HOFFA'S UNDER THE GOALPOST

FIVER FRIDAY

Today was to be a day of indignation. I was all ready to open this post: "Today, patience finally fails me, as the same crap-quality MP3 of the Wrens song "Everyone Chooses Sides" makes its usual-suspect circuit."

Well, having just downloaded the song from eMusic, I find that I am a fool. There is, in fact, nothing "crap-quality" about it; it's SUPPOSED to sound that way. I have no idea why my old copy of the song sounds different. Is it a remix? Who the hell knows.

But I know that it lacks the full-on digital crackle-and-hiss of the official version, and I know that it cuts off rather unceremoniously at the 4:41 mark. All of this is to draw attention to a terrific song from a pretty terrific record that deserves to be heard in all its incarnations.

[I am augmenting this post with some other songs that - along with the Wrens tune - made my best-of for the first four months of 2004. So this makes for some nice nostalgia for me. And maybe it'll make for some nice new discoveries for you. Who the hell knows.]


[MP3] [left-click] The Wrens/"Everyone Chooses Sides" (alternative mix?) [from the LP The Meadowlands, 2003]

[MP3] [left-click] The Stills/"Changes Are No Good" [from the LP Logic Will Break Your Heart, 2003]

[MP3] [left-click] Shea Seger/"Clutch" [from the LP May Street Project, 2001]

[MP3] [left-click] Okkervil River/"The War Criminal Rises and Speaks" [from the LP Down the River of Golden Dreams, 2003]

[MP3] [left-click] John Vanderslice/"Promising Actress" [from the LP Cellar Door, 2004]

ABOUT A BOY, CIRCA 1982

BOY OMEGA

A couple days ago, I posted Boy Omega's rather swell cover of the Magnetic Fields song "Papa Was a Rodeo." Today, I post two Boy Omega originals, as well as another cover. This guy could be Sweden's answer to Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst.

[MP3] [left-click] "The Best Time of the Year"

[MP3] [left-click] "By Midnight We'll Give It a Go"

[MP3] [left-click] "A Sucker's Evening" [Will Oldham cover]

VARIATIONS ON A THEME

COVERS MONDAY

I first heard "Hallelujah" by way of Jeff Buckley's still-definitive rendition. The fact that this version made a prominent appearance in a particularly memorable episode of The West Wing when that show was still going great guns (and later became an anthem of sorts in the wake of 9/11) does not diminish its emotional impact in any way. In fact, it is the divine commingling of Buckley's angelic voice and Leonard Cohen's religious-tinged imagery that makes this performance all-but-impervious to the usual pitfalls of overexposure.

Apparently, though, it was John Cale's take on the song (with slightly rejiggered lyrics) that inspired Buckley to record HIS version. So Cale certainly deserves his due in contributing to the life-cycle of this song.

And while it is Cale who is heard singing in the DreamWorks movie Shrek, it's DreamWorks artist Rufus Wainwright who performs the song on the soundtrack. Hmmm... wonder how that happened...?

And, of course, what goes around comes around... so it seems entirely appropriate to let Mr. Cohen weigh in on his own subject.

[MP3] [left-click] "Hallelujah"/Jeff Buckley [from the LP Grace, 1994]
[MP3] [left-click] "Hallelujah"/John Cale [from the Leonard Cohen tribute I'm Your Fan: The Songs of Leonard Cohen, 1991]
[MP3] [left-click] "Hallelujah"/Rufus Wainwright [from the soundtrack to Shrek, 2001]
[MP3] [left-click] "Hallelujah" [live]/Leonard Cohen [from the collection More Best of Leonard Cohen, 1997]

Boy Omega is a Swedish artist who had the great good sense to cover Stephin Merritt on what has to rank as one of my favorite Magnetic Fields tracks. More on Mr. Omega in a day or two....

[MP3] [left-click] "Papa Was a Rodeo"/Boy Omega [from the "independent project/compilation" Our Love is Meaningless]
[MP3] [left-click] "Papa Was a Rodeo"/The Magnetic Fields [from the LP 69 Love Songs, 1999]

INXS

It has come to my attention that there is an American television network currently airing a show in which contestants compete to become the new lead singer of INXS. Christ almighty. Somebody shoot me.

Of course, even the most egregious examples of boob-tube poop can occasionally pay unexpected dividends. In this case, I was reminded that I had put together an 80-minute INXS compilation a couple years ago (and not bothered to listen to it since). So out of the vault it came.

Alas, as much as I'd like to say that this music of my youth has aged like fine wine, the more apt culinary comparison would be "cheap cheese." There is something undeniably dated and '80s about the band's sound, even as they dragged their tattered reputation into a new decade (ending ignominiously with 1997's double-whammy of unlistenable LP Elegantly Wasted and Michael Hutchence's suicide at age 37). Listening again after all these years, it's really no wonder that INXS - unlike their capital letter-centric brethren U2 and R.E.M. - were unable to weather the coming of grunge and neo-punk. Beyond Hutchence's legitimately "rock star" voice, there just wasn't a whole hell of a lot to build a comeback on (which makes the aforementioned lead-singer reality show all the more absurd).

All of that said, Kick remains a solid document of 1987, and I can wholeheartedly recommend another six-pack of songs (at least) from their other long-form efforts, including the absolute classic, "Don't Change."

[MP3] [left-click] "Don't Change" [from the LP Shabooh Shoobah, 1982]
[MP3] [left-click] "The One Thing" [from the LP Shabooh Shoobah, 1982]
[MP3] [left-click] "Original Sin" [from the LP The Swing, 1984]
[MP3] [left-click] "This Time" [from the LP Listen Like Thieves, 1985]
[MP3] [left-click] "Mystify" [from the LP Kick, 1987]
[MP3] [left-click] "Never Tear Us Apart" [from the LP Kick, 1987]
[MP3] [left-click] "By My Side" [from the LP X, 1990]
[MP3] [left-click] "Heaven Sent" [from the LP Welcome to Wherever You Are, 1992]