This is the title track from John Cale’s elegant solo album, released in 1973. Backed by members of Little Feat, “Paris 1919” feels like an album for a lovely summer afternoon, light and airy and a big departure from his highly disturbing (but brilliant) next three albums he recorded for Island Records. One of the few musicians who can glide so seamlessly between the sacred and the profane and neither side seems out of place.
From Sweet’s classic 1991 album “Girlfriend,” “Evangeline” is a terrific, crunchy, upbeat hard-rock love song. I’m not entirely sure who did the shredding guitar work on this song, but I believe it’s Sweet and Richard Lloyd (from the band Television). Sweet always had great taste in sidemen and production.
Arguably the best song ever written taking the perspective of a comic book character (Johnny Six from the 1980s comic “Evangeline”).
A smokin’ punk-funk cover of Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly classic “Freddie’s Dead” by one of the most energetic bands of the late 1980s-early 1990s. One of the best concerts I ever experienced was seeing Fishbone in 1991. The sound was loud, the strobe lights were enough to send you into seizures, and the walls were sweating. From the 1988 album “Truth and Soul.”
The incredibly moving final song from John Cameron Mitchell’s brilliant rock opera “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.” This is from the 2001 film adaptation. A great, great film and a much more transgressive and brilliant musical than Laz Buhrman’s “Moulin Rouge” released that same year. Don’t get me wrong. I actually admire “Moulin Rouge” a lot, but “Hedwig” kicks “Moulin Rouge”‘s ass.
Neil Patrick Harris recently announced he will be starring in a Broadway revival of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.” It will be weird to see “Hedwig” removed from its punk rock roots, but I’m sending my best wishes that they can pull it off.
My all-time favorite ELO song. Brilliantly used over the end credits of P.T. Anderson’s 1997 film “Boogie Nights.” The attached video is extremely primitive … kaleidoscope visuals plus a lead singer who barely tries to match his vocals to the original studio track … but extremely cool in my opinion.
I’m not going to lie to you. This has been a tough week. Between learning a good friend has passed on and the overtime I’ve put in at work, I need something that makes me feel good to be alive. Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane” is a song that always makes me feel better about the world … especially this kick-ass live version recorded for the 2007 film “Lou Reed’s Berlin” directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Julian Schnabel. Lou was in his late 60s when he recorded this. This gives me hope and good feelings for my impending “golden years.”
From Zappa and the Mothers’ classic 1968 skewering of the Beatles “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and hippie culture, “We’re Only In It For the Money.” Proof positive that you don’t have to be a card-carrying Conservative to consider hippie culture insipid and annoying. Used during a pivotal scene in director Haskell Wexler’s terrific and notorious 1969 countercultural film “Medium Cool.”
Here’s another gem I discovered today. This one is by Jesse Malin, former lead singer of the acclaimed 1990s glam punk band D Generation. “In the Modern World” is a beautifully energetic and grungy anthem from 2008. As I get older, it’s harder to keep track of all the great music that gets released each year, but with music this great, I don’t mind playing catch up. If there was any justice in this world, this would have been a big hit.
Most people of my generation only know the J. Geils Band from their EMI Records period of the late 1970s / early 1980s. While they had some great songs during this time, the J. Geils Band started as an American version of the Rolling Stones, delivering loud and nasty R&B without the distinctive synthesizer of their EMI period. This early period, when they recorded for Atlantic Records, is very reminiscent of what the Faces were doing during the same era.
“I Don’t Need You No More” is the opening track from their 1971 album “The Morning After” and it’s a stunner. The bass and drum sound alone will blow your speakers. It’s a shame this song isn’t better known. On the other hand, finding these gems as I get older makes listening to satellite radio a must … especially as “terrestrial radio classic rock” plays the same 20 Rolling Stones / Beatles / Who songs ad nauseum.
The lead-off track from Public Enemy’s groundbreaking 1987 debut album “Yo! Bum Rush the Show.” I came to this album late in the game, having been a fan of the epic follow-up “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” from 1988.
Admittedly, it took me a while to get into it. It had a different sound and feel that “Nation of Millions” … less “in-your-face,” but more cool and subtly menacing. Trust me when I say, it’s no less intense. Over time, I grew to prefer “Yo! Bum Rush the Show” over “Nation of Millions.” You keep expecting “Yo! Bum Rush the Show” to explode, but never quite does. It’s that tension that keeps you on edge the entire time and makes it … at least in my mind … the one I keep coming back to.
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