Best of 2013 - Part 2

I wish I could come up with all the musicology and pithy comments that Court produces, but I'm a get to the point kinda guy.  Here's my list for 2013.  As usual, Court and I overlap in some areas, but are far apart in others.  I think we both agree that "In A Tidal Wave Of Mystery" by Capital Cities was one of the best albums of the year.


1.  "Coming Home" - Butch Walker

A friend asked me recently (as often happens), who is that guy you are always going to see live?  I said he is the best singer-songwriter of the last 20 years.  Its no joke, he writes for himself and he writes for others, and manages to keep those styles perfectly separated.

2.  "Done And Dusted" - Less Than Jake

Gainsville's own should have disappeared from existence 10 years ago, like so many other punk/ska bands that had good runs, but the problem is they keep producing great albums year after year.  This one is no exception.

3.  "Royals" - Lorde

Yeah, you're sick of it now (and so am I), but I loved it the first time I heard it.  "We're driving Cadillacs in our dreams…"  Yeah we are.

4.  "Dreaming" - Smallpools

I can't wait to hear an entire album from this impossibly catchy EIAR (see definition below) group.

5.  "Pompeii" - Bastille

The haunting background chants of this track from Bastille's EP "Haunt" are only assuaged by the pure pop of the chorus "How am I gonna be an optimist about this?…"

6.  "Diane Young" - Vampire Weekend

Everyone knows I'm an Elvis man through and through, and the pure E and Buddy Holly jump of this track makes you realize that good music never dies, it just gets modified.  When Ezra Koenig sings "baby, baby, baby" I think I'm in a malt shop in the 50s.  Solid gold.

7.  "Sacrilege" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

The slow build of this track doesn't get you the first time or even the second, but by the third you are completely hooked.

8.  "Save Rock And Roll" - Fall Out Boy

When you're an emo/pop-punk band that can duet with Elton John and make it not sound ridiculous, but ridiculously awesome, you're doing something right.  When they play it live they have a constantly changing backdrop of rock and roll icons, including Biggie & 2Pac.  Yep.

9.  "Wake Me Up" - Avici

Most original song of the year - who knew country and EDM went together?

10.  "The Mother We Share" - Chvrches

There has to be a name for all this electronic-influenced alternative rock, let's call it EIAR.  Capital Cities, Robert DeLong, Smallpools, Chvrches, etc. - its all awesome.

11.  "Kangaroo Court" - Capital Cities

That synthesizer intro is all you need - best track from the best album of the year.  "The judge pulls me aside, says c'est la vie, let your darker side come out to feed…"  Indeed.

12.  "The Way It Was" - The Killers

While their latest album "Battle Born" didn't receive much of a warm welcome from alternative radio or critics, its as good as anything The Killers have ever done.  With visceral lyrics like "I drove through the desert last night, I carried the weight of our last fight, Elvis singing 'Don't Be Cruel', and I wonder if you feel it too, its like we're going under…", you feel like you are the one who is lonely and lovelorn in Las Vegas.

Merry Christmas!

(From a 1982 Factory Records flexi-disc handed out free to visitors of the Hacienda.)

Best of 2013

It's that time of year again. And this year I'm offering what looks to be my poppiest list yet: At least four of these songs were mainstays of pop radio in 2013. That said, I think it's a strong list, so without any excuses, or further ado, here goes:

Johnny Marr - "New Town Velocity"
The Messenger, Johnny Marr's first proper solo record, dominated my listening during the first half of the year, and his live set at Irving Plaza was easily the year's musical highlight for me. I've been an evangelist for Marr's guitar prowess for years -- both on this site and off -- but even I was pleasantly surprised with the consistency of this album, and in particular, the quiet strength of this song.

Frank Turner - "Recovery"
A big discovery this year for me was the music of this Wessex boy. A regular punk rocker who discovered Springsteen's Nebraska and morphed his sound into something more folksy, he never lost his edge or his attitude. And his lyrics are smart and literary, which I always appreciate. This year's album Tape Deck Heart was as much a break-up record as it was an homage to his tattoos (and in darker moments to other forms of youthful self-mutilation). On this track, Turner shows off his knack for making the emotionally raw sound like something to celebrate.

