You're Much Too Fat and A Little too Long

Friday again, and so, after a week off, it's time for another random ten! I think the iPod missed me - some very nice stuff coming up.... not all of it rated, though things like Sinatra and Billie Holiday are basically default 4-star songs, whether they're rated or not. (The ratings are, to be honest, as much a device for sorting what comes up on playlists as an actual measure of how good the song is - and 5 star songs are also songs I will Always Listen to All The Way Through, irregardless of mood...) Here's to it:

1. Blood Brothers - The Salesman Denver Max
2. Pere Ubu - Where's the truth
3. Waterboys - Red Army Blues
4. Billie Holiday - He's Funny that Way [with Lester Young]
5. Erase Errata - Untitled [neat little blast of racket....]
6. Mercury Rev - Hercules ***** [and one of the things lost when CDs replaced LPs as the default way to listen to music was the side - all the things sides could do - the grouping and pacing of songs, opening and closing tracks, etc... And one of the things lost when CDs give way to MP3 players is the idea of the openign and closing track itself. I mention this because no one, in recent years, can match Mercury Rev for putting a CD together - their opening tracks (Chasing a Bee, Meth of a Rockette's Kick, Empire State, Holes, Dark is Rising, Secret for a Song) are off the charts. The closing tracks have some, um - odd moments (Girlfren?), but at their best - Very Sleepy Rivers, and especially Hercules and Delta Bottleneck Stomp - are as good as it gets.
7. The Who - Mike Post Theme [this was a sympathy buy - the who have been away so long! so I bought the record. They should have retired a long time ago.]
8. The Rolling Stones - Loving Cup [this should be rated - I don't know how much. I am not as much of an Exile on Main Street fan as many are - a good record, but not up to Beggar's Banquet or Let It Bleed, maybe not up to some of the earlier ones.... oddly, though, I find that the songs from Exile, when they come up alone, always hold up very well. Better than the record as a whole. That is odd.]
9. Frank Sinatra - I've Got You Under My Skin **** [Live version, Sinatra in Paris. There are better versions of the song by the man out there, but it's still - amazing how many tones he can get in there - the shifts from the beautiful crooning to the tough guy, the Jersey accent, the sharp, hard rhythms, the swagger, that can turn on a dime back to tenderness. Christ, what he could do with his voice.]
10. Spirit - Animal Zoo ***** [on any list of All Time Underrated Records, 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus has got to be there...]

And a Bonus Track! whether to make up for the short Erase Errata or that lame Who song...
11. Franz Ferdinand - Dark of the Matinee ***** [this really is an antidote to that Who song. Townshend's lyrics these days - mewling about getting old, dull platitudes (young lovers kiss, they fight and die) just pissed me off when it came on... then, 2-3 songs later this comes up. I'm not a really big FF fan - they're good, a bit too much like the rest of early oughts indie music, songs like this, it takes a good deal of real effort to guess whether it's them or the Strokes or some imitator... But maybe that's because I didn't listen to the words all that close. Cause this - it certainly purges ol' Pete's feeble abstraction quite away. The precision! the detail! this would make a great novel, a great film - it's got a clear narrative, vivid scenes, and sharp wordplay - "not to look you in the shoe, but the eyes find the eyes..." - "so I'm on BBC2 now, telling Terry Wogan how I made it and, what I made is unclear now, his deferences and his laughter is, my words and smile are so easy now.. yes it's easy now..." - delivered in an amazingly expressive drawl over tight, jittery post-punk.... Songs with recognizable stories, people, events, this clear, this concrete, are a fucking godsend. Damn. I am going to have to relisten to those records a hell of a lot closer. This is just a Great song.]

So to recap: the 2 greatest pop singers of the 20th century. My favorite band of the last 15 years (Mercury Rev). My favorite band of the last 30 years (Mr. Thomas et al.) One of the top 5 or 10 pop songs of all time. The rolling stones. A washed up genius. A neglected gem. The godfather of all those big band folkies (what don't the Decembrists or Arcade Fire or whoever owe to Mike Scott?). Not one but TWO bands you could call American's answer to Melt Banana! And a revelation by a band I should pay more attention to after all - well, what can I say? Right now, iTunes is on shuffle, and just kicked up the Sugar Cubes and The Feelies. Keeps right on going. Husker Du!

Anyway, today's video is a live clip from Glastonbury a few years ago - Franz Ferdinand getting thousands of people to sing along about the joys of whatever it is they have in mind to do in the dark of the matinee...