- Counting Crows, "A Murder of One," August and Everything After: The first song on the playlist, and I'm just going to get it out of the way that I put this one on here because Five Year Jacket used to occasionally play it, back when they were good. While I'm on the subject, August and Everything After was a pretty damn good album, lacking any songs that were particularly sub-standard. This reminds me that I have to rip Recovering the Satellites, because I really want to listen to "Angels of the Silences."
- Cheap Trick, "Mighty Wings," Top Gun Soundtrack: This song just rules, showing that Cheap Trick could still rock, despite their only #1 song was the piddly-ass ballad "The Flame." And Rick Nielsen has a pretty cool guitar solo on this one, virtually justifying the purchase of a soundtrack that was watered down by crap like Berlin and Loverboy.
- Five Year Jacket, "Mn.," Folk Songs: A lot of people say this is the best song Five Year Jacket ever did. Personally, I don't think so, but -like the songs that got on the playlist- it's pretty damn good, and one of those few situations where a dropped-D tuning can be more than just something you do when you're a garage band looking for another way to emulate Nirvana.
- Five Year Jacket, "Monsters and Angels," Bootleg: This is the song that will absolutely wreck your day, even months after a bad breakup. I recorded this one at the martini bar on New Year's Eve a few years ago, and -while I'm generally satisfied with it- I still want to go back and try to fix the sound a little more.
- Counting Crows, "Mr. Jones," August and Everything After: Just a silly little pop song that made the list because "we all want something beautiful," but the guy with the guitar will always get the girl. Make no mistake about that. It also reminds me of the old days of drinking coffee at the diner after school with people that I may or may not ever run into again.
- Bruce Springsteen, "My Hometown," Born in the U.S.A.: You know, for how well the album sold, a lot of people never really realized that Born in the U.S.A. is a great representation of how dystopic America was getting in the middle of the Eighties for anyone in America who wasn't filthy rich. It was the beginning of job-outsourcing, downsizing, and the government kept trying to say that "supply-side economics" made sense, even though it doesn't, mathematically speaking.
- Five Year Jacket, "The Ring," Bootleg: Recorded at a biker bar named Fat Daddy'z in Seneca, a couple of months before the aforementioned New Year's show, this song is actually a cover, though I don't recall by whom. It's catchy, and I want to... Okay, just assume that I want to remaster everything on this bootleg.
- Nada Surf, "Neither Heaven Nor Space," Let Go: This is just one of those songs I like to relax with. I can't really say much about it, other than the fact that I bought this album because a couple of other songs by Nada Surf were playing in the Starbucks I used to work at.
- Elastica, "Never Here," Elastica: I think that it's a shame that not everyone knew about Elastica when they came out. It's a great album, with three good-looking women on guitars and vocals, and some guy on drums. It pretty well sums up British rock, circa 1994-95, around the same time that Sleeper did the same thing, but with more pop-music sensibility (and a really hot singer).
- Nick Drake, "Northern Sky," Way to Blue: An Introduction to Nick Drake: I picked this CD up one day down in Champaign, because I'd heard "Pink Moon" in a Volkswagen advertisement. Nick Drake is one of those sad stories of music, sort of like Syd Barrett. Prior to his early death, Nick Drake was an introvert who made some really pretty music, although I'm still trying to figure out what "Fruit Tree" was all about.
- Alanis Morissette, "No Pressure Over Cappuccino," Unplugged: This song made the playlist for a couple of reasons, all of which have to do with one of my ex-girlfriends. My friend Jessica invited her for coffee at about one o'clock in the morning, hoping that my ex-girlfriend and I could work out some issues, to which my ex-girlfriend agreed, but added, "No date over cappuccino." Jessica didn't get it, and I just smiled.
- Five Year Jacket, "Non Sum Qualis Eram," Bootleg: Not one of my favorite Five Year Jacket songs, but still good enough to make the list, which goes to say how good it is. If memory serves, the song title comes from a British piece of poetry which, roughly translated, is Latin for, "I am not what I used to be." Anybody well-read enough to write that into a song deserves consideration on any playlist.
- Five Year Jacket, "Nothing's Free," Bootleg: This one's reportedly the biography of Kevin, the (former) singer-songwriter of Five Year Jacket, and I might've fucked up the title, so if my friend Kristen could correct me, that'd be great. Like most Five Year Jacket songs, it's catchy.