Palma Violets - "Best of Friends"
A great song makes you want to pick up a guitar and play. By that measure, there is no shortage of great songs on 180, the stunning debut by London's Palma Violets. Picking the best of the lot was no easy task,
but this rousing sing-along would pump up anyone -- from a crowd in a small club to a stadium. I'm not sure they're heading for the latter, which is too bad because this is as good a debut as I've heard in a while. Like Arctic Monkeys before them, they've perfected the art of the three-minute garage stomp, complete with power chords and 60s organs. Which leads me to...

Arctic Monkeys - "Do I Wanna Know?"
This is what garage rock sounds like ten years down the road. On AM, the Arctic Monkeys slowed things down and found the funk, all without losing that garage rock sound. Lead singer Alex Turner cited everyone from Outkast to Aaliyah to Black Sabbath as influences this time around, and it shows.

Parquet Courts - "Stoned and Starving""I was walking through Ridgewood, Queens/I was flipping through magazines..." and with that, Brooklyn's Parquet Courts kick off one of the most amusing tracks of the year. With Andrew Savage's witty couplets, a motorized Krautrock beat and a hypnotic guitar riff on near-endless repeat, this track perfectly captures the monotony of aimless, late-night wandering, and signals the arrival of Brooklyn's next great band.

Foxygen - "No Destruction"
This year also brought us a little Brooklyn backlash, in the form of LA's Foxygen. Listen closely and you'll hear it: "There's no need to be an asshole/You're not in Brooklyn anymore." Foxygen's capital V Velvety-smooth sound almost foretells this year's death of Lou Reed, and with this effort their on their way to filling that enormous void.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Mary Lambert - "Same Love"
I include this pop fixture because it is the perfect takedown of all that is wrong with 1) hip hop, 2) conservative politics, and 3) organized religion. My twenty-one year old sister-in-law played this for me this summer -- sat me down and made me watch the video, actually -- and its impact on me was instant and  undeniable. Like the best protest songs of the 1960s, this song succinctly captures the progressive mood of a country during a year that saw us hurtle further and faster toward accepting the single biggest civil right of our time.

Avicii - "Wake Me Up"
I'm not a big EDM fan, nor am I that fond of the ubiquitous Mumford and Sons-style folk revival stuff. And you-got-your-peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate mash-ups seldom work. So what's this chart-topping guilty pleasure doing on this list? Tune in at 1:24 and you'll know. When Avici drops his electronic bombast on top of that folk shit, you can't not want to jump out of whatever chair you're sitting in. Nevermind that the lyrics -- by Aloe Blacc -- are pretty dreadful. And that the ho-hum guitars are done by the guy from Incubus. And that the you're-not-one-of-us video is terrificly trite. And that... oh, forget it. Just dance.

Daft Punk & Pharrell Williams - "Get Lucky"
We may as well get through all the pop stuff in one shot. If 2013 comes down to this and Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines", this wins by a landslide. You couldn't get away from this track at the height of summer, and when it was on, you didn't turn it off. (I even played it at my kid's lemonade stand.) Who would have thought that the French kings of electronica would return after a long absence and conquer the world?

Capital Cities - "Safe and Sound"
Another family dance-party favorite. Or at least another earworm with a killer hook. I could sing that horn part for weeks on end. And as John knows, the bearded guy dancing in the video cracks me up every time.

Editor's note: We're through with the pop portion of this list.

Heaven - "Colors in the Whites of Your Eyes"
Jesus and Mary Chain weren't the shoegazers who made a new album after decades of silence. That honor goes to My Bloody Valentine. But this Brooklyn band filled in admirably, with fuzzy, shimmery guitars and monotone lyrics... right up my alley.

