Sometimes, when making these compilations, I think that randomizing the list is a better choice than my picks. Right now I am making several compilations of things that I am aiming towards when we record "Love Drums". You know, totally insane drum things, the progression of the verse to the chorus to the lord-knows-what. I'm trying to think of songs that encapsulate these things. I mean, obviously there's the build-em-up-and-break-em-down aspect that I like about house that's easy to pin down, but unless I've got Daft Punk sense as to how to attack building melodies, I can forget it, I'm dead before structure. I think exercises like "Rodeo Radio" helped me in seeing how fast I could write up brilliant progressions/structures, but the problem there is that I didn't give any time to the actual song behind it.

Note to self - Its not uncool to shout.

LIVING THROUGH ANOTHER CU- BA BA BA BA BA BA BA

compilation 25

for the last couple of compilations, there's one exception, which I may talk about, it seems like I've been running on automatic. That is, for a while there have been some real stinkers, almost as bad as number eight, where I don't like more songs than I do like. So I've been trying to spend more time per compilation on these last couple ones. Here's what I think about this.

Or at least a couple songs, because I don't want to talk about all of them.

12. The Walkmen - That's the Punch Line

The guitar that comes in during the first chorus thing (one of the reasons the Walkmen aren't total faves is because there isn't a real clear cut distinction between chorus and verse, when I think clear cut distinction, I think something like "Band on the Run" when its obvious that 'oh, hey, something is happening, hey, this part is more memorable than the last part'), any that guitar that's sliding up and down (mostly up) that's just about the best things ever. I guess they don't do it the other times because they want to be different or something. I like how the Walkmen sound, but I don't like how they think.

13. Radiohead - A Wolf at the Door

I like how Thom says 'fucker'. I think I'm going to make myself listen to this album and Kid A more by sneaking songs of theirs periodically into my compilations. I haven't listened to either of those albums very much, its something about first impressions. This seems like the direct opposite of "2+2=5" in that that song starts like every other Radiohead song but turns into something else. This starts as something else but turns into every other Radiohead song.

14. Queen - "We are the Champions"

There's songs, that, no matter what you do to them, or under what conditions you listen to them in, they are always going to sound a certain way. I'm trying to decide if that's everyone else's listening imposing on mine, or my listening imposing on theirs. Do you know what I mean? Its like "Celebration" a song that's been "played out" under certain circumstances, like in the background of a movie party scene, for example, that you can't but help think of it as that song. I think I can get around that. Away from that. I mean, I didn't start with music at the same time as other people. At a young age, my mom listened to country music (back when it was still country music, and not Garth Brooks), and sometimes musicals or the B52's. Rarely pop radio. So when everyone else, at age sixteen, turns to the classic rock station and hears the Beatles they think 'oh, its the beatles again', I think, 'wait... who is this??'. Seriously, I knew every Modest Mouse song before I knew every Beatles song.

Anyway, I don't know if its me ascribing classic status to this song, or other people's having ascribed it that when I am in a car listening to this song (provided someone more powerful than I doesn't change it, because, seriously, who would change the station on this??), people react. Quite differently than I do. So in this song Freddie is doing things differently, I mean Queen are one of the most formulaic bands I know, and things are different here, and in its A-side, the "we will rock you" song. Things are a lot more padded, but sparse. His voice doesn't seem like it does in a dozen other songs (Killer Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody, Bicycle Race, Somebody to Love, should I go on?), there isn't the conversational Freddie, its just a wall of Freddie. Whenever I see that picture of Queen, with the four faces in a diamond shape, I just picture them all as Freddie.

16. XTC - Living Through Another Cuba

First of all. You know that thing that bands do (hopefully aren't doing anymore) where the drums start the song but they're all muffled and distorted and then they change later and become real (yawn) drums? XTC does that backwards. The end of the song is like that. Except instead of doing just the muffled and distorted thing, they become distorted like what distorted used to mean, like all warped and twisted and such. Actually its funny how now distorted means a neat and clean and manageable thing.

Distortion: N, What you and your band are going to use because you are out of ideas.

ANYWAY. This song is a 12" mix of itself. When I think 12" I think a typical single, verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus a bunch of times, PLUS another awesomer extended bridge. Like BAM drums everywhere!12" means five inches more dancing. Vinyl lingo is all very new to me, so please stop me if you've heard this before. This song doesn't really have a verse, just a chorus that keeps on going and going and then okay, the opening part is repeated again and then DRUMS. And when I say drums I don't mean 'hey, they pressed the overdrive button on the amp', I mean, 'oh lord, all of Cuba has come in with guiros and congas and bongos and bongas and they've come for me' and of course the XTC approximation of dub which is just adorable, which means better than you could do.

