Month: December 2012 (Page 2 of 3)

Favorite Songs Of 2012: #8

“Wrist Rocket” – Wussy

One of the great, under appreciated bands in American rock music. Like so many of their songs, this is a highly literate, wonderfully crafted song about the angst that appears when your lover loves someone else.

Favorite Songs Of 2012: #9

“Sixteen Saltines” – Jack White

It’s been three years since Jack White appeared on my year-end list. Which is significant because he appeared on my favorites list, one way or another, every year from 2003 to 2009.1

His first solo album, Blunderbuss, is excellent, and it was difficult to pick a track to represent it. In the end I went with the most White Stripes-y song of the bunch.2 This was also a song that garnered White a fair amount of criticism, as some suggested the lyrics were indicative of some serious lady issues by White at best or were anti-woman at worst.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I always hear this as a light hearted, tongue-in-cheek song about the holes men dig for themselves when we get obsessed with a particular lady. “Spiked heels make a hole in a lifeboat”? We put ourselves in that position, fellas. Jack’s just shining a light on the troubles out hormones can get us into.

But he does have some issues, make no mistake. Fortunately he’s turned those issues into great rock ’n’ roll for over a decade.

This video is pretty f-ed up, though.


  1. Three times with the White Stripes, twice with the Raconteurs, once with the Dead Weather, and once with Loretta Lynn. 
  2. Except for the drums, of course. 

Pause

The Favorite Songs countdown will continue over the weekend. I admit it’s hard to write after today’s events in Connecticut. I’ve never been so happy to be annoyed by my kindergartener as I am right now.

“This Beat Is My Recital…”

December is a big music month. There is the putting together and sharing of my favorite songs and albums of the year lists. There’s the flood of Christmas music. Combined I spend even more time than normal thinking about tunes. A few notes from the first few weeks of December.


I was driving C. home from a birthday party a couple weeks back when RUN-DMC’s “It’s Tricky” came up on the iPod. C. excitedly let me know that they listened to that song in gym class. I don’t know if that’s true or if they just listened to a song that sounds similar. Didn’t matter to me, though. I proceeded to bust out every lyric of the song, one of a handful of old school jamz I can still spit without error. C. sat in the back, very quiet, with rather wide eyes. I like to think she was impressed/amazed that I knew all the words, but I think she was probably wondering what the hell was wrong with me.

I love the crazy Shuffle possibilities this month brings. While running errands the other day, the iPod went from Frank Sinatra’s “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear” t0 DJ Quick’s “Born And Raised In Compton.” No live, breathing DJ would ever try to mix those together!

Let’s face it: a lot of Christmas music is pretty shitty. But in the spirit of the season and through memories of Christmases past, we tolerate a lot of crap. But one thing I will tolerate is any Gloria Estefan holiday song. They are awful, without exception or question. If I was into proclaiming jihads, it would be against Estefan Christmas tunes.

And he might be a legend, but James Taylor can make even the happiest holiday song thoroughly depressing.

Every holiday season one established song jumps out and becomes the song of that particular year for me. Last year, for whatever reason, it was The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York.” This year’s is K.T. Tunstall’s version of the classic Pretenders song “2000 Miles.” K.T.’s version is absolutely perfect. Like Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” it’s a good enough pop song to play any month of the year. And shame on me for not knowing the back story to the song. Chrissie Hynde wrote it after original Pretenders guitarist James Honeyman-Scott did from a cocaine-induced heart attack in 1982.

Something else I had never looked into was the relationship between Mannheim Steamroller and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I always assumed they were somehow related. But when I finally checked their respective Wikipedia pages, I was disappointed that there isn’t one. No Beatles-like breakup. No Ice Cube leaving NWA beefs. Nothing. Shame, as some backstory like that would make me a lot more interested in their music.
Finally, I’m a sucker for a good song in a movie preview. So props to Judd Apatow for throwing George Harrison’s “What Is Life” into the ads for This Is 40. Forget that the movie about my stage in life1 or that it includes some people I really like. The 6-7 second snip of the song alone makes me want to see it.
It was unrelated to the movie, but Paul McCartney’s appearance at the 12-12-12 concert set off a mini-Twitter argument between a few baseball writers about who really was the second most talented Beatle. Listen, George made a handful of great, great songs, both within in Beatles and after they broke up. But you’re just being intentionally difficult if you assert he was more talented than McCartney. So stop it.


  1. Look out baby boomers, Gen X is finally coming with movies about middle life! 

Favorite Songs Of 2012: #10

“Watch The Corners” – Dinosaur Jr

The guitar solo is a lost art, rendered less meaningful as music split into a million sub-genres. Sure, you’ll hear the occasional solo, but often it’s some heavily produced, saccharine regurgitation of Eddie Van Halen’s solo for “Beat It.”

So when you hear a real guitar solo, one that gets into your skull and works its way down your spine, it really stands out.

There’s nothing fancy about this song. It’s pretty much what J. Mascis and his buddies have always done over their nearly 30-year career together. What makes it great are Mascis’ two epic guitar solos. He never forgot how to shred, and here he destroys, catapulting an otherwise fine but unmemorable song into one for the ages.