The Vaccines - "Everybody's Gonna Let You Down"
The Dandy Warhols were often accused of being an American band that wanted to be British. On this track, London's Vaccines are a British band that wants to be the Dandy Warhols. And that's not a knock. The Vaccines have been around for years, but I never really noticed until I heard the nonchalance of this downer of a track. The Dandy Warhols influences are obvious, right down to the lyrics coming in a few beats after the guitars start the verses. It just oozes cool.

Deerhunter - "The Missing"
Atlanta's Deerhunter have made consistently good music in their eight-year career. Their sixth studio album Monomania continues that tradition, taking cues from 80s indie, shoegaze, Krautrock and bands like Sonic Youth and the Breeders. This track leans on a tight guitar riff and Bradford Cox's distorted vocals, and builds to a swirling crescendo before falling back down.

Cayucas - "High School Lover"
I had this song pegged as a song of the summer back in February. I was, of course, wrong. I figured it was a can't miss. It has the same breezy feel as fellow SoCal band Foster the People's hit "Pumped Up Kicks", with a bass line on warp speed and the sunny influences of the best 50s and early 60s pop. It should have been huge. Oh well.

Holy Ghost! - "Okay"
In a world without LCD Soundsystem, we have to settle for proteges like Holy Ghost! (Notice Arcade Fire's Reflektor, produced by LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy, is missing from this list.) This song would be right at home in 1985, with its bouncy synths, beeps and bloops.

Cut Copy - "Let Me Show You Love"
I've been waiting for years for some band to rediscover the Happy Mondays, and Cut Copy has. Thank the Lord. This is as close to Madchester as we've been since the Hacienda shut down in 1997.

Maps - "A.M.A."
Northampton, England's James Chapman has been making shoegaze-inspired electronic since 2006. On this catchy and majestic single, he reminds us that his first love may well be bands like New Order.

The Bryan Ferry Orchestra - "Love is the Drug"

Baz Luhrmann may have had the idea, but Bryan Ferry has the music. This clever collection re-imagines some of Ferry's greatest songs in the style of 1920s jazz. Ferry has traded in the instruments for the role of Svengali, overseeing an assortment of other musicians, and the results were showcased in Luhrmann's film The Great Gatsby. The great thing here is that the arrangements are so good -- and the songs so solid -- you initially don't recognize what you're listening to. And when you finally do -- like when the chorus kicks in here -- it's wonderful. This is the rare cross-cultural melange that actually works.

Some of the best discoveries I made this year were actually from years past -- like Scotland's fabulous Django Django and the terrific 2012 album Something by Brooklyn's Chairlift. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention them as they provided many hours of listening pleasure over the past year. And as always, I look forward to reading your comments... and your lists.

Happy Holidays!

75 Essential, Obscure and Influential Bands

This is just too good. Yes, it's a joke, but the photos and band names are priceless.

http://www.listchallenges.com/75-essential-obscure-and-influential-bands

New Tune on Monday

Happy Cyber Monday, or, as it's known in Pennsylvania, the first day of deer season. In any event, I heard a new song over the weekend that caught my ear... and it's from a band that we've mentioned here in the past. The song is "Everybody's Gonna Let You Down" by the Vaccines. It has a quiet coolness reminiscent of some of the best of the Dandy Warhols, an underrated band that I always liked.

Extra-ordinary

I couldn't be more proud of my brother-in-law Mac Premo and our friend Oliver Jeffers: They have directed a beautiful lyric video for U2's "Ordinary Love". It's a first-rate piece of work and demonstrates in four minutes what great artists both these guys are. Oh, and the song isn't half bad, either.

New Tune on Monday

I just wanted to throw a little love out to one of my favorite newer groups (newer meaning I discovered them in the last five years,) Cage the Elephant.  Originally from Bowling Green, Kentucky, this five piece group tries not to over think or overstate their work.  As a close friend of the band stated about their writing,  "if you're not slightly embarrassed to sing the lyrics, you're probably not writing a good song,"

"Come a Little Closer" is their most current single off their new  album,  Melophobia.  The song is good, not great.  In today's age, they are more of a true rock band than many other artists out there.  If you're curious, check out "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked," "Back Against the Wall," or "Around My Head."

