"Cannonball" (The Breeders)

Back in the 90s, I was either hot or cold about alt rock.  There was no in between.  If you'd asked me as a teenager why I didn't care for bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, or Alice in Chains, I probably would have said something along the lines of: "They're boring."  And that still rings true; those bands truly did (and do) bore me.  It was if they were trying so hard to be the antithesis of all the booze-n'-floozies-themed hair metal from the previous decade that even their more rocking tunes sank under the weight of their own gloom and dourness.

Apart from that, what I've come to realize in the years since—having had the time and an internet connection to explore rock's back pages—is that those aforementioned bands have/had no sense of groove.  In my humble opinion, the best, most enduring rock & roll takes its cues from the strong melodic and rhythmic roots of the blues, jazz, gospel, and traditional country music. 

The Beatles and the Stones understood that.  So did Jimmy Page.  Kurt Cobain, too.  (His inclusion of Lead Belly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" in Nirvana's Unplugged set is pretty striking evidence of that.)  And that's why I like their music.

And that's why I liked The Breeders back in the day, too.  Kim Deal's side project from Pixies (and eventual full-time venture when the Pixies went on hiatus) knew how to groove.  All it takes is listening to the band's second full-length, Last Splash (1993), and you can feel that sense of rhythm and melody; it's almost like a punk band playing R&B.
And while the entire album is solid (I'd highly recommend checking out lesser known tracks like the bass-heavy, surf rock-tinged "Divine Hammer"), I have a special place in my heart for the album's big hit: "Cannonball."

Not only does "Cannonball" have the kind of tasty mellow-mayhem-mellow dynamics that characterized a lot of Pixies tracks, what with Deal crooning alongside twin sister Kelley on the verses and then screaming into a bullet mic on the refrains, but it has this big, bouncy rhythm section, anchored by Josephine Wiggs on bass and Jim MacPherson on drums.

Speaking of Wiggs, I came across an interview with her from 2013 on Consequence of Sound, and she shed a bit of light on the song's distinctive intro.  

Basically, that little solo bass riff that comes in after the distorted ooo-ooo-ooo vocals was a mistake that stuck.  Wiggs says that, when the band first started practicing the song, she kept coming in a semi-tone flat, every single time.  Only when the guitars kicked in would she realize her mistake and slide up another fret.

"We all just thought it was hilarious and thought it sounded really great.  It kind of sets up a certain expectation, and then your expectation is changed because all of a sudden it's in a different key.  It was clear to us at that moment that that was the right thing to do, to keep the wrong note in there."

"Army of Me" (Björk)

I recently stumbled upon an old interview with Björk from 1995 via The Quietus website.  In it, the artist discussed her album Post (1995) and the song "Army of Me" with music journalist Jon Savage.  I had always liked the track's driving, electronic funk (which is built upon a tasty sample of John Bonham's thunderous drums from "When the Levee Breaks").  But reading her explanation of what the song is about made me love it even more:

"The lyric is about people who feel sorry for themselves all the time and don't get their shit together.  You come to a point with people like that where you've done everything you can do for them, and the only thing that's going to sort them out is themselves.  It's time to get things done."

She expanded on that a bit in another interview with Stereogum's Scott Lapatine in 2008, noting that the song was directed at her baby brother, who apparently was acting like a self-destructive jerk back in the mid-90s.  
"It's sort of a big sister telling a little brother off song."
Björk's pixie-with-a-flame-thrower delivery and that unstoppable, grinding groove make "Army of Me" one of her more immediate, most accessible tunes.  And few songs make me want to get off my butt and get moving quite like this track.

"Sabotage" (Beastie Boys)

"Sabotage" from Ill Communication (1994) embodies why the Beastie Boys were/are pop culture icons.  Not only did they take elements of hardcore and rap and meld them into something completely vital and fresh, but they also dreamed up the premise for the track's iconic video, which gives props to 70s cop show cheesiness in all its low-budget glory.
I can't listen to this track without immediately thinking to myself: "Starring Nathan Wind as Cochese."
A bit of history: "Sabotage" began its life as an instrumental jam.  As producer Mario Caldato, Jr., reminisced to Sound on Sound in August 2013, Adam "MCA" Yauch (R.I.P.) was fooling around with his Superfuzz effects pedal when he came up with the song's bass riff.  Long story short, the rest of the band (including percussionist Eric Bobo and keyboardist Mark "Money Mark" Nishita) heard what MCA was putting down and joined him in jamming.  After they'd gotten the hang of the groove and did some quick arranging, they committed the song to tape.
But as Caldato points out, the Beasties were wary of the track at first.
"When we first played it back, the guys were saying, 'It sounds too rock. We don't really want to go down that route'."
After all, they'd spent 7 years trying to distance themselves from the frat boy rap-rock of 1987's Licensed to Ill.
So the track sat around for awhile and almost got shelved, until Adam "Ad Rock" Horovitz called up Caldato one day, saying that he had an idea for lyrics.
Caldato recalled that Horovitz came over to his house in L.A. and cut his vocals in a single afternoon using a handheld mic.
"It was perfect.  He had done his homework, and he was screaming it with the exact amount of energy and attitude needed."

