Pop, Pop Group, and the Return of Turbonegro
This Week's Spotify Soundtrack is an open challenge to all the gloomy sum'bitches to hang on to their angst.
This Week's Soundtrack comes with a sugar rush.
1. "Soul Mine" - Lee Dorsey: From a new Lee Dorsey reissue, Soul Mine.
2. "While You're Out Looking for Sugar" - Joss Stone: As far as I can tell, Joss Stone's career has been an extended waiting game largely animated by the various true believers in physical talent who call on her despite the fact that she hasn't made any records that have excited people since her debut, The Soul Sessions. I have a soft spot for Introducing Joss Stone, largely because of Raphael Saadiq's production, but since nothing has really taken. She's returned to the classics for The Soul Sessions, Vol. 2, but she doesn't improve on Honey Cone's original (or stray very far from it). She doesn't muck it up either.
3. "So Fresh, So Clean" - Outkast: I was just in the mood ...
4. "Cool 2 Be Southern" - Big K.R.I.T.: From his recent Live from the Underground. He'll be at the House of Blues Tuesday.
5. "Gonna Gonna Go!" - Rainbow: More K-pop.
6. "#1 Girl" - Mindless Behavior: Mindless Behavior plays the UNO Lakefront Arena Friday, and I have a suspicion that this is what I'm hearing when I'm listening to K-pop, Still, it's so bubbly and beagle puppy in its enthusiastic friendliness that the words are largely irrelevant. In this case, you almost don't notice that the song's about being a such a playa in your mid-teens that you rank your girlfriends.
7. "Carried Away" - Passion Pit: More ridiculously catchy music, this from Passion Pit's new album, Gossamer.
8. "Right Back to You" - Electric Youth: On Sunday, bands featured in the soundtrack to the movie Drive will bring their modern electro-pop to One Eyed Jacks.
9. "Crazy Eyes" - Anoraak: They weren't on the Drive soundtrack, but they make sense on the bill.
10. "Northern Council" - College: Also on the Sunday night bill at One Eyed Jacks.
11. "Palace Garden, 4 a.m." - Beat Connection: From the new album, The Palace Garden.
12. "Double Peine" - Bertrand Burgalat: For me, new music from French composer/musician Bertrand Burgalat is always a good thing. He does breezy, '60s lounge pop, and he does it really well.
13. "She is Beyond Good and Evil" - The Pop Group: Earlier in the week, I reviewed The Cherry Thing and referred to Rip, Rig & Panic, the band formed by members of The Pop Group and Neneh Cherry.
14. "Papa's Got a Brand New Pigbag" - Pigbag: A great post-punk dance-funk track. Newsman John Roberts co-hosted The New Music on CITY-TV in Toronto under the name J.D. Roberts, which focused on punk and post-punk music, and the show used this song as its theme song.
15. "Wasn't for Love" - The Eastern Sea: I had a good conversation with The Eastern Sea's Matt Hines when they were recently in town at Carrollton Station. They're back on Thursday at One Eyed Jacks headlining an early show.
16. "Once in a Lifetime" - Jacqui Naylor: Many jazz vocalists do covers; not many cover Talking Heads. Naylor will be at Snug Harbor on Saturday night at 8 and 10 p.m.
17. "Discipline Explores Preservation Hall and Studio 54" - Jason Marsalis: Jason has done a series of drum compositions under the "Discipline" name, and as much as the Marsalis family is dunned for being overly traditional-bound, these tracks are all as conceptually sophisticated as they are techincally challenging. He plays Irvin Mayfield's Jazz Playhouse Tuesday night.
18. "Dude Without a Face" - Turbonegro: Swedish metal/punk band Turbonegro's about as conceptual as they come, so much so that you think they'd be done when they lost vocalist Hank von Helvete, who ran into addiction issues. But the band is back, and if the new Sexual Harrassment isn't quite on par with Ass Cobra or Apocalypse Dudes, so what? What is? It's powerful, pushes buttons, and the Turbojugend have accepted new vocalist Tony Sylvester.
19. "Don't Say Motherfucker, Motherfucker" - Turbonegro: Vintage Turbonegro with Hank.
20. "Little Babe" - Lee Dorsey: A Coca-Cola commercial from Soul Mine.
21. "He Went to Paris" - Watermelon Slim: Bluesman Watermelon Slim recorded his first album in 1973, and he'll be at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art on Thursday at 6 p.m. as part of its "Ogden After Hours" series.