New Tune on Monday

Ok, these songs might not necessarily be new tunes, but they are new releases.  Matthew Sweet & Suzanna Hoffs have released their Under the Covers Vol. 3.  Their first attempt was fair, but by volume 3, they butcher some of the sacred artists of the Discordants.  XTC,  Roxy Music, and The Beat, are just a few of the bands that are poorly covered here. The real punishment comes in the shape of both the Smiths "How Soon is Now?" and Echo & the Bunnymen's "Killing Moon."  Such a shame for 100% Fun by Matthew Sweet still holds up so well.  I also enjoy a little Ming Tea.

Enjoy your poison. Under the Covers Vol. 3

Believe the Hype, Palma Violets Edition

Now that it's November, I'm beginning to think of which albums the critics (and the Discordants) will rank as their tops of 2013. One album bound to be on plenty of lists is 180, the stunning debut from London's Palma Violets. And this is a case where the given hype is both earned and warranted.

For the uninitiated, start with garage rock, punk attitude, Sixties organs, anthemic vocals, and inject a small dose of psychedelia. What you get sounds like this:

And that's just the first track. They get better from there. Here's "Step Up for the Cool Cats", sounding like a tougher, more raw Spiritualized:

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that their quieter side is just as potent. See if you can't resist being drawn in by the intro of "Last of the Summer Wine".

 Yep, it's that easy: These guys are the real deal. See you again on the year-end lists.

New Tune on Monday

It's Monday, and all hail the haze-and-fuzz swirl of New York band Heaven. Their very solid album Telepathic Love takes you back to a time when shoegaze ruled the airwaves (did that ever really happen?) and everyone's favorite touchstone was the Jesus and Mary Chain. These guys certainly have the pedigree, with drummer Mikey Jones and producer Adam Franklin both past members of Swervedriver.

Here's the lead-off track, "Colors in the Whites of Your Eyes":

Scotland the Brave

England's northern neighbor has long produced groundbreaking bands. I'm thinking of Simple Minds (when they were truly groundbreaking), Orange Juice, Josef K, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, The Beta Band and Franz Ferdinand... (and not so much Big Country, Del Amitri and the Proclaimers.)

Add another band to the groundbreaking list: Django Django. The similarity with the Beta Band is obvious -- after all, Django's David Maclean is the younger brother of the Beta Band's John Maclean. But add more synths, surf guitars, and Brian Wilsonesque vocal harmonies and you're getting closer. Their self-titled debut album got major critical acclaim from usual suspects like NME and The Guardian, but also on this side of the Atlantic courtesy of Rolling Stone, which voted it the 26th best album of 2012. I'm not sure how I missed it last year, but I'm happy I found it now.

Song in My Head

Can't figure out why this is... but it is. And it's far from their best...

RIP Lou Reed

There have been so many great obits about Lour Reed that I cannot do him any justice.  Please read one of my favorite writers, Chuck Klosterman's take on Lou Reed, the man.  Also, in 2008, the AV Club did a fair portrayal of "The Five Faces of Lou Reed," as he changed throughout time. 

I have always had a fascination with Lou Reed.  There has always been a coolness/darkness about him that fascinated me.  He epitomized what I visualized New York was before I ever really frequented Manhattan.  I painted a portrait of him in 9th grade.  Even in pictures, he came across so angry, smug, and arrogant that I was drawn to what he was all about.  I ended up reading a biography, Transformer, about his youth, elector-shock therapy, issues with sexuality, life at Syracuse University, into the Velvet Underground and beyond. 

To me. the Velvet Underground's"banana album"(The Velvet Underground & Nico) is a masterpiece.  Odd and different, but still listenable today.  Much the opposite, but still a masterpiece is 1975's Metal Music Machine four sides of pure feedback with the last side on a loop to continually play forever.  I still don't know if I call it bullshit or brilliance.

