Saint Motel’s third LP, The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, is being released initially as three EP’s. from the first of which comes “Van Horn” and a chorus that makes for a pretty enjoyable sing-along:
Well, tell me do you hate me Or do you wanna date me? It’s kinda hard to tell ‘Cause your eyes are looking crazy So why you coming over, Anything but sober? Looking like it’s time tonight For fight or flight In Van Horn
“Folk-electronic-gospel” is how David Byrne and Brian Eno refer to their 2008 transatlantic collaboration, their first since 1981’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
Eno says his longtime love of gospel music was initiated by Byrne and his work with Talking Heads–remember, “Take Me to the River” was an Al Green cover–and the horn charts here certainly wouldn’t be out of place on one of Green’s tunes.
It doesn’t get much simpler than the sentiment (or the chorus) here:
Blue and white racing stripe pick-up truck And when did I decide to grow this beard and gut? Well, I may be white but I don’t like my people much But I want to raise with you and watch our younglings hatch, Fucking make the first letters of their first names match
Mumble rap, EDM, bro country…it’s a depressing popular music landscape these days for anyone who still prefers music to say something.
Fortunately the genre of rock still has its bright spots here and there, though it may be a bit ironic to use the term for subject matter this dark.
“Daddy”, from Badflower’s 2019 debut Ok, I’m Sick, is an unflinching and impactful vignette of familial abuse. The verses take you to a pretty messed up place. But the chorus has a cathartic clout.
Donald Fagen is not an easy guy to impress. But when he hears Denny Dias’ guitar solo in a studio outtake run-through of “Your Gold Teeth II”, the song’s co-writer exclaims, “Holy fuck! That’s great!”
It is.
Casual rock fans and critics alike love Aja, Steely Dan’s 1977 jazz-rock fusion masterpiece. But two years and two albums earlier they produced another glossy, sophisticated jazzy rock classic brimming with the sort of great melodic hooks, cryptic lyrics and jaw-dropping performances the Dan are known for, that being the Katy Lied LP.
And no performance tops Dias’ adventurous solo here. “Your Gold Teeth II”–so-named because the band had already released a song called “Your Gold Teeth” two years earlier–neatly straddles the fence between accessible pop rock and real jazz.
1970’s Steely Dan were the open-minded pop rock fan’s gateway drug into jazz exploration.
Just as Gentle Giant knocked holes in the wall separating English progressive rock and jazz, Steely Dan at their best blurred the lines between the worlds of bop, pop, and what is now called Yacht Rock–except that term seems to do a disservice to the excellence of the Steely Dan catalog.
Tom Petty’s posthumously released “For Real”, written and recorded in 2000, sounds eerily like a summation of the man’s mission and career–and the kind of song you’d release as your life’s coda if you knew you’d soon be passing.
Needless to say, it’s the perfect track to conclude the newly-released career overview The Best of Everything.
Petty’s daughter Adria, who has directed music videos for heavyweights like Coldplay and Beyonce, compiled and edited the clips that make up the video, and it indeed sums up the song’s lyric poignantly.
Oh brother, look what we’ve become Oh brother, could we be so dumb? They set us up like dominoes I didn’t do it for no magazine Didn’t do it for no video Never did it for no CEO
But I did it for real Would’ve done it for free I did it for me ‘Cause it was all that rang true I did it for real And I did it for you
Might’ve done it for my sanity Maybe done it for my vanity Could be I did it for my big ego
But I did it for real Would’ve done it for free Yeah, I did it for me ‘Cause it was all that rang true I did it for real And I did it for you (true)
Oh brother, look what we’ve become Oh brother, I’ve been overrun Only did it for the way it made me feel
Yeah I did it for real Would’ve done it for free Yeah I did it for me ‘Cause it was all that rang true I did it for real And I did it for you
Every Moment Has A Song 