Music

This Week’s Heavy Rotation #11

“Be sweet to me baby.”

Each week I take a look back at my playlists, and share songs that were either played the most, got stuck in my head, or just stood out. Many are new to me, but there are old faves mixed in as well.

Lucky #11! Let’s cue it up. Here are my top 5 of the last 7 days:

Stevie Wonder-Uptight

For absolutely zero reason, I like to listen to Motown at work when things go sideways. It was an interesting week, so here we are.

This is one of Wonder’s early hits. It holds up pretty well for pushing 60.

Jurassic 5- Red Hot

Jurassic 5 was a group out of Los Angeles. I always felt like they never quite got the shot they deserved. I think they just got lost in the late 90’s Left Coast shuffle. Most of what they put out is gold. Good flow, addictive sample loop (The Dap-Kings “Nervous Like Me”) and a thick layer of old-fashioned braggadocio slathered across the top.

If I was 22, I’d call this song a “banger.” I’m old, so you’ll just have to trust me that it’s worth a listen.

Don’t even start me We rippin’ up your party Put us on a marque We clutch without the car keys

Ghost of Vroom-Revelator

Ghost of Vroom is the latest project for M. Doughty (of Soul Coughing fame) and Andrew Livingston. It was produced by Mario Caldato Jr., who produced much of the Beastie Boys’ work (“Mario C. likes to keep it clean!”).

To me, this sounds like something that would've been right at home on El Oso, or Ruby Vroom. It’s lankier, but there are distinct echoes of songs like “Rolling.”

Doughty’s home page says, “Mike Doughty isn’t dead — he’s become a ghost.” Okay, then.

Japanese Breakfast- Be Sweet

It’s not every week that I have a runaway #1, but this week I did, and this was it. “Be Sweet” is off the band’s upcoming album Jubilee, the follow up to 2017’s Soft Sounds from Another Planet.

The band is becoming a bit of a recurring theme here, with my writing about them earlier, and Terry Barr including them on his latest American Crisis playlist. There’s a good reason for that.

Soft has a quiet mood, and ethereal quality. These are songs for winter mornings or the backside of the clock.

“Be Sweet” is a 180 pivot, and what we used to call a “mascara song” — as in it’s something you might sing while getting ready to go out for the night. I don’t think it’d be out of place playing in your local Zumiez, either. The bonkers X-files-y video is icing on the cake.

The full album comes out in June. I can’t wait.

There is also a greater-than-zero chance I will get caught singing this in my car before too long.

The Cure- Push

This started the way a lot of things in life do; with a friendly-but-heated debate about which record is a band’s best. In this case, my friend went with 1985’s Head On the Door, and I went with Disintegration.

That’s a hill I’m willing to die on, but to be fair, it was a close decision, and it did get me back into this earlier album. I almost texted back to propose a draw, but that’s not how any of this works.

Side note: Fellow Riff writer Jessica Lee McMillan wrote a really great work of poetry based on Disintegration’s track listing. Check it out here.

What’s on your list this week? Let me know in the comments!

I know I sound like a broken record (sorry!), but thank you as always to The Riff and the fantastic writers here. This community is electric, and I’m grateful to be a part of it.

In case you missed last week’s edition: