So, yesterday was my 33rd birthday. In the proper form, it was celebrated with much vinyl. I bought some records at a very nice little local store in Brooklyn, and Marc bought me some more, along with some books. It was an excellent haul: She, REM, Wire, the 45s, PIL, the Rezillos, and, much to my great delight, the Beastie Boys. Specifically, their first grown-up album, and what many of us deem their best album, Paul’s Boutique. It was the perfect gift for a newly minted Brooklyn-dwelling New Yorker, and I even know what intersection the cover is at! In honor of me being so old and this being Labor Day weekend, I’m taking the rest of the day off from blogging. Until then, enjoy this mix made off the Beastie Boys. Leave your own mixes in comments. Or comment about whatever you like. Open thread.
Original song: “Hey Ladies” by the Beastie Boys
I was sad that the original video, which is hilarious, was not embeddable. But you can still play the song from this webpage.
1) “Award Tour” by A Tribe Called Quest
2) “Let Me Ride” by Dr. Dre, feat. Snoop Dogg & RBX
3) “Who Am I?” by Snoop Dogg
4) “Fight The Power” by Public Enemy
5) “Express Yourself” by NWA
6) “Me Myself & I” by De La Soul
7) “Ready Or Not” by the Fugees
8) “C.R.E.A.M.” by Wu-Tang
9) “I Get Around” by 2-Pac
10) “Sure Shot” by the Beastie Boys
Videos behind the fold. Dance your asses off! It’s a long weekend. I know I plan to. (Even though it’s New York.)
Sorry for no posting last night. Running around like mad, trying to get shit done before we head out to El Paso. In fact, we’re on our way now. There won’t be a CSA post tomorrow, and posting may be light until Tuesday. The town of my birth is one that often pops up in rockabilly and in country western songs, often to represent the Wild West, the crazy middle of nowhere, or the border. Think Marty Robbins’ “El Paso”. With that in mind, this song is one of my favorite that name drops El Paso. Aerosmith’s cover ruined it, but just ignore that.
Original song: “The Train Kept A-Rolling’” by the Johnny Burnette Trio
And here’s the list! Leave yours in comments, or comments about whatever you like.
1) “My Boy Elvis” by Janis Martin
2) “Rockin’ Bones” by Ronnie Dawson
3) “Red Hot” by Billy Riley & His Little Green Men
4) “Crazy Legs” by Gene Vincent
5) “Let’s Have A Party” by Wanda Jackson
6) “Somethin’ Else” by Eddie Cochran
7) “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man” by Buddy Holly (cover of a Chuck Berry song)
8) “Bad Reputation” by The Reverend Horton Heat
9) “That’ll Be The Day” by Buddy Hollly & The Crickets
10) “Justine” by The Righteous Brothers
It’s the month for seeing great Detroit rock bands with a nostalgia groove. We saw the Hounds Below last week, and tonight we’re going to see the Detroit Cobras, a great live band that mostly does covers, but with their own hard-rocking twist. So they’re kicking off the Genius Ten. Leave your own in comments, or comment about whatever you want. Open thread.
Original song: “Shout Bama Lama” by the Detroit Cobras
1) “She’s Bored With You”—-Reigning Sound
2) “Fire Sign”—-The Gossip
3) “I Wanna Be A Girl”—-King Khan & the Shrines
4) “Let’s Shake Hands”—-The White Stripes
5) “Government Center”—-Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers
6) “I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone”—-Sleater Kinney
7) “Ode To A Black Man”—-The Dirtbombs
8) “Loretta”—-Neko Case
9) “Tell Me What You See”—-The Von Bondies
10) “Cet Air La”—-April March
They’re such a new band that Genius hasn’t even picked up on them yet, but I still have to share, because they’re so amazing. Last night, we went to see The Hounds Below, and it was one of those all-enrapturing, amazing shows that you wish every show could be, except that if they all were, then you wouldn’t have those stand-out shows. This is just a shitty show video that someone took of their first single “Crawling Back To You” (which they had for sale as 45s—-250 pressed, so I had to grab one), but even in this, you can see how great they are:
The lead singer is also the founder of the Von Bondies, and I guess he’s just decided—-wise choice, this one—-that you can’t beat the 50s rock sound. They channel Roy Orbison, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, but they also do so while covering modern songs by the Pixies and the Mekons (plus original material). It was amazing. Here’s their MySpace.