I think that's all I want to talk about. Also I think I put the same mediocre song on this compilation twice, which is something I've done twice now. I have to put my thinking cap on. The next compilation looks better, so I might write something about that.

REPTILIAN MADNESS

compilation fourteen

1. Andre 3000 - Good Day, Good Sir

I'm sure Andre would like me to call this a modern adaptation of "Who's on First", spoofing the idea of keeping the langugage in some sort of parallel universe vernacular, so let's just say that.

2. Microphones - The Pull

First of all, this is the weirdest segue ever. You would expect it in the beginning to go to some sort of funk song with an ace bassline. But no, here there's acoustic guitars trading off the same chord phrased differently between ears. The harmonies are very nice also, considering they disregard the chord and move beyond it. This song and several others of theirs were very influential to me listening to and thinking about harmony. Anyway, when the song goes boom, its not just somebody stepping on a distortion pedal. Its everyone. Stabbing their amps speakers in. Ten drummers all playing the wonderful same thing. The guitars are shooting fury. Etc. Its great.

3. Wilco - Pot Kettle Black

I like the percussive noises in the background in the middle part here. The guitars and bass are playing around the same thing and then this organ comes in. Its remarkable, but not as remarkable as Wilco get. The line "Every moments a little bit greater", okay, that beats Mama Cass, but its just the prelude for what comes later.

4. The Strokes - Reptilia

The Strokes as a string quartet. The breakdowns quasi-fugue, with the bass and vocals entertwining beautifully, climbing up, creating this wonderful apex. The guitar playing along there, its not rock, it doesn't have to be. And Julian's getting to be a better singer. Its at once the same and totally better than the first album.

5. Gun Club - Sex Beat

Always a very visual song. Deborah Ann's got a tiger in her hips. They explode to the call. I like how they deal with the build ups here, there's the traditional motion upwards, but then a stall, and then the refrain, 'Sex Beat... YEah". It feels like the bass is doing more than it actually is. "You throw me down by the Christmas tree", that seems totally inappropriate.

6. Jackie DeShannon - Put a Little Love in your Heart

Okay, this is me being intentionally sick. I'm sorry. But in my mind it isn't THAT sick. I like both of these songs, so what's the problem with putting them together? Well, okay, I get that the Gun Club is a sweaty punk (wonderfully un-punk though) who just wants to have sex, and Jackie is a cute little girl who wants to dispense t-shirts in peace. I guess putting them together means trouble. The horns and everything at the end aren't that great.

7. Dexy's Midnight Runners - Jackie Wilson Said

I like this version a lot more than the Van Morrison. There's the voice, which is great in a different way than Van's, there's the 'boom boom boom boom boom', the part near the end where his voice gets out of control saying 'I'm in heaven'. Okay, one of my favoriter Dexy's songs.

8. Jackie Wilson - (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher

The backing vocals here are so candy. But Jackie, of course, that range. Mamma Mia. That's so high. I don't know, I'll have to listen harder to see the real greatness. Sometimes I think about isolating myself with just a bunch of soul songs, but then I realize I'd probably not listen to them. I just need someone to play me a bunch of soul songs. And then to give me a test on them to see if I'd payed attention.

9. Elvis Costello - Chelsea (I Don't Want To Go)

Again, a kind of inappropriate transition. Actually, no I can justify this. Okay. There's both Jeffery Lee's sexual mania and Jackie Dee's innocence, that's the first part. Then there's Kevin Rowland talking about the purity of song and how all of these things about love can be imparted so serenely through song. Then of course we have Jackie Wilson himself with proof of that and then finally Elvis Costello kind of looking conservatively at the same kind of scene that Jeffery Lee is advertising. It all works out. Also, here's an example of Elvis Costello (even though he's morally conservative) trying something musically exciting.

10. Rufus Wainwright - Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk

And then there's this which is completely different. I always want this song to be louder. Dangerously loud. Its never loud enough. Okay, this is the very peak of Rufus' spoiled brattery, but its not that he's spoiled, its because he's spoiled that he gets to show us. There's an analogy between Julian Casablancas and M. Wainwright in that their positions of privilige aren't things to hate, but things that maybe they can let us know more about. Its in this field that Wainwright delivers more, on this album, which would me hate him if I was any sort of competent conflict theorist, he bitches and moans about wearing flip flops on fifth avenue and being sad because no boy wants him, stuff like how bittersweet it is to ride on the back of a motorbike through Greece, etc, etc, he's very punchable. Anyway, he's wonderful at it also.

I love the lines at the end. I'm a little bit Tower of Pisa whenever I see ya, so please be kind if I'm a mess. Could he sound any more like a teenage girl?

