Heavy Rotation: Week Ending March 5, 2010

01. Mew – No more stories ..., (Columbia/Evil Office.2009)
02. “You Pulled The Rug Out” by Two Harbors, (Susstones.2009)
03. The Raveonettes – In and Out of Control, (Vice.2009)
04. Editors – In This Light and On This Evening, (Sony.2009)
05. Deastro – Moondagger, (Ghostly International.2009)
06. “Drinking With An Angel” by The Suburbs, (Twin/Tone.1981)
07. “She Just Likes To Flight” by Four Tet, (Domino.2010)
08. “Alchoholiday” by Teenage Fanclub, (DGC.1991)
09. Maximo Park – Quicken The Heart, (Warp.2009)
10. Gallows – Grey Britain, (Reprise.2009)

The greatest thing about the greatest songs ever rocked are you take them on their own – there is no need to assess its place in the band's oeuvre or how relates to other songs on the album. It's just that one single song, in solitaire. At least that's how I do it. Let's move away from discussing albums to checking out the songs that have made this week's rotation.

The Two Harbors track is a song that I love to hate to love. At first listen, this is pretty ineffectual Triple AAA/alt-rock radio fetish – just loud enough rock, but mellow enough to be safe; a fairly bland, yet effective melody; that ubiquitous soaring chorus (kinda Oasis meets Coldplay). If you stick with it, the payoff is fairly substantial – the hook cannot be denied, the cool Church-y breakdown just past the halfway mark, the rhythm section is steady. The problem is the verses are absolutely forgettable – which I typically am ok with – I mean to the point of nothing. This frustrates me to no end.

“Drinking With An Angel” is in my Top Five Songs by The Suburbs of All Time. There is a menacing swamp groove that saturates the song, dripping into the melody – which is a total fuck up spoken word sorta drug addled ramble sing song – which gives way to the come down piano-based chorus (?) - which gives way to the swamp groove. This goes on for over five minutes, pushing and pulling – Blaine “Beej” Chaney's vocals and the menacing swamp groove. Then you have this gem of a lyric: “Here the snow is gray/if I were an excitable guy, this would upset me to no end.”

Four Tet's “She Just Likes to Flight” is pure melodic platinum titanium dominance. Typically these electro-organic-a jams feel too “hippy”. What makes this different is the strong melody that isn't simply looped and plotted, but moves. It's like mini-musical-movements, part I gives way to a new melodic idea called part II and then goes back to part I to layer more elements – like a snowball rolling down the hill picking up debris. Except it's not dirty, it's pretty. The song feels like a 2 minute pop song, but it's over 4 minutes.

In 1991 Teenage Fanclub inexplicably … fuck that! Boring … or as Robert Pattinson would proclaim high in his tree: BOTHERED! “Alcoholiday” is near perfect power pop glory – from the languid pace and deliberate chord changes to the simple and memorable melody to the gigantic opening line “There are things I'd like to do! But I don't know if they'll be with you” to “All I know is all I know” hook-mantra-coda to the clever song title. This is a sad song, with our hero wrapped in confusion to the point where he thinks he may be going crazy. It's a side of love that isn't often explored in (power)pop.

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