My brief hiatus (brought upon by internet troubles and other things you don't really care about) ends today. To get back into the swing of things, today's entry will focus on songs that are easy to listen to again and again. Or, perhaps more accurately, songs that are impossible
not to listen to again and again. Now, obviously, this is a pretty vague criteria--after all, why would you want to hear any song that you wouldn't want to hear a second (or third or twentieth) time? But more than simply being songs that I like in a general aesthetic sense, these songs offer something specific that begs repeated listenings. A hook that pushes the right button every time, a line that seems profound each time its heard, a mood that is created and never gets old. So here we go.
Midlake::Branches These guys answer the eternal question, "What would it sound like if Thom Yorke joined forces with Steely Dan?" Who asked this question? Um, these guys I guess. Along with St. Vincent, Centromatic/South San Gabriel, Ghosthustler, and others, Midlake is threatening to blow North Texas' (ok,
Denton's) under-the-radar status. Why is this song on this post? One line makes this song endlessly re-playable: "It's hard on me/ but I'm trying". Holy smokes, is that simple or what? I wait for this refrain every time and, as of this writing, I ain't tired of it yet.I love, love, love the pedal steel guitar. If an instrument could be said to itself be a hook, I would personally nominate the pedal steel guitar for the honor. I am sure there are better, more nuanced uses of it (probably in my own collection) but the opening section of this song works well enough for me.
I want to thank Budos Band for making instrumental funk music sound both classic and current. I want to thank them for naming a song "Chicago Falcon", whatever the hell that means. But, good god, I want to thank them the most for dropping the bassline at around the 1:08 mark of this track. It is what the repeat function was invented for.
Like most of Lil' Wayne's songs, I am not too impressed by the beat. The fact that this is from a mixtape makes this even more the case. No musical hook, no real chorus. Then why can't I stop listening to it? Simply put, words. Tons and tons of them. An avalanche. Each time I hear this "song", I catch a new joke, a new metaphor, another reason to believe him when he claims he's the best rapper alive. Who else would think to rhyme "hockey team" with "Rocky theme" and have it actually makes sense?
Don't you love it when a good song comes up that you didn't even know you had? I had to go home and look at what Paul Simon albums I even owned (other that Graceland, of course) after this song shuffled its way into my brain. Nothing ground-breaking here, but the wide-eyed wonder in the song seems sincere. And we could all use a little more wide-eyed wonder.
Some people like lyrical conceits. Some people love a catchy piano or guitar hook. What keeps you coming back to a song? What's been on repeat for you guys?
A few months back, I stumbled upon a contradictory, semi-coherent (and utterly fascinating) podcast from Aquarium Drunkard featuring "representatives" of one Clutchy Hopkins. Depending on whom you choose to believe, Clutchy is either turntablist/producer Cut Chemist's outlet for groove experimentation, a collaboration of beatmakers and musicians from SF-based Ubiquity Records, or a man who traveled the globe recording world funk musicians after training with ninjas and living in the deserts of the American southwest. (This last one, especially, is just too great of a theory for me not to want to believe in.)
