In most of these playlists, I try and find the actual version of the song I’m listening to. But, if I can’t find it exactly, I’ll go with something close, because I don’t think it’s necessarily that important that it matches exactly, and I don’t want to go through the hassle of uploading if I don’t have to. I hope that’s OK with folks! Here’s today’s playlist, which does feature one of those “close enough” tracks.
[Read More]Five Songs, 5/13/2017
I think we’re on a streak here, with another strong collection of songs for this entry. Take a listen and see if you agree.
Willie Nelson, “Undo The Right”
This is from Crazy: The Demo Sessions, a compilation of very early demos of Nelson performing a bunch of his songs, some of which ended up becoming very famous. “Crazy” as recorded by Patsy Cline, for instance. The songs on this album are all pretty spare arrangements, mostly just Nelson and his guitar. I’m far from a Nelson expert, so I have no real pointers on where to go with his discography, but this album is very good. Makes for a disorienting duet when you have two copies of the song going at once, though.
[Read More]Five Songs, 5/4/2017
Sorry about six songs yesterday. I don’t know what I was thinking! I was intoxicated with power, I guess. It won’t happen again! At least, until next time. Y’all just missed “Cop” by Swans here, by the way. I’m sure they’ll be back soon, though. In the meantime, enjoy today’s selection.
They Might Be Giants, “Stuff is Way”
I divide They Might Be Giants into five eras: pre-Elektra, the Elektra years, post-Elektra, the kid album years, and the current era. Note that even during the kid album years, they put out a couple of non-kid albums (2004’s The Spine and 2007’s The Else), so things aren’t really that neatly divided here. But, personally, I saw something of a creative renaissance after those years of mostly kid records (which are mostly very good, by the way), starting with 2011’s Join Us and continuing to the album this song is from, 2013’s Nanobots. If you fell off the TMBG train a couple decades ago, those two records are something to look into.
[Read More]