- Five Year Jacket, "Part of Me," Bootleg: It's a pretty basic song, written in couplets of polar opposites, but it works because it's a great drinking song.
- John Mellencamp, "Pink Houses," Words & Music, John Mellencamp: This double-disc greatest-hits package can be had for about twelve bucks, and I picked this song because Five Year Jacket (yes, all roads lead back to the band) played it following the 4th of July fireworks at the martini bar one year. For some reason, it just fit the moment, not to mention there was a great crowd that night.
- The Police, "So Lonely," Outlandos D'Amour: One of the Starbucks shift-supervisors was blasting this song one night while she and I were closing, and it was sandwiched for some reason between a couple of White Stripes songs. Andy Summers' guitar solo on this one just rocks, too. By the way, if anyone could buy me Message in a Box, that'd be great.
- The Psychedelic Furs, "Pretty in Pink," Pretty in Pink Soundtrack: Now, why a John Hughes movie would be named after a Psychedelic Furs song is completely beyond me, but my college English teacher once referenced the group as an example of inserting extra syllables into otherwise proper poetic meter. I was the only person in the class who had ever heard of the band.
- Eric Clapton, "Promises," Cream of Clapton: Okay, so it sounds more like country than proper Clapton, but it's a song that works pretty well when you're drinking to forget all about "Monsters and Angels." One verse goes, "I don't care what you do at night, and I don't care how you get your delights; I'll leave you alone, I'll just let it be; I don't love you and you don't love me." And yet it's all bullshit.
- Seaweed, "Go Your Own Way," Clerks Soundtrack: And then this one just pushes you off the edge and makes you say the big, "Fuck you," to your ex, after you cry about it from the last few songs I referenced. This version's a lot more crunchy than the Fleetwood Mac version, which is why I went with this one, rather than the original.
- Rush, "Spirit of the Radio," Permanent Waves: I never really listened to Rush prior to last year. I was in a rock band at school, and the day-band (I was in the night-band) played this song, because they had a guitarist who was absolutely fucking awesome. They blew the top off of the place, and then the day-band just basically had to go, "Okay, and now we're going to play blues songs, goodnight to you rock fans." This song just fucking rocks.
- Chris Cornell, "Sunshower," Great Expectations Soundtrack: This song is just gorgeous. There's no other reason or explanation. Gorgeous.
- Dave Brubeck, "Take Five," Dave Brubeck's Greatest Hits: On Wednesday night's episode of The West Wing, there was this bizarre visual exchange involving the sort-of drum solo in the middle of the song, involving Kate Harper and Will Bailey. The two kept looking at each other while the other one wasn't, and it was just really funny for some reason.
- The Eagles, "Take It Easy," Hell Freezes Over: I used to love country music back when it was all about driving your big rig. It sucks now, but it was great back then. While this is technically "California rock," it's still a great and classic song.
- Alanis Morissette, "That I Would Be Good," Unplugged: Again, it's only on here because it reminds me of one of my ex-girlfriends. And that's a good thing.
- The Ending, "The Ending," (album not yet released): This is my friend Louie's band, and the two songs that they have up on their web page rock. It's always good to see that Louie can still write songs that are terribly catchy almost every time he decides to write one. It's been like that since high school, and I hate him for being able to do it.
- The Offspring, "The Kids Aren't Alright," Americana: This song rocks and makes me drive way too fast. I have to say that I hated Smash, but Ixnay on the Hombre and Americana were very good albums, although I liked a lot of the songs on Americana a lot less after they were used in Crazy Taxi.
- Nada Surf, "The Way You Wear Your Head," Let Go: A fairly rockin' song, which misquotes Cheap Trick at one point, it's punchy and fun like the Breeders' version of "Flipside," but without the whole surf-vibe and with words. So it's basically nothing like it, but it's just fun, nonetheless.
- Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road," Born to Run: This is the song for the guy who just wants to pick up his (or anyone else's) girl and get the hell out of the craptastic town he was born and raised in.
- Primitive Radio Gods, "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Change in My Hand," Rocket: Hell, at the moment, even I'm trying to remember why this song's on here, other than because it's just nice to zone out to.
- Five Year Jacket, "Unlovable," Bootleg: It's live Five Year Jacket, it's good. Nothing else to say, there. By the way, do not take that to mean you should go see Five Year Jacket now, because you shouldn't. Reportedly, they really suck lately.