"With a Little Help from My Friends" (Joe Cocker)

So as I began writing this blog entry over lunch on 12/22/14, word came across social media that Joe Cocker had passed away at age 70 after battling lung cancer.  (As I've said before, I put this song list together quite some time ago; the track just happened to come up in the queue at this moment.)
What I'd planned to say in this post still rings true: no one could interpret a song quite like Cocker.  Whether he was covering "The Letter" by The Box Tops, "Feelin' Alright" by Traffic, or "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" by the Beatles, he did so with such finesse, that each song felt like his own.  
But it's his 1968 breakthrough single, his cover of Lennon-McCartney's "[With] A Little Help from My Friends," that remains the pinnacle of his interpretive powers for me.  To be able to take a well-known song from arguably the most famous rock album of all time and transform it into singular gospel-tinged rave-up is beyond imagination.
In fact, for all the times that I watched the opening credits of my favorite 80s T.V. show The Wonder Years, it wasn't until the third season that it dawned on me: this is the same song as the bouncy boogie-woogie number that Ringo Starr sings on Sgt. Pepper's.  It blew my pre-teen mind.
Not only does Cocker's voice sound fantastic on the track—kind of like a combination of Ray Charles and jazz/blues great Jimmy Rushing, rolled into one—but he also has one helluva backing band: BJ Wilson from the band Procol Harum on drums, session musician Tommy Eyre on organ, session bassist Chris Stainton, and an up-and-coming session guitarist by the name of Jimmy Page.  
From the moment Eyre's churchy organ fades up and the rhythm section suddenly drops in with a thunderous thud, you can feel the electricity on this track.  And that electricity is kicked up 1,000 volts when Page's guitar wails in.  It's epic and thrilling, and this is all before Cocker and his backing singers even open their mouths!
But, oh, when they do begin to sing...  It's pure, sweet soul.  And it's life-affirming.
(R.I.P., Joe Cocker.  You were one of a kind.)

"You Never Give Me Your Money" (The Beatles)

When it comes to The Beatles and songwriting, I've always been more of a John Lennon fan.  But it was never really a conscious "Lennon vs. Paul McCartney vs. George Harrison" kind of thing.  I just always liked the quirkier, snarkier, R&B-tinged numbers on my mom's Beatles records, and 90% of those songs just happened to be written primarily by Lennon.
McCartney's "You Never Give Me Your Money" from Abbey Road (1969) is one of a few exceptions, though.
If you're familiar with the album, you know the track is the starting point for the lengthy 8-song medley that comprises most of the album's second side.  But it's more than just a transition piece or bookend for the medley; it's a smart, funky mini-suite featuring one of McCartney's best-ever hooks that concisely summarizes the history of the Beatles up to that point.
Despite public perception that The Beatles were wealthy beyond belief, they actually were bleeding cash following the death of their original manager, Brian Epstein, in 1967.  So they brought on a new financial manager, Allen Klein—a hard-nosed American businessman who also managed The Rolling Stones in the 60s (and screwed Mick & Keef out of the rights to their back catalog).  McCartney wasn't a fan of Klein from the start and felt that his tactics were a little too smoke and mirrors.  
In short, the song opens with McCartney expressing his frustration with Klein always presenting them with vague financial statements on paper instead of actually showing them where the money was.  Hence the line: You never give me your money / You only give me your funny paper.
From there, he reminisces about "the good ol' days" when they were just getting started—no money, no obligations, and no managers, and then shuttles back to the present through a dizzying series of key changes, essentially thanking his new wife Linda for extricating him from the hell of business meetings and whisking him away to the countryside (Step on the gas and wipe that tear away).
Apart from it being a strong track lyrically, the song is one of the tightest final performances of the entire band together.  McCartney treats us to some damn fine boogie-woogie piano and his baritone "Elvis voice," à la "Lady Madonna," not to mention his inimitable melodic/rhythmic bass playing (especially on the 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 / All good children go to heaven coda).  But then there's also Lennon's raunchy distorted guitar, Harrison's bell-like guitar (fed through a rotating Leslie speaker), and Ringo Starr's simple but effective drumming, which punches and punctuates at all the right times.
Most bands don't sound this good when they're at the peak of their powers, much less when they're imploding.

