The Faint - "Your Retro Career Melted (Ursula 1000 remix)": "Ursula 1000 takes the original song and reconfigures it as a Go4-styled funk party, circa `79. I think there's only four lines from the original song in here, but they kept some of the best musical elements and added in this kind of garbage-can/handclap noise that's straight out of the Flying Lizards' cover of 'Money (That's What I Want). You can't beat that.'"
Rosanne Cash - "Black Cadillac (Rolling Stone Original Version)": "There's something simple and powerful about this acoustic version of the title track from Rosanne's latest record. The song is inspired by her father's passing, but the chorus aches so much that you don't even need to know that to feel the pain."
Guv'ner - "Wounded Birds And Vampires Own The Edge": "It may take a while to learn to love this song, but it's worth it. I too was originally frustrated by how this song takes 10 amazing catchy pop elements and throws them in a blender - but that's the same rickety charm that makes this song so uniquely endearing. And, besides, it has amazing handclaps and amazing handclaps just cannot be denied. I dare you to try."
Karl Hendricks Trio - "The Worst Coffee I've Ever Had": "Wow, with so much bitterness and bile in the lyrics, it should be unlistenable, but the KHT take it to the next level with some first-rate Built To Spill-meets-Dinosaur Jr. guitar theatrics and driving drums."
Portastatic - "You Know Where To Find Me": "This song sounds like people in love in the 70s - in a good way. It's non-movie-style love in a song and it sounds so good."
Butterglory - "She's Got The Akshun! (Mark Robinson Remix)": "Mark Robinson of Teen Beat / Unrest / Air Miami fame tweaks the lo-fi original to sound like classic 60s rock-pop layered with some Stereolab-y 'ba ba ba ba's. One of Mark's six great remixes from the Merge 100 celebratory release."
Lambchop - "Love T.K.O.": "We're getting a ton of the Merge back catalog into Rhapsody this week and, to show my utter glee about it, I'm declaring this Merge Week for my blog. Let's start off with this killer live track from Nashville's own Lambchop. Bands with pedal steel guitar and often-hushed vocals should not be able to take on a Teddy Pendergrass song and make it sound this good. There's a kind of laid-back simmer to the tune and Deanna Varagona's sax lends a sultry air without making it cheesy. (Also worth checking out is Lambchop's cover of Curtis Mayfield's 'Give Me Your Love' on What Another Man Spills, now also in Rhapsody.)"
Dirty Power - "Gone": "Faithful readers, it's Friday, so you know how this works: Friday deserves a rock song to bring us all into the weekend. And this week, I present 'Gone'. If you don't like this song, you don't really get the rock. I love the lead guitar part in the last minute or so of the song, make sure to check it."
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Way Out": "I'm going to say it: this new Yeah Yeah Yeahs record does show the band growing musically - which is great...but less interesting somehow. This song, however, still gets stuck in my head as the acoustic strum matched up to their jerky rock sound pulls the melody through."
The Raconteurs - "Intimate Secretary": "Blissfully fuzzed-out power-pop about bunnies and secretaries that you can almost pogo too. (Remember pogoing, kids?) This is the good, dirty side of Brendan Benson and the less serious side of Jack White and, as it turns out, that ads up pretty nicely."
Editors - "Bullets (acoustic)": "I actually think I might prefer this acoustic version to the album version. It seems like the way they perform their songs get Editors publicly beat with the post-punk bat, but this unplugged arrangement reveals the strong song that lays underneath."
Idlewild - "Too Long Awake": "Wistful melancholy rising out of a sea of feedback-drenched guitar. Man, I love that Roddy Womble."
Radio 4 - "Start A Fire": "As seems to be my theme every Friday: it's Friday, rock it out."
ABC - "Tears Are Not Enough": "Just one of those songs that I love and I can't really explain why. Just something about the way he bellows 'tears are not enough!!!' before lauching into the falsetto of 'teeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaars!' Blue eyed soul disco magic."
Liz Phair - "Love/Hate Transmission": "I can't help but still love Liz, even after she went pop, went gloss and all that stuff - this song is still a great pop song and I can't slight her for writing it. It's catchy like things on the radio should be and I accept her for that now."
Ex-Boyfriends - "Willingly": "I just noticed that my friend's band is finally in Rhapsody. It rocks. It will rock your a$$ off. Listen to it."
South - "A Place In Displacement": "OK, I know this is essentially New Order...OK, it might as well BE New Order outright...but it's still the best of what I like about New Order, so I can't help but enjoy this song anyway."
Ramones - "I Just Want To Have Something To Do": "It's Friday, rock it out."
Manhattan Transfer - "It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference": "OK...I know this should be 'bad' but it's so wonderfully 70s...and thus, arguably, becomes good. Take the Manhattan Transfer, then still in a pop phase, have them cover a lush Todd Rundgren song and you wind up with this. The lead vocals attempt to present the hurt behind the lyrics, but the elevator gloss of the whole arrangement colors a mannequin-like fakeness over the song...which makes it wonderful."
OK Go - "Invincible": "I've decided that these guys don't get the credit they deserve - too slick to be indie rock and too quirky to be radio stars, but I'm starting to think they're the Cheap Trick of the `00s - two handsome guys and two geeks playing rockin' power pop? Am I off base here?"
OK Go - "A Million Ways": "I can't blog OK Go without adding a link to this song too. So good."
The Cure - "Primary": "This is not the Cure with the expansive sound that most people think of - this is so stripped for them, yet still so electric, that it sounds basically primal."
Six Finger Satellite - "Rabies (Baby's Got The)": "This song is audio mayhem. It's shrill, but rockin', but harsh, but funky. It's Six Finger Satellite."
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