Hey, I know somebody playing on one of these! (SPOILER ALERT: not the first one.)
Pink Floyd, "Bring The Boys Back Home"
It feels really wrong to just have one track from The Wall in here. It further feels like this is the wrong time to discuss Pink Floyd. Maybe I'll do a Pink Floyd special at some point. Anyway, suffice it to say, The Wall is over the top and ridiculous, and nevertheless I still love every part of its hammy majesty.
Rocket From The Crypt, "Turkish Revenge"
Why do I feel like "Turkish Revenge" is a phrase I don't really want to investigate further? Anyway, how do you ramp up the bigness of your rock song beyond just adding horns? Some "woah-oh"s in the background of the chorus, of course! The line separating this song from half the songs on a mid-career Mighty Mighty Bosstones album is thin indeed.
Urge Overkill, "Dubbledead"
Can I talk about recording levels a bit? My copy of this song is super, duper quiet. I had to crank it up really far to be able to hear it. This was really common for a lot of CDs coming out towards the beginning of the reign of CDs, and especially for things coming from indie labels. Super annoying! Sorry, that's really boring to read about.
Anyway, this song is kind of still really murky even after having turned up the volume. Sorry you had to read this.
The Allstonians, "Hijack"
The third wave done right. The warmth of the guitar and rhythm section, the lack of sneering lyrics, swapping solos among the horns - this is the kind of thing too many third wave acts just didn't really embrace. Ska was a pose, a way to just be snotty, it wasn't a musical style to be wholeheartedly played.
The Queers, "That Girl"
Yeah, so, last time I mentioned that this is just pure Ramones revival. I'm not really sure what else there is to say. My god, they have 18 album credits in Allmusic!
(looks)
Wait a minute, this really IS the same damn song! Six songs ahoy!
Baywitch, "Potion Breeze"
Hey, neat! My co-worker Casey Fischer played bass on this album! Yo, Casey, are you reading this? I put a live version of it into the play list so we can all see him.
Anyway, I'm always down for anything with the guitar all reverbed out.