Isn’t the Light OK?

Husher’s get­ting ran­dom with his iTunes library. Not to be out­done in the ego depart­ment, and because it’s late and I have no shame, I’ve decided to do the same thing. Given the amount of weird-ass stuff in my music library, this should be interesting.

So with­out fur­ther ado, mes­dames et mes­seiurs, here is my very own Playlist of Doom. Enter at your own risk.

M. Ward — Let’s Dance: I first heard M. Ward on Radio Par­adise, which led me to down­load 2 or 3 songs he had for free down­load on Ama­zon. Those songs hooked me enough that the last time I did a free trial at Emu­sic, I ended up down­load­ing a bunch of M. Ward, though I still haven’t lis­tened to even half of what I got.

This is a bizarre acoustic, back-porch treat­ment of David Bowie’s big 80’s hit. It would flow well in a set with Iron and Wine’s Postal Ser­vice cover, and the lyrics have never been clearer. Stripped of the huge Nile Rodgers drums and horns of the orig­i­nal, Ward’s deliv­ery shows how, at it’s heart, this is just a quiet lit­tle love song.

David Bowie — I’m Afraid of Amer­i­cans: Huh — from Bowie recon­tex­tu­al­ized, to…well, the man him­self. Inter­est­ing segue. Anyway…Bowie meets Reznor — cool. I once had the oppor­tu­nity to see the dou­ble bill of Bowie and Nine Inch Nails back in the mid-90’s. I for­get why I couldn’t go, but this makes me wish I had. And, David, if it’s any con­so­la­tion, I’m some­times afraid of Amer­i­cans, too.

Indigo Girls — Peace Tonight (live at KBCO): Emily Saliers could sing the script of Reser­voir Dogs accom­pa­nied by her acoustic gui­tar and it would be the most sooth­ing thing I’d ever heard. For the longest time, I had the indi­vid­ual Indigo Girls mixed up — I thought Emily was the dark-haired one. Regard­less of her hair color, Emily is Carla’s favorite mem­ber of her favorite group, and this is one of Emily’s nicer upbeat tracks, made all the bet­ter by the lack of a faux-Motown rhythm section.

Madeleine Pey­roux — Don’t Wait Too Long (live at KBCO): I swear I’m not coach­ing this thing…I hardly ever lis­ten to these KBCO tracks. I down­loaded a bunch of them (includ­ing the pre­vi­ous one) last year when Jefito was post­ing 17 vol­umes of Live from Stu­dio C. This song is the def­i­n­i­tion of “pleas­ant and inof­fen­sive.” Sun­day brunch music at its’ finest.

Inter­pol — PDA (2nd ver­sion): If I was forced to lis­ten to one post-punk revi­sion­ist band, I guess Inter­pol would be it. They won me over with “Evil” and it’s creepy pup­pet video. This song is no “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (or even “Colony”), but if you’re going to ape Joy Divi­sion, you might as well do it thor­oughly. And about 3:00 into it, they start sound­ing a bit like Tele­vi­sion, too. Bonus.

Ultra­vox — Sleep­walk: Wha?? Talk about the 80’s. Man…this makes me feel like I’m trapped in an 8-bit Japan­ese video game, pix­e­lated space­ships fly­ing and shoot­ing at me. Is this seri­ously from the same album as “Vienna”? Some inter­est­ing Euro-doom chord changes here, though. And I can hear the seeds of Muse in this, too.

Pas­sion — All The Earth: I have noth­ing against wor­ship music — in fact I’ve writ­ten some — but this seems like a bunch of lines strung together to hang the piano and gui­tar riffs and the not-quite-a-sermon-bit off from. The singer asks us, halfway through the song, to pray for a coun­try. Then, he starts ran­domly exhort­ing coun­tries to “Cel­e­brate.” Does he real­ize that “Africa” and “Asia” aren’t countries?

Boards of Canada — six­tyten: Not my favorite BOC track, but a decent exam­ple of their warped break­beat joy.

Billy Joel — Close to the Bor­der­line: Butt-rock Billy Joel. I’m seri­ous — it’s like he’s try­ing to be Lynyrd Skynyrd or some­thing. I do like a lot of his stuff, but this…meh.

Jeff Beck — A Day in the House: This is off Gui­tar Shop, the only disc of his I own. The man is an amaz­ing gui­tar player, but he’s also got a very typ­i­cally British sense of humo(u)r. Case in point: this song. Beck finds some com­mon ground between P-Funk and the British house of Par­lia­ment by plac­ing a mock ses­sion of the house over a rub­bery funk-rock back­ing. It’s deeply odd, yes, but also fun to lis­ten to. I’d like to see Satri­ani make C-SPAN sound this interesting.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 12% [?]

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