20 not out already! It's hard to imagine that, from that one Friday where we (read: Sean) decided to form a portmanteau of Spotify and Friday into SPOTIFRIDAY and then stick in relevant playlists of the week's content, that we'd have many successes and maybe a few misses.
Yet, here we are with arguably the finest playlist of the lot yet (it has Muhdoney, Nirvana, Pixies, Sufjan, St. Vincent, Tom Waits AND Weezer!), still plodding on. I've enjoyed this week, hope you did too.
But let's not forget this week was Kraftwerkweek on DiS. And the man behind all of that, Chris Power, has done a special Spotifriday playlist to celebrate. Click here for that one. This one, therefore, shall be known as Side I, and Kraftwerkweek as Side II. Twice the fun.
Click here for this week's content-related Spotifriday playlist.
1. Sufjan Stevens - 'Jacksonville'
Oh, Sufjan! What a card you are. Though he's made one of the albums of the decade thus far in Illinois, as well as a whole bunch of other brilliant records, he still tends to have questions over his own output, and specifically the point in it all. Anyway, here's the masterpiece that is 'Jacksonville', taken from the aforementioned Illinois. Man's a friggin' genius!
2. Girls - 'Laura'
Summer is definitely over. I know this because I put the heating back on in the flat this week and have started wearing socks, too. This particular song should make you hark back to those few days where it actually reached higher than 70F and the sun shined for a bit. Watch the video for this particular song here.
3. St. Vincent - 'Actor Out Of Work'
St. Vincent's Actor is, debatably, one of the finest start-to-finish records of the year, if not the last five or even ten. This week we showed you her first four tour diaries which are, quite frankly, enchanting. The (almost) title track from Actor bops along at a persuasive pace, with just enough fuzz to remain pounding, and there's more than enough sweetness in Clark's voice to hit the spot.
4. Judee Sill - 'Jesus Was A Cross Maker'
You may not be familiar with the work of the slightly-weird American country songstress Judee Sill, in which case you should probably check out the musical tribute to her and her music which we reviewed earlier in the week. Religious overtones, yes, but it's equally as beautiful. True story, Sill was the first artist to sign to David Geffen's first record label, Asylum.
5. Windmill - 'Racing'
OK, OK. Yet again more deficiencies in like, hactually, representing the Single Of The Week. We couldn't find the particular single, so just stuck with something else again, as usual. Perhaps a little heavy on the harmony but never you can surely never have too much glock and warm, warm piano tones. It could possibly be on the soundtrack to a Christmas-themed adolescent targeted movie. Eaaaaaaasy on the drumbeat, though, I've only got two ears.
6. Tom Waits - 'Ice Cream Man'
OK, a bit of a double whammy here as far as content relevance goes. Firstly we had the man himself giving away the first eight tracks of Glitter & Doom AND THEN we had our series of films from The Ice Cream Man. Watch Part I of that here, Part II here and Part III here. Orrrrr you could just listen to '73 vintage Tom Waits, before his voice got taken to the cleaners and eaten, chewed and vomited out on the pavement by a German Shepherd.
7. Kraftwerk - 'Pocket Calculator'
Chris Power has been doing a sterling job indeed of reviewing the Kraftwerk re-issues. Click here for the home page for all that sort of thing. This one is taken from Computer World and is, at the very least, the most ridiculous song on this entire playlist. Not enough songs about pocket calculators and related mini-mathematical paraphernalia have been made, that much is true and will probably remain so. Must admit this one seems about seven minutes longer than it actually is.
8. The Raveonettes - 'D.R.U.G.S'
This wasn't the actual track which appeared on the Singles Round Up on Monday, but it just fits so well after Kraftwerk's 'Pocket Calculator'. So sue me. The actual track which IS out this week is 'Bang!', which you can listen to here. Your choice.
9. A Place To Bury Strangers - 'Exploding Head'
When I was 15 I wanted to call my band 'Compressed Head', so I guess this is somewhat the opposite of that. Apart from the 'head' bit. Anyway, we reviewed APTBS's album of the same name, slapping on a mostly favourable review. Though this particular cut doesn't really present anything new, it's a workable and successful formula of rat-atat drum beats, wispy guitars and general background screeching.
10. The Flaming Lips - 'The Sparrow Looks Up At The Machine'
Which is a formula that The Flaming Lips take for this one, although dramatically slowed down, with the only screeches coming from humans, as opposed to any electrical implementations. We reviewed their newest LP - something like their 90th in total - here. It's called Embryonic and is anything but.
11. Mudhoney - 'Judgement, Rage, Retribution And Thyme'
We talked Fuzz Boxes, Spotify and Day Jobs with Mark Arm and Steve Turner of Mudhoney this week. Here they are in characteristically terrific ear-splitting and fuzz-busting form. Pretty damned amazing are this band. STILL.
12. Nirvana - 'Oh, The Guilt'
From one grunge branded band to another, the colossus that is Nirvana, whose video performance of 'School' we showed you earlier in the week. This one is a rousing and raucous number of a b-side and shows that Nirvana had a fairly high watermark for tracks which never made it, as well as the ones which did, obviously. Not as good as 'Curmudgeon', though, obviously.
13. Weezer - 'Why Bother?'
Rivers Cuomo, much like Sufjan Stevens, is always good for a story or an odd quote. This week he came out with the revelation that he is to collaborate with pop princess Katy Perry. Could be quite some end product there, one shudders at the prospect at least a little bit. Still, here's 'Why Bother?', taken from the Grade-A period Weezer, from Pinkerton.
14. Johnny Foreigner - 'Criminals'
YoHo! JoFo! This particular single was included in the round-up this week and it's pretty much typical Johnny Foreigner - soaring and searing guitar riffs, boy vs. girl vocals and the like. It's taken from Grace And The Bigger Picture, their second LP, which is out in a couple of weeks, innit.
15. Lightning Bolt - 'Riff Wraiths'
Repetitive this certainly is. Pummelling, also. There's probably another thousand adjectives describing brutality which could be used in conjunction with this track and Lightning Bolt in general. I won't use any more, but will just say that, if you don't mind losing your hearing for a bit you should probably turn this up loud. The bass/drum duo confirmed their next UK jaunt this week.
16. Pixies - 'Gouge Away'
Is this the best Pixies song ever? Is it even the best song on on Doolittle? Highly debatable, but it surely has to be up there, no? It may not have the immediacy of 'Debaser' or 'Monkey Gone To Heaven' but, by god, it builds and builds and builds into a masterpiece in vastness and, eventually, snarling anger. The set-ender to end all set-enders. Have a peek at our photos from one of their Brixton Academy gigs last week and have a good weekend!
Click here for this week's content-related Spotifriday playlist.
Click here for a round-up of all of our Spotify related content.