max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular

#985: kool a.d. - dum diary (2012)

according to the producer amaze 88, he was in an overly-fancy san francisco studio eating chinese food when kool a.d. happened to start rapping: “when he came out of the booth we all had a wow face on. it was a first take on both of our parts and i felt blessed to be apart of it. i still do. he texted me a few days later about doing a shorter version. he felt like it was a little too long. i emphatically said “if you feel like it is then i’ll record another one half the time than the original. but personally i think what you did was bananas and people are gonna flip when they hear this. it’s classic material period. how many times do you hear someone going off like that for ten minutes? never.” kool a.d. for secretary of state! victor vazquez for poet laureate! greedhead is the new young money! amaze 88 is the prefuse 73 of san fransisco rap booths, and the wow face is the name of my new rap magazine.

#935: the wowz - sometimes i feel life (2008)

the press page for the wowz doesn’t list any reviews since 2006, the year i graduated from college, even though live videos of their sad, lovely, bent, acidic (in both ways) love songs prove they’ve been around longer and have taken at least one trip to rural norway. and if that’s true, i don’t know why the dirty projectors, the other sad and bent band from the early century at yale, gets to make albums about mountains and grapefruits and orcas with bjork while sometimes i feel life stays off the million mix tapes it belongs on. if someone can get the harlem shakes together again i’ll ask the women’s center for a wowz-shakes double bill—brings a tear to the eye even thinking about it.

#881: bill callahan - riding for the feeling (2011)

ladies and gentlemen… boys and girls… divorcés and divorcées… cuckolds and orphans! this is the super groovy spectacular’s music video of the year.

it’s the famous twist ending that really grabbed the jurors’ heart.

mr. callahan is a two-time winner tonight: the piano part on the same album’s closer, one fine morning, is taking home the renowned thing of the year award, obviously.

#871: antony and the johnsons - thank you for your love (2010)

for reasons that are currently too complex to discuss i didn’t listen to all of antony and the johnson’s the crying light and swanlights, and for that matter somehow didn’t open my copy of robert penn warren’s all the king’s men, until this past week. the albums are like the kid a and amnesiac of decaying forests and fluttered eyelashes and empty bedsheets and throbbing clarinets. and so far all the king’s men is better than both randy newman’s good old boys and a.j. leibling’s the earl of louisiana, which is unlikely and immense. i am grateful for them.

#851: beyonce - countdown (2011)

there’s a certain feisty counting song whose music video became very famous despite resembling an old navy ad directed by obsessive compulsives who subscribe to tones, the complimentary quarterly newsletter from the pantone swatches company. this is the heaven to that hell: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 beats 1-2-3-4.

this video can grin just as wide, except when it scowls. it takes the inspired sections of the periodically annoyingly cute schoolyard antics of tune-yards’ bizness or even maybe the decemberists’ 16 military wives before it, tangling them up with the demented shimmying grins of single ladies.

but, above all, it nods to what many informed r&b music videos scholars consider the crowing achievement of the form—say its name and it appears.

update: see also the awl’s dave bry on countdown’s tom petty (!) connection.

#848: radiohead - dollars and cents (2001)

radiohead songs, in chronological order, that would make for good celebratory headlines in tomorrow’s papers for radiohead’s rumored #occupywallstreet concert: million dollar question, the trickster, karma police, lucky, how i made my millions, the national anthem, optimistic, knives out, dollars and cents, hail to the thief (an album title, but it counts), we suck young blood, a wolf at the door, house of cards and little by little.

radiohead songs that would make for good condescending headlines: you never wash up after yourself, (nice dream), sulk, street spirit (fade out) and paranoid android.

#832: gza & wavves - liquid swords (2011)

wavves playing with 1995’s most interesting rapper and later getting “walked out by security because of screaming girl fans!” in summer of 2011 is the new wavves playing with 2007’s most interesting r&b producer and publicly insulting the new york observer in summer of 2010. remember summer ‘10? mem-o-ries.