- U2, "Vertigo," How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb: Not until I listened to this on my iPod did I realize how cool it can be to discretely separate bass and guitar onto right and left channels. This song rocks as well as anything that U2's ever done.
- U2, "With or Without You," The Joshua Tree: It's great for that melancholy moment that just comes about from time to time. Not to get everyone else into that mood, but we've all had this relationship; most of us probably have several times.
- Elton John, "Your Song," Elton John: The only moment in Moulin Rouge that I like is when Ewan McGregor starts singing this song. I started listening to Elton John almost immediately after seeing Almost Famous, which makes me wonder why "Tiny Dancer" isn't anywhere in my playlist.
- The Cranberries, "Zombie," No Need to Argue: Despite the death of Kurt Cobain, 1994 was still a good year for music. As noted with Elastica earlier, the U.K. was just sending us everything during those years (remember Oasis?). Anyway, I still think that Dolores O'Riordan has an elf in her throat that sings for her. With regard to this song, the only reason to listen to it is for the end of the song when the drummer just gets to go apeshit.
- The Ending, "Agoraphobia," (album not yet released): Again, it's on their website for download, and it's terribly catchy, influenced in parts by 80's hair-band rock, early 90's alternative, and probably about six other things that make me think there really aren't any other bands out there that sound like this. I hate Louie for being able to write catchy songs, especially the guitar solo.
- U2, "All I Want Is You," Reality Bites Soundtrack: I used to love the movie Reality Bites, but now it's just one of those things that I'd only watch if it was on television and whatever was on PBS and the History Channel were totally devoid of anything interesting. However, this song runs over the credits, I think, and The Edge's guitar solo at the end of the song is pretty nifty.
- Andrew W.K., "Party Hard," I Get Wet: Andrew W.K., for those of you who don't know, are what Ben Folds would be after three days without sleep, fueled by nothing but beer and Dexatrim. He is undoubtedly the king of the party, with three songs on I Get Wet with the word "party" in them. It's just great, fun music, I tell you.
- Aphex Twin, "O Fortuna (remix)," (no idea what album): Other than Wagner's "Ring Cycle," Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana," from which "O Fortuna" (also known as "the Excalibur song") is taken is probably the only opera that I'd ever like to see. It's just a great song in its original state, and the Aphex Twin remix changes it so that I want to drive really fast while listening to it.
- Five Year Jacket, "Aristotle," Bootleg: Probably one of my three favorite songs by Five Year Jacket, partly because I can play it on my guitar without any problem, partly because it's the first song I ever heard them play.
- Pearl Jam, "Baba O'Riley," (one of my many Pearl Jam live albums): This song (commonly mislabeled "Teenage Wasteland") is, bar none, my favorite song by The Who. I have no fucking idea how Mike McCready can play the organ part on guitar, but it works, and the end result is the song just rocks.
- Bruce Springsteen, "Badlands," Darkness on the Edge of Town: It's Springsteen. If there's anyone that I love listening to almost as much as Five Year Jacket, it's Springsteen. By the way, in about five, ten years, if anyone wants to start a Springsteen cover-band with me, let me know.
- Bruce Springsteen, "Born to Run," Born to Run: "In the day we sweat it out on the streets of the runaway American dream, at night we ride through mansions of glory on our suicide machines." If comedian Robert Wuhl is to be believed, New Jersey actually considered this song to be a replacement for their state anthem. In any case, this song rocks from the opening drum beats to the last "Whoa-oh-oh-oh-ohhhhhh..."
- Pearl Jam, "Breath," Singles Soundtrack: This was probably the last really good Pearl Jam song, before they decided to go and start self-producing. I'm sorry, but ten was a really great album, possibly because there was a record company looking over their shoulder, rather than in spite of it. I bought vs., then Vitalogy, and now I just buy the live albums, because -like KISS- they're better live than in a studio.
- Bruce Springsteen, "Brilliant Disguise," Tunnel of Love: Everyone has two faces. Maybe I'm wrong here, and I'm just a liar and I surround myself with people like myself, but I think everyone has things that they keep from their friends and lovers, either because it would hurt themselves or the other person. No matter the level of intimacy, there's always something; not necessarily a major sin, but often something along the line of Jimmy Carter cheating in his heart. That's what I get from this song.
