Fans of Snow Patrol’s third album should be satisfied with their fourth, Eyes Open. Give the boys credit, they stuck to the template that made Final Straw such a success. “Hands Open” is this year’s “Chocolate,” while “Chasing Cars” seems to have the same framework as “Run.”
You can hear both songs on the band’s My Space page.
I don’t know the first thing about this guy, I admit it…but you know how sometimes a person will do a cover song, and their interpretation of the song is just SO GOOD that you immediately want to know more about their original material?
This is that kind of cover. You can check out a sample of it here; it’s taken from his second (and, as far as I can tell, most recent), 2000’s Special Delivery, and it’s available for download on eMusic. Now that I’ve gotten this song (which I only found when, in a post-concert Thomas Dolby glow, I tried to find something by Dolby that I didn’t already have), I’m definitely going back for the whole thing.
Read the entire Pearl Jam Deep Cuts list, and check out Bullz-Eye’s review of the new self-titled Pearl Jam album.
A confession: I can’t remember the last time I played Ten start to finish. It’s been years, quite a few of them, in fact. And yet, I’m one of the biggest Pearl Jam fans you’d ever meet. So why have I neglected Ten, one of the defining albums of the 1990s and the most significant release in my own music universe, for so long? I guess I’ve outgrown it. It’s no big deal. I’m not putting it down, and I’m certainly not forgetting the impact it had on me and so many others more than a decade ago. The album just doesn’t ring true for me anymore.
In a very tangible way, I’ve grown up with Pearl Jam, or at least with their discography. Every release had songs that I instantly and eagerly latched onto, some admittedly more than others, and more than a few of those songs have provided me with insight into some of my own questions about life. Now, 12 years after I first heard “Black” on the bus ride to a track meet in high school, I don’t have those same questions. I’m about to turn 30, so I guess that’s a good thing. I just hope kids in high school today are listening to Ten.
So consider this all a disclaimer, because you’ll only find one song from Ten on this list of Pearl Jam Deep Cuts, and just one from Vs., the band’s sophomore release. Aside from the reasons I laid out above, everyone’s heard Ten and most people have heard Vs. too, so uncovering more than one or two true deep cuts from each album is next to impossible. Besides, the music from the band’s more recent releases, including their new self-titled album, is simply better than the stuff they were putting out in the early ‘90s. It’s true. Just like I’ve outgrown Ten and the whole grunge “thing,” Pearl Jam has too.
“Porch” – Ten
Like so many people, I played Ten to death, but I couldn’t kill “Porch.” For a long time, “Black” was my favorite cut off their debut but, while “Black” has faded a bit, “Porch” has endured. Nobody knew it at the time, but this song offered the clearest preview of what was to come. In fact, without “Porch,” there may never have been a “Corduroy,” and see if the opening riff of “Severed Hand,” off the band’s latest album, sounds at all familiar. Forget why you used to love Pearl Jam so much? Play this song.
“Leash” – Vs.
“Drop the leash, drop the leash / GET OUTTA MY FUCKIN FACE!” Gee, why did high school boys dig this song so much? This song should’ve made it clear to everyone that Pearl Jam was more than just a grunge band. “Leash” is one ballsy rocker that still sounds great 13 years later.
“Last Exit” – Vitalogy
Those who claim Pearl Jam went soft with Vitalogy need only listen to the album’s first track to drop that notion. Raw, defiant and edgy, “Last Exit” is the pitch-perfect opener for Vitalogy, an album crammed with jagged lyrics, crunching guitars and bold experimentation. It also served as an early notice from the band, an indication that things were going to be a little different this time around. Listen to Eddie roar, “Let my spirit paa-aaaass!” and try calling him a softie.
