Top choices from the recent acquisitions playlist:
- "Sly," Cat Empire. I bought this because of the 75 or Less review, which asks the important questions: When did G Love become the bandleader for the Blues Brothers? And when did they add reggae and Latin influences? And why are my feet doing this stupid dance under my desk?" This is my favorite track off the record, just for the trumpet line after the chorus.
- "What's Goin' On," Detroit Cobras. I heard this on KEXP, and wrote down the artist and title right away. Unfortunately, the samples for the rest of the album didn't sound that good, but this song is a terrific old-school rock and roll number.
- "Rehab," Amy Winehouse. An absolutely perfect re-creation of a sixties blues/ soul sound, which is remarkable, given that it's being sung by a skinny white British girl. A ridiculously ear-wormy song.
- "I'm Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You," the Silver Jews. This is pretty country-ish, but a lot of the time, it sounds like the guy from the Crash Test Dummies fronting a Hold Steady cover band. "Punks in the Beer Light" is also good.
- "Same Jeans," the View. I heard this song months ago on the BBC channel of the free Sirius radio trial that came with my new car. And the goddamn album didn't show up on iTunes until this past week, despite the fact that the physical CD was available since January. Honestly, it's like the music industry is trying to make me pirate songs-- all I want is a clean electronic copy (ripping CD's on my computer invariably produces skips and jumps), and I'm willing to pay for it. Why do they make it difficult for me to give them money?
- "The Road I Must Travel," the Nightwatchman. This is Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine doing a solo acoustic folk kind of thing. Most of the samples from the album came off as tiresomely political, but this has a catchy pseudo-Celtic thing going, reminiscent of the IRA fight songs that a guy I used to know in college was prone to singing when drunk.
What other recent singles should I be listening to?
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