"Sweet Jane" from Reed's Rock & Roll Animal is one of the best recorded live songs ever.  The long intro into a new take (at the time) of a Velvet Underground classic is still a song that I listen to happily when it shuffles on my ipod. 

New Tune on Monday

Long live the Happy Mondays! OK, so the brothers Ryder aren't doing anything new. But they are a big influence on the new album by the Australian duo Cut Copy. Cut Copy's new album Free Your Mind is out in early November, and the tracks that they've released ahead of the album have a decidedly Madchester sound.

Here's "Let Me Show You". (Epileptics beware).

And while I'm at it, here's the title track "Free Your Mind", which sounds like Fleetwood Mac crossed with the Mondays... if that's even possible.

New Tune on Monday

WOW!  Haven't posted anything about new music in a while, but this one has stuck with me for the past few weeks.  It's "Toe Cutter - Thumb Buster" by Thee Oh Sees.  The group formed as an experimental rock band, and have many elements of things I like: one part Blues Explosion, another part Kim Deal, some surf guitar, with a sprinkle of  Neil Young.  I haven't heard anything like it in a while, and find it in my current rotation lately.

Song In My Head

This is really unusual for me. I overheard a very classic sounding R&B song yesterday and it struck me. Not just for how Motown it sounded, but also for how modern it sounded. I realize that's a bit of a paradox, but you'll know what I mean when you hear it.

It's Raphael Saadiq's 2009 track "100 Yard Dash" -- it's effortlessly cool and infectiously funky. And the video is great too. I also hear Cupid & Psyche '85 era Scritti Politti in this tune (those backing vocals!).

Fun fact about Raphael Saddiq: He was a founding member of the late-80s/early-90s R&B band Tony! Toni! Tone!

Enjoy.

New Tune on Monday

For Columbus Day, I'm going across the Atlantic Ocean to Holland. That's where we find the neo-psychedelic Jacco Gardner. This guy is almost a doppelganger for Syd Barrett, complete with harpsichord and glockenspiel. And while you may find yourself checking your calendar when you listen to this, I can assure you that it is - in fact - 2013.

I too have seen the Future of Rock & Roll...and she's 80 years old!

To quote David Letterman, "It's fun when you leave the theater humming the music from the show." 

That's what you get when Yoko Ono reforms the Plastic Ono Band featuring her son Sean along with the Flaming Lips for a new album, Take Me to the Land of Hell. 

Here's the thing: I don't know if I love it or hate it! The groove is infectious.  it has a great bass line.  Yoko, which I must remind you, is 80 and rocking on stage like a grandma who still thinks she is hip, gives her trademark howls and screeches. That confuses me if she thinks she's an artist who is making a statement, or just realizes it's all a big joke.  I found this and watched it as for the expected craziness I expect out of her, and have now viewed it twice. Enjoy.

New Tune on Monday

I was thinking of a new way to trade music that you might not know so well -- because I've been on a listening binge lately -- and I came up with this handy paraphrase of Duran Duran.

Today, in the inaugural New Tune on Monday post, I give you Brooklyn's Parquet Courts, and their not-a-wasted-note triumph "Stoned and Starving". This is a perfect piece of late 70s inspired post punk -- catchy and minimal in the best spirit of the Buzzcocks or Wire. Plus it name checks a very unlikely NYC neighborhood, Ridgewood, Queens: "I was walking through Ridgewood, Queens/I was flipping through magazine/I was so/stoned and starving"

I've Seen Rock and Roll's Future...

...and its name is Frank Turner.

Did I get your attention? The Springsteen reference is apt, if perhaps a bit premature. Englishman Turner has the pedigree, and he has the chops. After playing in a hardcore band in the early 2000s, he was inspired to make his brand of folk-punk after listening to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska. That should pique the interest of one of the Discordants. (Another one would be happy to know that he opened for the Gaslight Anthem on the European tour.)

So now, some music.