11. They Might Be Giants - Lie Still Little Bottle

So we move across THAT part of New York to this place, when it was still this place, where the two Johns sit in their apartment and melt computers trying to make the kind of music they want to make. Through the genre-bending of their first couple albums, they arrive at all sorts of conclusions. Here's one of them. I used to hate the saxophone in the middle, but now I like it. I also like the communal feel that the real drummer lends to them. But don't go back in time and read this to them or else they'll fire their drum machine and hire a real drummer and everything will go downhill.

12. Pavement - Grave Architecture

This has always been one of my favorite walking songs. Wowee Zowee, the album that this is from, has always been one of my favorite walking albums. But when he says 'Walk / The marble malls / The monuments / to those who fall', those are great walking lyrics. The first time I heard it I thought he was telling me to walk the 'Marvel mile', which has something to do with comics, which is the best thing ever if its true. This was the ocean view song. Which means also, that it was the song where the CD player decided to malfunction and beep a lot. Jerk. (just kidding, I love you baby, I'll never say anything bad again).

13. Magazine - Shot by Both Sides

I love the fear and ever-approaching doom that this song makes me feel. It works with a predictable enough pattern with really effective results. There's a build-up here that I just knew was going to go back into the main part, but secretly hoped that it would keep on going up and up and up and maybe have a bunch of explosions or something. That would have been great.

14. The Sundays - Here's Where the Story Ends

If only the drums sounded better, resonating rather than pulling back, this would be a terrific song. The singing is pretty great, the guitars and all of that, eh. But the singing and drums would have been able to pull it off wonderfully. When she says 'Ends', she sounds a little like Bjork. I really like the lyric 'its a little souvenir of a terrible year', that reminds me of something. The voice is very effective.

15. Radiohead - Banana Co.

Radioheads shortest song. I don't know where this belongs in their chronology, but I'm guessing it comes somewhere around the Bends. It seems like they were doing a lot of exercises in here, with the explosions and soaring and the guitar part at the end. If you'd heard this for the first time today you'd say 'hey, that guitar part sounds like Radiohead', but not sounds like like 'hey, that's radiohead', but 'hey, that guitarist must listen to a lot of Radiohead'. In a good way. But not necessarily Radiohead.

16. Olivia Tremor Control - Jumping Fences

I was really impressed with this album when I first got it. I knew the OTC catalogue before I knew the Beatles at all, so this was a very impressive thing. And it still kind of is. The end of this song, as well as Grave Architecture, as well as Jackie Wilson Said, recalls too heavily the beginning of the next song on their respective albums for this to not sound weird.

17. Perry Como - Magic Moments

Okay, this song and I have a secret. Its way too square for me, especially the part where Perry and chorus trade off magic memories, but I love this song so there has to be a way for me to be able to listen to it without making the revolver-to-head motion. Anyway, when they are naming magic moments, I create magic moments of my own. When he says 'The telephone call that tied up the line for hours and hours', I'll think of, for example, 'The telephone called, he's tied up, you are lying for hours and hours'. I don't know, not necessarily keeping within the boundaries. But I stretch it and make it weird. In my brain. How about the one where he says 'The time the floor fell out of my car when I put the clutch down', I picture the girl freaking out and then them swerving off the road and he and the girl sitting there for a couple seconds, putting it all together before Perry realizes, okay. I have to walk to the gas station four miles up the road. Do I take her with me? I mean its chivalrous and everything, but, she probably doesn't want to get dirty and its raining. I mean, we could wait inside the car, but they what would the town think? Anyway, I twist it around and extend his 'Magic Moments' into hilariously detailed and boring stories that your math teacher would tell.

18. Bow Wow Wow - Go Wild in the Country (12" version)

Hells yes! Bow Wow Wow are five for five with me, which is a very rare ratio, considering the randomness with which I choose their songs. I guess they're just an excellent band. Okay, the lyrics are a bit spotty, the ones that she repeats, its something like 'this town isn't my town, i'll find another town and try it on', something like that , its not very powerful. But that's okay, because the drums and bass and guitar which are all all over the place in the most beautiful way take care of that. The 12" version adds a really awesome drum part and then the reiteration of the chorus and then an instrumental section and then finally the band goes 'phew!'.

19. Smashing Pumpkins - Lily, My One and Only

So this is very similar to "We Only Come out at Night" in terms of Billy puts it together. But now its all alt-country, before we started using the term. There's something in the way the guitars pull back, like every single time they are played, that's very very very unlike Billy. So the Smashing Pumpkins are two for two songs that don't sound like them.

20. Cows - Walks Alone

This sounds more canonical than the Cows. I've only just recently heard about this band, maybe I should listen to more.