So, in honor of that show, my Genius Ten is based on a Von Bondies song. Leave yours in comments, or comments on whatever you like. Open thread.
Original song: “Tell Me What You See” by the Von Bondies
1) “When I Hear My Name” by The White Stripes
2) “Tick” by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3) “What’s Mine Is Yours” by Sleater-Kinney
4) “Shout Bama Lama” by The Detroit Cobras (who we’re seeing next Friday, whee!)
5) “Cuts Across Land” by The Duke Spirit
6) “Work Work Work (Pub, Club, Sleep) by The Rakes
7) “Blood On Our Hands” by Death From Above 1979
8) “Underdog” by The Dirtbombs
9) “She’s White” by The Electric Six (this band is so trashy that they’re kind of a guilty pleasure)
10) “My Friend Goo” by Sonic Youth
In honor of this week’s (hopefully big, hopefully permanent) gay rights victory, I kicked around a few songs to use for the Friday Genius Ten, but honestly, there’s only one that’s right—-the Gossip’s song about the struggle for gay rights. I’m obsessed with this song, in part because people say there’s no real protest music anymore, and frankly, this is one of the best examples of how it’s morphed and become something entirely new. It’s the revolution you can dance to! Leave your mixes or comments about anything you like in comments. Open thread.
Original song: “Standing in the Way of Control” by The Gossip
1) “Ready for the Floor”—-Hot Chip
2) “Oh My God”—-Mark Ronson (featuring Lily Allen)
3) “The Prayer”—-Bloc Party
4) “Our Velocity”—-Maximo Park
5) “Great DJ”—-The Ting Tings
6) “Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above”—-Cansei Der Ser Sexy
7) “Quicksand”—-La Roux
8) “Parklife”—-Blur
9) “Bohemian Like You”—-The Dandy Warhols
10) “Heads Will Roll”—-Yeah Yeah Yeahs
I was a little late to the Janelle Monae bandwagon, but I picked up her LP, and I’ve been completely addicted. Monae has pulled off a task that very few can, which is to be both super poppy and arty weird. And don’t flap your gums at me about Lady Gaga, who has a self-consciously weird public persona, but whose music isn’t even in the same category of ear-catching freshness. My mind went to Roxy Music when I first heard it, but also to Prince and to Outkast. It isn’t a surprise that her big single is with Big Boi, therefore.
So here’s my Genius Ten. Leave yours in comments, or comment on whatever you like. As usual, this is an open thread.
Original song: “Tightrope” by Janelle Monae (featuring Big Boi)
1) “The Cell” by Eryka Badu
2) “Beep Me 911” by Missy Elliott
3) “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” by Gnarls Barkley
4) “How Long Do I Have To Wait For You” by Sharon Jones
5) “Nothing Even Matters” by Lauryn Hill
6) “Adore” by Prince
7) “Who’s Loving You” by The Jackson 5
8) “Got To Give It Up” by Marvin Gaye
9) “All I Could Do Is Cry” by Etta James
10) “Don’t Leave Me This Way” by Thelma Houston
When I got up this morning and thought about “mama grizzlies”, suddenly something occurred to me that explains the whole thing: As usual, Republicans are just trying to grab onto something in pop culture in a pathetic bid for relevance. Just like Michael Steele grabbed for hip hop, John McCain is tweeting at the cast members of “Jersey Shore”, and this atrocity happened, well perhaps Sarah Palin is trying to pick up on the “bear” trend. What bear trend? Well, a couple of years ago there was a sudden trend of band names featuring the word “bear”: Panda Bear, Minus the Bear, Angry vs. the Bear. Perhaps Sarah Palin heard about this trend from Meghan McCain, and in classic GOP fashion, decided to poach it without understanding it in the slightest.
