Song of the Day: T-Rex - Spaceball Ricochet

The Slider remains T-Rex’s magnum opus, only slightly topping the 1971 masterpiece Electric Warrior. Marc Bolan achieved this by focussing on that album’s main strengths, namely a combination of groove-rock and affecting balladry. “Spaceball Ricochet” fits into the latter, sparsely rendered (aside from brief introductory and concluding cello) on acoustic guitar, low-level bass and beautiful vocal harmonies. The song is lyrically oblique, but seems to snapshot Bolan’s life at the peak of his career. That Bolan makes lines like “with my Les Paul, I know I’m small but I enjoy living anyway” and “what can I do? we all live in a zoo, all I do is play the spaceball ricochet” sound emotionally involving is a testament to his immense talent and/or charisma. One of the finest cuts from T-Rex’s softer output.

Song of the Day: MIA - It Takes A Muscle

Since I haven't posted in a while (the busy summer schedule dragged me away!) I'm going to post a second song of the day, one that's had my attention most of this season.

MIA's newest release Maya has divided critics, some hailing her third album as a continuation of the exciting eclecticism of her first two albums (with Drowned In Sound describing it as "bold, inventive and occasionally thrilling") and others finding the album a simply baffling, alienating listen (or as Pitchfork put it: "it's as if everything that was great about M.I.A. has been stripped from this music, leaving behind only the most alienating aspects of her art and public persona.")

I would tend toward the former opinion: Maya is a challenging album, and all the better for it. At times the music sounds like an auditory ambush, instruments careening from ear to ear and occasionally descending into cacophany. Primarily the mood is that of digital-age paranoia and terror, but there are light moments scattered throughout. One of these is "It Takes A Muscle," a cover of Dutch band Spectral Display's synth-pop original. Bathed in reggae rhythms and defined by a sugar-sweet melody, MIA's vocals hover over the instrumentation, distant yet completely in keeping with the song's composition. Lyrics like "you've got to love one another, that's what the good man says" sound resplendant in MIA's cool, echoed tones, making this the perfect summer song, especially when placed in the context of the awesome, jarring surroundings of Maya.

Song of the Day: Gene Vincent - Cat Man

The narrative of early rock n roll is a well-known one – a burst of rebellion, quickly submerged into the mainstream showbiz abyss, a journey typically connected with Elvis Presley. Of course, revisionism is a strong component of music criticism precisely because such narratives are coarsely simplistic and reductionist (indeed, some of Presley’s late 60s albums are considered among his best). What is often forgotten is the embedded radicalism of many of the early rock n roll songs.

“Cat Man” is a superbly sinister song; maybe it’s the squeamish guitar lines, Vincent’s anguished shouts, the typical rockabilly reverb – or most importantly, maybe it’s the title character, who the lyrics portray as some sort of sexual predator. Either way, this song embodies the below-the-surface sexuality and violence present in many early rockabilly tracks.

Song of the Day: The Inspiral Carpets - She Comes In The Fall

The Inspiral Carpets remain one of the most underrated acts of later psychedelic music. While their output could be patchy, the number of stand out tracks make up for any filler padding out their albums. Matching psychedelia with contemporary alternative rock, they were classed alongside leading lights the Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses with the "Madchester" scene, which later expanded geographically into "baggy." The most important aspect of that style was (as mentioned before) the merging of older psychedelia with later styles like indie or house music. The Inspiral Carpets took the psychedelic influence the furthest, at the most extreme sounding like a slightly late addition to the Nuggets canon.

A true gem in their back catalogue, "She Comes In The Fall" throws prominent organ lines into a frenetic, rolling mix. Exhilerating and an excellent introduction to the band.

Song of the Day: The Doors - Blue Sunday

Morrison Hotel, the album that followed the stylistic experiments of Waiting for the Sun and The Soft Parade, is often viewed as The Doors going "back to basics," drawing more on blues and basic hard rock as opposed to the strings, brass and softer lyrical themes of those two albums. As with most tenets of rock mythology, this is a simplistic, reductionist way of looking at the band's evolution. In reality, the lines between these three albums are illusionary, blurred by exceptions here and there that betray the strict divisions favoured by some. Songs like "Not to Touch the Earth," "My Wild Love," "Five to One" and "The Soft Parade" contain stylistic experimentation and often disturbing lyrics and atmosphere, defying the consensus that they are overtly commercial works. Similarly defiant, "Blue Sunday" from Morrison Hotel showcases a soft, restrained rhythm section bathed in resplendant organ lines. Thematically, Morrison penned a love song, complimenting the music perfectly and collectively creating one of the finest songs in The Doors' back catalogue. Not only does "Blue Sunday" demonstrate the dual nature that defined the majority of their career, it also destroys the notion that the love song and "softness" represents a sell out or a regression into despised showbiz pop.

Song of the Day: Snoop Dogg - Murder Was The Case

While Snoop Dogg is today portrayed as something of a fun-loving pimp figure, back when he still had "Doggy" in his name his persona was a lot more sinister, bolstered by real life brushes with the law (shortly after the release of Doggystyle he was charged with murder, but later acquitted). "Murder Was The Case" captures this atmosphere of dark menace through ominous synths, while Snoop's rapping veers between nonchalance and distress, fitting the lyrical themes of mortality, the afterlife, and the consequences of a materialistic lifestyle.

Song of the Day: Meg Baird - Maiden In The Moor Lay

Meg Baird's 2007 album Dear Companion stands out as one of the highlights of 21st century folk, a status gained not just through flawless vocals, arrangements and writing, but by its heavy debt to the golden age of early 70s British folk. While Espers tend toward a heavier interpretation of psych-folk, Baird's solo effort leans toward a lighter interpretation of the genre. "Maiden In The Moor Lay" showcases Baird's talent superbly, an arrangement of a medieval English folk song that evokes that sense of idyllic medievalism by its arrangement and Baird's frayed vocals. These reach their epoch in the last seconds of the song, rising and ending with a glorious vocal harmony.

Song of the Day: Cosmosis - Cannabanoid

One of the finest examples of goa trance, Cosmosis's "Cannabanoid" from their 1996 album Cosmology encapsulates that genre (and its associated style, psytrance) in a space of seven minutes. The emotions captured in this track, from soaring euphoria to wild-eyed anxiety, are a perfect espousal of goa/psy's merits; the genres drag the light and dark of psychedelia firmly into the framework of electronic dance - "Cannabanoid" sums up how glorious this prospect can sound when it works.