WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE
Plug in your earbuds and take a ride with me!
1. "Passing Through" / Marshall Crenshaw
From Jaggedland (2009)
One of the great neglected albums of the past year. I love how the twangy guitar line weaves around, while Marshall's reverbed vocals gently meditate on the passage of time. When I saw him last fall, he mentioned that he wrote it while stuck at an airport in Alaska, but its sense of life's transience is bigger than that.
2. "Dream Baby" / Waylon Jennings
From Phase One: The Early Years 1958-1964
Waylon's outlaw country persona dominates his image, but he's been around a lot longer than that. Here's a blast from Waylon's rockbilly past -- and what a great vehicle for his voice!
3. "Where Will You Go" / The Minus 5
From Down With Wilco (2003)
At least part of the Minus 5 (Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey) are in the Venus 3, Robyn Hitchcock's frequent collaborators. There's a genial goofiness to some of their stuff that I find appealing, though the songs (usually written by McCaughey) don't make a hundred percent sense. I dig the unspooling guitar riff that stitches this song together.
4. "Tears in Heaven" / Eric Clapton
From Unplugged (1992)
Oh, I know it's the big sappy hit, written about his son's early accidental death, and I've considered deleting it a dozen times. But here it still is, tugging on the heartstrings. Absolutely nothing that makes Eric Clapton a major musical figure makes an appearance in this song (okay, there is that one deft little guitar twiddle). The soporific pace is putting me to zzzzzzzzz....
5. "Breakfast at Tiffany's" / The Testotertones
From Singing in Hormony
A CD by the a capella group at my kids' high school, which was our constant road trip accompaniment for a couple summers when the kids were younger. I've never heard the original, but it sounds like something they'd sing on Glee. Nice harmonies, though, which was kinda the point.
6. "Seein' Her" / Paul Westerberg
From Besterberg
Now this is more like it. Replacements-style crunchy garage rock, with a frantic beat, tapping right into the uncritical exuberance of new love. "Everything about her, I like everything about her / I like everything about her" -- sometimes it really is that simple.
7. "Love Me Dead" / Ludo
From You're Awful, I Love You (2009)
This funny, snarky indie track is a perfect follow-up to "Seein' Her" -- this is what happens when the teen love goes sour.
8. "Birthday" / The Beatles
From the White Album
I want this song sung to me every birthday. Those doubled guitars just spank the hell out of that riff, and Ringo's drumming is insane. "I would like you to dance / Birthday! / Take a ch-ch-chance" -- wild and crazy.
9. "I Got the Love" / Nick Lowe
From Pinker and Prouder Than Previous (1988)
What a boppy little gem! Such a light touch, just a perky loping bass line and few exhalations of organ, a tinkle of piano keys here and there. It's like the rockabilly lovechild of reggae and bluegrass, with fantastically simple lyrics ("I've got the love / And I want to shout it / I've got the love / The rain has gone...And if it don't stop / I'm-a gonna pop!") It's entirely possible that this is Nick Lowe's worst album ever, but I have to admit, I kinda love it.
10. "I'm A Fool for Loving Her" / George Jones
From I Am What I Am (1980)
You want extravagant emotions? George Jones is the master of love triangles, infidelity, and every other brand of misplaced affections, and he knows just how to wring it out, with deft yelps and yodels. There's a lot of country music I don't like, but George Jones? Brilliant.
Showing posts with label ludo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ludo. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
"Love Me Dead" / Ludo
The first couple of times I heard this song on the radio, I wasn't sure I liked it -- the lead singer's voice was whiny and neurotic, a little like John Linnell of They Might Be Giants crossed with Freddie from Freddie and the Dreamers. "I love you, you're awful," he's yelping to his girlfriend; "You're hideous, and sexy." Well, make up your mind! I wanted to tell him.
Then I saw the video, and realized that Ludo's front man/songwriter Andrew Volpe is completely digging the comedy. Dressed in a sort of PeeWee Herman gray suit, he's sitting anxiously on a sofa, emoting extravagantly as he sings. It's not exactly a novelty number, but it's tongue-in-cheek all right. And...well, what can I say? He wears glasses. I have a long history of falling for singers in glasses.
I've read a few disparaging reviews of Ludo's current album, You're Awful, I Love You, that claim that Volpe has sold out, gone commercial, lost his quirky indie integrity. But I don't know; I like several tracks from this album, even more than the earlier ones on iTunes. Since when was being accessible a bad thing? They're tuneful, rhythmic pop, smartly packaged. Maybe it's that Midwestern sense of humor I love (most of the band is from St. Louis), which sails right past some critics.
The lyrics are still subversively clever. From that very first alliterative line -- "Love me cancerously / Like a salt-sore soaked in the sea" -- you know you're dealing with a snarky sensibility. He throws plenty of nasty adjectives at his, um, love interest -- "gluttonous," "narcissistic," "parasite, psycho, filthy" -- but he delivers it in such a drama-queen manner, you just know he's hung up on her anyway. "Kill me romantically," he pleads, as if writhing in exquisite torment; "Fill my soul with vomit / Then ask me for a piece of gum. / Bitter and dumb / You're my sugarplum. / You're awful, I love you!" Even as he lambasts her, he's making an ironic spectacle of himself.
In the chorus, he almost sounds as if he's seguing into something a little more tender: "She moves through moonbeams slowly / She knows just how to hold me / And when her edges soften...," only to flip it around suddenly with a rhyme: "her body is my coffin." And off he goes on another paranoid tangent. This cracks me up.
The arrangement is funhouse loony, too, with jabbing minor-key organ chords, ominous backup harmonies, and a lockstep marching rhythm that just hints at delirium. You almost expect a wheezy ocarina and maniacal giggling -- more than a little Rocky Horror Picture Show. This is fun, folks, a goofy way to express the sick ambivalence of an unhealthy love affair, taking the "Cruel to Be Kind" concept down some dark side alley. I perk up when it comes on the radio now. At any rate, it makes a nice change from the endless round of Coldplay.
Love Me Dead sample
The first couple of times I heard this song on the radio, I wasn't sure I liked it -- the lead singer's voice was whiny and neurotic, a little like John Linnell of They Might Be Giants crossed with Freddie from Freddie and the Dreamers. "I love you, you're awful," he's yelping to his girlfriend; "You're hideous, and sexy." Well, make up your mind! I wanted to tell him.
Then I saw the video, and realized that Ludo's front man/songwriter Andrew Volpe is completely digging the comedy. Dressed in a sort of PeeWee Herman gray suit, he's sitting anxiously on a sofa, emoting extravagantly as he sings. It's not exactly a novelty number, but it's tongue-in-cheek all right. And...well, what can I say? He wears glasses. I have a long history of falling for singers in glasses.
I've read a few disparaging reviews of Ludo's current album, You're Awful, I Love You, that claim that Volpe has sold out, gone commercial, lost his quirky indie integrity. But I don't know; I like several tracks from this album, even more than the earlier ones on iTunes. Since when was being accessible a bad thing? They're tuneful, rhythmic pop, smartly packaged. Maybe it's that Midwestern sense of humor I love (most of the band is from St. Louis), which sails right past some critics.
The lyrics are still subversively clever. From that very first alliterative line -- "Love me cancerously / Like a salt-sore soaked in the sea" -- you know you're dealing with a snarky sensibility. He throws plenty of nasty adjectives at his, um, love interest -- "gluttonous," "narcissistic," "parasite, psycho, filthy" -- but he delivers it in such a drama-queen manner, you just know he's hung up on her anyway. "Kill me romantically," he pleads, as if writhing in exquisite torment; "Fill my soul with vomit / Then ask me for a piece of gum. / Bitter and dumb / You're my sugarplum. / You're awful, I love you!" Even as he lambasts her, he's making an ironic spectacle of himself.
In the chorus, he almost sounds as if he's seguing into something a little more tender: "She moves through moonbeams slowly / She knows just how to hold me / And when her edges soften...," only to flip it around suddenly with a rhyme: "her body is my coffin." And off he goes on another paranoid tangent. This cracks me up.
The arrangement is funhouse loony, too, with jabbing minor-key organ chords, ominous backup harmonies, and a lockstep marching rhythm that just hints at delirium. You almost expect a wheezy ocarina and maniacal giggling -- more than a little Rocky Horror Picture Show. This is fun, folks, a goofy way to express the sick ambivalence of an unhealthy love affair, taking the "Cruel to Be Kind" concept down some dark side alley. I perk up when it comes on the radio now. At any rate, it makes a nice change from the endless round of Coldplay.
Love Me Dead sample
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