Here's "Recovery", the radio-friendly first single off his current 2013 album Tape Deck Heart:

The second single is called "The Way I Tend To Be". It's more of a love song, but I could see it getting airplay on American country radio despite being far more literate than the usual Nashville tripe.But I am loving the mandolin.

Here's 2011's "Peggy Sang the Blues", which he wrote for his grandmother. Lots of message, here, and some themes about living life that he tends to revisit in his work.

And from 2008, something a little more political, with a little more bite.

What the Kids Were Listening To

Last weekend, I went to my first college football tailgate in years. OK, truth be told, I simply walked through the parking lot while others were tailgating. There was a large group of fraternity and sorority types, all in crazy costumes, and as we walked by they were all dancing to a song I didn't recognize. It had folksy-sounding verses offset by a stadium-dance chorus. It sounded popular enough, so I went to billboard.com and it took me all of two minutes to discover what it was: "Wake Me Up" by Swedish EDM DJ Avicii. And that shows you just how out of touch I've become with mainstream pop music. I mean, this song was huge around the world all summer, and somehow it eluded me.

Song In My Head

Stuck in my head for virtually the last five days has been the clever tune "Sale of the Century" by the long forgotten -- or should I say never-really-caught-on-in-this-country-to-be-forgotten -- Britpop band Sleeper.

Like Elastica, the London band was fronted by a woman -- Louise Wener -- though they skewed more pop than their harder-sounding compadres. Wener and Elastica's Justine Frischmann really were considered the two biggest female stars in Britpop. And the band also spawned a English slang term -- Sleeperblokes -- anonymous dudes who hang out with more glamorous women.

Song in My Head

There are only a few more days left in September, and the song in in my head (for a few days now) is "September Gurls" by the great Alex Chilton and Big Star.

The Big Turnoff

I listen to a lot of Sirius Satellite Radio in my car. Mostly, it's First Wave. And while I often enjoy the random Howard Jones or Dave Edmunds cut, there's one band that I will almost always turn off when they're played (and they're played a lot). That band is The Pretenders.

I'm not sure why The Pretenders are such a big turnoff for me. They were never very offensive, but nor were they very interesting. There's nothing about them that translates to current music. My wife can't stand them. And their best song -- "My City Was Gone" -- was co-opted by Rush Limbaugh, and even though Chrissie Hynde got him to pay for it (the money went to charity), the song is forever tainted by association. In fact, the only thing I like about The Pretenders is that Hynde was married to Jim Kerr of Simple Minds.

Which band or artist is your biggest turnoff?

Song In My Head

U2's "One Tree Hill", their wrenching-yet-uplifiting tribute to roadie and good friend Greg Carroll, who was killed in a motorbike accident in Dublin. Carroll was a native New Zealander -- a Maori -- and his death inspired The Joshua Tree.

I probably haven't thought about this song much since high school, but it was the default entry on Wikipedia the other day (go figure). And reading about the composition and production of this song made me realize 1) how good a song it is and 2) how good a band U2 are. From the opening guitar riff -- inspired by West African highlife -- to the electroacoustic Raad strings that were designed and commissioned for the song by a group of Canadians under the auspices of Daniel Lanois, to the subtle fuzz guitar solo the Edge plays at the end, to Bono's vocals, which he did in one take because he was too emotionally distraught to sing them a second time.

It's simply an exemplary track on an outstanding album. And it still gives me chills 26 years later. I've said it before: U2 are the band that has stayed relevant longer than any other rock history. And here they are at their creative zenith.

Song in My Head

I'm quickly wrapping up the book "Shadowplayers" by James Nice about the rise and fall of Factory Records. It's tremendously dense and very thorough. And the best thing about it is that it has put me in a permanent state of wanting to listen to the great Factory bands from the 80s, and even some of the not so great ones. But I've been thinking a lot about Factory's greatest band -- New Order -- especially because they're touring (again) and several of my friends have seen them in the past few days.

