#85 "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley

There have been a few times when hearing a song stopped my heart. One of them was when I first listened to Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah."

Buckley's debut album "Grace" had been out a while before I heard it... probably a good six years or so. Once I got into his music, I realized I'd seen him on MTV before but it didn't click the first time around. He was definitely a unique performer. His music combined everything from Led Zeppelin to jazz music to Indian raga. It's hard to put your finger on a genre for Jeff Buckley. He was hard to categorize and that might account for why I couldn't absorb him at first.

I downloaded some of Buckley's work after hearing about "Grace" in a number of places. Any time you see a list of Best Albums of whatever the time frame, "Grace" always appears on them. I guess after seeing it a few times I decided to check it out. I remember hearing a few tunes and thinking "ok... ok... next" and then coming to this one... song #6. It starts off very slowly. There are no vocals for over a minute or so. Then this soft voice comes in and takes you on this fragile lyrical journey. The song, originally written by the legendary Leonard Cohen, is so poetic... yet I really have no idea what it's about. There are lots of references to love and relationships and religious imagery, but in the end I'm not quite sure what the meaning of it is. For once, though, it really doesn't matter that much to me. Buckley's performance is absolutely incredible. So beautiful and emotional. You almost want to cry by the time you get to the last verse when he starts "Well maybe there's a God above..." I honestly don't see how anyone could listen to this song and not be moved by it.

Be sure to pay close attention to the song the moment it begins. There's this audible exhale at the very beginning. It always strikes me and goes wonderfully with the feel of the rest of the song... some hint of exhaustion or of wondering "Can I conjure up the strength to deliver this?" Boy, does he ever.

"Hallelujah" is from the album "Grace." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#84 "Good Golly Miss Molly" by Little Richard

Little Richard is one of those 50's Rock-n-Roll icons that you just have to listen to. He's crazy! His music is so energetic and fun. Some time when you're tired of the depression of Nirvana and Staind, throw in Little Richard. "Tutti Fruity" and "Good Golly Miss Molly" are just great happy songs.

To me, Little Richard reminds us of the importance of performance. Yes, hearing his songs on the radio will get you jumpin', but seeing him playing his songs is where he really shines. He whoops and hollers. That crazy hair of his flies all around. He stands up, then sits down, then plays the piano with his feet or behind his back. He's a real showman. Some artists believe they need to be all about the music, but Little Richard knew that people didn't pay to just come and listen to him. I would've loved to have seen one of his concerts back in the 50's. What a great time that would've been.

Among other things, Little Richard is credited with being one of the early pioneers of rock-n-roll. His music was said to have bridged the gap between r&b, blues, and popular music. His influence was so strong that he was one of the inaugural inductees into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame. That's quite an honor.

"Good Golly Miss Molly" can be found on compilations like "The Very Best of Little Richard" and "The Greatest Gold Hits." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#83 "Gold" by Interference

A year or so ago, a great treat of mine was watching the movie "Once." I almost reluctantly gave it a chance one night when my wife and I had nothing to watch, and we both ended up loving it. It's a love story of sorts about two musicians whose songs make up the soundtrack. The performances of the leads Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are just wonderful... sincere, passionate, and heartfelt. Even without the great music it would still make an excellent movie. Check it out some time.

Most of the tunes on the soundtrack are from Hansard and Irglova, but there's one song on it from an Irish band named Interference. The song come at a part in the movie when the main character sadly walks into a local pub, all confused and forlorn over love. Interference just play a bunch of local musicians who offer their advice to Hansard through the song "Gold." It's absolutely beautiful.

"Gold" is built around the simple lines "And I love her so... wouldn't trade her for gold." It's nothing fancy but I just love it. What's also killer is the incredible violin that plays throughout the song. A violin has to be one of the most emotional instruments in the world. Played right, it can absolutely break your heart. I love its inclusion here. There's also a lot of good twelve string guitar and mandolin. Just a beautiful tune, but ironically enough as much as my wife also loves this film and soundtrack, this is the only song from it that she doesn't like!?! Funny how that works some time.

"Gold" is from the "Once" soundtrack. To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#82 "Going to Acapulco" by Bob Dylan and The Band

Bob Dylan and The Band's "Basement Tapes" is exactly the kind of collection I enjoy. It's loose and laid-back. The recording quality is sub-par at best, but it feels totally real... free of studio wizardry and over-dubs and multiple takes to get it right. The performances on "The Basement Tapes" sound like ones you could do yourself, and in that sense they're tremendously inspiring.

Originally I thought Bob Dylan's collaboration with The Band up in Woodstock, NY was nothing more than some guys jamming around. There were covers, some silly one-offs that were interrupted by the tape running out or the guys breaking into laughs, and some excellent originals too. I later read that the bootlegged versions of these sessions were really influential on the music that was released by a variety of artists in its wake. If you look at the recordings of The Beatles and The Stones and a lot of other popular musicians of the day prior to The Basement Tapes coming out, a lot of it is over-the-top psychedelia with tons of experimentation as the various players tried to expand the art form. But apparently when guys like George Harrison and Mick Jagger heard The Basement Tapes, they were completely transformed. The Stones suddenly went from "Her Majesty's Satanic Requests" to the stripped down rootsy blues of "Exile on Main Street" and "Let It Bleed." The Beatles went from the studio laboratory of "Sgt Peppers" to the more basic "Let It Be." It's fascinating to trace the connections, but these little numbers in the basement of the house called "The Big Pink" were much more than just casual listening material.

One of my favorite songs off the collection is "Going To Acapulco." It's really nothing more than a dirty little tune about going to visit a prostitute, but I like the backing job The Band do for Dylan here. You can snicker at the innuendos about "pumping the well" and "scratching my meat," but I love the extended "yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh" in the chorus after Dylan sings "Going to have some fun." It's just cool and sounds like real artistic peers working together and having a good time.

"Going to Acapulco" is from "The Basement Tapes." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#81 "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys

When I was younger, I regularly heard about how Brian Wilson was such a genius. I didn't really get it. I mean... what's so brilliant about "California Girls" and "I Get Around"? It's not like they're lyrically deep. And because I was such a word guy, I just never really understood the brilliance. As I got a little older though, and was exposed to their more daring recordings like "Pet Sounds" and the bootlegs of "Smile," I started to understand what people were talking about. Wilson's layered vocal harmonies and musical compositions were really cool. There was definitely a lot more to the Beach Boys than just guys singing about waves and girls.

"God Only Knows" is from the landmark album "Pet Sounds." Gone are the do-woppy party songs, which got replaced by acid-induced sound collages. The great harmonies are still there, but the subjects of the songs are different... or at least presented differently. "God Only Knows" is essentially a love song, but it's unlike anything else of its day.

Paul McCartney has repeatedly called "God Only Knows" one of his favorite songs, and one of the most beautiful ones he's ever heard. I also read that it's the first song to be played on popular radio that featured the word "God" in the title and lyrics. What I like about it is how the lyrics are almost kind of negative, but still very devotional. The first line is "I may not always love you." Who says that to win the girl? Later Carl Wilson sings "If you should ever leave me... life would still go on, believe me." Again, it doesn't come off as sweet as "I'll love you 'til the day I die" or anything like that. Maybe that's because it goes on to say "the world could show nothing to me so what good would living do me?" Again, I just like the unconventional nature of that. The lyrics, by the way, were written by Brian Wilson collaborator Tony Asher. Wilson is responsible for the music and arrangement.

"God Only Knows" is from the album "Pet Sounds." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#80 "Giving Up" by The Darkness

The first time I heard The Darkness was in the early fall of 2003. I happened to catch their video for "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" on MTV one afternoon. I saw long-haired dudes in leather pants, long after hair metal had died. The bass player recalled Freddie Mercury's gay biker-look days. The singer had this ridiculous falsetto and the video showed him blasting lasers out of his guitar at some sort of giant space alien. It was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen. I just kept thinking, "What the hell is this?"

A few weeks after that introduction, I happened to read a quote from my hero Jack Black saying that The Darkness' debut album "Permission to Land" was the greatest rock record he'd heard in a long time. Then a student with a proven taste in good music ( he was the kid who loaned me "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" ) asked me if I'd heard them. I kind of turned my nose up, but these two comments and some other press I'd seen about The Darkness made me think that maybe I'd dismissed them too quickly. I gave them another chance and ended up becoming a fan.

Here's the thing about The Darkness' first album: it IS bad. It's campy. It's ridiculously over the top. They've got lyrics like "Get your hands off my woman, motherfucker" and a song called "Growing On Me" about... venereal warts!?! The closer on the album is called "Holding My Own." Giving their other lyrical content, I can only imagine what the tongue-in-cheek title is a reference to. They're a whole lotta Queen, a little bit of AC/DC, and took just about every rock cliche they could, gave it a Mardi Gras meets ABBA make-over, and turned it all into a pretty entertaining debut. And part of why it ultimately works is because I don't think The Darkness took themselves very seriously. I think they know this is pretty corny, but they have a lot of fun with it. It's kind of like the first Charlie's Angels movie. It was ridiculously stupid, but to me it was obvious that Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu knew that. They sure looked like they had a good time doing it though, with all of their crazy outfits, outrageous stunts, and bad jokes. Laughing at yourself can be incredibly successful.

"Giving Up" is a song about a heroin habit. It's got some pretty graphic lyrics about the perils of addiction. At one point, singer Justin Hawkins yelps "I'd inject into my eyes if there was nowhere else to stick my skag." Later he says "I've finally ruined all of my veins sticking that f*cking shit into my arms." The thing is, I don't think the song is about giving up heroin. When the chorus says "Giving up giving a f*ck," I think it's just explaining why a person gets INTO the brown junk. But you know what? Why am I analyzing the lyrics of The Darkness? These guys are goofballs.

Oh... but one last thing. Seriously, guitarist Dan Hawkins is a real treat to listen to. His riffs are catchy... heavy and rockin' but great to jam to. His solos are fantastic. He really got the Brian May harmonizing guitar sound going in a lot of the songs. Despite all the silliness of The Darkness, Dan Hawkins is a legit talent.

"Givin' Up" is from the album "Permission to Land." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#79 "Girlfriend in a Coma" by The Smiths

Just a few months after I turned fifteen, I got my first job at a local Baskin Robbins. I was so psyched to be making my own money. I remember when the manager told me that she could only pay me the then minimum wage of $3.35, I enthusiastically said, "Great!" I couldn't wait to get a paycheck. Of course, at that high salary I'd probably have to work for a month before I cracked three figures, but I didn't care. It seemed like I was making my first steps toward adulthood and independence.

One of the cool things about that B&R job was the fact that everyone who worked there was a lot older than me. I was barely fifteen, but most of the other kids working there were seventeen or eighteen. It certainly doesn't seem like much now, but when you're in high school a few grades are ages apart. I felt supercool working with mostly seniors. Luckily, I got along with them really well. They took me under their wing and taught me the tricks of the store, brought me to parties, introduced me to girls from other schools... they even took me cow-tipping one night! I thought that jobs were the greatest thing ever invented.

One of the many new things I was exposed to in my first year on the job was music. These guys I worked with listened to different stuff than my brother, different than my parents, and certainly different than the circle of friends I rolled with. Whereas I was more used to classic rock, these guys were listening to the new sounds of the mid-eighties. It wasn't called Alternative back then. We called it Progressive. One of the guys used to bring in his old boom-box and when we were allowed to, we'd listen to tapes of all kinds of stuff. One song I'll always associate with this time is "Panic" by The Smiths. I just remember a bunch of us belting out "Hang the DJ. Hang the DJ. Hang the DJ!" It's funny how songs literally become a soundtrack to your life's movie.

To be honest with you, I really don't worship at the altar of The Smiths. A LOT of people think they were the greatest thing to come out of the 80's, one of the most influential bands, that Morrissey is a god, etc, but I'm not that person. I really didn't like a lot of that early alternative stuff. I've said many times that the recording trends of that decade were just not very good. Many cite the jangly nature of Johnny Marr's guitar work as being so fresh sounding in the Reagan Era, but a lot of the tunes by The Smiths, Depeche Mode, New Order, and all of their peers sounds very "light" to me. It's as if the bass is turned off, the treble turned way up, and synthesizers tried to replace that missing weight. There's definitely no Zeppelin thump there. Jane's Addiction and Nirvana definitely reclaimed that later, but the earlier part of the 80's was a little too clean for me.

"Girlfriend In a Coma" was the first Smiths' single to kind of go mainstream. I never heard "Panic" or "The Boy With the Thorn in his Side" on the radio, but my mom probably heard this song on several different stations that she tuned in. It's nice and short and remains for me as a good tribute to those middle years of my teens.

"Girlfriend in a Coma" is from the album "Strangeways, Here We Come." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.