music friday: 2011

Continuing with years I don't know enough about. There's an interesting interview in the latest Rolling Stone, "Monsters of Rock Criticism: Greil Marcus Interviews Robert Christgau". It features two eminent rock critics in their 70s who don't seem to have any trouble "keeping up". Obviously, I am neither Marcus nor Christgau, although I spent a lot of my life following in Greil's footsteps. At least in this list of ten, I've seen one artist in concert.

M83, "Midnight City". French electronic music. I'm just narrow-minded enough to dislike this just by the description. It's actually not that bad.

Lana Del Rey, "Video Games". This is better.

Tyler, The Creator, "Yonkers". This video is some dark shit.

PJ Harvey, "The Words That Maketh Murder". Rolling Stone called this "Fairly peppy for a PJ Harvey song about murder".

James Blake, "The Wilhelm Scream". I like the title.

Jay-Z & Kanye West, "Otis". I don't know what to do with this, which samples one of my all-time favorite tracks in a creative way, but it just makes me want to hear the original. We like what we grew up with, I guess ... I remember playing the Live in Europe version of "Try a Little Tenderness" for my mom, and she said it was all wrong because Otis didn't do it like Sinatra did.

Cass McCombs, "County Line". Born and raised in Concord, California, which is about 15 miles from where I grew up.

Wild Flag, "Romance". Well, I only saw one of these ten acts live, but Wild Flag make up for the absence of any others. I saw them three times, which is pretty good considering they only stuck around long enough to make one album. If anyone unfamiliar with the band wonders why I was so taken with them, I have two words: "Carrie" and "Janet".

The Weeknd, "House of Balloons/Glass Table Girls". Since he came up earlier, might as well quote Christgau here: "If coming leaves your penis feeling that bad, fella, remember that they're not called narcotics for nothing".

Drake, "Marvin's Room". He started on Degrassi: The Next Generation. He's sold a zillion records. Yet when I think of Drake, I think of this:

Spotify playlist:

Here is my mom's version of "Try a Little Tenderness" ... my parents had many, many Sinatra albums when I was growing up, including Nice 'n' Easy:

My version of "Try a Little Tenderness" ... I got to go now, and I don't wanna go: