Eye on the prize

Keeping on the subject of John Hughes movie soundtracks for a sec, I'll bet Simple Minds are sick to death of their big Breakfast Club hit. It's not a bad song, but its longevity continues to baffle me. The band actually had a pretty interesting career that has been almost entirely eclipsed by that image of Judd Nelson pumping his fist. Remember that they were actually kinda huge in the mid-'80s? Remember the mid-'80s?

Like many bands born in the late-'70s, Simple Minds started out with a lot of Joy Division in their DNA, especially the production that sounds dubby and claustrophobic at the same time (cheers, Martin Hannett). There's also a fair amount of early XTC-style nerviness. Here's a good example of their pop sensibility peaking through the post-punk veneer. With a nice hint of circus menace.

Simple Minds - Naked Eye

Fast forward three years and they're ready for the arena, riding a wave of bright, triumphant pop, though not totally jettisoning their arty youth. This tune is the high point of that gold dream, a glittering prize for sure. It's like a much more tolerable version of U2, with a sweet swagger and a killer bassline.

It's a Two-for-Tuesday. Don't say I never did anything for you.

Simple Minds - Glittering Prize

Brilliant furniture

Generally, I've tried to avoid double dipping into the same film soundtrack. But today I just can't help it. You probably don't even remember the scene that features this tune. I believe it's pushed to the background until the saxophone break suddenly leaps out. Well, I think it deserves a close-up of its own. Why do I have such a soft spot for this species of moody British crooner?

Furniture - Brilliant Mind

Floe motion

No question that Philip Glass is overexposed. Not to take anything away from his deservedly towering stature, but his position as shorthand for minimalism is not only crazy oversimplified, but also tends to eclipse other deserving composers. That said, I like him enough to give him prime weekend real estate. And why not? This piece starts all somber but then busts out into a colorful swirl of moving gears. Overlapping geometries, mang. It should soundtrack educational films about mitosis.

Philip Glass - Floe

Great pretenders

I have come to the conclusion that the Pretenders are one of the great rock n' roll bands. And because addiction and death cut them down at their prime (the prime of their first lineup anyway), they are also one of the rock's great archetypes, gone after only two near-perfect albums.

I posted my favorite of their rockers a while back. No shortage of those. Chrissie Hynde's tuff charisma was unimpeachable. And James Honeyman-Scott (aforementioned dead guy) should be name-checked by every aspiring lead guitarist. But the fact that they could also put their signature muscle and leathery soul into a gauzy, longing ballad like this just seals their rep, as far as this 'blague is concerned.

The Pretenders - I Go To Sleep

Candyland

Wanna get away? Here's a Japanese cartoon fantasia, kicked off by what sounds like the Action News theme. In no other language could you get away with a vocal melody like this. I don't even know how I feel about this jam, except that it makes me bob my head and giggle like a cartoon kid. Forget about Apple. This is why 1984 wasn't like 1984. All praises to Mutant Sounds yet again.

Haniwa-Chan - Sumidagawa Daisanji

Pop creole

Italo grooves + early '80s American pop R&B singers = my wheelhouse. Producer Pete Bellotte is technically British, but as half of Munich Machine (the other being Giorgio Moroder), he gets honorary citizenship.

I've had enough failed evangelical situations to know that if you don't like this stuff right off the bat, I probably can't convince you. I can only appeal to an inside-out exoticism. Which is to say, you know all about machines making pop and you know all about lite R&B of this era, but this mixture has the strange pull of a strange dream that you know isn't real, but easily could be. Or like realizing that you speak a creole that you never learned.

Sue Ann - My Baby My

You might run into the sun

It's the dragging days of August. But I've got a very busy week lined up. Anyone else? Here's one to kick us all into action.

The Clean - Diamond Shine

Watcher of the skies

You may have noticed the amazing sunset Wednesday evening. It was the kind that should've been in the weather forecast, so that people could've planned for the event. The kind that makes you appreciate your smallness.

I got home just in time to climb to my rooftop and observe its last acts. Now I tend to bend my activities to the clock's routine, but this really should be a habit whenever possible. You can't help but slow down, de-mechanize, and pay better attention to things. You know, like breathing. Here's a song to accompany that.

Mystic Chords of Memory - Sure, Bert

Easy for you to say

If I’m craving to hear a song, its tune will ricochet repeatedly about my brain until I can make it to a music-playing device and satisfy my longing. If this is not immediately possible, it’s usually not long before its tune starts spilling out of my own mouth, as a makeshift measure, until a proper play can be arranged. Today’s song from Ted Lucas’s single, self-titled record released in 1976, is one that was recently added to my rotating list of 5-10 tracks that I need to hear at least once a day, and that I’ve often found myself unconsciously singing aloud, signaling that it’s time to play the record. As I’ve sung its lyrics and beautiful melody, I’ve become aware of how its chorus, “It’s so easy when you know what you’re doing. It’s so easy when you know how…” which sounds so gentle and loving, soothing and lullaby-like in Lucas’s rendering, comes across as ridiculously boastful and pretentious in my own. As though I’ve mastered the art of…well, anything at all. Ha! Luckily, one need not relate personally to this song’s words in order to enjoy it. File it under “aspirational.”

NB: Psychedelic album art by Stanley Mouse.

Ted Lucas - It's so easy when you know what you're doing

Nicely done

If you're a regular around here, you know that Planet Songblague is populated by two species of songs—those that are meaningful to me and those that I humbly think the world should care more about. Sometimes they crossbreed.

Today's track is one for the imaginary megaphone. To the extent that I'm influencing anyone's tastes, let me lobby for some attention to be thrown Nick Nicely's way. I guess his main claim to fame is that he influenced XTC to adopt their psychedelic Dukes of Stratosphear alter egos. He released a couple a singles that couldn't have been more at odds with the climate of the early '80s, so he packed it in. All of his stuff was subsequently released on a compilation that you can drive home today. It's a wonderland of psych pop, with some nice krautrock elements that are especially prominent in this jam. I'm not sure what Nicely is up to today, but someone should get him on tour with Animal Collective or Ariel Pink or some other bigshot who could get this man his overdue props (and cash).

Nick Nicely - Treeline

Black cell abrasion

I don't know what it says about me that a track I couldn't get enough of at 13 is a track I still can't get enough of. Such is Depeche Mode's mysterious hold on me. I know, I know, the lyrics are beyond hokey. And the music is like an intro workshop on melody and arrangement. Dangerously saccharine. But its roots are deep and tangled in my brain. Like the song says, it feels like home.

Depeche Mode - Here Is The House

Genius is a trap

I have a theory. There are people who play music, and then there are people for whom the music instinct is so encoded in their DNA that they may as well be a separate human subspecies. They crop up throughout history—Mozart, John Cage, Prince, countless unfamous people who toil away in city squares. I think it's fair to put Todd Rundgren in this category. Which may explain why his career is so frustrating.

Like Prince, he's prodigiously talented. Hooks flow right out of him. He can play every instrument on an album and engineer it too. At the same time, the bad-to-good music ratio is kind of appalling. He seems almost bored with his ability. Like a math prodigy at the chalkboard, there's a distinct lack of joy. Nothing like the Eureka! of musicians who seem struck by a singular inspiration and spend years working it out. So with Rundgren, you get a lot of detours and strange decisions that sound like they were made mainly to keep himself awake.

That said, his A Capella album, made with just voice (and I guess stomping and clapping for drums), is a surprising triumph. It's a genre experiment, but the strictures highlight a key strength — his awesome voice and the fact that it gets awesomer the more it's layered. I'm not sure how serious he's being with politics in this track (what with the Irish accent), but it soars and haunts on a scale that fits Rundgren's talent.

Todd Rundgren - Johnee Jingo

The public wants what the public gets

Oh, to be a youthful Paul Weller and be so assured about your righteous anger. Society...man! My less and less youthful face cracks a bemused smile. But at the same time, yup, we are lame in ways that don't really change. And anyone who doesn't at least pass through a period of humorless, righteous indignation makes for a mean and ugly adult. Here's a proper anthem for teenage outrage. But isn't there a little irony in the fact that the boys hit #1 with all this talk of going underground?

The Jam - Going Underground

Assault and battery

I miss making mixtapes. I mean the medium itself and all the dinky little maneuvers involved. Popping out the two plastic bits at the top of the cassette always felt like triumphantly uncorking a bottle of champagne. One of my favorite tricks was the anti-segue, the extreme turn from something placid to a brutal piece of noise. In that spirit, I think Mr. Branca deserves the assignment. Not that this one isn't beautiful on its own terms. Just not in a very maternal sort of way. Yesterday, as an experiment, I put this on for my morning commute to see if, by some reverse logic, it would lighten my mood. No sir, it did not.

Glenn Branca - Symphony No. 5 - Second Movement

Eavening

I suppose I wouldn't be doing justice to summertime without some songs that namecheck it explicitly. There's really no logic to why certain bands make it and others don't. The Eaves (I'm assuming they broke up) were also-rans in the battle of backward-looking New York bands of the early '00s. It's fairly obvious that they had lots of dream pop records in their collections and didn't do too much to tweak the influence once they bought pedals of their own. So what? Competence is more and more a virtue to these ears. I like that the singer's voice is dreamy but rooted. And I like that this song reminds me of summertime walks home from the bar back in those early 'aughts.

The Eaves - Summer Gold

Serpentine sounds

What a great weekend for music. A mere day after Friday's Rotherific flights, the Daptone soul revue touched down on Prospect Park. Obviously, the star was Sharon Jones, resplendent in a sparkling blue dress that blinded even those of us on the commoners' side of the fence. She's got the voice, and the lady knows how to do a show. But, of course, it wouldn't be half as kickin' without the be-suited Dap-Kings, who may be the tightest band on the scene today (please correct me if I'm wrong).

On top of all that goodness were the opening Budos Band, Afro-funky music for summer sweating, busting loose from Staten Island. They've got a new batch of jams, which are a little more Mediterranean, but just as hot. There's not too much to think about with this kind of stuff, although I can't help but think I wish I'd learned to play some brass.

The Budos Band - Golden Dunes

Neu world order

Last Friday was the big Hallogallo show (ie Michael Rother playing the 'hits' from his Neu! and Harmonia days) at Lincoln Center's outdoor Damrosch Park. Needless to say, Songblague was exceedingly stoked about it. And it didn't disappoint. At first, I was wary about whether Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley could pull off the pounding, simple brilliance of the sadly deceased drummer Klaus Dinger. Could he capture the infinite pulse that's so central to the stuff without leaning on rock accents? Happily, yes! And the bassman was so nicely out of the way, I don't even remember his name.

I've already given some space to Neu!'s signature number, but I've never really tried to capture what makes this music so special to me. Yes, it's repetition and the magic drone and colors and the pleasure of hearing these Germans find the human heart of "mechanized" music. But more importantly, it's the utopian quality, and that was on full display in the beautiful evening air. People say the stuff sounds cosmic and futuristic (as conceived in the '70s anyway), but it's the idea of endlessness, and also begininglessness. You don't look for hooks or highlights. It doesn't sound like the music of an event. It's the hum and happy flowing groove of the everyday. For a world of better everydays. It's background music for reading, riding, or washing dishes. And also foreground music for congregating in the park and feeling part of the big, surging, patient motion.

So cheers to Michael Rother. You all should check out his catalogue. Today's tune comes from his third solo album, which is mostly variations on a simple theme. It doesn't swallow you up like his earlier work, but it does work those big guitars in its own way. As the album cover suggests, this is music for laying on the grass, looking up at the sky, dreaming triumphant dreams that don't even have to come true.

Michael Rother - Katzenmusik 2

4ADaydreaming

Something in the air is putting a mysterious fatigue on my bones. So here's one that's in tune with that slow down, foreshadowing a little bit of autumn. It's also one from the alternate adolescence files. The outro that kicks in at 4:35 makes me feel 14 years old again.

Hex - Antelope

Disarmed

Those of you who are familiar with the Sun City Girls would not surprised by many of the noises emanating from (Sir) Richard Bishop's guitar. His stylistic range is intimidatingly broad, exotic in a very real way, but he pulls it off without it sounding like musical tourism. Driving through Maryland, alternating between stretches of ugliness and woodsiness, his Polytheistic Fragments album felt as foreign as yesterday's jam. But then this piece came on, and it seemed that beauty finds itself at home just about anywhere.

Sir Richard Bishop - Quiescent Return

Space highway music

Back from Kentucky, and not a moment too soon. I was getting way too comfortable eating beef jerky and drinking coke in the car. Early on in the drive, we were treated to the wonders of XM radio, in all its no-commercial, centrally-programmed, DJ-is-totally-extraneous glory. It's inspiring to flip through the stations and experience the excellent fruit of state of the art demographic slice n' dice techniques. After sliding up and down a series of awful genre-specific playlists, we settled on the Playboy station, which featured weird, awkwardly lurid banter between a very zonked-out R&B singer and 2 very chipper ladies, presumably of the porno variety. This being a family 'blague, I won't get into the program content, but I'm happy to do a impression if you'd like (hit me up in the Comments). Anyway, I'm really not sure if there's a future for radio porn, because our XM privileges were revoked early in day 2 of the trip. Apparently, rental cars only give you a demo. I guess you're supposed to subscribe to the XM service for the reminder of your rental time.

After lamenting our loss, it was back to the Ipod shuffle, which has a way of turning up at least one tune that's so out of step with the environment, it's perfect in a new way and totally flips you. This came on somewhere in West Virginia, with the relentless afternoon sun revealing an endless landscape while also lifting my head high above the beautiful green mountains. Maybe the XM radio programmers should consider building a genre around it. I think it's a worthy addition to the road songs from a few months back.

The System - I Won't Let Go