“Whipping” – Vitalogy
One of the best cuts from Vitalogy is the single “Not for You,” in which Eddie shouts at everyone greedily clutching his band’s coattails, “This is not for you / Oh, it never was for you / Fuck you!” That retaliatory mood also churns throughout “Whipping,” a relentlessly paced song that confronts the backlash Pearl Jam experienced from fans, critics and label execs who resented the band’s refusal to stagnate and follow up Ten with Eleven: “They don’t want no change / We already have.” In many ways, “Whipping” represents a more mature and refined “Leash,” just as aggressive but much more focused, and instead of “Get outta my fuckin’ face!”, Eddie growls, “Don’t mean to push / but I’m being shoved!”
Find the entire list here.
I might have overrated the source album for this song (A Woman & A Man) when it first came out in 1996, but can you blame me…? Belinda – the second cutest Go-Go (because Jane Wiedlin will always have my heart) – hadn’t put out an album in three years, and her previous outing…Real…hadn’t been the most consistent of her solo works; in fact, it was such a commercial bomb that it ended up being her one and only release on Virgin.
A Woman & A Man was such a creative success, however, that it was easy to get swept up in it and…cough, cough…put it in your top 10 of the year; unfortunately, while the best tracks were released as singles in both the UK and Australia, the album came out in the States on Miles Copeland’s label, Ark 21, and died a quick death…so much so that, if we were fortunate enouh to get any singles in the US, I have absolutely no idea what they were! If we had, however, my picks would’ve been a tie between “Always Breaking My Heart,” written by Per Gessle from Roxette (who proves here that he can write a power pop song that can kick your ass), and this one.
“California” features Brian Wilson on very obvious (and very perfect) doo-wop styled backing vocals, as well as one of the great opening couplets of all time: “I remember I was in the tanning salon / When I heard that River Phoenix was gone.” I once read the track described as a cross between “California Dreaming” and X’s “Los Angeles,” and that’s not a bad comparison. Check it out; it’s on iTunes, or you can sample it via RealAudio here.
When I was five years old in 1977, my older brother brought home Billy Joel’s The Stranger LP. Something about that album got me all excited, and it is thanks to that experience that I became the music fan I am to this day. It seems a lot of people tend to deride Billy for whatever reasons, which has never really made much sense. The man has hit upon so many different styles of music in his career, that it seems nearly impossible to not like at least one of his songs.
In 2005, Joel released My Lives, a box set that concentrated mostly on album tracks instead of hit singles. Billy has often said that his own singles hardly tell the whole story about who he is as an artist and musician. Indeed, many of his best tunes are ones that were never released as singles. Therefore, coming up with a Deep Cuts by Billy Joel is pretty much a no-brainer. If nothing else, it can easily serve as a guide to those earlier albums that didn’t yield many hits, but had plenty of treasure hidden within nonetheless.
What follows then is a chronological album-by-album survey of the cream of Billy’s album cuts. Some you may be familiar with, others you may have no knowledge of whatsoever if you’re a casual fan. Hopefully, you’ll be able to explore Billy’s music further if you’re one of those folks who only owns his greatest hits collections. Those hits, great as they are, are truly only the tip of the iceberg. Billy’s best work has often been those “other” songs surrounding the hits. So without further ado, here are Billy Joel’s Deep Cuts.
All of the following were written by Billy Joel.
“Brain Invasion” – Attila
The Attila album is a hilarious, bombastic and failed exercise in the power duo genre (if such a thing exists). If you have to hear only one Attila song, then this is it. It’s a wild instrumental, showing off Billy’s knack for classical and jazz-infused themes as he blasts them out from his super-distorted organ. Drummer Jon Small bashes out the beats in a similarly-crazed fashion. It’s no wonder this band was a failure.
“You Can Make Me Free” – Cold Spring Harbor
When Billy’s botched debut was corrected and re-issued in 1983, some of the songs on the album had been changed. Some, like “Everybody Loves You Now,” had instruments added to them, while others were shortened. This song falls into the latter category (the original was over five minutes) and shows Billy giving it his best McCartney sounding style. The lyrics are all fluff, but Joel’s piano playing is powerful and his then-young voice quite soulful as well.
To see the complete list, jump here.
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