BEST OF 2002, VOL. 1

No doubt this post is going to seem a bit out of place. "Out of time," at the very least.

But I've recently been revisiting some of my earliest mix CDs to see which songs still hold water, which ones have sprung some leaks, and which ones have long-since sunk. The 40 tunes that will appear here and in next Friday's VOLUME 2 are extracted from 78 mixes. Thus, 6240 minutes (which is to say: 104 hours) (or: 4 and one/third days) of music are distilled to just 160 minutes (aka: 2 and two/thirds hours) of solid (if I do say) semi-nostalgia. If the JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE song doesn't send you screaming (hey, it's the one song of his I like), then you should be able to find some stuff worth savoring....

(Oh, and... just to be clear... you may well note that very few of these tracks were actually released in 2002. 'Tis true. But the fact that they were lovingly compiled in 2002 is just the sort of tortured technicality we thrive on around here. Viva la rationalisation!)

Left-click [HERE] to download THE BEST OF 2002, VOLUME 1.

Go [HERE] to get THE BEST OF 2004.

2002, V. 1 TRACKLIST >>>

1 inxs/don't change
2 elastica/waking up
3 hot hot heat/touch you touch you
4 sahara hotnights/are you happy now?
5 the dandy warhols/bohemian like you
6 rilo kiley/the frug
7 the frames/pavement tune
8 justin timberlake/cry me a river
9 golden boy [w/miss kittin]/rippin kittin
10 jets to brazil/wish list
11 john mellencamp/human wheels
12 dot allison/close your eyes
13 the wallflowers/everything i need
14 sugar/if i can't change your mind
15 leonard cohen/take this waltz
16 marianne faithfull/for wanting you
17 manic street preachers/so why so sad
18 alison moyet/do you ever wonder
19 pet shop boys/go west
20 david bowie/suffragette city

I'M NOT THERE - BOB DYLAN (SORT OF)

Sticking with the "music-centric movie" thing....

I won't be seeing "I'm Not There" -- for the simple reason that I despise the director, Todd Haynes. I don't despise him personally, of course; hell, I don't even know the man. But I have sat through two of his films ("Poison" and "Velvet Goldmine"), and I'm not sure I'll ever fully recover from those inexpressibly depressing experiences. Mr. Haynes, it seems, is constitutionally incapable of constructing a narrative or fleshing out a multi-dimensional character. He's all about "concept." Artiness for artiness' sake. And he's a hack. Not a mainstream, talentless hack like Brian De Palma or Joel Schumacher or Ivan Reitman, but a pretentious, talentless hack who gives art films a bad name and makes the likes of Gus Van Sant and John Cameron Mitchell seem like unimpeachable geniuses and absolute masters of their craft by comparison.

So that's why I won't be seeing "I'm Not There." However, if Mr. Haynes can be said to have a saving grace, it's his taste in music. "Velvet Goldmine" is packed to the rafters with great glam-rock, and he got his start way-back-when with the CARPENTERS-inspired, Babie-doll bio "Superstar." Now, it's BOB DYLAN he's fixating on, and the soundtrack offers us some fairly solid covers to while away ("wile away"?) an early Thursday morning....

[MP3] CAT POWER/"Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again"

[MP3] STEPHEN MALKMUS & THE MILLION DOLLAR BASHERS/"Ballad of a Thin Man"

[MP3] MARK LANEGAN/"Man in the Long Black Coat"

[MP3] ROGER McGUINN & CALEXICO/"One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)"

EDITH PIAF

What with the writers' strike and all, I barely noticed that Golden Globes were bestowed this year. How this will affect the upcoming Oscars remains to be seen, but some much buzzed-about, music-centric movies -- namely, "Sweeney Todd," "I'm Not There," and the EDITH PIAF biopic "La Vie en Rose" -- may get lost in the ongoing, empty-teleprompter limbo.

We certainly wouldn't want that to happen to Mademoiselle Piaf, whose penchant for painkillers, booze, and car crashes only served to provide an apt, melodramatic backdrop for her emotional song stylings. To call her the French JUDY GARLAND would be lazy but not altogether wrong. Indeed, it can only be a matter of time before RUFUS WAINWRIGHT dedicates a disc to her.

Life is a cabaret, old chum. And this is what comes from too much pills and liquor....

[MP3] "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" [1960]

[MP3] "A Quoi ca Sert L'Amour" [w/THEO SARAPO] [1962]

[MP3] "Les Amants D'un Jour" [1956]

[MP3] "La Vieux Piano" [1960]

[MP3] "Hymne a L'Amour" [1950]

[MP3] "Fais Comme Si" [1958]

SONS AND DAUGHTERS

2008 is but a couple weeks old, but I've already managed to be disappointed by a number of new releases. GOLDFRAPP, BRITISH SEA POWER, NADA SURF, HOT CHIP, LOS CAMPESINOS!, CAT POWER, BOB MOULD... all have fallen short. Sometimes, miserably so.

