Music

This Week’s Heavy Rotation #19

“I‘ve been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand”

Note: 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.

Here are my Top 5 of the last 7 days. It’s an admittedly eclectic mix — even by my standards — but sometimes life is like that…

Velocity Girl-Sorry Again

I was rooting through a box in my basement looking for something work-related when I found a cache of old cassettes (and cassingles!).

I really liked this when it came out, but Simpatico definitely falls into the category of “I-only- bought- the- album -for- this -one- song.” No new discoveries here.

To be honest, before giving this a listen — online, since my last tape deck left when I traded in my last car — I couldn’t have named any other tracks by the band. Good thing the song’s great, I guess.

Regardless of how one feels about Streaming platforms, that’s a nice problem they’ve solved. And Volkswagen liked it enough to use in an ad for Jettas

Altered Images- I Could Be Happy

I’m still binge-watching Halt and Catch Fire, and this was a nice reminder that Altered Images have more songs than just Happy Birthday.

For anyone that’s watched the show, my wife and I are now in the part of the story arc where groups like The Breeders and Pavement are part of the soundtrack.

DJ Alant- Tear You Apart+ Bela Lugosi's Dead (Mashup)

Merging tracks by Bauhaus and She Wants Revenge is the combo I didn’t know I needed. I’m not sure how or why YouTube’s algorithm decided I needed to see this, but I’m glad it did.

And I don’t know what inspired DJ Alant to mash these two songs together, but I’m pretty sure they should be working on the space program. Amazing.

The clips in the video are worth the price of admission. As a viewer noted in the comments, it’s wild to think many of the dancers are likely now someone’s grandparents.

(Note: NSFW)

Mark Lanegan + Jack Bates/Jeff Schroeder/Shane Graham-Disorder (Joy Division cover)

In 9th grade, I walked into Tower records looking for Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures. I thought I was buying it because of “She’s Lost Control.” It turns out I was getting it to hear Disorder — I just didn’t know it yet.

30+ years later, I was just as delighted to comes across this cover by former Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan, Jack Bates (son of Joy Division’s Peter Hook), and members of Smashing Pumpkins. It’s sweet, and the fact that they did it for charity is icing on the cake.

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles- More Love

As longtime readers know, this time of year I log a lot of miles in my car driving all over the state to/from my kids’ soccer games. These trips are can be fertile ground for finding — or rediscovering — 1 or 2 hidden gems. When this song comes on, the odds are usually pretty good that it’s Kim Carnes’ cover version. This time around I got to hear Smokey sing.

6th Man award:

Moby-Body Rock

Moby’s “Play” album turned 22 this week. I mentioned it elsewhere, but the only time I ever had a neighbor file a noise complaint against me was when I was playing it. Specifically, this song.

What’s been on your sound machine this week? Anything I should check out? Let me know in the comments!

As always, thank you to The Riff and the amazing writers here. We’re building something awesome together.

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In case you missed last week’s list: