Image: New York Times/Westminster Dog Show
Leave That Scene Behind - The Wave Pictures
It's not a matter of "getting past it." You either hate Dave Tattersall's voice, or you hate it less. It's whiny and nasal and so maddeningly atonal you want to reach through the speakers and grab Tattersall by the shoulders and shake him til his ears fall off (they're not doing him any good anyway). So why do I crush so hard on this nerd and this Song and his rickety band and inconsequential--but oh so lovingly detailed--lyrics?
From Instant Coffee Baby (Amazon), Myspace
Whole Wide World - Wreckless Eric
I'm embarrassed to say how few of the tracks on the new John Peel favorites collection I already knew (very few). But even if I couldn't say how, I recognized this song from somewhere. I didn't think it was ever a radio hit in the US, but didn't want to google it (Google just makes everything too easy). Then it came to me: the underrated Will Farrell & Emma Thompson & Maggie Gyllenhaal vehicle, Stranger Than Fiction, which has one of the best soundtracks of recent memory. That could have something to do with the fact that Britt Daniel helped out (so lots of Spoon songs and smart picks like post-punk classics "That's Entertainment" and "Mind Your Own Business"). And it's not difficult to hear "Whole Wide World" as a Spoon antecedent--as something that could even inspire a musical career--with its elegant and discrete pieces, its chug of bass, dash of tambourine, guitar squiggle, drum thumps. Nothing extraneous, everything perfectly in its place.
From Perfect Unpop: Peel Show Hits and Long Lost Lo-Fi Favourites: 1976-1980 (eMusic)