So with that, I report that New Order's "Face-Up" is the Song in My Head. It's the boppy closing track from 1985's Low-Life, complete with a beat reminiscent of "Temptation", a horn section, and some of Bernard Sumner's worst lyrics, save for his reference to the Joy Division song "In a Lonely Place". I mean, "I feel so low, I feel so humble/Sometimes in life we take a tumble" is pretty dreadful, right?


I recently picked up Low-Life on CD -- I found the original Factory Records UK release FACT 100 for four bucks so I snagged it. I had the cassette back in the day -- but not the Factory release -- they were on Quincy Jones's Qwest label in this country.

Song In My Head

"Out of Control" by U2. It came on Sirius this morning and it instantly flashed me back to high school, when I got really into early U2. Here's a 1981 live performance from a concert in Belfast -- where they were the opening act and actually had to introduce themselves. And they sound phenomenal. By the way, has there ever been a band who has stayed relevant for as long a time as U2 has? They were still doing great stuff well into the 2000s -- I noticed that VH1 ranked "Beautiful Day" as one of the top songs of the decade. What a run from the boys from Dublin.

Song In My Head

OK, you can knock me for this one. It's "A Good Heart" by Feargal Sharkey. I probably haven't thought about this song since 1984. So why is it in my head? I'm reading Shadowplayers, James Nice's incredibly dense book about Factory Records. And in a passage about an early Happy Mondays' track called "Delightful", Shaun Ryder is described as having a great voice in his pre-drug years, a voice reminiscent of the Sharkey's. For the uninitiated, Sharkey led the band The Undertones during the 1970s. In the 80s, he was employed briefly by Depeche Mode founding member Vince Clarke, who had formed The Assembly after disbanding Yaz with Alison Moyet. The Assembly had a big hit in the UK with the rather schmaltzy "Never Never", which is vintage Clarke and sounds just like everything else he's ever done from "New Life" era Depeche Mode, to Yaz, to Erasure. Which is to say it's pretty good. (Here's more.)

Anyway, enjoy "A Good Heart" on me!

Roots of a Classic

New Order's "Blue Monday" is the best selling 12 inch of all time. It's a sequencer-fueled, sample-rich classic -- belonging in equal measure to dance clubs and alternative radio. And I'm learning more about the roots of this classic track.

First, check out Donna Summer's "Our Love" (and the great dancing in this video) -- New Order borrowed the beat wholesale.

Next, some arrangement from Italian club hit "Dirty Talk" by Klein & MBO.

Add a sample from Kraftwerk's "Uranium" (listen for that droning sound)

Finally, as James Nice puts it in his very thorough book about Factory Records Shadowplayers, the "grove and bassline" from "(You Make Me Feel) Mighty Real" by Sylvester. And who says disco is dead?

Oh yeah, add acid. Which Bernard Sumner says the band was out of their heads on when they wrote "Blue Monday". Either way, the result is undeniable: A track that -- three decades on -- has stood the test of time.

Bust This

Kate Bush is one of those who's a household name in England, yet can only manage a cult following in this country. Her 1985 song "Cloudbusting" is an absolute classic. It's vintage Bush -- with warbly vocals, esoteric lyrics (about Wilhelm Reich) and production via the Fairlight CMI synthesizer, a staple of the phenomenal Hounds of Love album and the state-of-the-art machine of its day. And consider this: "Cloudbusting" was the last track on Side 1, which also featured "Running Up That Hill" and "Hounds of Love". What a side!

Over the years, plenty of artists have gone back and mined Kate Bush to bust clouds of their own. Take Utah Saints -- the Leeds EDM duo sampled Bush's "Cloudbusting" vocals in the appropriately titled "Something Good" from 1992 (and did it again in 2008). That track never fails to put me in an upbeat mood. More recently, the Blacksburg, VA band Wild Nothing turned out a more traditional cover version of the song.

For whatever reason, a lot of Kate Bush songs have lent themselves to very strong cover versions. Like the Futureheads version of the aforementioned "Hounds of Love", and Placebo's version of "Running Up That Hill". And last year, Das Racist's Himanshu sampled "Suspended in Gaffa" for his track "Kate Boosh".