Favorite Songs Of 2012: #11

“State Hospital” – Frightened Rabbit

Frightened Rabbit have released full-length albums in 2008 and 2010. Each year they nabbed the top spot on my favorite songs list, with “The Modern Leper” doubling as my favorite song of the last decade. So this is a bit of a disappointment for them, I’m sure. In their defense, this was the title track of a five-song EP, with their third LP set for release in February. They have hope for 2013, I guess.

Not that this is a bad song, obviously. In the past lead singer Scott Hutchison has filled their albums with confessional songs of his most pathetic romantic failings. For the first time, he’s turning his eye to the world around him. Or at least to fictional characters not based on him. Here he shares the “most threadbare tall story the country has ever heard,” about a girl born into misery who can’t quite seem to escape it. Instead of his fucked up self-pity, it’s a girl living a fucked up life. Changing the subject does not change his way with words. As long as they are fucked up, he’s brilliant.

If it is any consolation to the band, this video is my favorite of the year. It takes the inherent drama of the song and cranks it up to 11.

Favorite Songs Of 2012: #12

“Broken Arrows” – Francisco The Man

Plenty of artists brought the rock in 2012. We’ve already heard from Bob Mould and Corin Tucker. We will still hear from other artists who made sure that the spirit of rock was present. This track, though, takes a slightly different approach to rocking.

It begins as a fairly standard alt-rock piece. Jangly electric guitars. A decent-enough melody. Nice vocals, although the lyrics are difficult to pull out of the noise.

But then, about two-and-a-half minutes in, it evolves into something else: A psychedelic jam session that is utterly brilliant. The elastic bass line is a perfect counter to the looping, spacey guitar solo, holding it just tight enough so that it doesn’t escape orbit. And the gentle fade away at the end allows you a moment to breathe deeply and recover.

It’s not complex. It doesn’t try to change the world. But those last 3:30+ thoroughly entranced me.

The Trade

I knew it was coming.

For two weeks, as rumors swirled, I expected that one night, probably late int the evening, word would come that the Royals had traded their top prospect, outfielder Wil Myers. Likely for a starting pitcher. Almost certainly for one that had value, but still was too flawed to be an ace for the Royals.

So it was no surprise when, last night, as I was checking Twitter one last time before bed, the news was just breaking that Myers and others were headed to Tampa for James Shields and Wade Davis.

I did not like it.

And then it got worse.

In all the royals sent four players, two who are Major League ready, for one pitcher who is 31 and has been successful largely due to his home park and another who failed as a starter in that same park.

Ugh.

Twitter did not help, as pretty much every MLB analyst I follow, and I follow a lot, destroyed the Royals for making the deal. I stayed up way too late reading these reactions and got almost no sleep. All for a 90-loss team.

I (in)famously abandoned the Royals in December 1990, when they chose to sign Kirk Gibson, who was old and had never hit in Kansas City, over local native Joe Carter. We may have reached another of those moments in my support of the team.

I see value in Shields, but when you have one of the top five prospects in the game, who is under control for six cheap years, you have to do better. If you’re moving a chip like Myers, you must get a true #1. Not just a guy who is only a #1 because your staff is heinous. And you avoid like the plague guys like Davis, who seems an awful lot like Luke Hochevar or Kyle Davies, two other guys that could never figure it out no matter how many chances the Royals gave them.

The Royals settled. Even if Myers never turns into a star, if Jake Odorizzi never becomes a decent starter, if Mike Montgomery never figures it out, if Pat Leonard fizzles out in AA, this trade will likely be a loss for the Royals. Their rotation is better than last year. But that’s mostly because it was epically bad last year. The reboot has come with three starters over 30, one who is coming from an extreme pitchers park, one who has a bum wing, and one who was awful the first half of last year. The fourth new starter was an utter failure in two attempts to be a big league starter. And Hochevar might still get the ball every fifth day. For a team that was 16 games behind division champ Detroit last season, this isn’t enough to span that gap, or stay in the running for the Wild Card spots.

I will give Dayton Moore some credit for at least trying. And there are some baseball people who don’t believe this trade is as one-sided as I do. But it feels like, at best, a missed opportunity. And at worst, just the latest wrong move by a franchise that has had precious few right moves over the last 30 years.

I’m not running out to buy a Cincinnati, Detroit, or Washington hat yet. But it might be time to give my list of alternatives a closer look.

Favorite Songs Of 2012: #13

“Capricornia” – Allo, Darlin’

Speaking of songs that are perfect for summer…

Here is an impossibly gorgeous song about the bittersweetness of leaving things you love behind in order to chase your dreams.

Favorite Songs Of 2012: #14

“You Kill” – Eternal Summers

Some bands name themselves after their sound, the Clash being the most famous example. That is the case for the Eternal Summers, who make shiny, happy music to be played endlessly over summer weekends. Take this song, for example, which tells the story of the beginnings, and endings, of a romance. Doesn’t it sound like something you would want to hear, ohhh, a million times while you wasted your summer away at the neighborhood pool?

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