Your Daily Song Fix

Imagine you’re a nihilist. Now imagine you’re blasting down a desert highway in a convertible with this song as your non-diegetic soundtrack. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have had an long, illustrious career, and “Albert Goes West,” from their great 2008 album Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!! captures them at their most fist-pumpingly energetic. Just don’t ask them to take responsibility for anything.

Oh and look, Incubus has a cover of this song. Thanks for the hat tip, Google video! Tell the high-schoolers from 2003 about that one, but if you are looking for a foolish, feel-good flashback, the original “Let’s Get Crazy” is a good place to start. This track by Prince & The Revolution was obviously recorded at the dawn of the drum machine, but it’s still a good one to bring to an 80s party attended by people you don’t entirely hate.

Practice your two-step too, because this song will have all the wasted people in the room bouncing like a beach ball. “Shoot the jumper. Shoot it.”

Formed in Manchester in 2000, Simian enjoyed a brief period of success with this song due largely to its appearance in numerous 2003 TV commercials.  The band broke up in 2005, but members still continue to make music.  The song is solid and I never understood why the band wasn’t more popular.

The first thing you have to say about Andrew Bird is that he’s pretty much good at everything.  If you have problems with your woman, he can fix them.  Need your taxes done? He’s a certified CPA.

He can also do his best Odetta impression and convince you it’s coming from a genuine place.  This is my favorite tune off of 2001’s The Swimming Hour.  You can’t learn soul.

"This is the soul tree. It gives me soul."

Yusuf Islam, commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is a British singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam.

His early 1970s albums Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat went Triple Platinum in the United States. His album Catch Bull at Four sold half a million copies in the first two weeks of release and was Billboard’s number-one LP for three consecutive weeks. He has also earned two ASCAP songwriting awards in consecutive years, for “The First Cut Is the Deepest”, which has been a hit single for four different artists.

Cat Stevens converted to Islam at the height of his fame in December, 1977, and adopted his Muslim name, Yusuf Islam, the following year. In 1979, he left his music career to devote himself to educational and philanthropic causes in the Muslim community. He has been given several awards for his work in promoting peace in the world, including 2003’s World Award, the 2004 Man for Peace Award and the 2007 Mediterranean Prize for Peace. In 2006, he returned to pop music under the name Yusuf, with his first album of new pop songs in 28 years, entitled An Other Cup. His newest album, Roadsinger, was released on May 5, 2009.

Temple of the Dog was an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington in 1990. It was conceived by vocalist Chris Cornell of Soundgarden as a tribute to his friend, Andrew Wood, lead singer of Malfunkshun and Mother Love Bone. Andrew Wood (January 6, 1966 – March 19, 1990), born in Columbus, Mississippi, was the lead singer of Mother Love Bone, and earlier the singer and bassist of Malfunkshun. He was only 24 when he died of a heroin overdose coupled with a cerebral hemorrhage just before the release of Mother Love Bone’s debut album Apple.

Here is a great Allman Brothers Band tune live from Woodstock ‘94.

Here is some early punk funk from my man Taylor. This cover of Sly and the Family Stone’s “If You Want Me To Stay” is from the album Freaky Styley, one of two albums with the true RHCP lineup before Hillel Slovak died of a drug overdose in 1988 (the other is The Uplift Mofo Party Plan). Freaky Styley was produced by George Clinton, principal architect of P-Funk, and features great jazz musicians Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker on horns. Flea (the bass player from RHCP) touted his jazz musician skills which most people probably never recognize by playing trumpet on this album.