Feathered Arms: "Reload/Recharge"

It took 20 years, but the girl punk, not-quite-riot-grrl-but-right-there-on-the-fringes sound of female-driven, Pacific Northwest alt-rock circa 1992 has finally made its way to Sweden. "Reload/Recharge" has basically zero influences outside the brackets of 1988-1992, but it's all the better song for it, being a legitimately catchy tune making full use of a pre-existing template. If Belly staged a reunion they most likely couldn't come up with new material as compelling as what Feathered Arms have achieved here in their infancy.

Eels: "Peach Blossom"

Eels are one of those bands that have been kicking around for years, yet are still largely considered a one hit wonder by the public at large on the back of their 1996 smash "Novocaine for the Soul". Well shit y'all, the upcoming Wonderful, Glorious is actually the group's ninth album since the "Novocaine"-boasting Beautiful Freak sixteen years ago. First single "Peach Blossom" strongly recalls the minimalist riffing of both Spoon and vintage Weezer, which probably won't hurt anyone's feelings. It definitely harks back to that 90s heyday.

Throwback 1997 || Oasis: "Magic Pie"

...and with this fine LP Oasis were publicly cast upon the ash heap, forevermore to be seen and not heard.  I kept stumbling across video links to the new Noel Gallagher solo song in my RSS feed today, and since it's no more post-worthy than brother Liam's Beady Eye phone in I instead alighted to my youth, a time when I worked in the music department at Hastings and Be Here Now was one of the few legit rock albums in our playbin (couldn't offend the blue hairs shopping for books a couple of aisles over with thumping techno or JSBX, after all... though one day a particularly iconoclastic night manager allowed - nay, insisted - that I play the album of death metal Metallica covers that I'd just gotten via special order.  Watching all those customers walk around trying to pretend like absolutely nothing was wrong or out of the ordinary was a pretty amazing experience, and one which I still refer to in job interviews to this day).

Danger Mouse (feat. Jack White): "Two Against One"

I generally have a fundamental disagreement with people who think music was a lot better back in the day.  If you look at it from a strictly commercial, easily accessible POV then sure, rock probably peaked in the 70s.  It's hard to compare many artists after punk with the relatively straight forward styles of rock that came before it, but that's mostly because there haven't been many artists that have even attempted to be that straight forward since at least 1980... unless they were corporate media whores to begin with, a la Three Doors Down, Bush, etc.  Even the inexplicably beloved Foo Fighters are mostly revered because a) they've gone this long without out-and-out sucking, and b) Dave Grohl seems like he'd be a cool guy to get shitfaced with.  Still: no one is ever going to mistake "Stacked Actors" for "Dead Flowers".

Which is what makes Jack White such an anomaly.  You really do have to go all the way back to the 70s to find someone that can parlay as many well established, accessible styles into as diverse a portfolio of hit songs (or songs that should have been hits) as Jack White.  I'd rather drink with Grohl, but if I was putting a band together Jack White would be my guy.  Even U2 don't have as many great songs as White does, and they've been at for almost twenty years longer.

This song comes off the new Danger Mouse album (on which Italian composer Daniele Luppi receives co-billing credit), which is only guest star-laden to the extent that Jack White and Norah Jones sing three songs apiece.  "Two Against One" in particular sounds like one where White almost certainly had a major hand in the songwriting... strip away the faintly audible string section and this could easily be a White Stripes or Raconteurs song.

[EDIT 1/9/12: replacing the fan made video with an official video for posterity's sake]:

1990: "Doe", The Breeders

Kim Deal's lack of contributions may have made Bossanova a one dimensional Pixies record, but Pod proved Deal could beat Black Francis at his own game. Recruiting Tanya Donnelly from the Throwing Muses seemed like a masterstroke on paper, but in the end Donnelly's co-writing credits were limited to a single song, so from an artistic standpoint the Breeders were Kim Deal's baby from the start... a fact that undoubtedly fed into the Pixies' early demise as the last couple Pixies albums would essentially become Frank Black solo projects anyway.

So in the end, instead of another certified Pixies masterpiece we got two alumni records that were merely excellent. Btw, I have no fucking idea what's going on in this video, but the only other studio version that popped up on Youtube had terrible sound, so I decided to risk the "wtf?" factor to bring you better tuneage.

1990: "Is She Weird", Pixies

Pound for Pound Bossanova may not have been the smorgasbord of innovation and catchy tunes as the previous year's Doolittle, but songs like "Velouria" and "Havalina" proved that "Black Francis" aka Frank Black could still pen a jittery, melodic ditty when he wanted to (Kim Deal, while still a member of the Pixies, had started funneling her songwriting efforts into the Breeders, so all of Bossanova's 14 tracks - save a cover of the Surftones' "Cecilia Ann" - bear Black's authorship).

"Is She Weird" is a prime example of Black's outsider imagery and surrealist lyrics, observing "your heart is ripshit / your mouth is everywhere / I'm lying in it". It's best not to think too deeply on such matters.

1990: "Doesn't Anyone Believe", The Sidewinders

Tucson's Sidewinders never quite figured out whether they wanted to keep the fading jangle pop thing going, ply their trade in MOR-ready frat rock or emulate late period Replacements (choices which are not necessarily incompatible, mind you). "Doesn't Anyone Believe" finds them going the former route to decent if not stellar effect. Shortly afterward the band would find itself in a protracted lawsuit with a group that went by Sidewinder (note the singular) and would eventually change their own name to the Sand Rubies.

Really more than anything this song/band represents a sort of transition between the "college rock" of the 80s and a lot of the post-grunge, acoustic-heavy alternative bands of the mid-90s (ie. Gin Blossoms, Counting Crows, hell, even Better Than Ezra to an extent).