We have once again arrived at the start of the weekend, so why not once again highlight six songs worth spinning from this week. The week itself was fairly light on hot new album releases, but there were plenty of great singles and new unreleased tracks finding their way to your ear holes. As usual, I’ve kept the list to six, but if you’re looking for an extended list from a different perspective, you should check out Danceyrselfclean’s weekly roundup. She’s usually batting a thousand over there.
As always, click on the title and artist to hear the songs and if something happens to tickle your fancy, please do what you can to support the artists. Happy listening and have a wonderful weekend and a lovely holiday week!
There you have it. The six songs that struck my fancy the hardest this week. Of course, by no means is this meant to be a best of, merely a favorite of mine, a jumping off point. It’s been a busy week, so surely I’ve missed some goodness out there. Go explore. Speaking of exploration and discovery, a good place might be checking out the latest episode of my podcast, the Radio Slow Riot Podcast. It’s almost two hours of commercial free music that you can stream or download and take with you. Lots of new goodness with the occasional forgotten gem tossed in for good measure. Listen and share if you get a chance. I enjoy putting them together for everyone.
Thanks again for listening, writing, supporting, and being generally awesome. All the kind words, comments, and reblogs are very much appreciated. Don’t forget to support the bands that you enjoy in whatever way that you can (blog, tweet, share). Have an extra special Thanksgiving next week. Stay warm, listen loudly, be safe, and have a wonderful weekend!
“Hit the Ground (Superman)” by The Big Pink // Future This (2012)
It’s taken me a day or so to warm up to this jam, and that’s mostly because I’m carrying the weight of my love for “A Brief History of Love” with me as I’m listening. This is clearly a band branching out and embracing new vibes. It’s clearly a lot more upbeat and sunny (perhaps because of the sample of Laurie Anderson’s “O, Superman”), but the signature sounds of the band are still there. I’ll be very excited to hear the full album when it’s released January 16th. In the meantime, I’ll just keep on warming to this new goodness.
Yes, for all of the pain and annoyance that flickered in and out of 2009, I found myself locking onto specific songs that (especially in times of travel and distance from my friendship/relationship issues) really helped me break away. Each song listed here did that exact thing for me, but none as well as Small Black’s absolutely perfect “Despicable Dogs”.
As Cass McComb’s “You Saved My Life” was the song that I found myself using as a salve to a consistently broken heart in the later months of 2009, Small Black’s “Despicable Dogs” arrived just in time to start helping me feel like I wasn’t the disaster that I was being made to feel I was. Sure, I was still pretty much a mess, but that song took on a strange hymn like quality for me. It was an escape. It came on late in the year and I carried it with me through most of 2010, and I still listen to it a dozen times a week. It’s simple, lo-fi approach to new wave or synth pop, or whatever the fuck you want to call it, is a perfect sound to latch onto and build a world around. It’s one of the few songs in my life that I feel like I can say changed my point of view on things. Oddly, it’s not anything you can find in the lyrics either. It’s wholly some weight that I put onto it myself. Why that song? I’m not sure, but I’m glad that I found it when I did because it sure helped, and continues to help. It wasn’t a relationship song. It wasn’t something that I gravitated toward to make myself cry or get lost in some deteriorating relationship, instead it was a song for me. Just something that I fell in love with. No negativity. No baggage from another person or relationship. In face, it was one of the first moments in my life when I realized how much emphasis I place on soundtracking my life with important songs. That’s all great, but the sad part comes when you lose those important people that you thought would be there forever and now you’ve got all of these deflated songs just littering your subconscious. “Despicable Dogs” was a reminder to listen to music for me. For myself. To feel something. Not to put my feelings on something.
This probably makes little to no sense, but going through my notes for 2009, I found lots of scribbles and words pertaining to some very real sadness from that time and it reminded me of the way that I used to listen to so much of my music. No longer. At least not if i can help it.
Oh, and P.S. - those other three songs are fucking brilliant mood pieces as well that really stand up and still get plenty of repeat listens two years on.
Here is the previously mentioned covers compilation featuring the music of The Cure. Lots of lesser known artists mixed in this time around because quite frankly, they were the best. Also, I wasn’t about to include 40 different versions of “Lovesong”, so the only duplicate tracks included are two very different takes on “Boys Don’t Cry”. Are there some covers that I missed - sure. Most of those were instances of choosing who I felt covered a particular track the best.
So without further ado, here are classic songs by The Cure as re-interpreted by artists over the years.
Playlist (click the band name for more info on the band):
Please support the artists that you find and enjoy. Buy their music, merchandise and tickets to see their shows. Supporting them is the only purpose in doing this blog. Contrary to the opinions of some, music blogs are a great way to discover new music, but there will only be so much new music to go around if these artists can’t afford to support themselves through their art and commerce. Only use these mixtapes as a guide to find something to throw your (financial and emotional) support behind.
