Music
This Week’s Heavy Rotation #23
Do you run when it’s just getting good?
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:
Band of Horses- Casual Party
It’s graduation season, and up here that means a laundry list of parties to cycle through. Newly minted grads fill their backyards with tents and tables, and the garage becomes a staging ground for crockpots and posters full of “through-the-years” montages. You stay for a little bit, check the usual small talk boxes, and then move on to the next one.
Maybe this is a Midwest thing? I’d never heard of it before moving here. At any rate, after taking last year off for COVID, these have roared back. They’re light, and it’s nice that it’s understood that you don’t have to stay for too long.
My niece had one this past week, and as we walked up the driveway, this popped in my head, where it played on a loop for the next 90 minutes. I should be clear here that the lyrics don’t fit the atmosphere at all (her function was really fun), but I’m just wired this way.
San Cisco- Beach
This was a gift from Sirius XM, and I admit to not knowing a single thing about this band. That said, I found myself drawn into the languid sounds and catchy chorus… and then I read the lyrics. The storytelling here is both gorgeous and sad.
The song is a eulogy to (a) lost love. I don't know if they intended to take us along through the 5 stages of grief, but if these words don’t describe the “Anger” stage, I don’t know what does:
All I want to be is in your company I made a mixtape With all the songs that you hate Can’t read your mind I give up this time
The B-52's- Devil In My Car
YouTube thought I might like to see this. They were right.
Spoon-Do you
Long before Austin become a Xanadu for hipsters, Spoon was there and making great music. My entry to the band was a friend imploring me to “go buy [They Want My Soul].”
It’s fantastic. As with most bands, people like to fight over whether their “early stuff” is better than newer recordings. Those discussions are either really fun to have or exhaustingly tedious. I refuse to wade in far enough to know what line separates the old from the new here, but my flag is firmly planted on whatever side defends this record.
Rare is the band that can pull off multiple styles of music while still sounding like themselves. Britt Daniel & co. are one of them.
Boz Scaggs- What Can I say
True story: In the early ’80s, I was in elementary school in Oregon. We were set up with pen pals from North Carolina. These letters included all of the boilerplate stuff you’d expect from 9-year-old strangers writing to each other. If memory serves, our teacher even served up a menu of questions for us to pick from.
Things like:
- What sports do you play?
- What is your favorite subject?
- What music do you like?
My pen pal said he liked someone named Boz Scaggs. I thought he was making it up, but my dad assured me that Boz was, in fact, a real person that made music. I’d probably just never heard him before.
I missed out. “Silk Degrees” is a great record from start to finish, with Scaggs backed by legendary session musicians like Jeff Porcaro. This opening track is one of my favorites on the record. Even though it’s overshadowed by staples like “Lowdown,” and “Lido Shuffle,” it holds its own.
He wasn’t making anything up, I was just 30+ years late to the party.
6th man: Stardust-Music Sounds better with You
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to go to a resort somewhere like Cancun, this is the soundtrack. Catchy, safe, and just “dancy” enough to get lobster-red tourists to move. It’s what gets played on the pool deck in between rounds of trivia.
What caught your ear this week? Anything I should be checking out? Let me know in the comments!
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Last week’s list: