"Waterfall" by Rosanna

This song isn't even out yet and I freaking love it. It it sort of like Cyndi Lauper crossed with gloomy Swedish synth-pop; which just happen to be two things I love. That being said it makes perfect sense that I would be in love with this. But there are other reasons as well.

The main reason is that this song symbolizes everything I love about the Internet. "Waterfall" is the first song from the new label Pop Justice Hi-Fi; which is a spin-off of the popular Pop Justice blog.

Pop Justice is great because it is as tongue-in-cheek as it is sincere its unpretentious love of good pop music. It is the Pitchfork of pop music and by writing that sentence you should understand the greatness of such a statement. In the era of the "long tail" Pop Justice saw a gap in the way good pop music was appreciated & covered (i.e. NOT Covered) by the mainstream music press and the successfully filled it. The whole concept is an inspiration to anyone starting a website or blog on a very specific topic: Be original and know your audience and the sky is the limit.

Hopefully that success will spill over into their new endeavor Pop Justice Hi-Fi their new music label (that's right...a blog led to music label). I hope it succeeds because plan on buying this song and other "above average pop tunes" from them in the future.

Cheers

"The Only Exception" by Paramore

This is one of those songs that kinda speaks for itself. I must say I get suckered into these pretty 'working class' ballads pretty easily, but there is a universal truth the lyrics and little Hayley Williams' delivery which makes 'The Only Exception' a notch above even some of the best songs I've heard in awhile.

As someone who listens to a lot of BBC, this song is just as understood and huge across the pond, and for good reason; because it's really freaking good. I'm usually none to happy with a lot of the crap music we export elsewhere, but I think Paramore is a worthy exception.

"Here" by Pavement

I almost forgot how much I love this song, but through a little Apple magic it came on today via the Genius Playlist feature.

There are so many good Malkmus songs that it's hard to pick a favorite, but this song is particularly interesting to me because of how the lyric and feeling of this song is so straight-forwardly obscure.

Pavement got compared to R.E.M. a lot and while that is fair it is also a cop out. In fact Pavement probably had more in common with obscure, British, margin-rockers The Fall, Pulp (pre-Brit Pop), or The Wedding Present.

"Here" does remind me a bit of R.E.M.'s "South Central Rain" in feeling. Certain phrases are direct:

I was dressed for success /But success it never comes /And I'm the only one who laughs

At your jokes when they are so bad /And your jokes are always bad /But they're not as bad as this ...Come join us in a prayer
We'll be waiting, waiting where
Everything's ending here

Those are just great,sad, slightly unsettling lyrics. The music is also fascinating in this song as it sounds like a preview of England in the late 90's early 2000's (Coldplay, Radiohead, Travis, Sterophonics, etc.)

Pavement is both an easy band to get into and a hard band to fully appreciate. I think this song is a good metaphor for that opinion.

"Bang Bang Bang" by Mark Ronson

He seems to just be going for it. Mark Ronson wants to produce huge songs... y'know summer anthem kinda stuff. With "Bang Bang Bang" he succeeds. It it both fresh sounding for a 'Ronson Production' and seems entirely in step with his progression as a producer and where the current scene is England is right now. He's not a businessman... he's a business man and he incorporates just enough synth-lines to make that revival happy, just enough hip hop to sell the record (y'know 'move units'), and just enough of his whit-boy-soul influences to keep that part of his persona in check.

Rock & Roll is currently dead, but people like Mark Ronson who are not "rock & roll" at all are keeping the "anything goes" ideals of it alive by accident; and for that alone that makes him important at the moment. As a songwriter and producer he has the swagger of an updated Noel Gallagher with a little bit of Jay-Z and Phil Spector thrown in for good measure.

This is first single of of the new record out later this summer. Needless to say I am excited.

"Too Many Walls" by Cathy Dennis

I subscribe to the John Cusack theory of music that, pop music for instance, can indeed make you sad before you should begin experiencing said emotion.

"Too Many Walls" by Cathy Dennis is one of those songs that I played to death when I was 12 and, quite frankly, it probably messed me up. ( Well it didn't help reading " A Bridge to Terabithia" weekly as well.)

The lyrics are sad... no doubt about that. But what makes this song so special to me is the melody. It's like a music box of suburban melancholy. I would hear this song daily on my middle school bus trips and it would haunt me...as I knew that Cathy Dennis had a deeper understanding of life. I still think I was right.

"Wish on a rainbow...it's all I can do."

"Doo Wah Doo" by Kate Nash

Kate Nash gets it. What "it" is is hard for me to explain, but basically some artists understand themselves better than others. Many artists are capable of producing great art, but a small percentage get where they fit into the fabric of a bigger quilt.

The current quirky girl Brit-pop movement is chalk full of talented gals, but I think the one who gets "it" the best Kate Nash... case in point...

In my current YouTube obsession with Miss Nash unearthed a live performance with her singing Kirsty Macoll's and Billy Braggs's "A New England" with none other than Billy Bragg himself. It clicked. She gets it... it get her... and with the release of her current collection of tunes... she is the reining queen of Brit-pop as far as I'm concerned.

"I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" by Wilco

I heard a funky cover of this song earlier which, while clever, just reminded me that some things need not be touched.

Jeff Tweedy will go down as, quite possibly, as the best songwriter of his generation. And by 'songwriter' I mean someone who understands to lineage of Ives, Guthrie, Dylan, etc.

That might not be everyone's cup of tea, but at the the end of the day when I look (or most us in this country for that matter) look in the mirror... I feel like we see a Jeff Tweedy staring back us... and not a Thom Yorke, a Brad Paisley, or Ke$ha... and maybe that's why music like his stays in the 'margins' so to speak... who wants to to see themselves in a mirror all the time?

But I do have moments of truth and Jeff Tweedy usually accompanies me as soundtrack. I admire his craft immensely.

"Am I Wrong" Love Spit Love

How can some songs give you goosebumps and make you feel like the first time you heard them? How is that even possible? I'll tell you why: Because it's a effing awesome song.

Richard Butler will always be remembered for the song "Pretty In Pink" with his first group The Psychedelic Furs... and that's fine. It is, after all, a classic song from a classic movie. But if you really want to hear a modern masterpiece of pop songwriting I suggest you listen to this song on repeat about three times.

"Goodbye, lay the blame on luck" is one of the most beautiful choruses ever written. Period.

The song is every bit as good and lilting as "Walk Away Renee" (The Left Banke classic from the 60's). For some reason my brain always lumps those two songs together and if that is not the highest praise I can wreak upon this song; then I don't know what is.

It was perfectly in the movie Angus, which seems fitting. This song is how I felt in high school. The version with the marching band in that movie is fantastic if you find a copy.

"Guns & Horses" by Ellie Goulding

The most creative generation continues...

I really don't have an "analysis" as to why I love Ellie Goulding so much. Usually I can single out a certain element of an artist and end up with the reason as to why I am so enamored with them. In the case of Ms. Goulding: she is talented, she is British, she is adorable, and she sounds a bit like Bjork crossed with Leigh Nash. All of those things are HUGE bonus points.

But mainly I enjoy her and her "wonky-pop" ilk because they symbolize the bright-BRIGHT creative furture of pop-music and perhaps (just perhaps) of the world.

To me she is a shining symbol of Generation A.

"Now you young twerps want a new name for your generation? Probably not, you just want jobs, right? Well, the media do us all such tremendous favors when they call you Generation X, right? Two clicks from the very end of the alphabet. I hereby declare you Generation A, as much at the beginning of a series of astonishing triumphs and failures as Adam and Eve were so long ago.

I apologize. I said I would apologize; I apologize now. I apologize because of the terrible mess the planet is in. But it has always been a mess. There have never been any ''Good Old Days,'' there have just been days. And as I say to my grandchildren, ''Don’t look at me. I just got here myself.''

So you know what I’m going to do? I declare everybody here a member of Generation A. Tomorrow is another day for all of us..." - KURT VONNEGUT

"Weather With You" by Crowded House

"Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire/Couldn't conquer the blue skies"

I love the Finn Brothers. Crowded House came out in that weird period between synth-pop and Brit-pop and ironically had a foot in each; as they were formed from the ashes of Split Enz.

This song usually starts a playlist of lilting British music... as it did today. Travis, Keane, and selected songs by Stereophonics and Blur soon followed.

Bring on the rain.

"Oh! Hark!" by Lisa Mitchell

Sorry I have been away for awhile. Work, anniversaries, and distractions with iPads; but alas I'm back.

No better way than to herald spring heading into summer than with a someone who I just discovered,

but who has real "obsession potential."

Apparently she is all the rage down under and I see why. I absolutely adore her sound and love the lyric in this song:

"My world ends on a regular basis"

My love of quirky girl pop continues...

"Always" by Erasure

I remember hearing this song for the first time. It must've been my freshmen year and I thought, "what the hell is this." It was weird and kooky sounding... like Duran Duran on laughing gas.

I just remember it made me happy and over the next few months it continued to as I heard everyday on it's slow climb and stay into Top 40 radio.

Today the song still makes happy and I hear Erasure's influence in the music I write and new artists I admire (Little Boots, Marina, Frankmusik, Lily Allen, etc.). There is a quirky melodic Britishness to Erasure that makes their music and influence hard to refuse.

"Surf's Up" The Beach Boys

This might be, what I consider to be, the greatest song ever written. There... I said it. So obviously I could write pages about this song, but for the moment I'll limit myself to these few words.

The Beach Boys are the most misunderstood, yet equally celebrated, band in the history of music; and this song encapsulates all of that. This was to be the closing song of Brian Wilson's epic 1967 song cycle "SMiLE".... we think. A version of smile was released in 2004 had "Surf's Up" as the finale of side 1. Regardless, the song is a subtle epic. Not as sonically obvious as "A Day In The Life" by the Beatles, but just as obscure and beautiful.

The Brian Wilson "solo" version that appears on the Beach Boys box set is nothing more than perfect. These are best lyrics ever written in this country as far as I am concerned. Both sad, hopeful, and though written in 1967, very prophetic of a young country that still has much to deal with.

"February Air" by LIGHTS

It used to be that the hipster music crowd would call you a sell out if your song was used in a commercial. The irony to me always being that all a music video does is promote your album...so it's little more than a commercial; but I digress.

I heard LIGHTS in the in an Old Navy commercial a couple of years ago and fell in love with her. Her music is poppy. airy, colorful. Like Vanessa Carlton with synthesizers. She looks and sounds like a little elecropop pixie...like Tinkerbell with a Macbook & Garageband.

"February Air" is one a few songs I ALWAYS play twice in row when I play it. The opening synth line is one of my favorites ever. I love the words. They are sparse and perfectly fill in the spaces they need. "I know your face like the back of my hand" is just a pretty lyric.

Thank you Old Navy.

"They Don't Know" by Tracey Ullman

Boy, I played this 45 (yes kids...as in a little black record) to death when I was 5 or 6. I remember my mom playing and it and me loving it.

It's fascinating to me how what we like as kids still has relevance in what we like today, whether we realize it our not. I mean, I was pretty ate up with "quirky girl" pop music when I was a kid (Cyndi Lauper, Tracey Ullman, Rosanne Cash, 60's Girl Groups, etc.); and now here it is 25 years later and I adore Little Boots, Ellie Goulding, Lily Allen, and Nelly Furtado, etc. (Nelly Furtado is still quirky... don't let her newfound sexiness and success fool you.)

"They Don't Know" is a gem of a song. It was written by Kirsty MacColl, who is one of the great unsung British voices of female driven pop music. She had little success in America before her tragic death, but her music is definitely worth investigating... as she defies time and genre. She was also married to none other than 'superproducer' Steve Lillywhite... for what it's worth.

You get a little taste of that in Ms. Ullman's cover of the song. One of first BIG music crushes for sure. She is pretty adorable in this video.

"Stop Crying Your Heart Out" by Leona Lewis

Noel Gallagher is the best songwriter of his generation. That is all. I have thought that for a long time, but sometimes a little time has to set in so you can view someones work in context. Now that Oasis has dissolved I think it is a fair time to start analyzing his work against the greats (The Beatles, The Who, The Stones, Blur, The Kinks, Burt Bachrach, etc.). What I have discovered is that I would put Noel Gallagher's 25 best songs up against these aforementioned greats... and I think he's better.

"Stop Crying Your Heart Out" was the song that made me realize that my admiation/worship of Noel Gallagher for the past 15 years of my life warranted. I'm not somebody who seeks validation for my views or opinions, but when I heard Leona Lewis cover this song on X-Factor & her album; I knew that Noel Gallagher was one of the greats.

I mean, he has been telling that us he was one of the greats for years.

"Loosen Your Hold" by SOUTH

"Release or be caught...if this be the right thing/Look what the tide brings in"

South should be huge...that is all. But alas, some bands are with the tides of popularity and some bands are not. South has always been somewhere in-between, but usually, just south of what is popular at the moment.

This song off of With The Tides is simply fantastic. Actually, the whole album is fantastic, but tis is one of my favorite songs EVER. The first time I heard it I actually felt guilty for liking Keane, Aqualung, and the like. I felt guilty because it doesn't seem fair to me that some bands rise to such prominence whilst others get swept out to sea.

If you see a motif forming around direction (SOUTH) and water (With the Tides) then you get the drift of my not so subtle metaphor. South is a little band with a big sound that got swept away in the tsunami of popular music.

They are an island unto themselves and if you are invited visit if you like such music. "Loosen your hold...and look what the tide brings in."

"See You Again" by Little Boots

Sometimes pop music lets you down. It doesn't mean too and you really shouldn't expect so much from it. But alas, you do and hopes pop-pop-pop, like the very bubble gum such music is.

I am currently obsessed (O B S E S S E D) with British artist Little Boots... so much so that I haven't even been able to write about her yet. Towards the end of last year I became aware of her YouTube channel and I got hooked on her.

I'm not going to ramble about her right now, I'm just going to say that I was super-stoked to see her in Chicago in May, but today she canceled. Do I still lover her? Hell yes. Am I disappointed? Absolutely.

But hey... anyone who covers Miley with such studied delight has got to be great... I can't wait to her again. Rather sometime.

"Clear Spot" by The Pernice Brothers

Maybe it's something about spring, but I play this song a lot every year about his time. It has a "Here Come The Sun" vibe about it that makes me anxiously anticipate the warm weather. It doesn't hurt that this song was featured on quite possibly one of my favorite shows of all-time the Gilmore Girls; which for some reason is a 'springy'/fall show for me.

The Pernice Brothers, themselves, have a spring/fall sound to me. "Clear Spot", for instance, isn't sunny enough to have a summer sound and some of their other work has a chamber-pop feel that isn't quite cold enough to be winter. Yes, I base a lot of listening, watching. and reading likes around weather. It's just something I do

If Brian Wilson had grown up in Massachusetts one thinks he might've written a slice of pop as good as "Clear Spot." Happy spring.

"We'll Live & Die In These Towns" by The Enemy

Goosebumps. That is what I got the first time I heard this song...and what I have gotten the 1000 times I have played it since.

There is a hopeful resignation I had never heard before in this song that both made me smile and want to die all at the same time. I think everyone both wants to stay where they are from and move away. There is a safety is staying and the idea of something new if you leave.

The Enemy are great. They might be part the last gasp of guitar driven 'indie' Brit-pop that we get for awhile. There is a shift going on in the music world and that makes this song ever more poignant.

See, in England especially, there is a working class element to bands like The Jam, Oasis, The Manic Street Preachers, etc. You can trace its roots to the Beatles & go from there. There is a desperation to make your life better by starting a band and maybe getting a little success... maybe getting of Top of the Pops. But that is fading. I am not sad about it per se (at least not right now) because the current creative movement of pop music is partially a reaction to two decades of working class hope and manufactured pop music.