Hey, it’s a theory. Also an excuse to use on of my favorite “bear” songs for the Genius Ten today. Leave yours in comments, or consider the comments and open thread to talk about whatever you like. Happy Friday!
Original song: “While You Wait For The Others” by Grizzly Bear (See? Grizzlies. Though I don’t imagine that Sarah Palin would approve of how they got the name, which is from Edward Droste’s old boyfriend’s nickname.)
1) “Stillness Is The Move” by the Dirty Projectors
2) “Golden Age” by TV on the Radio
3) “Crystalised” by XX
4) “Postcards From Italy” by Beirut
5) “To Kingdom Come” by Passion Pit
6) “All My Friends” by LCD Soundsystem
7) “Neighborhood #1” by Arcade Fire
8) “Dull Life” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
9) “Never Had Nobody Like You” by M. Ward
10) “Hearts On Fire” by Cut Copy
The final two games of the World Cup take place this weekend, a third place game between Uruguay and Germany tomorrow, and the first place game between Spain and the Netherlands Sunday. It’s a bittersweet time. Enjoying the World Cup has been especially nice in New York, since it’s an international city and a natural home for excitement about it. Everywhere you go, people have opinions on it, and every bar that shows games can expect brisk business during them. I’ll miss all that. But it will be nice to have a winner and get back to normal, pre-World Cup life, where you’re not so distracted. So, bittersweet.
I picked this song to kick off the Genius Ten because the title describes the viewership of the games this weekend. Leave yours in comments, or as usual, comments about anything else. This is an open thread. And don’t forget to read Pandagoal and follow them on Twitter for up-to-the-minute World Cup coverage.
Original song: “All Over The World” by The Pixies
1) “Divine Hammer” by The Breeders
2) “Los Angeles” by Frank Black (Genius thinks it’s being cute, I suppose)
3) “Dirty Boots” by Sonic Youth
4) “When You Sleep” by My Bloody Valentine
5) “Little Fury Things” by Dinosaur Jr.
6) “Dead Souls” by Joy Division
7) “I Will Dare” by The Replacements
8) “Made-Up Dreams” by Built To Spill
9) “Two States” by Pavement
10) “Cold Light” by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Debate I want to see: Garland Grey vs. Katie Roiphe. Roiphe finds herself appealingly sexually aroused by reading bad sex scenes written by narcissistic authors who feel that their boners, being important to them, must be items of great universal importance. (Oh, to be Katie Roiphe and naturally possessed of the sex drive and opinions that tailor so neatly to what sexist-but-believe-they’re-liberal dudes want to hear.) Garland Grey is crippled by good taste and annoyance at the entire genre of high literature he calls Fond Memories of Vagina. I’m possessed of the opinion narcissistic male writers find themselves unable to avoid writing ridiculous sex scenes because sex is so goofy and ridiculous. Instead of letting this fact introduce some hated humility into their lives—-being humbled by sex comes perilously close to being debased by it, which is an officially feminine position in our culture—-they overcompensate by writing fantasies of their epic abilities to bone much younger (disturbingly and criminally younger in some cases) women/girls.
Garland Grey responds by writing a computer-based sex scene. Seriously, just click over and read it; it’s hilarious. In honor of it, I thought I’d go with a computer-themed sexy song for the original song in this week’s Genius Ten. (As usual, leave yours in comments, or comments on anything else. This is a standing open thread.) The one caveat is that this song, unlike the overwrought boner prose of so many literary lions, is actually hot.
