“Go With The Flow”
by Queens of the Stone Age
from the album Songs for the Deaf
2002
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Definitely a best song ever. “Go With The Flow” will remain on the five-star playlist for a long, long time. The music video is a gorgeous piece of work, but even without its automotive theme driving home the point, this song would be a windows-down, blasting-across-the-asphalt song. Continue reading November Five-Star Shuffle: “Go With The Flow”
“Solid”
by the Dandy Warhols
from the album Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia
2000
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It was bound to happen sooner or later, but I reached a five-star song on shuffle that I’m demoting after having listened to it again. Not to say “Solid” isn’t a good song, but I definitely gave it a bonus star just because I wanted to remember it as the theme song to the television series Undeclared. If you haven’t seen the show, Undeclared is a Judd Apatow produced comedy set during the freshman year of college. There are only a handful of episodes so it’s definitely worth cruising through on a binge weekend. Plus it features Seth Rogen before he was super popular, and Charlie Hunnam before he was a Son of Anarchy.
“The Promise”
by When In Rome
from the album When In Rome
1988
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“Country Feedback”
by R.E.M.
from the album Out of Time
1991
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Continue reading November Five-Star Shuffle: “Country Feedback”
“Burn”
by Nine Inch Nails
from the album Natural Born Killers Soundtrack
1994
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Not necessarily what I was hoping for, but a great track nonetheless. This was originally released on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack (one of the picks I ran out of time to do for October Soundtracks), and is also on the deluxe edition of The Downward Spiral. There were bits of NIN woven throughout that soundtrack, but this was the only new NIN song, and it’s fantastic. If you need a song to listen to when you’re feeling pissed at the world, or even just need a workout song that will get you moving (just try not to run faster at the 2:30 mark), this is the one.
“The New Fuck You”
by Street Sweeper Social Club
from the EP Ghetto Blaster
2010
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Here’s a secret about blogs: you can both write posts ahead of time and have them post in the future, or you can backdate late posts to make you look like you’re on top of your shit. My intent with this post was to do the former… knock out a couple of posts in one night to hit my minimum of two a week so I could take my time on the monthly entry, but then this song came up on shuffle and Boots and Tom wouldn’t let me front… so here it comes two posts back-to-back. Oh shit… “Balloon” by Catherine Wheel just came up while I was writing this graph. Thank god I already wrote about it, otherwise I wouldn’t sleep tonight… whiskey is delicious.
Continue reading November Five-Star Shuffle: “The New Fuck You”
“I Can See Clearly Now”
by Johnny Nash
from the Grosse Pointe Blank Soundtrack
1972
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Okay, so this came on shuffle and I was “Oh man, I might have rated this too high… riding the way from a great film.” Then I also thought, “This is unfortunate, I just reviewed the album.” But fuck it. This is a magnificent song. I’m a few drinks in. I still stand by that statement. I wasn’t in a great mood when I started playback, but within fifteen seconds this song had changed my mood. That, my friends, is the power of music. The power to change your mood from bad to good, or from sad to glad, from peaceful to menacing or even from flaccid to erect. You know I’m right. Whiskey is delicious.
Continue reading November Five-Star Shuffle: “I Can See Clearly Now”
“The City That Day”
by Matt Skiba and Kevin Seconds
from the album Split
2002
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I was really hoping this album would come up on the 5-star shuffle this week. I was hoping for one of the other songs I’ve got in this playlist, because they’re more like 6 or 7 stars, but this is the one that came up, and them’s the rules.
I don’t have any idea how I first got turned on to this album, but man, do I love it (I think I used to think I should give 7 Seconds a try, and saw this and picked it up). Half of the songs are 3 stars for me (meaning good but not something I listen to all that often, and they’re not portable), and one is 4, but the others are all 5 stars, which is not normal for me.
Continue reading November Five-Star Shuffle: “The City That Day”
“High Speed Changer”
by Orange 9mm
from the album Driver Not Included
1995
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Oh sweet, I was hoping some Orange 9mm might crop up during this month. I first heard these guys on a CMJ sampler when they were on their final album – Pretend I’m Human. That album is great, but definitely on the more experimental side. When I told a co-worked about this new band I had discovered, he quickly schooled me on their earlier albums. Good call.
Continue reading November Five-Star Shuffle: “High Speed Changer”
“Cherub Rock”
by Smashing Pumpkins
from the album Siamese Dream
1993
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Having a Smashing Pumpkins song pop up on one of my five-star shuffles is a sure bet, particularly if it’s from the first two albums. I was so excited when the “Cherub Rock” video debuted as I was one step closer to listening to their new album. Their debut, Gish was and still is one of my favorite albums of all times and this new track didn’t disappoint, me at least. The record company wanted “Today” as the first single, but Corgan strong-armed them into releasing this as the first track. I’m glad they did – it gave me a little time to adjust to thought of my darling band becoming huge. You could feel the shift about to happen with the Pumpkins. Continue reading November Five-Star Shuffle: “Cherub Rock”