"Fair" (Ben Folds Five)

"Fair" from the album Whatever and Ever, Amen (1997) was the first track that introduced me to Ben Folds Five.
But before we get to that, I'll start by saying that I tended to avoid anything that was lumped into the category of "indie rock" back in the 1990s.  My general take on indie rock was that it was a convenient marketing label for groups that were too shitty/high to make it to the mainstream.  
"You only know three chords, and you don't play those all that well?  Great!  You're an indie band!"
And in 1997, Chapel Hill, NC, was awash with indie rock bands.  I'd walk down Franklin Street past bars and see names of the bands performing, and I'd immediately want to throw something through a plate glass window.  
Archers of Loaf?  Polvo?  Zen Frisbee?  
The names screamed faux-disaffected, tone-deaf white kids from Wonder Bread suburbia.
I even got dragged to a couple of shows.  I'd give in to some friend's enthusiastic pleading ("Mike, man, you've gotta check out The Virginal Urinal Cakes; they're the best band ever!"), and I'd stand there at some dank venue on a Wednesday evening, listening to some dude in a beat-up "Just Say No" t-shirt, who looked like he'd failed to take his own advice, mumbling random lyrics into the mic over distorted, go-nowhere chords for the duration of a bottle of ill-gotten beer (because you didn't dare order any booze in a glass at those places unless you wanted a flaming case of Hep A).  Once I'd had enough, I'd suddenly remember that I had an exam for my "Ethics in 15th Century Animal Husbandry" class the next day, and I'd simultaneously make my excuses and way for the door.
Then one afternoon, I see this poster in the window of my favorite record store for this outfit called Ben Folds Five, but there are three dorky-looking guys in t-shirts in the photo, staring blankly at the camera.  There's a handwritten sign beneath it that says, "New album recorded in Chapel Hill." 
My immediate thought was, "UGH.  More indie dreck."  
I wanted to burn the place to the ground.
A couple of days later, I'm hanging out with folks from the campus literary magazine, trying to lay out that quarter's issue.  We're sitting around, debating whether or not to fill some empty space with original "artwork" from Microsoft Paint or a reject pile-poem, in which the author had misspelled the same word so many times, so many different ways, that none of us were sure if he meant "heaven," "heaving," or "heathen."  (We ultimately went with our editor's drawing.)  Anyway, one of the other assistant editors put on some music as motivation to get the layout done, and I instantly liked it.  
Big, bold piano, fuzz bass, and booming drums.  Great harmony vocals.  And a wickedly clever lyric about an epic breakup, replete with broken plates and a traffic fatality.
"What is this?" I asked.
"Oh, it's Ben Folds Five.  It's called 'Fair.'  It's off their new album."
I instantly felt bad about wanting to burn down the record store.  I kind of wondered if Hallmark made a greeting card for that: "Sorry I was considering arson.  Let's be pals!"
"Fair" is still my favorite track from Whatever and Ever, Amen.  Robert Sledge's howls of distorted bass provide a perfect, punky counterpoint to the 70s singer/songwriter sunniness of Ben Folds's piano melody.  And for some reason, that indelible ba-ba-ba hook always brings to mind the guilty disco pleasure/one-hit-wonder "More, More, More" by Andrea True Connection.  (It pains me that I even know that song.)
It's just a perfect example of how the band's "take us or leave us" aesthetic combined with Folds's penchant for pop tunesmithery and affection for early Elton John created something fresh and authentic in the wasteland of late 90s rock.

"Somebody to Love" (Queen)

For the first 14 years of my life, I never paid Queen much attention.  I was aware of songs like "Another One Bites the Dust," which pop radio played into oblivion when I was a little kid.  But, unfortunately, it wasn't until after frontman Freddie Mercury passed in 1991, when I began hearing other musicians' tributes to Mercury/the band, that I started to realize just how talented Queen was.  To have not just one, but four individuals who were strong songwriters in one band is pretty remarkable.  But also having one of them be a consummate showman who could control a crowd just by walking on stage?  That is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of group.
What cinched it for me was watching We Will Rock You, the 1982 concert film documenting the band's November 1981 performance at the old Montreal Forum, on late night television circa 1992.  (The film was remastered, re-edited, and re-released as Queen Rock Montreal in 2007; I caught it again on cable a few months ago.)  
I remember watching them burn through a blistering, punkish reworking of "We Will Rock You" and thinking that they sounded way grittier and more rocking than on the studio recording.  Three mind blowing songs later when Mercury sat down at the piano and launched into an extended, electrifying version of the gospel-tinged "Somebody to Love," I was a fan.
The version of "Somebody to Love" from 1976's A Day at the Races has become one of my favorite Mercury studio performances.  He delivers every word with a ton of soul.  And just when you think you've reached the climax, suddenly he soars into this angelic falsetto on the a cappella breakdown.  I get a lump in my throat every single time.
According to guitarist Brian May in a 2011 interview with AbsoluteRadio, Mercury wrote the song as an homage to Aretha Franklin—hence the gospel feel of the tune.  May notes that they took a similar approach as on the theatrical "Bohemian Rhapsody," layering in the multiple vocal harmonies that Mercury had dreamed up to create the epic feel of the track; however, the distinction is that they were trying to sound like a gospel choir instead of a classical concert choir.
Said May, "I always remember thinking that, yeah, this is going to be something great."