“They say it's your birthday
Well, it's my birthday too yeah . . .”
We are each other. My brother is as much me as anyone is, we meet each other and dance on many levels of our selves. We share a language, a planet of discourse, bridging our heads and hearts. That language is rock & roll. Since music is the food of love, I have laid out a feast for his day (Your day! Our day!). All of you who wandered in here by mistake are hereby invited to listen, watch, and celebrate.
The heart of this diary is already done, though my writing has barely begun. That feels sweet. Here is my YouTube playlist, Songs For My Brother: 25 songs, from the Sixties to the Aughts, a hundred minutes of music. You should open this link in another tab, or click below to “Watch on YouTube”. Also, maybe bookmark it, to finish listening later, as 100 minutes is a lot for one sitting. If it’s all too much for you, you can just play the highlight songs I’ve embedded singly throughout this diary.
These songs are brilliant and original (like my brother), slightly off the beaten track, and I hope many will be new to your ears. I watched hundreds of videos before winnowing this playlist with lapidary care, I made sure to find clips with clear sound and splendid visuals. If you happen to be stoned out of your gourd right now, here is all the fun of a mellifluous movie, but unburdened by any plot. For music fans, these are all bands you should know better, and the tracks are mostly from their best albums. So if you love a particular cut, go enjoy the rest of that album on Spotify.
The Master Playlist, all in one spot
All 25 Songs, with Background & Commentary
ROLLING STONES — Happy This is Keith’s anthem, the first one entirely his own. He sang a track each on the few albums before Exile on Main Street. This time he wore the crown, in his own druggy chateau, bringing the vision and the glue to the Stones’ masterwork. The zenith of their synergy: all love and no posing. THE BEATLES — Birthday John and Paul threw this together in an evening, after watching The Girl Can't Help It. And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make. The video’s ridiculous, but The Beatles make anything work. CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL — Lookin’ Out My Back Door My brother’s back porch looks out over a park with deer in it. I have no back door, just a window above a narrow alley. But this ditty is right up my alley, and always makes me smile. IKE & TINA TURNER — Proud Mary Electric. Watch this video to fall in love again with Tina and, if you know their history, to hate Ike even more. They once toured with the Stones, and Mick watched every night to copy her moves. SCOTT WALKER — Jackie My favorite video, blows me away every time. Scott Walker was divine, a golden boy popstar, who then spent the rest of his career inventing new kinds of weirdness. Bowie adored him, of course. This song was originally French, by Jacques Brel. Please listen to every word.
HELLO — New York Groove Glam Rock is underrated. In the ‘70s, Slade sold more singles in the UK than any other band, even ABBA. I almost included their epic ‘Cum On Feel The Noize’ after ‘New York Groove’; which, though made in Sweden by an English band, sounds just like New York City, on a hot summer night in the ‘70s. SWEET — Fox On The Run Sweet were in a Monkees kind of fix, tired of fronting for their producer svengalis, hungry to control their own music and careers. This was their 14th single, but the 1st they wrote themselves. You can hear their anger and ambition here, it’s glam with streaks of hard rock, punk and synthesizer running through it. Wall to wall killer hooks and attitude. STEVE HARLEY & COCKNEY REBEL — Make Me Smile Harley led his first band through two albums, with some success. Then they pushed to contribute their own songs going forward. So he sacked them, and wrote this as a putdown. But it sounds like sunshine and joy, and was their biggest hit, a number one in the UK. ROD STEWART — The Killing Of Georgie Another hot summer night in NYC. Marvelous storytelling puts you deep in the magic, then draws blood. When Rod opens his heart all the way and sings from there, he’s enormously human, and irresistible. FLEETWOOD MAC — Rhiannon The imperial lineup, when they were as one, before all the drugs and divorces and final rupture of Buckingham/Nicks. Stevie was always sweetly witchy, but here she is also feral, growling from her maw. Sinuous psychic synergy, as they each make room for everyone else’s wild inspirations. Like all great bands should.
