Throwback Tracks -- July 27, 2017
David R. Smith
Man. writing more than one article a week is hard. Plus I took a fish hook in the middle finger on Monday, so typing hurts. Clearly I'm just a mess this week!
That said, Thursday manages to come once a week, and I've made a commitment to you guys, so here we go. Another rousing edition of Throwback Tracks for you to enjoy!
There is a theme this week, but I'm not going to tell you what it is. You might be able to guess it, though I doubt it. In any case, this week's theme is for me; I just want you to enjoy the tunes.
:-)
The Guys From do not hold the rights to any of these songs, it is more our hope to expose our readers to new (*cough*) and different retro music, or re-expose them to things they may have forgotten about.
At the top of each section, will be the song name, followed by the artists' name linked to their website (if possible...which is totally hit and miss with oldies), so you can fall down the rabbit hole, finding and supporting what you dig.
What I Got - Sublime
Sublime is interesting to me. I always seem to keep them at arms length, even though I tend to find I love a lot of their songs. When I was in university and we'd go to the bar, Santeria was often a song the DJ would play. For some reason, I really didn't want to listen to it. Now I love it.
Part of the reason I probably didn't want to listen to Santeria was because I've always loved this song so much. In my opinion, I probably thought, "Why play Santeria, when they have a vastly superior song in What I Got?"
In all honesty, that line of thinking hasn't altered much. While I've changed my tune (heh) on Santeria, I still think that What I Got is the best thing Sublime has ever done. And I don't care which version you listen to; they're both great.
Fun fact: as I write TBT, I listen to each song as I type. Sometimes, depending on song length (and how verbose I feel like being) I don't finish my write-up on a song by the time it's done playing. YouTube will then play the next song in the lineup. What followed What I Got? None other than Santeria. Let me tell you: still a great song... still not as great as What I Got.
Sweet Dream - Jethro Tull
The only track on this week's list that came out anywhere near the 90s. This song came out in 1978. Right in the height of the Tull.
This song may not be one of their more famous songs. And someday, when I'm feeling particularly cheeky, I'll do the "Longest songs ever" list and have all 43:00 of Thick As A Brick on here. But not today. Today we get to listen to just a standard Jethro Tull song.
I've always been a fairly large fan of this band. A lot of that love came from the fact that I recognized the name from history. Anybody who names their band after an inventor who helped the Agricultural Revolution has to be cool. (Watch out for Eli Whitney; they're going to be huge.)
While known for being a band that incorporates the flute in a lot of their songs (see? Cool.) this song doesn't have a lot of it. It does have a lot of horns in it... But that doesn't matter. It's still a bad ass song and, in my opinion, one of their best.
Scared - The Tragically Hip
Oof. This song. This song is everything to me. It's interesting that it's essentially about a door-to-door salesman whose services are making people scared. And he just comes up with different scenarios to try and put fear into people. What a concept.
I don't know how Gord Downie thought these lyrics up. But my god, am I glad he did. I'm not going to get into how I reacted to this song a year ago when I saw it in person. You can read that here, if you want. But rest assured, hearing the end evokes the same reaction now, as I did a year ago.
I love this song. I love this band. I don't know what else I can say about it...
MFC - Pearl Jam
Whaaaa? Dave is following up a song by one of his two favourite bands with a song by his other favourite band? He's posting a Pearl Jam song on Throwback Tracks? This is all so unexpected! Who'd have thought??
Yeah, well, it's what I do.
One of the shortest songs Pearl Jam has ever recorded. (I assume Soon Forget has the actual honour of shortest PJ song. But I can't post that one because it came out in 2000...) This song is from the album, Yield. Yield is the last album of Pearl Jam's that came out before 2000 so you'll be seeing more songs from this album in the future.
I also wanted to follow up Scared with something fast. And this song is perfect for that. Pearl Jam actually has a song that they play before this at some concerts. It's just called Untitled. And the two blend so well together. They will also play MFC on its own. I know this because I have seen MFC live, but have yet to see Untitled. Sigh.
Anyway.
This song is one of those songs that when I hear it, I can't listen to it only once. It goes by too fast and I just love it too much. So do yourself a favour; listen to it, restart it and listen to it again. It's worth it.
Today - Smashing Pumpkins
Another Smashing Pumpkins song, another excuse use this:
This is probably my favourite song of theirs. While I do love many Smashing Pumpkins songs, this one has the most heart to it, in my opinion.
Such a simple, beautiful intro. Just a simple guitar riff on the upper end of the neck, and then it just blasts into a gorgeous song.
Why did Billy Corgan have to turn into such a pretentious douche? I mean; I'm pretty sure he always was, but the more you hear about the things he says, the more I wonder about him and the more it tends to sully all the great things he did. Like appearing on the Simpsons. And writing this song. Because this song is amazing. But at least we'll always have this photo:
I literally typed in "Billy Corgan sad ride" and this came up repeatedly. This picture fills my heart with glee.
That's the list, this week, friends! A song from the 70s and then a whole lotta 90s. You're welcome. Next week all these should be compiled into a July playlist, as this is the last week of July. So you can get that from Apple Music when the first August playlist drops. In the meantime: the June playlist is available. Note, something new we're trying is now the June playlist is also avaliable on Spotify so if you'd rather go there... do it!
Here are the rest of the playlists that aren't available on Spotify.
Throwback Playlist for Dec 16/Jan 17
October 2016 Throwback Playlist,
September 2016 Throwback Playlist
HBD SMS
-D (@davidronn)