max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular

#544: three dog night - mama told me not to come (live, 1973)

the three best live versions of three dog night’s cover of randy newman’s mama told me not to come are basically anti-drug commercials. this version from 1973 is obviously about the dangerous matching of floral patterned shirts with vests that cocaine causes, 1970’s performance from the war memorial auditorium in rochester warns against heroin’s thick and monochromatic heaviness, and a televised show from the same year should be forced upon all pill-popping teenagers when they’re caught rummaging through dad’s medicine cabinet to prove what kinds of green and yellow bell-bottoms you wear when amphetamines take over your brain. still, that is one delectable electric keyboard riff.

#540: elvis costello - watching the detectives and you belong to me (1979)

i’m awfully excited about my cover story in tomorrow’s observer about the sad limbo that private equity prince steven rattner has been suffering through lately. while i was writing the article, i couldn’t help but think about the incredibly slight physical resemblance between mr. rattner and elvis costello & the attractions’ bassist bruce thomas. frankly, that would get me thinking about lots of costello-related topics, especially, as it happens, the time he started an all-lady new wave dance party on stage by telling the crowd, “now, we think there’s rather too many tall people in the audience, so the young ladies in the audience can’t see all that well. and what we want all those guys to do is move away from the front here, so all the girls can come down front.” actually, now that i think about it, the bassist and investor don’t really look alike. but who’s really counting.

#535: leonard cohen - memories (excerpt from a tour bus, 1979)

if you watch just one minute of a somber jewish mystic singing doo-wop about nudity on a moving bus, make it this one.

#532 - carole king - you make me feel like a natural woman (1971)

all i’ve ever asked for is a woman with carol king’s exceptional songwriting abilities and deep knowledge of phil spector’s early production career but without the eyeshadow. is that so wrong? the only question that’s harder to answer: is her version of you make me feel like a natural woman better than aretha franklin’s?

#528: derek and the dominos - it’s too late (johnny cash show, 1970)

layla and other assorted love songs is such a frigidly stone-cold classic that its ninth-best song (behind, in order of increasing awesomeness, why does love got to be so sad, keep on growing, nobody knows you when you’re down and out, i looked away, anyday, little wing, layla and of course bell bottom blues) sounds as crisp as any other eric clapton live recording i can recall. it is rotisserie roasted to perfection, and that’s without derek and the dominoes’ slide guitarist duane allman playing along. clapton’s mutton chops even look as good as johnny cash’s pompadour.

#519: paul mccartney - uncle albert / admiral halsey (1971)

an important part of growing up is realizing that paul mccartney was not so uncool. first you become aware that he looked smart on a bicycle in a suit, though not as smart as george harrison honeymooning or ringo starr pouting, then you admit that he had some fun solo songs, then you spend seven hours with michael deal’s outrageously beautiful chart of beatles song authorship, which reminds you just how many outrageously beautiful beatles songs he wrote, and then you spend seven straight days listening to 1971’s ram, which has the best song ever half-written about the u.s. navy’s bull halsey.

#515: kate and anna mcgarrigle - foolish you (1977)

kate mcgarrigle died yesterday, and the world already feels less sweet and tender.

she and her sister anna sang songs that sounded like they’d been grown in flower beds—they’re the only people i can think of whose harmony sounded like christmas, campfires, chaucer and champagne.

and they were at the center of a little world of music that in its own quiet way was godly: not only had kate been married to the folk singer loudon wainwright iii (whose sad, broken and perfect first three albums give the sense that he probably wasn’t a great dad to their son, rufus), she and anna spent decades singing with emmylou harris, and on their first two albums alone played with little feat’s lowell george, the rolling stones’ bobby keys, the velvet underground’s john cale, fairport convention’s dave mattacks, and the bluegrass god bill monroe.

“it’s my town but i had to leave it, and head south where the climate is kind,” kate sang in her 20s, “and if a time comes when i’m feeling better, i’ll be back with the birds in the spring.”

#511: the pop group - she’s beyond good and evil (1976)

sweepingly under-informed generalizations about race and gender are only acceptable when discussing 1970s reggae: white women made songs for sipping methadone and vaseline, black women had great soundtracks for climbing trees in large sunglasses, black men made music for chewing bubblegum and saltwater taffy, and white men were only good for songs about ice and knife sharpening.

#502: ry cooder - the dark end of the street (1976)

now that december 2009 is winding down, it’s very important to identify the single greatest guitar solo of the decade—a two-and-a-half-minute ry cooder solo without a lick of fast-fingered shredding, played with such sweet modesty that you can hear the three back up singers clapping along. even lowell george would have a hard time explaining where this kind of soft sparkle comes from. it’s guitar playing that sounds like a first kiss. in fact, the solo of the decade is so good it was recorded 33 years ago on the bbc’s old gray whistle test, though we wouldn’t be watching and listening to it now without the wonders of modern video sharing! technology is probably going to kill us all, but first it’s providing lots of good music.

#496: queen - crazy little thing called love (1979)

even if there are infinitely glorious things about freddie mercury’s leather-clad band, like the knee pads he wears down a runway made up of hands clapping along to crazy little thing called love, or his buxom naked lady friends racing bicycles, or his ability to rhyme “moet et chandon in a pretty cabinet” with “just like marie antoinette,” “caviar and cigarettes,” “well-versed in etiquette,” and “playful as a pussy cat,” is it all worth it if the opening song of nbc’s brand new and sensational four-night epic a capella showdown event sing-off manages to utterly and permanently destroy queen’s under pressure?

we would lose a lot if queen and its delightful songs hadn’t existed in the first place, but on the plus side no one would ever have heard this terrifying televised atrocity—let alone the introduction from nick lachey (“group singing is a phenomenon, and tonight we are taking it to soaring new heights”), or his breathless response: “and they did that totally without instruments. amazing! amazing.” would that maybe be worth it? freddie mercury can’t answer, because he’s dead, but someone should ask bowie.

#494: jackson browne & david lindley - looking into you (1972)

jackson browne is the scented candle of 1970s folk rock, and sometimes we all need to sit down, light up some lavender or ocean breeze, and take take a nice long gander at a favorite catalog.

#489: arthur “big boy” crudup - my baby left me (1972)

sad music doesn’t have to be backed up by sad stories, but it helps. forest mississippi’s arthur “big boy” crudup never got royalties for writing cosmically important early elvis presley hits like that’s all right mama and my baby left me, and by the time this documentary was filmed he’d gone back to field labor and bootlegging. “if i could get that money, i could really put out a song. i really could. i could really put out one that i believe would not knock the ceiling out,” he says in the film. “but as i’ve not got that money, what have i got to put out a song about? sometimes i’ll be sitting down, i’ll be alone, and a verse or two will come to me. and i’ll say, aw, forget about it.” the documentary didn’t help him collect royalties. he died four years later.

#486: elton john - country comfort (1970)

the elton john album tumbleweed connection is the buttered bread of early-1970s rock. but sometimes buttered bread is the most delicious part of the meal.

#482: baden powell - samba em prelúdio (live, 1972)

when a cumulus cloud dies, this is what plays on the am radio in the funeral parlor.

#478: the monochrome set - fat fun (1979)

the monochrome set’s singles—fat fun, ten donts for honeymooners, love goes down the drain, silicon carne, mr. bizarro, surfin sw12, apocalypso, fiasco bongo, big ben bongo, andiamo, fallout, and so much more—weren’t just weirdly sung, ferociously played and gauntly arranged, they were gorgeously named and exceedingly unsuccessful.