Music

This Week’s Heavy Rotation #21

Straddle the line in discord and rhyme

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.

Below is my Top 5 of the last 7 days:

Thievery Corporation- Sound the Alarm

This past weekend, my younger son and I took a rambling bike ride around a lake near where we live. It was beautiful and crowded- after a few days of rain, it felt like half the city had the same idea we did.

My older son uses these rides to push himself and circles the lake as fast as he can, pushing for new personal bests. My other son and I keep a decent pace and usually talk about whatever’s on his mind. On this occasion, he wondered aloud what school will look like next year. That led to a discussion about how different things are today vs. this time last year, and so on.

As the world gets pulled back by the tractor beam of “normalcy,” it’s easy to forget how unsettled everything felt last spring.

• When driving to work meant traveling empty roads to any empty airport.
• When people would wear dishwashing gloves and lab goggles to the store because they didn’t have anything else. And everyone warily eyed people passing by as if we were assassins looking to end one another with a well-placed cough.
• When we just didn’t know what was to come.

If you asked me to articulate the mood during that time, I’d probably be able to come up with something, but it’d be quicker to just point to this record.

Gomez- Options

I was obsessed with this track for a while several years ago. I’d largely forgotten about it — and the band — until Rob Janicke’s article last week. I connected with him offline and asked for more recommendations, and got quite an awesome list. “AirStream Driver” made for quite an earworm, and I found a ton of great new (to me) songs, but this song still retains the title belt.

Dead Moon- It’s OK

If you’ve seen Pearl Jam in concert, the odds are good that you’ve seen them play this song. They usually transition into it from “Daughter.”

But before Eddie Vedder & Co. brought it to the masses, Fred Cole & co. were playing it to smaller audiences in Portland and elsewhere. Dead Moon is an admittedly acquired taste. Still, this version is hard to not get into. It’s rawer than PJ’s version, but that’s exactly what makes it more endearing.

It’s okay We all seen better days It’s okay You don’t have to hide and run away It’s okay (It’s okay) Yeah we love you anyway

After a year of upheaval, insurrection, and loss, being reminded that “It’s Ok” is just what we all need.

Doppler Affection- Lost Winter

Doppler Affection by a longtime friend of mine. Long before playlists existed, there were mixtapes. And it was with my friend Jed that I swapped the most stuff.

I can still remember being excited to share this band or that with him by our lockers and vice versa. It’s not a reach to say that my musical experience would be a shadow of what it is without having gone to school with him.

Time, distance and real-life mean our interactions are primarily online these days. Thankfully, he puts a lot of his work online. Always a talented musician, he has branched off into electronic music and tinkering with synthesizers.

A song that would be right at home on Steven Hale’s Music For Insomniacs list, “Lost Winter” was the perfect soundtrack to last week’s dreary weather I mentioned earlier.

Duran Duran-Hungry Like The Wolf

You know that overused meme of Denzel Washington breathing a sigh of relief that gets posted any time something trends on Twitter? That was me this past week. Duran Duran kept popping up everywhere. On Spotify… on SiriusXM… on here.

To enough of a degree that I seriously started wondering if one of the band members died or met some other bad fate.

It turns out that they played the Billboard Music Awards show (maybe I should watch TV?). They also have a new album coming in the fall, and the lead single just dropped.

4 decades after their first release, and they aren’t showing any signs of slowing down. That’s a relief.

6th man: Lou Reed- I Love You, Suzanne

There was a time in the mid-’80s when a lot of rockers “cleaned up,” cut their hair, and put out songs with a poppier feel. Glen Fry became a fitness buff, and Lou Reed made a song that was utterly catchy. Hard to believe this is the same person that wreaked “Metal Machine Music” on the world.

At any rate, it’s a great track, and it reall — AND OMG IS THAT LOU REED DANCING?!

What made your lists this week? What’s new that I should check out? Let me know in the comments!

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When you’re done giving Rob and Steven’s articles a read, make sure to check out the fantastic work of Jessica Lee McMillan, Keith R. Higgons, Nia Simone McLeod, Paul Combs, Terry Barr, David Acaster, Kathryn Dillon, Frank Mastropolo, Noah Levy, If Ever You’re Listening and so many more.

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In case you missed last week’s list: