D-Lee of Red and Black Hockey has tagged me into putting up a "Five Favorite Songs" post. As Dave already points out in his own post (as well as listing a couple of gems, "God Only Knows" and "I Am The Cosmos"), taking every great song I've ever liked and whittling them down to just the five best is a near-impossible task. So, I'll try to do this with at least some sort of criteria: nothing too obvious, like AC/DC or Cheap Trick or anything like that, and no bands that had only one good song to begin with (which leaves out Busted Statues).
You can also click on the links to play the songs...
The Replacements, "Customer"
When I first started buying records, up through '82-'83, I had a lot of metal bands in my collection-- bands that sang about fighting demons and warlocks and banging chicks 'til the break of dawn and crap like that... shit that nobody does when they're 17. Then I heard The Replacements for the first time, and their songs were about hangin' around downtown, not having a car, or walking into the same store over and over because you had a crush on the girl that worked there-- you know, stuff that was happening to me everyday. It all changed for the better after that.
Big Star, "I Got Kinda Lost"
For some reason, I've never minded recordings that sounded crappy, as long as they still kicked. This is a demo track that has a fuck-up at the beginning, still has the studio separation (with the vocals on one side and the rest of the band on the other) that makes it almost unlistenable except through headphones, and at the end you can hear the engineer resignedly say, "It'll do." Still, instead of all of the beautiful recordings that Big Star has released, I think this grimed-up one's my favorite.
Scratch Acid, "She Said"
I interviewed David Yow when "Beserker" came out in 1987, and when I handed him a copy of my fanzine he just put it aside, saying that he didn't know how to read. I don't know if he was pulling my leg or not, but in any case, Scratch Acid is one of the top three bands that I saw multiple times back in the '80s (Government Issue and Breaking Circus are the other two), and this song wails.
The Modern Lovers, "She Cracked"
Not only is this a direct ancestor to Spoon, but I like how Jonathan Richman sings like he's mental sometimes: "I know these very nice girls from where I come... from, but theyyyyyyy get toughtotalk TO".
Weirdos, "We Got The Neutron Bomb"
The three best American punk singles of all time are this one b/w "Solitary Confinement", Gang Green's "Alcohol"/"Skate To Hell", and Last Rights' "Chunks"/"So Ends Our Night". It amazes me how thick and heavy the Weirdos sound on this one, compared to all of their other counterparts (Fear, DOA, etc) who were turning the guitars down in the studio and putting out flimsy records that sounded like crap.
Tagging: Greg from The Post-Pessimist Association, and Ingmar Bergman Shoots and Scores.
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