Do Not Go Jenny Into That Good Night

Do Not Go Jenny Into That Good Night

1. Pavement, "Gold Soundz"
2. My Bloody Valentine, "Soft As Snow (But Warm Inside)"
3. The Church, "Under the Milky Way"
4. The B-52's, "Roam"
5. Morrissey, "Suedehead"
6. New Order, "Age of Consent"
7. David Bowie, "Life on Mars?"
8. Nico, "These Days"
9. The Wrens, "This Boy is Exhausted"
10. Nick Drake, "Pink Moon"
11. Queen, "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy"
12. Nina Simone, "Pirate Jenny"
13. Patti Smith, "Dancing Barefoot"
14. The Velvet Underground, "Rock and Roll"
15. Têtes Noires, "True Love"
16. The Pretenders, "Back on the Chain Gang"
17. The Grateful Dead, "Ripple"
18. Soul Asylum, "Just Like Anyone"
19. Local H, "For Lovers"
20. The Replacements, "Nowhere is My Home"

Happy birthday, JA.

Queen, "The Invisible Man"

Somehow I missed the Ralph Ellison birth centennial at the start of this month, now being celebrated in New York with an exhibit of his personal record collection at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. Ellison's jazz affinity runs deep enough to fill at least one book (Living with Music) and more scholarly essays than anyone can count, but the only song I could think of when my 11th grade English teacher assigned him was by Queen.



Queen's 80s work is underrated. Sure, the albums were spotty, but they always were (listen to A Night at the Opera lately?), and Queen's Broadway-rock singles adapted to those heinous 80s rock production trends better than, say, Black Sabbath or KISS. While the music video is hopelessly stuck in the 80s, complete with the band cast as video game characters, the song itself sounds surprisingly industrial for a group of middle-aged guys in 1989, dreaming up EDM while Avicii was still in a womb. If the Freddie Mercury's verses and Brian May's main progression sound familiar, it's because they're ripped from "Ghostbusters" and "Undercover of the Night," respectively. But the kids can't tell. He's the Invisible Man.

Phil Anselmo on the Smiths

KISS, "Detroit Rock City"

The Motor City's influence on rock n' roll is unquestionable. The last 60 years of popular music are unthinkable without Motown, and with The Stooges, MC5, Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent and even Grand Funk Railroad, Michigan's largest city almost had a monopoly on early '70s hard rock and proto-punk. But when I think of Detroit, the first thing that comes to mind is a group of headbanging New Yorkers singing its praises.



For a band that gets mocked for being so unabashedly commercial, "Detroit Rock City" is a pretty weird song. The album version starts with a prolonged intro of background noise, which is still the only part on Destroyer that I skip over, and it ends with a car crash sounds that is terrorizing for anyone who listens while driving. The song's title, one of the best things about it, gets left out of most of the choruses. "Detroit Rock City" doesn't even get KISS' standard structure (the verse-chorus-verse is twice disrupted by that awesome bridge) or subject matter (quick: name another KISS song that isn't about girls or being in a rock band.) For once, Gene Simmons sounds like he cares about playing bass. Ace Frehley, sometimes thought of as the band's only musician, plays it pretty safe during the solo.

Yet it sounds utterly great all together. KISS hadn't learned to stay in their comfort zone yet, and that innocence rewarded them with a stone cold classic, putting them in a league with Black Sabbath and Queen. But this is still KISS, and of course "Detroit Rock City" is best heard from the stage. I love this performance here, captured at the end of the film of the same name.



Listening to "Detroit Rock City" today, I'm reminded of a Bruce Campbell anecdote from a horror convention. During a Q & A, one attendee asked the lantern-jawed Evil Dead star if he had any advice for an aspiring B movie actor. "You don't aspire to be a B movie actor," said Campbell. "You aspire to be an A movie actor, and if you're lucky you end up in Z movies."

It's no secret that KISS wanted to the biggest band in the world, in particular the Beatles--four distinct rock star personalities, run by the guitarist and bassist, with occasional songwriting from the lead guitarist and a few songs written for the drummer to sing. Like everybody else, they didn't quite get there, and "Detroit Rock City" isn't the Beatles. KISS were trying to be an A band, and maybe they'll never be The Fab Four or The World's Greatest Rock N' Roll Band. But in "Detroit Rock City," they're The Hottest Band in the World, a truly incredible B band.

Freddie Mercury and David Bowie's Isolated Vocal Tracks

For "Under Pressure."

Six Worst Mother's Day Songs

Mother's Day mixes are as much fun to make as they are to listen to, mainly for rediscovering the trove of great songs that would be terrible for the final playlist. Some of these songs are better than ones that made the cut, just not the kind of music that I'd dedicate to Ma Apatoff. One day these will get their own mix CD, but until then, here are the six worst Mother's Day songs.

Body Count, "Momma's Gotta Die Tonight"

Body Count's first LP is the Scarface of metal--too over the top to take seriously (no matter what Dan Quayle says) and somehow enduring. Ice-T's monologue is about four minutes too long, yet the song would be much worse without it.



Guns N' Roses, "Mama Kin"

Want to make it to hard rock stardom? Put "Mama Kin" on your first record--it worked for Aerosmith and Guns N' Roses. GNR improve on the original by picking up speed and removing the sucksophone, giving us a Stonesy rocker that might actually work on a Mother's Day mix, if not for Axl's introduction.



Mastodon, "Mother Puncher"

I love hearing Mastodon throw all their weight into a progression that plays like it's about to sweep your feet out from under you. From the sound of this song, a mother puncher is a hurricane at sea.



Misfits, "Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight?"

"May I?"



Suicidal Tendencies, "I Saw Your Mommy"

"...and your mommy's dead." The second-most popular song from ST's first and best album is a gleeful exercise in good taste. In high school I put this on a mix for a girl, and learned to never do that again. 



Queen, "Tie Your Mother Down"

Proof that if not for all that ambition, Queen would've made a pretty great AC/DC. And that Freddie Mercury and Brian May can make anything sound like fun.