THIN LIZZY — Dancing In The Moonlight How can they be a one hit wonder, to most, when they made several fine albums and a few great ones? This late ‘70s triple axe frontline, a black Irishman flanked by a Californian hippy and a mad Scotsman, may be their finest, but many other guitar wizards passed through their ranks. This song sounds like young besotted love, heedless of tomorrow. GRACE JONES — Pull Up To The Bumper Grace is a phenomenal being, she looks like she stepped out of a director’s imagination. But she is the director. In the ‘70s she made three disco albums, then in ‘80 made a bold left turn into new wave-reggae-funk, with Sly & Robbie and impeccable covers of every stripe. This song is made up of double entendres so scantily clad they’re just single. ROBERT PALMER — Johnny and Mary Like Rod, Robert was first a funky down to earth singer, who later got lost in the plastic and platinum of pop stardom. As many mortals do. This song feels so simple and true and, like Grace in ‘80, was a smart musical reply to all the new wave happening around him. BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE — E=MC2 Oh Joe, what have you done? Strummer later rued that kicking Jones out of The Clash was the meanest and dumbest thing he ever did. Here we have Mick and his friends raising the spirit of Sandinista! to a higher power. Mick Jones was a champion pop magpie, which is what so many punk bands entirely lacked. ROXY MUSIC — Same Old Scene Roxy Music were one of the strongest sinews between the dinosaur rock of the ‘60s and the post-punk of the ‘80s, alongside Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Kraftwerk. They first exploded on the scene in a car crash of styles, everything all at once. Bryan Ferry gradually pared them down to an elegant minimalism, as if he kept dreaming of Avalon, but needed eight albums to work out its sonic language.
JAPAN — Quiet Life Japan sound like Duran Duran, if they were excellent. Duran Duran crossed Chic with the Sex Pistols, but perfected their formula by digesting this album, and Roxy’s Flesh & Blood. Quiet Life was where Japan found their own style. They explored further on Gentlemen Take Polaroids, and then took their synthpop to the Orient and the stratosphere, on the sublimeTin Drum. SPARKS — "The Number One Song In Heaven" Sparks have been brilliant for half a century, but getting Giorgio Moroder to produce their eighth album was genius. Adrenaline rhythms, falsetto harmonies, wrapped in a candyshop of electronic effects. This sounds like angels discovering pop. BLANCMANGE — Living On The Ceiling I have a sweet tooth for Synthpop, as you may have gathered. The weakness of the genre is, it can get very repetitive. There are three antidotes: write amazing singles, get a massive but supple rhythm section, and always explore brand new sounds. The Egyptian spices, on a killer tune, make this unforgettable. KATE BUSH — Hounds of Love Kate is one of the greatest creators in rock, stretching in every direction to discover new horizons. Hounds of Love is her Sgt. Pepper’s, a handful of hit singles on side one, then an oceanic opera on side two. The only goddess who surprises me more, across a long career, is Joni Mitchell. SINEAD O’CONNOR — The Emperor's New Clothes Such an incandescent young talent, on her epic first two albums. So much cuteness and charisma. She dances, adorably, like a duckling who just swallowed a bag of meth. Plus, on this song, she has Adam Ant’s best guitarist. This is the closest she got to classic rock; the album also includes many other styles, some of which she invented.
PJ HARVEY — Down By The Water PJ Harvey is our distaff Nick Cave. It’s no wonder they dated. When she dumped him, and he was quitting heroin, he wrote his saddest, prettiest love song, Into My Arms. She made two albums of raw, primal power, and then this one, which was all that, but wrapped in gorgeous tunes and polish. PULP — Common People Blur, Oasis, Suede and Pulp were known as the "big four" of Britpop. Pulp were the Kinks of the bunch. Common People, like many Pulp songs, is drily hilarious. They wrote catchy singles, and this one ratchets the tempo faster throughout, thrillingly. This is off Different Class, their best and Britpoppiest album. Pitchfork rated it the best Britpop album of all. RADIOHEAD — Fake Plastic Trees On their second album, The Bends, Radiohead became a great British rock band. Every album after this got more ambitious, stranger; some of them were better. But they never again wrote songs this direct and heartbreaking. If you have no Radiohead yet, start with The Bends. Pitchfork rated it the third best Britpop album. MASSIVE ATTACK — Teardrop By their third album, Tricky had left and they’d slimmed down to three main members. One of them, Mushroom, sent this track to Madonna, to sing on and make it a hit. For which, eventually, the other two booted him from the band. They sent it instead to Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins), and made a song sounding like nothing else on the radio. M.I.A. — Paper Planes I know, you heard this already, we all did, back when it was played to death. I love it anyway, still. M.I.A. brought new flavors and mixtures to the charts, and this is her catchiest single off her best album. Also, her video is worth watching again. Thank you for visiting, we hope you enjoyed our whole show.
Oh no, I forget one! I meant to write an alphabet of rock, with 26 videos. But my brother’s birthday playlist only has 25 videos in it. Please write a comment below, including the one video you think this list most needs to complete it. Thank You For Playing.