Friday Playlist

Fewer songs this week, but I make up for that by including two songs that are a combined 13 minutes long.

“Insignificant Other” – Queens Of The Stone Age

QOTSA does the Atlanta Rhythm Section? And Josh Homme sounding more like Chris Cornell than he ever has. I definitely dig!

“Sweet Devotion” – Queen of Jeans

This song isn’t nearly as good, but I almost felt obligated to slot it in as track #2 this week. I’m tempted to play a Queen song next…

“A Different Kind” – Rakim

The God MC is back! 

“turning down flowers” – Slow Fiction

I love the push-and-pull in this track. The music feels like it wants to gallop ahead, while Julia Vassallo’s vocals hold everything in place. At least for the first two-thirds. Once she drops her restraint the song elevates to another, lovely level.

“Tick Tick Bang” – Prince

Timeless, the latest package to be released from Prince’s vault came out two weeks ago. It is rather uneven, as you would imagine, since it covers almost his entire career. Two songs are from right around 1980 while a live track was recorded just a few days before his death. There’s nothing too special on it, but I do enjoy this track. It was originally recorded in 1981 but not released. A completely re-recorded version appeared on the Graffiti Bridge album in 1990. This is the original from ’81. A perfect example of the Funky Filthy New Wave sound he probably invented. 

“Cocoon” – Sweeping Promises

The last time I played a song by this Lawrence, KS based band, it was immediately after a song from Prince’s vault. Makes sense to do it again.

“Officially” – Way Dynamic

A nice, end-of-summer song, especially with the lyric about the season changing. This weekend is not the official end of summer, but we all know once Labor Day is behind us it is fall time.

“End Of Summer” Tame Impala 

Sadly,  it has arrived. Time is undefeated. 

“Red Hill Mining Town” – U2

Not a lot of songs about Labor Day for some reason. This one, from the amazing side two of The Joshua Tree, is about a 1984 mining strike in the UK. And, of course, the UK’s Labo(u)r Day is different than ours. But the line is in there and I was scrambling for a video, which made it good enough for me. A strange video. Not sure why anyone other than Bono showed up given how it was shot.

Have a safe holiday weekend!