"We'll Live & Die In These Towns" might as well just be an anthem to what indie-rock in Britain was. The times they are-a-changing. It'll be interesting to see what place classic guitar bands have in the near future.

"10,000 Nights" by Alphabeat

Some songs just make you happy. Today I felt myself starting to get in a bad mood and I didn't want to be. I searched quickly through my iTunes and came to Alphabeat. I absolutely adore Alphabeat. They make me happy almost instantly.

I came upon them a couple years ago and must say that This Is Alphabeat has become a goto favorite album. They are just fun. No pretense. No fakeness. They exude and embody everything I love about pop music. I like them the first time I heard this song. It was that fast with no questions asked.

On my other blog (versechourusfade.blogspot.com) I wrote an essay about Cyndi Lauper and what she means to me as a music fan. I think that is why I love Alphabeat so much. They buy into that "WannaHaveFun" aesthetic without coming across like they are trying too hard. They remind a little of being a kid and dancing around to Cyndi Lauper, but they are still very much of the now while having their moments of homage.

The boy/girl vocal thing works well for them and shines in "10,ooo Nights" which I put up there among the best pop songs I've heard in along time. Plus Anders (the guy) & Stine (the girl) are just adorable. I have nothing else to say.

Anders & Stine came through again today. Crisis averted. Thank you Alphabeat.

"California Dreaming" by The Carpenters

Growing up my mom played a lot of Carpenters. Over the course of this blog there are easily a half-dozen songs I could talk about, but the one that has me recently is their cover of "California Dreaming".

See, for me, I have always loved the California Mythology in pop-music. There is the breezy, sunny, "California Girls" aesthetic that we were sold in a lot of west coast pop; but the flip-side of that culture has produced some of the most melancholy and beautiful music written in this country. Every high has its low I suppose.

The Carpenters fit beautifully into the aforementioned bi-polar soundscape and their cover of "California Dreaming" is a sometimes overlooked gem. The song is equal parts haunting and hopeful; taking it a much different direction than the wistful folk song the Mamas & the Papas put down on tape.

"Mellow Version of 'Anyway'" by Dynamite Hack

Sometimes the best songs come from the weirdest places. Dynamite Hack was a punky-rock band that rose to semi-fame with a cover of "Boyz In The Hood". That particular song was clever, but the novelty wore off quickly. Apparently it wore quickly for lots of people, because their record Superfast was a constant mainstay in the clearance section of the book & cd store I worked at for three years.

Occasionally we would go through and just get rid of cd's that had gone unsold out of clearance for 6 months. As a music nerd these culled cd's were often given to me. That is how I wound up this disk.

One day out of boredom I was going through the stacks of cd's I has accumulated and I put Superfast in the player. Surprisingly a couple of songs were ok. One of those was the 'original' version of "Anyway". I call it the original, because at the the end of the cd I noticed there was a hidden track. With nothing to lose I waited for it.

What emerged was simply one of the best things I had ever heard. Like a lost Ben Folds song sung by Kay Hanley (Google her), this song came pouring out of my speakers. The song is sung by Emily Morris, lead singer Mark Morris', sister. Why she never made an album...who knows; but actually who cares. This one hidden track on a 5 year old cd was probably my most played song of 2005. And it's a song I still go back to for inspiration when I am writing music. It's just really pretty. I'm not sure if it it's supposed to be ironic or some kinda band "in-joke", but all I know is it gives me goosebumps. It's real.

If I ever assemble a Nuggets collection of lost gems from my generation "Boyz In The Hood" won't be on it, but the "Mellow Version of 'Anyway" most definitely will.

"Breathe Your Name" Sixpence None the Richer

I don't like to bring religion into pop music, but sometimes it brings itself. That being said, I know this song is about God and I realize that Sixpence is a Christian band. I also realize that I'm not "religious", but that doesn't change the fact that this is one of my favorite songs... ever.