21. Menomena - Cough Coughing

Yeah, this really is interesting. The flanged drums in the beginning gave me an idea. And then all those cool effects that push the mix to one side or another and then the bass is all alone. That little cadence part has some real potential. But I don't really remember much of it.

22. Magnetic Fields - With Whom to Dance

This song is very much embedded in me.

23. Momus - I Am a Kitten

I'm impressed with the way that everything is put together here. Mainly the guitar and the percussion and how it sounds together. The fact that Momus is sleazing it up, that helps too. The flute also. It sounds like a sample. But that's okay, there's always an art to the sample, the art to creatively ripping-off.

24. The Pixies - Is She Weird?

The kind of build up I wanted with Magazine, the Pixies give us here. "Like the stars and the sun, like the stars and the sun". Of course, Black Franciss intensity is always welcome. When he says 'room' it sounds like he's a goat or some other barnyard animal. Some sort of satanic barnyard animal.

25. Cat Power - I found a Reason

I haven't heard the original of this song, or if I do, I don't remember it. This is nice. Its very tense though, the 'you'd better run run run run run to me', that looks like it was written by the Velvet Underground. The places where she hits notes between the required notes, that's what I define as 'singing'.

I AM THE MAN WHO LOVES YOU

compilation 13

This is the redeemer for all of that jazz earlier. Not jazz as in 'hey, saxophones', but jazz like 'hey, ow, my feelings'.

1. The Suicide Machines - Hey

This is the song that I discovered punk rock to, jumping on a trampoline in Dan's backyard. I had borrowed the cd to make a compilation that contained, among other things the Smashing Pumpkins and the Offspring. When I began jumping faster than I ever had on that trampoline, I knew my ship had come in.

2. Zombies - Care of Cell 44

This has the drums in common. It opens and you think its going to be weak because hey, its a weak sixties song without distortion or anything, but the drums. Each snare hit is like a cannon. Or at least a revolver. The voices when they come in are the calvary and baby, this war is over. You never had a chance. Its the first of the sixties songs here.

3. The Flower Pot Men - Let's Go to San Francisco

When the percussion backs up the rest of the stuff at the bridge, you would think you were listening to a hip-hop production, such goes the brilliance of how this is put together. This is a more assertive kind of Beach Boys arrangement. Well, more assertive than the Pet Sounds stuff. Not that Pet Sounds isn't the best album ever, its just that some of those songs are a little nebulous. I like how the guitar in both this and the Cowsills song (which I think I put on comp #8) are all pingy like the Pet Sounds guitar in... oh yeah, the lyrics go, 'it starts with just a little glance now, right away your thinking about romance now', anyway. That's the one.

4. The Rolling Stones - In Another Land

I thought this would be weaker and more irritating than it actually was. Not when I was putting this together of course, that would have been idiocy, but when it first came on. I always get the sense of dread if a song comes on after a good one about whether or not it will be able to follow the good song. In here we get the kind of flanged out or whatever effect is that Tommy James gives us and also Os Mutantes, an effect that I had previously thought rare. Okay, maybe its not rare to good records. The snoring or whatever at the end came as a surprise as well as did nearly all of:

5. The Clash - The Magnificent Seven

I've heard this song before. A lot. I don't know, maybe I hadn't been listening. If you had asked me three days ago to explain this song's form I would have said, 'um, they start with that cool drum and bass thing and then a guitar groove, and then they stay in that for a while, and somewhere in there they say the magnificent seven a bunch of times'. This song is so much more complicated! There's a chorus, there's a bunch of cool background noises. Okay, get this: A budgie - gets sucked - into a vacuum cleaner- huh?? That's the coolest thing to ever happen in punk. Okay. A bird. Geting sucked. Into a vacuum cleaner. Hot Dog! Of course there's adorable political lyrics in here also, but we won't bother with those.

6. Yazoo - Only You

There's something very dramatic about this singers voice. I always think Kate Bush and then I think Cher. And then I think, I don't really like either of those singers particularly that much, so why do I like this lady? I don't know. Maybe she belts at the right time. Maybe its the music which is really simple and fantastic. The arpeggios are the stars twinkling in the sky.

7. Magnetic Fields - No One Will Ever Love You

So maybe its a long running joke of mine to juxtapose the Fields with the songs that Merritt grew up with. So what? It shows how brilliant I am. Nevermind that whenever I try and make a compilation flow I end up mentally harming myself, I can put songs together and make them sound smart. The guitar part that follows the wah panning guitar, you know, what you would call the melody if it wasn't shared between instruments, it never ends the phrase how I want it to. Until the very end. That's pretty neat. But still I'm frustrated for every time it didn't.

