Come back! I've got music!

[andrew_jorgensen]

Oh, look! Schloss Neuschwanstein to the left! The problem with posting such a vertical picture is now I have to write enough to justify the expanse. Blah, blah, blah. Blahditty, blahdittum. With such sterling prose on display I'll never understand why this LiveJournal is hemorrhaging friends, not to mention the entire nation of Saudi Arabia. As a bit of a reward (or perhaps a goad) to those who have remained, I offer: music. Twenty-six songs, for those who want them. Inspired (cowed) by lynnmonster's example. Strange covers! Egyptian funk! Secret Parliament! Parental warnings for strong language, sexual situations, and using Hurricane Katrina as an excuse to slam President Bush.

I haven't put any thought into how these should be sequenced, and the quality is variable as the tracks I've ripped are usually at a much lower bit-rate than the ones I've taken from this or that audioblog. But enough of my mewling; let's see what we have.

• "Hideous Mutant Freekz" -- axiomFunk. From the Bill Laswell-produced compilation Funkcronomicon, I picked this up almost exactly ten years ago, and with its monster-movie-music allusions, this song makes me think of Halloween, though the freekz in question are more likely encountered in junior high school than in satanic ritual. The track reunites George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, Garry Shider, and Mudbone Cooper, but I'm sure there are legal reasons it's not P-Funk.
  
  
• "Going To The Country" -- Beau Jocque and the Zydeco Hi-Rollers. Mr. Jocque's girlfriend has developed a substance dependency problem, so instead of staging an intervention and getting her into rehab, he goes into the swamp in search of a black cat bone. Now it is my suspicion that black cat bone signifies some sort of Viagra etoufee, but the real voodoo here is that anyone could ever get such a funky sound out of an accordian.
  
  
• "Milk & Honey" -- Beck. "Arkansas wet dreams." "Do you know the way to the Soviet embassy?" Recorded concurrently with the impeachment trial, Midnite Vultures probably doesn't actually contain secret commentaries on President Clinton, but with lines like "You can smell the VD in the club tonight," it's easy to pretend it does.
  
  
• "Psychoticbumpschool 'Live'" -- Bootsy's Rubber Band. Playful stomp. Pure fonk.
  
  
• "Lipstick" -- The Buzzcocks. I never wrote much fanfic, and I certainly never wrote Spike/Dawn fanfic, but sometime after season five, I got it into my head that Dawn had stolen Spike's copy of Singles Going Steady.
  
  
• "Ball Of Confusion" -- Chuck D & Dapper Dan. Now, I'm not saying that Norman Whitfield invented hip hop (though Whitfield might make that claim), or that the Temptations released America's first hit rap record, but there's very little Chuck has to do to bring the song into a Public Enemy context.
  
  
• "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" -- The Del McCoury Band. Apparently this is a cover of a Richard Thompson song, but the only Richard Thompson song I know is itself a cover of . . . well, we'll get to that. In any case, it's hard for me to imagine this as anything other than a pickin' and scratchin' hillbilly song. (Wait! You can hear a version by Thompson here for free.)
  
  
• "Stop The War Now" -- Edwin Starr. Another piece of the Whitfield oeuvre. I think this may be superior in its anarchic power than Starr's much better-known recording of "War."
  
  
• "Sunshine Of Your Love" -- Ella Fitzgerald. Really. I got this off of one mp3 blog or another, and, at this very moment, it might be my favorite track in this set. It really shouldn't work, but it does.
  
  
• "Chinese Arithmetic" -- Eric B. & Rakim. No one is going to like this but me. Paid In Full's reputation is owed entirely to Rakim's rapping style, so of course I pick the album's one instrumental. Edgy, strange, and not a little annoying.
  
  
• "Rescue Me" -- Fontella Bass. Growing up hearing this on oldies radio, I at first thought it was one of Aretha's best songs; later, I learned that it wasn't by Aretha at all, and I decided that it was the most skillful imitation of her I'd heard. The truth, though, is that Bass's single was released over a year before Aretha moved to Atlantic and developed a signature style suspiciously similar to Bass's.
  
  
• "Gino Is A Coward" -- Gino Washington. Dinosaur riding crazy music.
  
  
• "Crumbs Off The Table" -- The Glass House. I like to think that's it's not entirely impossible that Funkadelic backs this track -- or at least the harmonica player sounds like whoever played on "Good Old Music" from the same time and place.
  
  
• "Lela" -- Hakim featuring James Brown. Because you need to hear James Brown saying "Assalaam Alaikum."
  
  
• "Killing Floor" -- Howlin' Wolf.
  
  
• "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" -- Jay Z & The Beatles. From what is probably the most famous mash-up ever.
  
  
• "Good Girls Don't" -- The Knack. When I was in high school, my radio listening was dominated by Cleveland's three classic rock stations. I don't think they played this song more than five times while I was listening, but each time was welcome. Sleazy, obscene, amusing.
  
  
• "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People" -- The Legendary K.O.. I was out of the country when both Katrina and "Golddigger" hit, so when I got back and heard this track I thought it was incredibly significant that the backing sample was Ray Charles repeating, "She gives me money when I'm in need" from "I Got A Woman." Then I finally heard the original Kanye, and discovered that the sample was actually Jamie Foxx trying to violate the Law of Conservation of Talent, which recontextualized things a bit.
  
  
• "Looking For A Kiss" -- The New York Dolls.
  
  
• "The Rooster" -- Outkast. I have this theory that all the divorce songs Big Boi contributes to Outkast's body of work are really, deep down, about Andre 3000. All the divorce songs Andre 3000 contributes, on the other hand, are about Erykah Badu.
  
  
• "Have Love Will Travel" -- Richard Berry & The Pharaohs. At least on my computer, Zoidberg moves in time with this song.
  
  
• "Oops! I Did It Again" -- Richard Thompson. The best of Britney's work -- "Toxic," "Baby, One More Time" -- has an edge of anxiety to it you wouldn't expect from the source. I think Thompson recognizes this, plus he looks really cute in the red vinyl catsuit.
  
  
• "Comfortably Numb" -- Scissor Sisters. John Scalzi called it "close to a musical atrocity," but I can't believe anyone wouldn't enjoy this reworking of one of Pink Floyd's most pretentious records. I just find it funny on so many levels -- from the interpolation of "Stayin' Alive," to the exchange of cocaine for heroin, to the exposure of the playing-doctor metaphor as the cheap come-on it was, to the central lie of a song which, no matter what it tells itself, is neither comfortable or numb.
  
  
• "Strychnine" -- The Sonics. The missing link between Little Richard and Iggy Pop. (Also, more monster-movie music.)
  
  
• "If It Hadn't Been For Sly" -- Swamp Dogg. A tribute to the post-soul era's most important artist from its weirdest.
  
  
• "Release It" -- The Time.

Ok, I'm off to Egypt tomorrow, so enjoy the music in my absence.

Comments

[angels-nibblet.livejournal.com]

I love Neuschwanstein, it's just so beyond bad taste that it comes right around the other side again looking fabulous.

I would take you up on that offer of illicit music, but we're already over our limit *hangs head in shame*

[wisewoman.livejournal.com]

Ok, I'm off to Egypt tomorrow...

You just live to torture me, don't you?

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

HUrray hurray! Totally downloading. Because there just isn't enough weird, annoying music in my life now that my downstairs neighbours got evicted.... :D

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

the entire nation of Saudi Arabia

Oh great.

Thanks.

[ann1962]

::downloads::

Sunshine of your Love is perfect. I didn't know she sang like this! I googled. This is so tempting. Hey Jude, wow.

[maeve-rigan.livejournal.com]

Why are two of my lj friends going to Egypt? What's up with Egypt this week?

Whatever it is, have a good time, and come back safely.