A Windy Wednesday List

I’m not sure what drives this, but at the end of the day I always end up picking some album that inevitably gets stuck in my head. Such is the case with Is This It? by the Strokes. “Someday” is on, and it will be stuck in my head the rest of the day, as will “Last Nite”. The Strokes are just a cool, straight-ahead rock band. They have that garage indie cred that bands typically lose when they go mainstream.

Seeing as today has been a blustery affair, here’s my list of songs for today.

• Jimi Hendrix Experience, “Little Wing”: Much has been written about this song. This could be a flawless song. When I hear this song, I always like the last 20 seconds of it because Hendrix is soloing using chords, and the way it sounds through the Leslie speaker is just amazing to me. I love this song!
• Sigur Rós, “Viðrar vel til loftárása”: According to the online translation, this song’s title in English is “Good Weather for an Airstrike”. There is a beautiful section about a third of the way through the song that features a great piano arrangement backed by a string orchestra. Reading the English translation, the song has some beautiful but tragic lyrics.

Stepping away from the windy theme, here are some other great songs I heard:

• Nine Inch Nails, “Terrible Lie”: I was listening to the recently-released remaster of this album, and hearing this song (along with “Sanctified” and others) just reminded me of how influential Trent Reznor has been to music. Sure, there are the hardcore and industrial elements to this, but listening to the electronic sounds and other things going on I can’t help but hear music that would eventually evolve into parts of techno.
• Lucinda Williams, “American Dream”: I was listening to the record this song is on (World Without Tears) and wasn’t enamored with her voice, but listening to this song as well as other songs on the second half of the album sold me. Her lyrics are so good on the second half of the record, and the music accompanying the lyrics is spot on. This song in particular was just really good and about the daily struggles and failure to fulfill the “American Dream”.
• Ghostface Killah, “The Champ”: Ghostface can just flat out rap. He knows how to rap stories out to great effect. This song isn’t really a story but rather him proclaiming to be the best. He’s really good on this one.
• Fountains of Wayne, “Bright Future in Sales”: Just a cool rock song. The lyrics are pretty funny, actually. Most people will remember “Stacy’s Mom”, but this song to me was as good.