I've been a Kate Bush fan ever since hearing her otherworldly track "The Dreaming" for the first time when I was about 11 years old. I'm just glad her music lives on as new artists discover it.

The People Speak

In my day job, I cover politics and frequently report on public opinion polls. Today, I got an email from Public Policy Polling, a pollster we often cite, with results of a poll they conducted on music.

Some highlights:
Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and the Beach Boys are overall very popular: All three have favorability ratings in the 70s and unfavorability in the teens. Not so for Michael Jackson, who's 48 favorable, 44 unfavorable. And Madonna and Kurt Cobain are under water in terms of favorability -- more people have unfavorable views of them than favorable views. They even polled on Morrissey, who scored a 17 percent favorable rating versus 31 percent unfavorable (with 52 percent not sure).

Now, when you break things down by political persuasion, things get interesting. Democrats overwhelmingly have a favorable view of Michael Jackson, while Republicans do not. And when you ask people who their favorite Beatle is, Democrats say John Lennon while Republicans say Paul McCartney.

Finally, Republicans say the 1950s were the best decade for music. Democrats say it's the 60s. No surprise, there. But overall, three quarters say the best musical decade was either the 50s, 60s or 70s. My favorite musical decade -- the 80s -- only got 15 percent. But at least that beat the rock-and-rap 90s, which had a paltry 6 percent! Sorry, Limp Bizkit.

Cover Me...Volume 4

A good cover song should spotlight the song in a different light.  A cover song is weakest when, say a band does the cover in the same vein as a predecessor.  Take "I Fought the Law"  - probably one of the most covered songs  in rock & roll.   Originally written by Sonny Curtis in 1959, it gained notoriety when the Bobby Fuller Trio covered it in 1966.  Thirteen years later, the song gained a second life when the Clash took it on and transformed it from a ballad of love lost, to an anti-establishment anthem.  In 2004, Green Day, the main stream punk, band decided to cover it, but did no justice to the song, playing it exactly like the Clash did in '79.  As stated in the movie Multiplicity,

"You know how when you make a copy of a copy, its not
  as sharp as... well... the original."

That is what happend to Green Day's version.

The Clash

 Green Day

Or maybe a country version suits you better: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

So for today's cover song, I chose Lionel Richie's "Hello" off his mulch-platinum album, Can't Slow Down.  The song is probably most famous for the video, with Richie stalking a blind girl, who reciprocates her love for him by creating a clay bust of his head. The song is sappy with it's iconic line "hello, is it me you're looking for..." and a smooth jazz guitar solo.

The cover is by punk rock super-group, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.  The Gimmes are nothing more than a cover band who wear quirky, matching outfits like Hawaiian shirts, or Western wear. or Nehru suits with a fez. They give a completely original take on the song until the end (which nearly ruins the song) when they close with the infamous Three Stooges "Hello." 

Cover Me Volume 3

Here's another cover comparo:

It's the great "Are Friends Electric?" by Gary Numan's band Tubeway Army. In this country, everyone  remembers Numan for "Cars", but "Are Friends Electric" was a #1 hit in England and the first synth chart-topper in the post-punk era. Numan, it should also be noted, had a string of great tracks including "Down In The Park" as he became the first true synth rock star.

Thirty years later, Jack White formed the band The Dead Weather in Nashville with fellow Raconteur Jack Lawrence, Alison Mosshart of The Kills, and Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age. One of their more inspired efforts was a re-imagination of the Numan classic.

So it's Tubeway Army's 1979 original (from "Top of the Pops"):

Versus The Dead Weather's cover:

For me, it's not even close. It's the original all the way. And while I respect The Dead Weather's choice to cover this song, I can't get past the overwrought drumming by Jack White on this track, especially starting at the 3:06 mark and continuing through the end of the song. He just takes over and decides he's the biggest thing about the song, and it just kills the whole thing for me.

I may actually prefer Weezer's cover version better: