It’s a two-video week!
“Prep-School Gangsters” – Vampire Weekend
There have been times when I’ve loved Vampire Weekend, others when I would be happy to never hear another song from them. Thus it took me awhile to get to their new album. Which I ended up liking a lot. I could have picked any of four or five tracks to represent it. So maybe you’ll hear from them again here soon.
“Kiss Me (Kill Me)” – RINSE, Hatchie
Husband and wife combining to make something that splits the difference between their styles and sounds very good. Real G’s will get the joke that the B-side of this should be called “Hold Me (Thrill Me).”
“Jesse” – Hazel English, Day Wave
These acts have done a few covers together before. This might be their first original together, although I could be wrong. Like the song above, it combines their slightly different sounds into a pleasant common one.
“Jessie” – Paw
OK, different spellings and all, but hearing “Jesse” kind of means I have to play this next.
“Shipwreck” – Mount Kimbie
I don’t know much about this band, but I’ve been enjoying this song. I looked them up and their Wikipedia page describes their music as “Electronic, post-dubstep, future garage.” I like future garage.
“Sweet” – Been Stellar
Get it? Been Stellar??? This band claims their new album was inspired by Mazzy Starr. Not by Hope Sandoval’s vocals but by David Roebuck’s guitar sounds. I don’t hear that at all here, but I’m no guitar player.
“Rock You Like A Hurricane” – The Scorpions
I was never much of a metalhead, but 1984 probably had the highest ratio of metal/hard rock in my high rotation as any year ever. This is one of the songs that fueled that shift. West German guys playing hard rock with a video that featured women in cages? This was catnip to a nearly 13-year-old suburban white kid who was obsessed by the Cold War! Love At First Sting got a lot of play that summer right next to the Footloose soundtrack. Any Scorpions reference demands a reminder that the Wind of Change podcast is one of the best pod series ever made. “Rock You Like A Hurricane” was #37 this week in 1984.
“Portland, Oregon” – Loretta Lynn
Adding an extra video this week since this song is no longer available on Spotify, and the 20th anniversary of one of the most surprising collaborations/albums ever just passed. Was it more surprising that Jack White was going to work with Loretta Lynn, or that the result was amazing? This was, by far, the highlight of the Van Lear Rose album, making multiple generations of listeners reconsider Lynn as more than some old country singer they only knew from when their parents/grandparents made them watch Hee Haw. My #5 favorite song of 2004, and #7 song of the 2000s. Get it back on Spotify, whoever is responsible for it not being there!