10.07.2012

Exhibit 1.6.3

Nadirs, or: Songs That Almost Single-handedly Ruin Great Albums


* Spoon's Girls Can Tell - "Fitted Shirt"

* The Replacements' Let It Be - "Gary's Got a Boner"

* Talking Heads' Fear of Music - "Electric Guitar"

* The Beatles' Revolver - "Taxman"

* Elvis Costello's This Year's Model - "Pump It Up"

* Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever - "Zombie Zoo"

* The White Stripes' White Blood Cells - "I Think I Smell a Rat"

* Billy Bragg and Wilco's Mermaid Avenue - "Hoodoo Voodoo"

* Tom Waits's Frank's Wild Years - "Straight to the Top"

* Tom Waits's Frank's Wild Years - "Straight to the Top" (the other version)


I'm willing to debate some of these.

Others?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A flame-baiting post if I ever saw one. Steve May calls these "sizzler tracks" for what it's worth. Also, if you think "Taxman" is REVOLVER's sizzler and not "Here, There & Everywhere" you don't know a thing about music. That guitar riff that comes in at 1:30? Listen to the song in headphones for the stereo mix, too.

Other sizzlers:

- "New Test Leper" off New Adventures in Hi-Fi
- "Can't Get There from Here" off Fables of the Reconstruction
- TIE: "Is It Wicked Not to Care?" and "A Space Boy Dream" off Boy with the Arab Strap
- "Ex-Supermodel" off Alien Lanes (just because of the snoring in the background...it's such a sad and sweet song otherwise)
- "Crackity Jones" off Doolittle (which is Steve's but I probably have to agree)
- "Take Me to the River" off More Songs about Buildings and Food
- "Less Than You Think" off A Ghost is Born (which just cause it's too long and self-indulgent...I imagine many such songs end up as sizzlers for folks).

A more personal one nobody else would care about is "Dirty Pants" off Smog's Rain on Lens (an on the whole mediocre record). The only sizzler track I've eventually come to get on the side of is "You'll Miss Me" of TMBG's Lincoln.

Also, I have a theory that everybody has one sizzler track on A Night at the Opera but there's no single sizzler track and which track you choose says a lot about you as a person with ideas. My sizzler is "I'm in Love with My Car".

Anonymous said...

Good call on "Electric Guitar" though.