8. Bob Dylan - Just Like A Woman

I was thinking of Bill Frisell's vibrato-laced version when I put this back to back with the Fields. That's okay. I mean, if I was making this compilation for the Pope, then I'd go and dig up the Frisell, but then again, I probably wouldn't use the Fields, or the Yazoo, or the Clash. The whole compilation would pretty much be the Zombies, Wilco and Jonathan Richman. He'd be fine with that. Oh, except the part where Jonathan prefers New England to Rome. Anyway, whenever I picture this-era Dylan, I picture Dylan alone, which doesn't explain why his band sounds so good. I think that's what has me puzzled about good-period Dylan and good-period Bowie, is that they were geniuses on their own, but somehow the band knew how to do it. I don't know. Maybe its a studio magic thing.

9. Devo - Beautiful World

I remember liking this more in the Target commercial. Man, those Target commercials. I like Target more because of them. Its like the Gap. Maybe better, because Target has stuff like cereal for two dollars, and this year after Easter, my mom and I got a ton of Easter candy because it was discounted 90%. 90%, that's madness!!!! I mean, a chocolate bunny is a chocolate bunny, who cares what time of year it is. We were just picking it off the shelfs and running over to the scanner and going hog wild. "9 cents??!!?? For all of these!!??!" It was a great scene. Everyone around us was happy. I think I still have a bunch of candy in a box at home that I totally don't need. Hey guys, race to Tyler's house. Just ask Conner for the candy in my room, its somewhere. Oh actually, I think I gave it away. Sorry, false alarm.


10. The New Pornographers - Out from Blown Speakers

This is how it goes with me and the New Pornographers. Drawn in, then hate it. Hate it hate hate hate it. Want to like it after a while. Like it like it, want to love it. Love it, listen to it every day nonstop. With this one, oh crap this copies worn out, better get another one. New copy day- oh, yeah, these songs again. Okay, I get this one, I get this one, I get this one, I like this one, and I totally get it. Okay. Done. That was how it was with their first album and it was how it was with this album and it will be the same with their next album. Its a comprehension thing, I think. Like the initial shock is 'how did they do this to me?' and then you listen to it and its like 'okay...' and then after a while its like 'right'. So while the round of 'the bells say...' in whatever that song is happens the first time (actually the first couple times I didn't notice it, really) you're all 'wow!!' but then it reveals itself as not as spectacular as you'd hoped. That's it. Not as spectacular as I'd hoped.

11. Pavement - Zurich is Stained

Unlike this, where Pavement still delight with new listens. Maybe I'm just reliving my initial giddiness. But maybe its more than that. I never took New Pornographers songs and learned them on my three string acoustic guitar and played them and sang into a microcasette recorder just so I could listen to them elsewhere. That's devotion. So while Pavement are always a little cheeky, they are still babes. The guitar is just so disobedient here, the weoo wee waeooo, "I can't sing it strong enough / cause that kind of strength I just don't have".

12. Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones

The imagery this evokes from the title alone is priceless. You know the deal, interesting use of percussion. Man, that voice. Okay. I really wanted "In the Neighborhood" which is my fourth favorite Tom Waits song ever, but this is what I had to use. Time issues. Pitchfork said I'll never write a song as good as Tom Waits worst song. I don't know, I think I probably could. I don't know if Tom Waits is so much an unstoppable songwriter as he is a real trooper when it comes to sticking to the weird. I mean, don't get me wrong, some of his songs are brilliant, but just like with Nicky Cave, I can only take so many hunchbacks.

13. Chairmen of the Board - You got Me Dangling on a String

This is more of a texture than a song that I recognize. I remember walking down stairs and then going through the wrong door. And then getting back on the stairs and finally finding the right floor to get off on. This evokes that and that's it.

14. Lush (or some other band, but Lush seems right) - Undertow

I really like this song, though it seems like My Bloody Valentine Lite. Like they can't commit to the wacked out guitars or the cooing vocals. I think the first time I heard this song I thought it was Bjork, but I remember I don't like Bjork that much, and this wasn't selfish enough to be her. Sorry, but there's something selfish sounding about Bjork to me, like everytime she sings something she's waltzing around a department store just grabbing things and asking her servant to buy them for her. Anyway, the guitars here create the right texture. Maybe the problem with block guitars is that people just don't try hard enough with them, and so distortion becomes more of an obligation than an effect. I remember liking this through the entire song.