#821: amy winehouse - back to black interview (2005)

“it’s the same as the last one. it’s about things going wrong. we did the most horrible things that people who love each other could do. i think it was a case of, we met too young, we weren’t prepared for the way we felt about each other. it was too much. it was too intense. i got myself into a real dark place.”

amy winehouse is dead at age 27*

*there is a wikipedia page about this phenomenon

#800 - bonnie ‘prince’ billy - there is no god (2011)

max abelson’s super groovy music video spectacular and will “bonnie ‘prince’ billy” oldham present: the super groovy music video spectacular’s 800th video spectacular, featuring the nine best will oldham-related videos, in order:

9. i am goodbye (2009) - “birds, babies, harps, rainbows, penguins and daffodils will congregate”

8. dear old stepstone (2006) - “the marvelettes’ gladys horton died this week. she made hand claps sound like tubas”

7. kiss (2007) - “throw some strings in there and maybe have will oldham dress up in a crown and skeleton costume and do some harmonies”

6. another day full of dread (1999) - just saw this for the first time today. christ.

5. lay and love (2006) - “if anyone has any good house-hunting ideas, like a free room somewhere nearby, please email”

4. no more workhorse blues (2004) - “the man has a bottle of bad bourbon where his broken heart used to be; he makes johnny cash look like a smiley lightweight.”

3. can’t tell me nothing (2008) - “a ok!”

2. there is no god (2011) - yes there is, and his last name rhymes with “told ‘em”

1. trapped in the closet, ch 15(2007) - “mustachioed policeman.”

#794: tune yards - bizness (2011)

probably the most upsetting scandal in the contemporary american indie-rock music video scene so far this year: why on earth the elementary school section of tune yards’ bizness ends after only 80 seconds. nothing at all against all the multihued adult modern dance that comes afterwards, but those kids! they make the james taylor sesame street classic jelly man kelly look like it’s full of senior citizens. someone should get the children of ps 22 on the phone and see if they might be able to come up with a solution.

#782: elliott smith - christian brothers (2000, seattle)

probably the definitive easter song.

#774: the bad news step team - step! clap! go! ad (2011)

whenever i think of the word fashion, i think of that terrifying fake bunny hop that david bowie does in the beginning of you-know-what, plus also the flying burrito brothers tune high fashion queen (the one with the very sad gram parsons line “there’s nothing new that can be said about dirt”), and what iggy pop says in that speech about the phrase punk rock: “it’s a term that’s based in fashion! style! elitism!” but if fashionable people can put together this tremendous video with the the bad news steppers, how bad can fashion be? i guess pretty bad, but still.

(video via julia, who also went to camp laurel south—if you’d like to see me explaining at age 9 why “being with girls just makes it funner and a more enjoyable summer,” please enjoy.)

#770: randy newman - louisiana 1927 (2008)

if you’re looking for something fine to do on this w.a.s.p.-eye-blue sunday, but don’t want to settle for a stroll in the park, then let me recommend spending one hour with randy newman’s good old boys and three with a.j. liebling’s the earl of louisiana.

the first is about the deep south and its barbers from tuscaloosa, princesses with hair piled up high, pitiful floods, pitiless presidents, mighty swords, mean dogs, machinist brothers in law, guilt and love. it would be the perfect american album if only sail away and my old kentucky home were on it and not two earlier randy newman records.

the second is what someone who’s much smarter than me once said is the single finest thing to ever appear in the new yorker, which is true except it wasn’t a single piece: i believe a.j. liebling’s story about louisiana governors earl and huey p. long—whose song every man a king is on good old boys, along with his photograph—was so big that it took up three issues. it’s got caligula, hollering, national guard planes, texas sanitariums, new orleans private hospitals, race tracks, hot springs, pricefighters, and stumping for the gubernatorial nomination, all in one paragraph. 

read it outside today, with breaks to listen to randy newman, and you’ll be alright.

#766: tyler the creator - yonkers (2011)

so odd future wolf gang kill them all is just company flow fifteen years later with scarier music videos, right? and tyler the creator is el-p with california hang-ups but the same parent problems? i really don’t know for sure, i’m just asking.

either way i’m now going to go listen to funcrusher plus’ ode to wkcr 89.9 fm.