly” is both a theme song for a seedy film and an anthem that wields details of Mayfields’ upbringing into a dense funk-soul mix that holds rich rewards for repeat listens. Instruments come headlong into the mix, heedless of anything and yet precisely where they are needed. The warmth of the bass guitar does battle with congas and electric guitars, the blaring horns seem to be battling with themselves throughout. All this chaos and at the center of it lies Curtis, whose singing is so nonchalant that it blends into the narrative like those old cinematic newspaper swirls. It is effortlessly cool in how stunningly busy it is. In essence, “Superfly”.

182.Song:Highway To Hell

Artist:AC DC

Album:Highway To Hell 

Listen to Angus Young’s famous guitar riff. To how the chords seem to bristle with a fiery intensity, contained just barely by the brief pauses. To how the accompanying reverb exists only to make everything loud, suddenly. Then the dry drums kick in, needing only their studio room reverb to stand out. When Bon Scott finally starts singing “Livin’ easy, lovin’ free/ Season ticket on a one way ride”, it has a curiously inevitable edge to it that drags you along. Only when he sings “My friends are gonna be there too” does the rest of the band kick in and the chorus explodes. That barely contained fire I mentioned at the start, it gets unleashed in the solo that sounds like a gas-stack burn-off. Highway To Hell proves that you can drag people kicking and screaming towards a rebellious climax, as long as your joie de vivre is fully evident; Damn the consequences. “Don’t stop me”.

181.Song:Summer Of 69′

Artist:Bryan Adams

Album:Reckless 

Ha,ha, it’s about 69’, the sex position. Get it?. Confirming the “true” meaning of this song [Bryan Adams would have been only nine years old in the supposed “best days of [his] life”], however, does nothing to taint it; in fact, that very joke may be the key to fully appreciating its greatness. When Bryan belts out “Oh, and when you held my hand/ I knew that it was now or never”, what is that but gung ho adolescence? The joke is the embodiment of that energy. Surrounded by shimmering guitars and soaked in reverb, Bryan Adams raspy delivery is joyful, even when he is listing out the consequences of juvenile abandon, “[We] had a band and we tried real hard/ Jimmy quit, Jody got married/ Should’ve known we’d never get far”. What regrets are expressed are couched in the exuberance of the delivery. This is youth, joyously embraced, with all that it brings with it. “Those were the best days of my life”.

180.Song:You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’

Artist:The Righteous Brothers

Album:You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ 

A lot of music history is tied into this song and its creation. Note how massive it sounds. How every instrument feeds into a sonic palette that reaches into every possible crevasse of the stereo field. How Bill Medley’s low baritone holds the centre hostage until his partner Bobby Hatfield joins in. In the background you hear parts of The Ronettes, The Blossoms and the studio musicians that you had to have in your back pocket in this era, The Wrecking Crew. Hey, there’s Cher as well. A song that sounds this monumental and has this formidable a pedigree behind it, it would be a major catastrophe if something went wrong. Unfortunately, that tragedy would unfold decades later and arguably shouldn’t affect how we speak of true musical achievements like this, but the wall of sound that Phil Spector created always had an inherent darkness that feeds into every aspect of his legacy. Still, this song haunts like few others, it just carries unintended ghosts.

179.Song:Mannish Boy

Artist:Muddy Waters

Album:Hard Again 

Take the 1977 version over the original 1955 recording. Not only does the 1955 version have the unfortunate technological handicaps of its era, but it also lacks the rhythmic punch, the verve, of the newer recording. It also lacks Johnny Winter, who hypes things up and provides crucial backing guitars, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith on drums, which threaten to blow out the speakers with their tenacity, and James Cotton on Harmonica.. The result is a leaner, meaner, recording. Here is a song where Muddy Waters spells out MAN and BOY in the chorus with virility, where Johnny Winter is credited with “Miscellaneous screams” on Wikipedia and that’s not a portent of doom. The great strength of blues greats is that you could always feel the artists’ humanity through their music that can’t simply be aped, Muddy Waters makes his case for greatness by being as direct as possible “I’m a man/ I’m a full grown man”. No struggle here, just putting the MAN in humanity.

178.Song:Mordecai

Artist:Between The Buried And Me

Album:The Silent Circus 

One of the joys of listening to modern metalcore, is how intriguingly fluid the structures can be. Pairing the lyrics with the music is not often a verse/chorus/verse affair so much as it is a strongly worded memo, venting all of the singer’s concerns in one huge trauma-dump session. Mordecai starts off with extreme guitar riffage, from thrashing to straight up mauling the guitar to achieve its relevant-to-the-plot screechings. Tommy Rogers death growls his way through a serious mid life crisis “I learned to be selfish today/ I learned to be alive” . All of this roughness, this screaming into the void gives way to more melodic guitars and lucid yelps, then into a hazy dreamscape where Rogers tries to lullaby you to sleep. Then the climax hits, where the guitars pan wider to bathe you in distortion, chugging away as he finally cuts us loose with his denouement. “From the grind that annoys/ and the sarcasm they all hate”. Scrappy, churning, frothy stuff.

177.Song:Use Somebody

Artist:Kings Of Leon

Album:Only By The Night 

In an era where rock anthems were a dying breed, where digital perfection in music production was starting to overpower the charts, Kings Of Leon dropped this loud, clumsy beauty. The last rock song to win Record Of The Year at the Grammy Awards, “Use Somebody” has retained its anthemic powers. It has done this despite having a mix where every element seems to be trying to dig itself out of a grave of hazy muck. Trying to get a clear view of things seems impossible, until Caleb Williams first starts singing. “I’ve been roamin’ around, always looking down at all I see”. Singing about how most people hope for love amidst the noise of our modern lives, the lengths we go to for someone, anyone to notice us. So the song is working on a textual, meta and psychological level. All of the bluster, all of the moments where we want to just clearly hear the “Whoa”’s, it’s literally perfectly imperfect. Frustrating yes, but damn if it isn’t fun.

176.Song:Ultraviolet (Light My Way)

Artist:U2

Album:Achtung Baby

There is an inherent goofiness to love songs, as if the declaration is best kept to yourself rather than displayed loudly for all to hear. U2, a band that approached rock music from quasi-religious, sonically uplifting,  angles, was never afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves. Thus, on Achtung Baby, we have a song where Bono sings “Baby, Baby, Baby/ Light My Way” without any hint of revulsion or cringe coming from the listener. It does this by wrapping heartfelt, surprisingly dark lyrics in a glistening wreath of booming drums, warm bass lines and The Edge’s signature shimmering guitars, shrouding all of this under a veil of titanic amounts of reverb. “There is a silence that comes to a house/ where no one can sleep/ I guess it’s the price of love/ I know it’s not cheap”.  If any love song deserved a stadium, it’s this one.  In a career filled with dozens of iconic anthems, “Ultraviolet (Light My Way)” is U2’s greatest soar song.