Motown

Eddie Holland, “Take A Chance On Me”

Alas, no, this isn’t a predecessor of the ABBA song, but now I want to hear Motown style covers of ABBA songs.

The Pietasters, “Without You”

Seems like we’ve had a lot more of the Pietasters live than we have from their studio work, which is kind of a shame. A rational person might ask, well, why don’t I just remove the live record from the collection? To which I say to you, Rational Person, why the hell are you even paying attention to this dumb blog? Shouldn’t you be doing some imaginary figment business or something?

The Grifters, “Spaced Out”

By the time the Grifters arrived at this record, album number five, they were recording for a mid-major (Sub Pop), in a real studio, and they were sounding like a real full-on band instead of the ramshackle act they used to sound like. There are some bands that get exposed as boring when you shine them up, but happily the Grifters are not one of them. This is their slickest album by a lot, but their country/blues/rock songs sound great, and it’s a shame that their ride ended here.

Torche, “Admission”

When we had My Bloody Valentine the other day, I confessed that I didn’t really love Loveless. In turn, that means that I’m not really much on shoegaze, which is true. What I do often like is when bands take shoegaze-style wall of guitar and bring it in to other places. Like, Torche’s muscular riff-y rock has those washes of sound, and it’s great.

Jean Knight, “Mr. Big Stuff”

We’ve had “Mr. Big Stuff” on here, but it’s such an all-time jam, I’m not mad. But let’s do six today!

Phoenix, “Long Distance Call”

The alchemy on this song of the durms and that slow bleat on the keyboard is kind of magical. This entire album is chock full of fun pop rock.

Ruder Than You, “Misskaculation”

Does it get cornier than this? It does, once I tell you that this album is called Horny For Ska.

Little Otis, “Baby I Need You”

Early Motown here, from 1962. Pretty by-the-numbers, but pleasant enough. This was actually the B-side, so it makes sense that it’s not totally a barn burner.

See! Two days in a row! Nice job team, let’s take the rest of the month off.

Hattie Littles, “Conscience I’m Guilty”

Shuffle in a Motown mood! We’re in 1965, and you can really hear how much Motown has upped their game. This song isn’t that far from the previous one in terms of composition, but the arrangement and especially the production are so much more sophisticated. Of course, by 1965, Hitsville U.S.A. was really rolling, so it’s not really a surprise. It’s still fun to hear these back-to-back and hear the leap forward.

Sorry about that, I kind of got out of the rhythm of doing this daily. I’ll get there!

Pigs, “Massive Operator Error”

I’ve been listening to a lot of noise rock recently. It’s a genre that really opened my ears up to a lot of possibilities, what with encountering Big Black pretty early, and then being huge into the Midwest scene in college. Weirdly, it’s kind of comforting to me to go back and lean kind of heavily on this genre again.

Lily Allen, “Not Big”

Huh, there are two Lily Allen albums that I’ve never heard. I should fix that.

Kanye West, “Slow Jamz”

Always really enjoyed the chorus on this song.

I guess I’m full of insight today!

Ugly Duckling, “Einstein Buys a Monkey”

The guitar loop immediately makes this recognizable as an Ugly Duckling song. I’m not sure I really needed a 6:24 DJ track from them, though.

Napalm Death, “M.A.D.”

OK, now I’m really not going to say much. Wouldn’t be right with this.

Nots, “Cold Line”

Another surprise record! Feels like we’ve had a lot of those recently. I wonder what the actual count of surprise records is in the ol’ collection. I’m not sure I want to know.

The Dillinger Escape Plan, “The Running Board”

I know what this is!

The parts of songs where the Dillinger Escape Plan drops into something like the post-hardcore in the middle of this song were always effective. It can be easy for that kind of thing to just sound like a lame gimmick, but they always pull it off with aplomb.

Sharon Jones, “Make It Good To Me”

Fuck me, listen to that organ. I try and play a decent amount of soul around the kids, because it’s just such amazing music, and with luck, they’ll get the same appreciation of it. I try not to make a big deal about it, but my dad used to do the same thing, and it just kind of seeped into my brain. I’m trying the same approach, as it worked on me!

Lucious Jackson, “Strongman”

When the Beastie Boys took the leap to playing their own instruments with Check Your Head, they also started expanding the reach of their label, Grand Royal. Lucious Jackson was one of the artists that they signed, putting out their first record, Natural Ingredients. It made a fair bit of sense, as the sensibilities of Lucious Jackson fit in well with the more funk/soul elements of the reinvented Beasties sound. Despite critical acclaim, the record never really seemed to catch on, but it still sounds pretty good.