Color me tickled pink, then, to be able to shout from the rooftops about SONS AND DAUGHTERS' upcoming THIS GIFT. This will be the Glasgow quartet's third album, and it will officially hit the streets on January 29. At this early stage, it seems a bit slicker -- a bit more polished -- than its predecessors. A bit more "pop-py," perhaps? Perhaps. But longtime fans need not fear -- there's still plenty of piss 'n' vinegar in the mix....

SONS AND DAUGHTERS on MySPACE.

From the LP THIS GIFT, 2008 >>>
[MP3] [VID] "Gilt Complex"
[MP3] [VID] "Darling"

From the LP THE REPULSION BOX, 2005 >>>
[MP3] "Monsters"
[MP3] "Taste the Last Girl"

THE CARS - PART 2

In which we conclude our tiptoe through THE CARS' tulips....

Their first album is still their best; their third, PANORAMA, remains their worst. FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE, NO DOUBT, WEEZER, and untold others owe them a debt.

[Note: The photo above clearly does not -- cannot -- depict the actual band members. That would be entirely too horrifying. So... I must assume that some enterprising Geek-Squad artiste has gone and got his groove on with the Photoshop. By this logic, the "character" in the lower-left corner is not keyboardist GREG HAWKES, but a digitally-enhanced amalgam of GEORGE HARRISON and Adolph Hitler. Above him ("it"), guitarist ELLIOT EASTON has been replaced by either GENE SIMMONS' scion, NICK, or a young, pre-rehab STEVEN TYLER. Next over, it's PAT BENATAR or JOAN JETT (again, impossible to tell which), in full-on, Kabuki-mime regalia, standing in for BENJAMIN ORR. RIC OCASEK is doppelganged by "Office" boss Steve Carell (both the mullet and adam's apple are clearly fake). And a very nice Jewish woman (who may or may not be Italian to boot) poses in place of drummer DAVID ROBINSON.]

From the LP PANORAMA, 1980 >>>
[MP3] "Touch and Go"
[MP3] "Running to You"

From the LP CANDY-O, 1979 >>>
[MP3] "Let's Go"
[MP3] "Dangerous Type"

From their self-titled LP, 1978 >>>
[MP3] "Just What I Needed"
[MP3] "You're All I've Got Tonight"
[MP3] "My Best Friend's Girl"

OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN

"Physical" represented her commercial peak. "Xanadu" was a bomb before becoming "da bomb" (in certain cult circles). But "Grease" is, was, and always will be The Word. All hail OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN -- this Sunday's '70s songstress.

[MP3] "Have You Never Been Mellow" [1975]

[MP3] "Summer Nights" [w/JOHN TRAVOLTA] [1978]

[MP3] "Hopelessly Devoted to You" [1978]

[MP3] "You're the One That I Want" [w/JOHN TRAVOLTA] [1978]

[MP3] "Magic" [1980]

[MP3] "Xanadu" [w/ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA] [1980]

[MP3] "Physical" [1981]

THE CARS - PART 1

I have admitted on this blog in the past that THE CARS were my favorite group in the 1980s and that their 1983 release, HEARTBEAT CITY, was the first LP I ever purchased (on vinyl, no less).

Oddly enough, I think it was GREG HAWKES' integral synthesizer work that hooked me in to their sound at the start. Then there were those super-slick chorus harmonies -- courtesy of super-slick uber-producers ROY THOMAS BAKER (QUEEN) and JOHN "MUTT" LANGE (DEF LEPPARD). Throw in an underrated guitar player (ELIOT EASTON), a MODERN LOVER drummer (DAVID ROBINSON), a Rutger Hauer-lookalike on bass and vox (BENJAMIN ORR), and, last but not least, RIC OCASEK -- a lead singer/songwriter who looked like a cross between JOHNNY RAMONE and Lemony Snickett. I mean, come on.... What was not to like?

Clearly, then, HEARTBEAT CITY will always hold a favored place in my heart. But it's their first album that remains their true classic -- the perfect blend of rock and new wave. We'll be working our way back to that one both today and Monday. Hope you come along for the ride....

From the LP DOOR TO DOOR, 1987 >>>
[MP3] "Strap Me In"
[MP3] [VID] "You Are the Girl"

From the LP GREATEST HITS , 1985 >>>
[MP3] [VID] "Tonight She Comes"

From the LP HEARTBEAT CITY, 1983 >>>
[MP3] [VID] "You Might Think"
[MP3] [VID] "Magic"
[MP3] [VID] "Why Can't I Have You"

From the LP SHAKE IT UP, 1981 >>>
[MP3] [VID] "Since You're Gone"
[MP3] [VID] "Shake It Up"