Original song: “Computer Blue” by Prince & the Revolution
1) “Aqua Boogie” by Parliment
2) “Jungle Love” by The Time
3) “Just Like A Baby” by Sly & the Family Stone
4) “Give Me Your Love” by Curtis Mayfield
5) “Atomic Dog” by George Clinton
6) “Master Teacher” by Erykah Badu
7) “Beep Me 911” by Missy Elliott
8) “Maybe Tomorrow” by the Jackson 5
9) “Just Kissed My Baby” by The Meters
10) “I’m Glad You’re Mine” by Al Green
Don’t forget to read Pandagoal and follow them on Twitter for coverage of the World Cup.
I don’t know about you, but at our house, we’re taking full advantage of the next USA game against Ghana being on a Saturday to have some people over to watch the game. Evite lets you make a song list for your invitation, so I put in some songs about the world and about the USA and Americans, as did others. I was going to use one of them for the Friday Genius Ten, but there weren’t actually any songs on the list that were appropriately “go get ‘em!” kind of songs. Pop music has been a wee bit sarcastic in the past 40+ years. So I thought I should go back to a time before that to find a song that’s quintessentially America and off the hook, for pumping up purposes. I settled on this for my original song. Leave your mixes in comments, suggestions for playlists for Saturday, or thoughts on whatever else is on your mind. As usual, open thread.
Original song: “Let’s Have A Party” by Wanda Jackson
1) “The Wallflower Song” by Etta James
2) “C’mon Everybody” by Eddie Cochran
3) “Hey! Bo Diddley” by Bo Diddley
4) “Shakin’ All Over” by Johnny Kid and the Pirates (even in a 50s-era rock mix, it’s impossible to avoid songs from England)
5) “Bluejean Bop” by Gene Vincent
6) “Goo Goo Muck” by The Cramps
7) “Big Red Rocket Of Love” by The Reverend Horton Heat
8) “That’ll Be The Day” by Buddy Holly and the Crickets
9) “Honey Don’t” by Carl Perkins
10) “Finger Poppin’ Time” by Hank Ballard & The Midnighters
Hard as it may be to believe, Devo dropped their first album in 20 years on Tuesday. It’s called “Something For Everybody”, because in order to put it together, they had a fake focus group on their website, where fans could listen to snippets of songs and vote for their favorites. The songs that got the most votes got on the album. As usual, their desire to make fun of corporate mediocrity by being de-evolved competed with their urge to make music that doesn’t suck, though, so the whole process was more a joke than anything else. But it would be interesting to do a similar experiment using 100 songs by 100 artists chosen randomly, and producing an album of astonishing mediocrity, which is what you get most of the time when you split the difference through a focus group style of making “art”. But I’m glad they chose “listenable” and “fun” over “mediocrity as an artistic statement”. Here’s the first song off it.
Alas, Genius hasn’t picked up on it yet, even though it seems to be selling well. So I did the Genius ten off a single that’s on the album they’ve had for awhile.
Original song: “Watch Us Work It” by Devo
1) “Whammy Kiss” by the B-52s
2) “I Love You, Ono” by Stereo Total
3) “Punkrocker” by the Teddybears
4) “This Is The Day” by The The
5) “Anthrax” by the Gang of Four
6) “Warm Leatherette” by the Normal
7) “You Made Me Like It” by the 1990s
8) “Nice Day” by Persephone’s Bees
9) “Drama Queen” by the Switches
10) “Girls In The Back” by the White Rose Movement
The Dum Dum Girls have put out their first album to great acclaim and hype, and I gotta say I dig it. So I’m mixing the Genius Ten off their first single. Leave yours in comments, or comments on whatever is on your mind.
