Little Songs
I mentioned this idea the other day. It’s a pretty same one, but one that I think is worthwhile. I’m a big fan of short songs. Whether that’s a signal that I suffer from some form of ADD is up for debate, but I feel that the little songs on albums often get overlooked in favour of their meatier counterparts. As such, I’d like to welcome you to the first part in our 435 part series ‘Better Know A Little Song’. Each edition will feature a small collection of short songs, grouped together if I can be bothered, or entirely random if not. This evening’s collection is all made up of little songs that rock, where it’s hard to resist shouting out the words or jumping around to them. Well, that’s probably just me, but no matter.
MP3 The Futureheads – Stupid And Shallow (expired) (1:35)
There’s not a great deal to it than “you eat shit because you’re stupid and shallow”, so don’t expect any great intellectual insights here. God knows what it’s all supposed to mean beyond liking a shallow person, but who really cares? All of the things that make The Futureheads great are here, particularly the driving guitars and the duelling vocals.
MP3 Ikara Colt – How’s The World Gonna Take You Now? (expired) (1:54)
Ikara Colt are a band that disappeared long before their time. After releasing only two albums the band decided to call it a day. This is a great shame given how much those two albums rocked. A throwback to the sounds of bands like Joy Division and Sonic Youth, while still somehow sounding fresh, they could have been something really special. This song is typical of their sound, a shambolic, shouty rock song that doesn’t make a great deal of sense but sounds damn good in the process.
MP3 Ozma – Rocks (expired) (1:55)
Ozma have never seemingly been cool. I have no idea why, nor do I really care that much. I first found them a few years ago when looking for bands that resembled Weezer without the shitty songwriting. Ozma fitted that perfectly, crafting music that wouldn’t sound at all out of place on the Blue Album. Sadly the band broke up around the same time, but joyously, they seem to be back together again now. ‘Rocks’ is essentially an upbeat song about stalking someone (“to throw me off your trail you moved to Boulder, Colorado”), but it’s so frantic that you’d hardly even notice.
MP3 Weezer – Modern Dukes (expired) (1:52)
Ah, a Weezer song from before the aforementioned “shitty songwriting”. ‘Modern Dukes’ is one of the great lost Weezer songs, a group of around 30 absolutely fantastic songs that never saw the light of day other than on the internet. Like most of Rivers’ post-Pinkerton creations, it’s non-sensical, but has such a glorious sense of anarchy in both it’s words (“I’m an asshole, storm the castle / Burn the bridges, down to the ground / Take no prisoners, we’re just visitors / We don’t care about anything”) and it’s sound that it doesn’t really matter.
MP3 Pavement – Wanna Mess You Around (expired) (1:27)
Part of 1997’s ‘Shady Lane’ EP, ‘Wanna Mess You Around’ is entirely chaotic, recalling the sound of their earlier works like ‘No Life Singed Her’. It’s little more than just a shouting of “I wanna fuck around” for it’s second half, but they make it sound damn good. It’s not their greatest lyrical masterpiece, but it’s a fun song that lets rip from an era when most of their songs had unfortunately lost their bite.
I realise after writing this that there is one thing that seems to link all of these songs entirely: they are all pretty non-sensical lyrically. Which probably doesn’t really help my case about short songs being just as important as the standard length ones. I’ll try and put together a more meaningful collection next time or something, but I just wanted to go for some songs that rock tonight.
In other fun site related news, I might be having my first interview / Q&A type thing coming up soon. Not going to reveal who it is right now, but I will say that I’ve written about them before.
(It’s not William Shatner.)
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