15. Wilco - I'm the Man who Loves You

I bought this CD at a Wal-Mart in Los Banos. I was really impressed to find that they had it there. In the car, on the way up to Salinas. I popped the CD in and worried. I didn't worry about the quality of the songs, even if the rest was crap, there was the first song that I had already heard and loved. I worried about the quality of the CD. I had read somewhere that chains like Target and Wal-Mart sometimes censored the CDs they stocked, and I thought they said 'fuck' somewhere on the album, and maybe they wouldn't say it, and that meant that I had a sullied edited copy. Not like I'm a big fan of swears, its more of a principal thing, like 'you can't tell me what to listen to'. Anyway, I listened to the entire album expecting not to hear 'fuck' and be disappointed, I was waiting for some sort of suprise, and when the horns kick in in place of the distorted guitar, that was a pleasant suprise for me. It was like 'who cares if he says it or not, check it out, horns!', and I didn't listen for the word not to be there anymore.

16. Jonathan Richman - New England

Conner downloaded this song a long time ago and listened to it a ton. And so I have it memorized. I don't know what album its from. Obviously the opening part sounds like its recorded live, but there isn't any audience there, despite Jonathan talking and then them adorably flubbing the end a bit. The tone of the backing vocals doesn't match Jonathan. At least it doesn't match my Jonathan.

17. Belle and Sebastian - She's Losing It

This song sounds very big. I don't know if this is from their recorded-in-a-church album or from their 'good' album, but it fits both of those catagories. I mean at least it sounds like it was recorded in a church. I don't think Belle and Sebastian are all that weak, maybe overly precious. I certainly don't find anything wrong with listening to them. Nevermind. Anyway, it sounds big. Not Spector big, but certainly big enough.

18. Smashing Pumpkins - We Only Come Out At Night

I didn't realize it until I heard this tonight, but wasn't Smashing Pumpkins supposed to be a two-man outfit? Like Jimmy playing the drums and Billy playing everything else? Okay, where's the drums in this. Doesn't that mean that this is solo Billy? There's other songs like this on the album, I know it. I like that this is triumphant billy, not with guitars and trumpets and big drums, but with weird blippy drum machines and auto harps. How Magnetic Fields. I'm sure Merritt would hate this though. Too obvious.

19. XTC - Dear God

There is no way to distance me from hearing XTC as a kind of jokey band. Its the vocals. These are the same vocals that same 'ain't nothing in the world like a green skinned girl, make your union jack and make your flag unfurl', so why should I listen to him about theology. There's kind of a powerful part before the end with the drums and he's kind of shouting 'no god and no devil!' or whatever he's saying there. And yeah, bookending it with the little girl helps a lot too. Also its not six or seven minutes long, a flaw I have associated with XTC.

20. Billy Joel - For the Longest Time

I always get so excited about this song. I can picture myself hating it though. Going to like a music recital and watching the honors vocal quintet come up and perform this. Oh, I would vomit. But if its just Billy (or whoever! I can pretend its just Billy, can't I?), that's the money. Also, it beats the pants off of "Caravan of Love". Two great places I've heard this: Wishing Well in Sacramento and the Maxima in a clothing store parking lot.

21. David Bowie - Scary Monsters

Would you believe that Superchunk got me into Bowie? That's a good analogy for how all of my music listening developed. Hearing the new and current acts first, then looking backwards to see how they got there, to where they are now. Superchunk did a Bowie cover and I liked it (I can't tell you why I like Superchunk *in small doses*), so I eventually got around to listening to the real thing. Five minutes of late-period Bowie seems like a lot, but they/he pull(s) it off.

22. My Bloody Valentine - Several Girls Galore

You know when I'm talking about MBV, I'm talking about Loveless, right? I mean, that's the MBV that everybody knows. That's the MBV that I'm most familiar with, thought I wouldn't use the word 'familiar', I'd use the word 'acquainted'. Like I'm acquainted, in that I've seen it and heard it, like a two-times-removed friend, not familiar like a husband and wife with each others eccentricities (oh Stephin... giggle giggle). Oh yeah, talking about the song. Its also from Isn't Anything, which I totally like more than Loveless now. Um, it starts out stronger than I'd like, but it comes off pretty. The vocals help.

23. Manitoba - Skunks

I'm happy about this song's title. It takes a lot of courage to name a song after nature's most reviled animal. Seriously, think of an animal more hated? A snake? No, you want to touch it. A python? that's a kind of snake. A pirahna? Admit it, you want to catch it and shoot it at a cartoon dog from a slingshot. A crocodile? No, you love crocodiles. But a skunk? What do people say about skunks? "Stay away!" "If you touch that skunk you're sleeping outside tonight, boy" "That's one stanky cat!". It starts out like a jeans commercial or something (see like half this compilation, but totally on accident), but then when the drums come in at the end, its just so nice. So nice. And then the nature noises.