I love Leigh Nash, the lead singer of Sixpence. Her voice is one those "pixie above the noise" voices that you either love or hate. I love it, obviously; it just makes me happy because it sounds full of hope. The lyrics are both overt and subversive at the same time; which I like. I have no problem with that because my favorite band is the Manic Street Preachers who both overtly & subversively sing about socialism...but even non-socialists like their music. A good song is a good song and you can get bogged down with the details sometimes.

I once joked that if God himself, could personally promise me, that I could write songs this good if I believed more then my faith might be stronger... and I think that says it all.

"Starry Eyed" by Ellie Goulding

I have been obsessing over one Ellie Goulding for a few weeks now; ever since I heard her on my PopJustice channel on Last.fm. Then I heard her sing on a Passion Pit Remix of 'Sleepyhead' and I was sold. I pretty much fell in love with that.

Her music is right on some weird border of poppy-quirky-folky-electronica. She is basically great. This quote sums her up, "I like simplicity, which is why I am not afraid of pop, or dance music. I just look for the hook, the centre. And it can be the words or the melody...just the one thing that can relate to everyone.

She is part of this ongoing British Popster Gal movement which has been full of original voices and might go down as my favorite movement in pop history. It could've only happened at his place in time...this moment in history. Pop singers are in the unique position of creating their persona on the internet and then controlling every facet of that persona. It's been fascinating to watch pop music get promoted to art again... for the first time since the 80's.

This song signals some of the best of what's to come.

"Heartbeat" by Annie

This song is perfect. I just wanted that to be the first thing you read. I heard "Heartbeat" in 2004 and it has been a mix cd favorite ever since. It sounds as fresh as it did 6(!) years ago and holds up well as a forbearer to the British Pop movement going on across the pond right now.

Written by Annie and Rὅykskopp, this is one of those effortless pop songs that dances on a standard beat and classic song structure; It gets in your head and stays there. You could take this song apart and change the the production and it could be a hit in just about any genre or any country... and that is what a perfectly written pop song should be. Universal.

"Live To Tell" & "Against All Odds"

Today you get a twofer. "Live To Tell" by Madonna & "Against All Odds" by Phil Collins are two records that I played to death as a kid. They are both from that era of the 80's where movie soundtracks had that big over-the-top ballad on the soundtrack. Both of these songs belie their failings of their film counterparts and went on to become #1 hits on the Billboard Chart and perennial radio favorites.

Both songs gave chills as a kid. "Live To Tell" always struck me with a certain resonance of emptiness. I think it is the sparse production and one Madonna's most understated vocals that make this song so haunting.

On the other hand "Against All Odds" was one the first melodies and piano parts I became obsessed with as a kid. The production is also quite striking in retrospect. The piano and vocals are pretty much left all alone in the mix... no real production tricks other than a little reverb. But the the drums have all kinds of effects all over them. They sound somewhat claustrophobic compared to everything else... almost at "odds",if you will. Plus the song is just damn sad and sometimes there is nothing for comforting than shared sadness.

"Sally Cinnamon" by The Stone Roses

It would make no sense not to start off this hopefully ongoing dispenser of my favorite songs than with this blog's very namesake. When Ian Brown sings, "I pop pop pop blow blow bubble gum/You taste of cherryade"; it should sound silly, but instead sounds like the culmination of everything I love about pop music. He is singing about a girl, but could very well be singing about pop music itself. The line: "Sent to me from heaven...you are my world" is totally how I feel when I am obsessing over a new song or artist I love.

In the end maybe this is why as a songwriter and music fan I find myself going back to this song time and time agin for inspiration. Sometimes I am amazed by how good it is and I dissect it. Other times I just listen and get a little nostalgic for the summer of 8th grade, the first time I heard it. And still other times I am secretly grateful that this song didn't scare away a generation British bands from writing songs because I gotta be honest with you... this song is so good I'm not sure I would've kept writing songs if I had been in a band across the pond in 1990. But sometimes the best things inspire us to try and top them. This is why I like I love pop music.