- Five Year Jacket, "Bring Me Back," Bootleg: This song just fucking rocks, and that's why it was the closer for most shows. I've used this song to rationalize my relationships (regardless of level of involvement) with women for a couple of years now, and that's probably why I dig it so much. Other than, again, the song fucking rocks.
- Echo and the Bunnymen, "Bring on the Dancing Horses," Pretty in Pink Soundtrack: I never really liked this song until it was on the rotation at Starbucks. I have no idea why a twenty year-old song was in the rotation, but listening to it reminds me of happy afternoons when it wasn't busy, before the bimbo-boxes (minivans) would hit my drive-thru and order their decaffeinated lattes.
- Bruce Springsteen, "Secret Garden," Greatest Hits: It's from Jerry Maguire, which is a Cameron Crowe movie, which means that it ends up on the list. I suppose I should also put Neil Young's "The Needle and the Damage Done" on here, but this one's Springsteen, so it gets priority.
- Chantal Kreviazuk, "Leaving on a Jet Plane," Armageddon Soundtrack: Jack up the bass and let this song blow a hole right through your body. Seriously, you'd never think it was there. In any case, this is a John Denver song, redone for a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, but it works.
- Coldplay, "Clocks," A Rush of Blood to the Head: Prior to this song, I never thought music could cascade, like snow flying down from the sky, hitting the ground and then flying back up to get blown back down again. Just fucking gorgeous.
- Coldplay, "Yellow (live)," Live 2003: I don't like this song that much. Don't know why it's on here. It reminds me of yellow, now that I look up at the previous song's description.
- Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Come Back Down," Pale: It's catchy, and not annoying like some of the stuff off of Fear. Not much more to it than that.
- Billy Idol, "Cradle of Love," Charmed Life: This song fucking rocks, probably the last time Billy Idol made a song that did so. However, what sends this song over the top for me is that hearing it reminds me of the David Fincher video, with the uptight business guy and the jailbait girl who comes over and just fucks up everything for his world. If you remember the video, just try and tell me you don't still think of it from time to time.
- Dave Matthews Band, "Crash Into Me," Crash: Yeah, it reminds me of that ex-girlfriend again. Different reason for liking the song, though, was that I once had to drive with my sister, her husband, and my nephew to Ohio. My nephew was like a year old at the time, and he didn't care for driving five miles, let alone a six hour drive to Ohio. Strangely, the Crash album was like dosing the kid up with two Valiums and a shot of Stoli. Kid was out like a light.
- Cream, "Sunshine of Your Love," Disraeli Gears: This is the song that got me into Clapton. One day in sixth or seventh grade, I got a hold of my parents' record collection, and after sifting out all of the garbage, I was left with The Doors, the Stones, the Beatles, and this group named Cream. Now, I'd heard of Clapton, so I put on Disraeli Gears, and I was just fucking blown away. "Tales of Brave Ulysses" was pretty damn good, too. For how good the three albums were, you'd never think that the band was only together for about two years.
- Cream, "Crossroads," Wheels of Fire: How can you not absolutely love it? This covered Robert Johnson way before people were just covering Johnson for the sake of it being cool (read: the 90's). This song just fucking rocks, pretty much because of Clapton's guitar work, but pull out the right headphone and listen to Jack Bruce go apeshit on the bass during the solo.
- Billy Idol, "Dancing With Myself," Greatest Hits: Actually, the version that I'm listening to is the extended version, because you can actually hear the part where they truncated about forty seconds out of the song on the Greatest Hits disc. This might be from my Vital Idol import. In any case, Idol did this one with Generation X just before he went out on his own, because Generation X was just a little too disco. If you listen to this one, you can tell how it was built for dance clubs, whereas Rebel Yell... yeah, nothing you can do with that one but fuck, I guess. Just kidding. Had to see if anyone was paying attention this far down.
- Journey, "Don't Stop Believin'," Escape: The night-band played this one, too. Their guitarist had an effects pedal bigger than my guitar. However, he played the Neil Schon part just about perfectly, and that's pretty much the highlight of the song. I should also add that Escape was pretty much the high point of Journey, with the lineup of Steve Perry, Neil Schon, Jonathan Cain, Ross Valory, and Steve Smith. Just don't watch the videos and see what they looked like, because you'll just go, "Fuckin' 80's rejects..."
