max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular

#901: wilco (jeff tweedy and jay bennett) - james alley blues (1999, austin)

#895: bob dylan and van morrison - crazy love (1991)

now that seven and a half years have gone by, is it alright to declare that chronicles volume one is one of the best books ever written? “the moon was rising behind the chrysler building, it was late in the day, street lighting coming on, the low rumble of heavy cars inching along in the narrow streets below—sleet tapping against the office window” is the first line of the final chapter. and is there going to be a chronicles volume two and even three or what?

#888: the flaming lips - christmas at the zoo (1995)

i’m making a mix of holiday songs that aren’t wretchedly depressing to listen to in these less festive seasons, especially lifeless tundras of granite skies and icy disinterest like early january. it’s got christmas at the zoo on repeat.

that’s because it’s one of the few christmas tunes known to mankind written in the past tense instead of the usual present or future, which would be chronologically inappropriate in these dour new year days.

but more importantly it’s got the spunk to be a holiday-centered ecoterrorist ditty hiding a nonviolent twist ending. plus, there’s a really adequate whistling solo, and don’t forget a multicolored video prominently featuring lead-singer hair that’s even more mid-1994 than it was in turn it on.

#885: yo la tengo - tom courtenay (live and acoustic, 1998)

on the shortest day of the year, if the elegant noun day could even be used for these pathetic few consecutive hours limping along sourly after a delayed dawn toward cruel dusk, one needs all the help one can get. and so here is one of the finest moments of one of history’s finest bands, in the mostly fine continent of australia, playing a quiet version of a loud song that’s definitely about either about billy liar, intravenous drug use, dr. zhivago, their marriage, help!, or at least winter solstices.

#880: kate and anna mcgarrigle - heart like a wheel (live, 1990)

they were the cumulonimbus of harmonies.

#876: mobb deep - shook ones pt. ii (1995)

if mobb deep’s the infamous was a town in austria it would be on the lake of constance with 11,471 citizens. if it was a type of land it would be a paved slope for taking out boats. if it was water it would have high mineral content, and if it was a boiled egg it would be boiled for longer and possibly sliced. mobb deep is hard.

#868: dwight yoakam - carmelita (1992)

the only time sad-eyed drug talk from a man with a hole in his jeans and frogs in his throat sounded like a hymn.

#843: aaron neville - everybody plays the fool (1991)

yes, this is merely aaron neville’s totally flawless early-90s main ingredient cover where he sings to various children about mail deliverers and waiters and fruit salesmen falling in love while wearing one of those sleeveless denim shirts and a mustache that is even more mustached than the mustaches in the original main ingredient video.

update: i removed the video, because it was buggy, so you’ll have to go here to watch the real thing. apologies.

#835: the roots - proceed (1995, the jon stewart show)

amazing that this isn’t perennially the no. 1 most watched video among male westchester 17 year olds, considering that it combines do you want more?!!!??!-era roots with pre-daily show jon stewart. the problem is, kids these days are spoiled by the roots on their television every evening and a highly rated stewart-program. unappreciative bastards.

#825: iris dement (with emmylou harris) - our town (1995)

five songs to immediately watch iris dement play after an extremely anxiety-inducing and overall-confidence-in-the-entire-world-sapping week, in order:

(1) our town: the most excruciatingly beautiful song written about one’s municipality by female folk geniuses in emmylou harris’ circle since kate & anna mcgarrigle’s my town. the sweet cosmic sorrow of listening to the way she says “kiss it goodbye” may make non-musical sorrows less sorrowful.

(2) in spite of ourselves: “iris dement, the fourteenth child born to her father in paragould, arkansas (but only the eighth child born to her mother, flora mae) has the voice of an eight-year-old that learned to read, talk and sing from sped-up johnny cash records. she’s a cherub, and so she looks supremely uncomfortable singing the ungodly lyrics of this dirty little ditty; meanwhile, john prine’s hay-farmer’s voice is more haggard than merle haggard.” also, this song is how joe weisenthal feels about america.

(3) let the mystery be: “a bouzouki? gadzooks!”

(4) sweet is the melody: “iris dement makes joni mitchell or joan baez or any other sweet voice look like a hideous, acidic pile of deformed, vicious vocal ugliness. plus, sweet is the melody is a beautiful song about beautiful songs, which means if someone wrote a song about it, the world would probably implode in a moment of sheer metaphysical ecstasy?”

(5) wheels of love: “if you had to spend every minute of every day in a non-unionized underground longwall coal mine, but you had emmylou and iris singing to you through a little transistor radio, life would be lovely, maybe.”

#820: the simpsons (prod. michael jackson) - do the bartman (1990)

say what you will about rupert murdoch’s current problems, without news corp. the world would not have been graced with principal skinner, barney gumble, jasper beardley or milhouse van houten. and what kind of world would that be? won’t someone please consider jasper beardley?

#819: pearl jam - yellow ledbetter (boston, 1994)

good gracious, i just realized what “pearl jam” means. reconsidering their entire oeuvre.

#811: s.e. rogie - please go easy with me (live at the 100 club, c. 1990)

one important thing to know about the world is that s.e. rogie made the sweetest music known to man: it sounded like tiepolo clouds. every time i walk into economy candy on rivington street i think of him, that’s how sweet it was. no kidding around, his music was so succulent that the two albums i have of his are called palm wine guitar music and dead men don’t smoke marijuana.

he played guitar like his name should have been something long and deep and mysterious but easy on the tongue, like sooliman. which it was.

(reasons to now praise s.e. rogie, no. 2)

#790: nirvana - in bloom (1992)  

in bloom is a better music video than smells like teen spirit, despite what dana carvey and the music television establishment would have you think. and i’d stand on judy mcgrath’s coffee table in my chuck taylors and say that.

all kidding aside, the super groovy music video spectacular and the greater music video community of america would like to thank mtv networks ceo judy mcgrath, who helped found the music video awards. later she did other things with mtv, less wonderful things (punk’d), and today she stepped down—possibly because of a reality program about the girl group the electric barbarellas. 

but thank you, judy, for the memories.

#781: a tribe called quest - award tour (1993)

did you know something very good happened this week? propublica’s jesse eisinger and jake bernstein were awarded the pulitzer prize for a series called the wall street money machine, which as well as anything i can think of explained how and why the financial crisis was not just some natural disaster—an unfortunate thing that just happened to have happened. starting with their investigation into the hedge fund magnetar, jesse and jake’s reporting showed that the greed and negligence of powerful people made things worse for everyone, and they showed it with elegant, thrilling (and now pulitzer-winning!) reporting. plus, they had a matching show tune.