Original song: “Bhang Bhang I’m A Burnout” by the Dum Dum Girls
1) “Scissor” by the Liars
2) “Be My Girl” by the Smith Westerns
3) “Shattered Shine” by the Crystal Stilts
4) “Never See Me Again” by the Vivian Girls
5) “Wishing Well” by Love Is All
6) “I’m Watching You” by Jay Reatard
7) “Bye Bye Blackbird” by Quasi
8) “The End Is Near” by The Fiery Furnaces
9) “Further Complications” by Jarvis Cocker
10) “So Bored” by the Wavves
Speaking of the Wavves, I like their new song, too.
More videos after the fold. Also, cat pictures, boo-yeah.
Today’s Genius Ten is about the theme of survival and recovery, which is something I know we are all hoping for when it comes to the Gulf of Mexico, even if prospects look bleak. This short song by Bikini Kill is just about that, with a fish reference to boot. Leave your lists in comments, or thoughts about whatever’s on your mind.
Original song: “Starfish” by Bikini Kill
1) “Die” by Bratmobile
2) “FYR” by Le Tigre
3) “Bruise Violet” by Babes in Toyland
4) “Bata Motel” by Crass
5) “Capricornications” by Mika Miko
6) “24,900 Miles Per Hour” by 7 Year Bitch
7) “Less Teeth, More Tits” by The Lunachicks
8) “Let’s Submerge” by The X-Ray Spex
9) “Be Good” by The Frumpies
10) “Fuel My Fire” by L7
Videos and cat pics below the fold. I have company this weekend, so posting is likely to be light.
I have to admit, I think it’s kind of funny that MAC cosmetics is putting out a grown-up version of the whole Disney Princess crap by putting the focus on the villains. Sure, you can point out that the implication is that women are evil simply by virtue of growing up and becoming sexual beings, or even that make-up is probably not the greatest thing in the world for feminists to be celebrating. But it’s Friday, and I’m going to point out that a) make-up is fun and b) it’s way more fun to be the Evil Queen than to be that drip Snow White. That the Disney villains always meet ignoble ends can be read, from a certain angle, as not so much cosmic justice but as a cruel joke of fate. Why do the interesting ones always have to pay?
In honor of villainy, I chose for the Friday Genius Ten’s original song a devilish two-fer. Leave yours in comments, or thoughts on whatever’s on your mind.
Original song: “The Devil In Us” by the Black Devil Disco Club
1) “Time To Let Go” by Sally Shapiro
2) “Don and Sherri” by Matthew Dear
3) “Mr. Decay” by Gui Boratto
4) “Numbers” by Booka Shade
5) “Silent” by The Field
6) “Gay Dentists” by My Oizo
7) “Horny Pony” by Spektrum
8) “Move Your Body” by Marshall Jefferson
9) “Television Rules The Nation” by Daft Punk
10) “Good Beat” by Dee-Lite
It’s been hilarious watching so many libertarians scramble and scramble and scramble to insist with their incredibly limited toolbox (which amounts to “believe me because I, a white man, say so!”) on defending Rand Paul. It’s a real illustration of the congenital incapability of libertarians to know when they’re really not going to win this one, because they never were as smart as they think they are. So, a word of advice to libertarians rushing to defend Paul, and only dragging this out—-sometimes it really is best to let one go. You can’t win and you’re only digging yourself in deeper. When something like this happens, just take a holiday! And to go with that recommendation, here’s the original song for today’s Genius Ten. Leave yours in comments, or a comment about anything else you wish to talk about today.
Original song: “Bank Holiday” by Blur
It’s a Brit Pop extravaganza!
1) “Help The Aged” by Pulp
2) “Animal Nitrate” by Suede
3) “Bye Bye Bad Man” by The Stone Roses
4) “Road To Ruin” by The Libertines
5) “David Watts” by The Jam
6) “Caroline, Yes” by The Kaiser Chiefs
7) “The Headmaster Ritual” by The Smiths
8) “Bob’s Yer Uncle” by The Happy Mondays
9) “Forgotten Works” by The Klaxons
10) “Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time” by Jarvis Cocker
Don’t forget to read 
Update: “Lost” fans alert.