#91) "Sad" by Elton John vs Pnau - Listen to this and try not to be mesmerized - by the lush melody, the breezy club mix beat that seems to smell as good as it sounds, by Elton John's vocals sounding nothing less than custom fit to the arrangement.
The album from which it comes, Good Morning to the Night, is considered a 'remix' album, with elements of past Elton John songs folded into a new interpretation. I would be quick to predict a recipe for failure here (think 1981's Stars on 45 or 1989's even more cringe-inducing Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers), but in this case, it just works, giving Sir Elton's career a new lease on life (the album reached No. 1 on the UK charts in 2012) and revealing the members of Pnau (Nick Littlemore and Peter Hayes) to have a truly deep-seeded understanding of what sounds good.
Seriously, I'm not usually a fan of remixing, sampling or cover versions. In my opinion, music is like Chinese food...you can reheat it, but why would you? It'll never be as good the second time around. But Good Morning to the Night is more a collaboration than merely someone's remix, and it's seamless. Sad, along with any one of the songs from the album for that matter, could stand on its own.
"I used to know this old scarecrow / my joy and sorrow..."
#92) "Rainy Days and Mondays" by The Carpenters - At the risk of sounding like the kid in the movie About a Boy (who I am not like, by any means...), I've always been fairly open and honest about listening to The Carpenters. Is it road music? Certainly not. Music to party to? Naw. Make love to? I'd definitely have to say no.
But there is a reason why their music endures, a reason they have carved out a legacy in spite of being as 'stuck in the 70s' as any musical act could possibly be, a state that was only exacerbated by Karen Carpenter's untimely and tragic death in 1983. Indeed, there is a reason why the 1994 tribute album If I Were a Carpenter saw contributions from as varied a crew as Sheryl Crow, the Cranberries, Sonic Youth and Cracker.
There's just something about much of The Carpenters' music, at least the well-known hits that peppered the AM landscape in the early 70s, an overpowering melancholy that turns out to be captivating, often without the listener realizing.
Nowhere is this more true than in 1971's Rainy Days and Mondays. It's in Karen's voice I think; the comforting, everybody's mother quality that drizzles gelatinously from the speakers, or diffuses in the air like flower petals. It's also in the arrangement, and melody, and the sentiment of the lyrics, which...if you take away the overbearing 70s vibe, remain a powerful message nobody can't relate to.
I'm really not like the kid from About a Boy, but rainy days and Monday do get me down...sometimes.
I admit that part of the Carpenters' allure for me might be because this is what I remember from my earliest days. This kind of music, this 'AM Gold', was the soundtrack of my young life, for better or worse. I'm talking my very young life, the days before kindergarten. The first day of kindergarten is, for most of us, the first big precipitous step we take in our lives, tantamount to leaving the womb. Before that, for me, Carpenters music was like a womb. How could I not take them along on 1/48/50? Cruising through a town in Idaho in my mid or late 40s, it will be nice, soothing, and kind of trippy, to hear a song that reminds me so vividly (still) of being four.
"Hanging around, nothing to do but frown..."
#93) "White Stripes" by The Mexican Institute of Sound - This is one of those songs I might not otherwise know about, were I not in the habit of clicking my way through Rhapsody to seek out new tunes. Periodically, I like to conduct a kind of musical straw poll, where I give any random unknown song 15 seconds of my time - 15 seconds to keep me from moving on to something else.
I do this just to keep things fresh, so as never to get too comfortable with the status quo, never allow my playlists to get too stale. Most of what I find doesn't hold my attention, but every once in a while...
Even then, however, there's been little that deserves to wind up on this list. One would think this list by its very definition - or purpose - cannot help but be stale, populated mostly by those old standards that have stood the test of time in my life, and it has been true to some extent.
But not entirely. I love White Stripes. I love the structure of the song, the harmonies, the humor, the whistling. The creative force behind MIS is a Mexico City deejay and producer by the name of Camilo Lara. And while once again, I'm not a huge fan of sampling or remixes, sometimes someone comes along who's just undeniably good at it, who has figured out that elusive recipe that creates a whole new dish from last night's leftovers.
"It's hard to understand when there's trouble all around, that my love for you is gone..."
#94) "Me and Bobby McGee" by Janis Joplin - If you remove all other (great) considerations from this song - Kris Kristofferson's poetic lyrics and the late afternoon/late 1960s angst they create, the lightly funked out instrumentation that goes a long way toward balancing out the angst - you are left with everything.
Listen to how Janis sings this song, her method of attack, and tell me that beyond the obvious great chops, this is not the perfect vocal representation of the female psyche: all the love, the loyalty, all the irrationality and vulnerability, the whole of what men can't resist, yet will never understand, all of it swirling up into a frenzy of piano.
Seminal to - and for - the fairer sex.
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose..."