- Aerosmith, "Dream On," Last Action Hero Soundtrack: The movie sucks, but the soundtrack is pretty good for hard rock. This version of "Dream On," if I'm not mistaken is from one of the MTV Video Music Awards shows, where Steven Tyler was flown in, piano and all, from the rafters, with the band playing in front of a full orchestra led by the late Michael Kamen. I thought it was the coolest thing the VMA's had ever done until an operatic choir backed up Kid Rock on "Bawitdaba," which then brought out Run-DMC and Joe Perry and Steven Tyler to do "Walk This Way." This was arguably eclipsed a couple of years ago when the new Guns 'N' Roses did a couple of songs at the end of the show. Fuck you, I loved it.
- Elastica, "Stutter," Elastica: This song is probably the most rockin' thing on the CD, and is yet another case of making me want to drive really fast.
- Five Year Jacket, "Everything," Bootleg: It's the bootleg. It's my recording. I get to put it on whatever playlist I want. So there.
- Journey, "Faithfully," Greatest Hits: It's a good song, but it really doesn't belong on the playlist. Entirely too depressing in a 1986 prom-song kind of way.
- Rob Zombie, "Feel So Numb," The Sinister Urge: I love listening to Rob Zombie. I mean, you pretty much get exactly what you would expect from looking at the guy on the album cover, sort of like GWAR. In any case, I threw this one on, because I once saw a pretty cool Evangelion anime music video done up to this song, so it reminds me of Asuka from Evangelion. And, if you know Evangelion, you're probably hot for Asuka, too.
- The Cult, "Fire Woman," Sonic Temple: This song is like the greatest thing my sister ever gave me, having left her Sonic Temple cassette behind when she moved out of the house when she was eighteen. Great album, but this song is the highlight. Why? You guessed it, because it fucking rocks.
- Counting Crows, "Ghost in You," Clueless Soundtrack: This is a cover of a Psychedelic Furs song. Granted, I like the Furs version better, but it wasn't so easy to get a hold of. I also like the movie Clueless, because I'm a closet Jane Austen fan. Or maybe it's because Alicia Silverstone is hot. Or was. I haven't seen her lately, but she probably still is.
- Nada Surf, "Inside of Love," Let Go: This one was on the rotation at Starbucks, and I had no idea what the name was, so every time it would come on, I'd refer to it as "the Dawson's Creek song." Not that it was on the show, but it sounds kind of like it should have been, and I don't mean that in an overplayed "Paula Cole has no more career because of that show" kind of way. It's a really good song, and probably the highlight of the album, which is also surprisingly decent.
- Five Year Jacket, "Brand New," Bootleg: This one's a nice enough song, but I think the best part might be Jay (the former bass player and all-around good guy) introduces the band: "All right, oh well, we are Five Year Jacket, and this our second time here at Fat Daddy'z. That's right, woo-hoo!" It's a good thing it was a really good show, because I only had about four cigarettes and one beer to get me through the night because I was between jobs at the time.
- Five Year Jacket, "Just Like Heaven," Bootleg: "This is like one of the few covers that I still enjoy," says Kevin while strumming the opening chords. Makes you wonder how often it was actually fun and how often it was just going through the motions to get paid at the end of the night. While most of the New Year's show recording was totally useless, this one came through very well, which is why it got on the Bootleg CD and on to this playlist.
- Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Little Heaven," Buffy the Vampire Slayer Soundtrack: No, not the television show, everyone. This is the prom-song from the movie with Kristy Swanson and Luke Perry (yes, Luke Perry). It's a very pretty song, and it's from something Buffy, so it must be good. I miss Toad the Wet Sprocket, and I missed my chance to see Glen Phillips in Chicago a couple of months ago. Saw the ad in the Reader the day after the show.
- Nazareth, "Love Hurts," Nazareth: It's a nice song, really melancholy, but the real reason that it's on here is because I don't have the Gram Parsons version, so this will have to do.
- Five Year Jacket, "Magnetic," Bootleg: Song fucking rocks. That's all there is to it. Probably my favorite Five Year Jacket song, and they just never played it often enough.
- Smashing Pumpkins, "Mayonaise," Siamese Dream: Y'know, Siamese Dream was just a great album. A little overproduced, but that's just Butch Vig for you. It's one of the signature albums of the early Nineties, and this happens to be my favorite song from it, probably because it didn't get overplayed like half of the album did.
- Smashing Pumpkins, "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness," Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness: Just a little piano piece that starts out the double-disc album. It's pwetty.
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