Morrissey

NoFX, “Six Pack Girls”

Another track from the bootleg Maximum Rocknroll, which wasn’t authorized by the band and contains a bunch of pretty poor quality stuff. Not great!

Claw Hammer, “Uncontrollable Urge”

This is such a good song, goddamn. Claw Hammer really nails it, too. Uh, not a lot else to say here, really.

The Ocean, “Pleistocene”

I’ve meditated on pretension here before, so I’ll spare you all that guff again. But just for a moment, please admire the hubris involved in naming your album Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic. It’s a really good album, though, so whatever.

Valentine Six, “Always Is My Name”

Here’s a little bit of an oddball. Valentine Six put out one album in 1997, full of this kind of lounge-y sort of thing. Clearly more than a little Tom Waits in the DNA here, maybe just a little bit of Nick Cave. It’s pretty good, and I haven’t thought about this band in ages.

Morrissey, “He Knows I’d Love To See Him”

Like lots of other people, I was curious to see what the various members of the Smiths would get up to after that band broke apart. I picked up a couple of Morrissey’s EPs, and honestly, didn’t really follow him from there. I mean, yeah, this is clearly a Morrissey song, but I guess I had enough of him from the Smiths’ albums?

Morrissey, “He Knows I’d Love To See Him”

This is from the non-album single November Spawned A Monster, where he continued working with ex-Smiths bassist Andy Rourke, and is some of the better stuff from his solo career. It’s just three songs, but they’re good songs. You know, if you can stand Morrissey.

Sharon Van Etten, “Comeback Kid”

I haven’t followed Van Etten too closely, but her most recent album (Remind Me Tomorrow) got strong reviews based on having added a lot richer arrangements, and I picked it up. It’s pretty good! I should actually recommend it to my sister, she would like it (she does not read this blog).