Radio Free Europe #1

An idea mercilessly stolen from The Wonders I've Seen to fill in time waiting around when not doing research project work. I set my mp3 player to shuffle and talk about the songs that come up, providing occasional download links if you're in luck. It's named after the almost appropriate first song to come up.

R.E.M. - "Radio Free Europe" (link)
I love late period R.E.M. (well, ok, middle period R.E.M. up to and kind of including Reveal) but although I have every album a lot of the early, mumblier stuff has never really clicked for me. Even something as relatively accessible as this sounds good but nothing more. "Fall On Me" is the only huge exception, and that wasn't for a couple more albums.

New Rhodes - "You've Given Me Something That I Can't Get Back"
Incredibly frustrating song, not because of anything in itself - its chorus is catchy as anything and the sound midway between jangle and post-punk works well - but because they've not done anything else to live up to it.

Guillemots - "Redwings"
Some of the ballads on their album are the only slight weak points but this sure isn't one. The policy of throwing everything they can think of at a song works when it's all tied together as well as here, and on top of one of their most beautiful and crushingly sad songs. Excellent backing vocals from Joan As Police Woman, too.

Joan As Police Woman - "Flushed Chest"
Huh, that's weird. Anyway... only slightly more restrained than the previous song in arrangement, with lots of lovely brass and some more fine backing vocals. Somewhat less devastated in tone, though, and almost too gentle to work outside the album. Which is really good, in case you were wondering.

Feeder - "Godzilla"
So, yes, this feature will reveal what a load of rubbish I have on my mp3 player. I had forgotten that Feeder were still doing full on fuzzy rock at this stage of their career (Comfort In Sound) but would certainly take it over most of their recent blandness. At least it sounds like they're having fun making such a racket.

And that's your lot, for now at least.