So its brilliant and the endings better and there's a couple great runs, but there's no arc, no pattern, not a ton of cohesiveness. I give it a B. As in B more alert to the progression.

But seriously, I like this one a lot. Thank you, me.

I'm moving towards something, I can feel it.

But for now:

MORE BEAUTIFUL

compilation twelve

1. My Bloody Valentine - Soft as Snow (but Warm Inside)

It starts off exactly like Loveless, but its different. There's a song here, not just a ton of guitars. I like how everything seems to be out of tune with each other, but really its just the lady singing. Also how at any giving time you are either paying attention to the lyrics, the guitar sound (which is actually just the effect sound), the bass doing that cool chromatic thing or the snare going 'pah pah pah pah', because the focus is shifted, it seems like only one thing is happening at a given time. That's pretty cool.

2. David Bowie - Changes

The phrasing is weird in the chorus, which attracted me to this in the first place. This, the song that redeemed Bowie for me. The bass in the bridge is really neat, how its supposed to do a fill but all it does is 'bum ba dah dah dah', its a quirky kind of triumph.

3. Guided by Voices - As We Go Up, We Go Down

This song summarizes generally my feelings of the good GBV. The catchyness comes from when the band seems like they are missing all the notes, when things are happening at the same time. Its like the brilliant bridge of Bucks Fizz's "My Camera Never Lies", but its a) indie's approximation, and b) sounds like an accident. I mean, those kind of musical stumbles always sound like accidents and that's what makes them great.

4. The Strokes - You Talk Way Too Much

Man, I love this band. The choruses I look forward to so much more than I do the chorus. Maybe its the slowing into the chorus. Did they do anything that drastic on "Is this It?" I think people need to look past the fact that, yeah, they do sound like a band on automatic. But automatic what? Automatic pop? Automatic cool? Yes.

5. Scissor Sisters - Music is the Victim

Thankfully they approach the bridge like the B-52s, a band that should be more celebrated. The guy's voice there reminds me of somebody elses, its probably someone I know, but whoever they are escapes me. Maybe its someone I overheard once. Anyway, this is a very bouncy song and is a good companion to the Strokes.

6. The Modern Lovers - Government Center

This is the inferior version with all the reverb and distorted organ. How can reverb and distorted organ make a version inferior? Well for one thing, they cover up the awesome guitar part at the end. If you listen very very closely you can hear it just barely, 'buhn dun dun ba dabba dah dah hey!', like that. But only if you've heard the other, better version. It has a better introduction, and a better break in there also. But this one does the texture thing well.

7. Elvis Costello - The Other Side of Summer

Elvis Costello is one of those guys with a bag of tricks. The thing is, he uses them over and over. The bass doing a minor-key thing? Yeah, okay, we get how you're using that out of context and aren't you brilliant and everything. The 'yeah's being ironic and everything, okay. I mean the whole song overall, the fact that he's making what amounts to a Beach Boys but bitter song, even that is kind of played out. I like the sound of the french horns that are also like bowling pin organs. It makes sense to me. Anyway, this is one of his good bad songs.

8. Dressy Bessy - Blink Twice

I don't remember how the riff goes, but I remember they play it later over another part. Also, I remember that the vocals are kind of cutesy.

9. Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow

Kind of a transition. This is like the kind of thing you'd do if you were a really good bass player and had showed up to practice about fifteen minutes early and had just finished tuning and turning on all your amps.

10. Musical Youth - Pass the Duchie

I know that this is about drugs, but I never think about that. Or if I do, its like I think about it as a drug party where everybody has already done the drugs, and you actually never get to see the Duchie passed. The parts that always stick out for me are the : 'me say listen to the drummer, me say listen to the bass...' and the beginning, 'this generation.. rules the nation..'

11. Scritti Politti - Absolute

The chorus seems so triumphant to me. I really like the album this came from. "Lo-uh oh-uh oh uh uh oh ah uve" the way that's stretched out. When this was playing I was just coming down the hill from Cowell through the construction area above the field and I saw the field and it wasn't as neon as the song wanted it to be.

12. Basement Jaxx - If I ever Recover

For some reason I put this song in the sequence of love-ish songs I feel strongly about. This is a devestating breakup song, where the singer is pondering what his life is going to be like without the other, should he ever recover. He doesn't want anyone in the future to have anything to do or remind of him of anything connected to his ex. Its a pretty effectively depressing song.

13. Erasure - Oh, L'amour

I think after that, nothing is going to bring me back up. Okay, this helps a little bit. Its so happy, even though it also is about heartbreak. Its all the cooing vocals, that are completely different from Fun Boy Threes, even though they both occupy the same space.

14. The Beach Boys - Our Prayer

Talk about recontextualizing. Anyway, this song continues the kind of bittersweet vein that my mind is in at this point. I'm looking at things like I'm sitting in my coffin at my funeral, I can see the Santa Cruz city below and the ocean in the distance. Okay. Gosh, its all so serious.

15. Nancy Sinatra - Bang Bang (my Baby Shot me Dead)

There's a certain novelty to this song and at the same time a certain bravery. I mean, I don't feel anything serious or deep or anything about this song, but its tone is certainly notable. An effects-laden guitar and Nancy singing. The idea is kind of a downer, so there you go.

16. Magnetic Fields - I Shatter

What was I trying to do to myself? Anyway, had I been in a more vulneurable state of mind, rather than my kind of 'oh man, my back hurts, and my knee, I wonder if its cancer?' state, I'm sure I would have had a mini-breakdown similar to last night. Seriously. There's nothing happy about this song. "Some fall in love, I shatter" I mean, sure that's devoted and all, but the singer's shattered, for him love isn't a celebration, it isn't a wedding party, its a missile attack.

17. Wire - The Other Window

Thankfully I can't understand what he's saying here. I chose this because it begins with the same sound that's going through "I Shatter", I though that would make me look particularly clever. And it does. It seems like the middle part of this compilation would be really good for somebody who has a) just broken up with their significant other and b) just smoked a lot of pot, they are all very depressing and kind of far out songs. This song is kind of the bookend of the series, starting with "Absolute" but really with "Pass the Duchie", it sounds like music for an art film, I'm saying that because it sounds like someone is narrating a documentary.

18. Velvet Underground - Stephanie Says

Okay, even though this song is supposed to be depressing, maybe, I always listen to it as a triumpant song. "Its so cold in Alaska" the final refrain, I always listen to like its the end of the Hallelujah chorus, is that wrong of me? Anyway, the baroque thing is done right here, a good lesson for M. Ochs to learn, please, go back in time and change it. No? Okay. Even though I'm slowly de-importanting the velvets for myself, I still recognize their contrast of tone with everyone elses at the time.

19. Andre 3000 - Take Off your Cool

I was going to say something about how neat it was that I put Outkast next to the Velvets, but psh. Forget that. This is a very nice song.

20. Alphaville - Forever Young

The first minute and a half or so of this song is really terrific. Everything is switching off, the vocals and the neat sounding synths that are breathing in and out, and it all sounds very well orchestrated. After the first chorus, though, when the drums come in, it goes on auto-pilot, until the end, where there's this brilliantly disgraceful trumpet part. I picture a son and his father arguing the merits of pop vs. classical and the son turning on the radio at this point and the end of this song playing with the cruddy electric trumpets doing this pitiful fanfare that whoever was playing couldn't be bothered to play it more than twice through, and the father saying 'see?" and the son losing the argument and having to go to piano practice.

21. Queen - The Miracle

Eh. It just doesn't do much for me. The guitar that's shooting rockets as always shoots rockets as always with the same intervals, you know, like the climax of Bohemian Rhapsody, or in Somebody to Love, or in Your My Best Friend, all of those. Anyway, I like the strings.

22. Yello - Oh Yeah

Oh yeah, its that song. The Twix song as I knew it for a long time. This song is never appropriate ever. This is like the soundtrack for the guy on his first date to initiate 'moving too fast', where its obvious the girl isn't going to give in. So then she says 'no means no' and then maybe hits him a little and then he has to drive her home. And then, since this is the long version, he gets all the way home listening to this song play, and the irony is so beautiful. Oh yeah, you got BURNED.

23. Lightning Bolt - Into the Mist

Okay, here's the deal, there were only a couple songs that were a minute and a half long, I kind of tacked them on. they both happened to be Lightning Bolt songs. It was late, I had to wake up at seven. Anyway, that's why this is here.

24. Tina Turner - River Deep Mountain High

Its Spector. The drums are downplayed, isn't that cool? The vocals, backing and fronting, are given the good parts. I remember the vocals as you know, triumphant and everything. It starts dragging after a while, but its big, so that's cool

25. The Decemberists - Los Angeles, I'm Yours
26. Yo La Tengo - My Little Corner of the World

These didn't seem important, so I didn't listen to them. Actually I started listening to both of them, and I remembered what they were, innocuous pop songs. I could have fit "Deacon Blues" here, that would have been cool.

Okay, so there's the ambition (however crazy I was at the time) of the middle section, where for some reason I wanted to take the heartbreak from the last one and prolong it all dreamily and druggily, anyway. I'm going to give this a C+ because its ambitious, but also it contains a bunch of songs that I'm indifferent to. The ending is always important and here it just felt like an afterthought.