by Ethan Johnson
October 23, 2007

And now, the flip side, for those of you who remember vinyl records or cassettes. Yesterday was all about the crap, now for some songs that I like to like, and I don't care who has contrary opinions about them. In no particular order:

1. "Lost in Love" by Air Supply. OK, let's get this one out of the way first. I used to work for an office supply store that played "lite rock" all friggin' DAY, loudly. My options were to, you know, quit, or make the best of it. I gained an appreciation for what could charitably (or empirically) be called the "good stuff". I hated Air Supply on principle, but as I have grown older I like the overall production of the song. The variety in singing parts, the arrangement, the lite rock liltiness. It all works for me.

2. "See You in September" by the Happenings. Very well constructed lyrically, like the harmonies, fun to sing in the shower, that is, once I decide which part I want to perform. Ambitious days = try the high stuff, most others, my usual flat range. See #1 for background.

3. "Reminiscing" by the Little River Band. I LOVE the arrangement, the production, the flow, everything. Some people consider it something of a joke of a song, but come on, there are way worse songs to subject yourself to. Another shower singing staple.

4. "Mas Que Nada" by Sergio Mendes and the Brasil '66. My mother had the Foursider album (how cool was she?) back in the day, but it wasn't until the last 10 years that I really got into this song. Not a shower song, but I love everything about it. It captures a time, a place, a feeling, everything so wonderfully well. Bonus points for being a song about your (yes, you) reaction to hearing the song.

5. "Pasilda" by Afro Medusa. A house/club tune from earlier this decade that made the rounds. I have no idea what it's about or exactly what language it is, but tonally it's so upbeat I figure at worst it's mere fluff. The Cuban-esque piano line carries the song, as does the team vocal. (Sounds thicker than a duet, without being all process-y.)

6. "Belleville Rendezvous (Maquette)" from the Triplettes de Belleville soundtrack. LOVE the trés Fronch (oh ho ho!) arrangement, singing, production, the works. Je veux êtes frippé, triplement frippé, frippé comme une triplette de Belleville indeed.

7. "Flickorna i Småland" by the Delta Rhythm Boys. The better to eat my herring with, my dear. When I heard this song for the first time (featured prominently in the movie Kitchen Stories) I was struck by the "American-ness" of it. Turns out, for whatever reason, a group from the US decided to record an album in Swedish. Phonetic Swedish at that. I'm not native, and not familiar with the language, but I'm told that native speakers can pretty much tell on contact that it is sung phonetically. But they got a hit with this in Sweden anyway, probably out of gratitude that someone on the outside was thinking of them.

8. "Take a Chance On Me" by ABBA. Flipping the Swedish thing around, I'm not exactly sure what the beef is against ABBA. Is it because they're Swedish? Is it because of the ABBA movie from the 1970s? If anything, I kinda lump them into the same bag as the BeeGees, in that on the surface they're easy to write off, but upon closer inspection they're much better than people want to give them credit for. "Take a Chance On Me" isn't going to win the Nobel Prize for song lyrics, but come on, the flow is great, the arrangement is solid, and the lyrics are fairly sophisticated for such a "nothing" song.

8a. "How Deep is Your Love" by the BeeGees. The song that made me realize that they were better songsmiths than their high voices might lead one to believe.

9. "Copacabana" by Barry Manilow. OK, we could go on for months about whether it's cool this week to like Barry Manilow songs, but I'm here to say that Barry is cool, the end. This is a song that people loooove to make "finger down the throat" gagging faces about, probably due to leftover scars from the heady days of disco. But come ON. Listen to the song critically. Fantastic arrangement. Barry is a consumate showman, and though you can't see him, he packs a lot into 5 minutes and leaves you wanting more. I'm willing to bet that many people who publicly mock this song (and Barry Manilow by extension) privately list this as a guilty pleasure.

10. "Beautiful" by Christina Aguilera. I know, she's skanky, she's this, she's that, but completely objectively, and not knowing who really wrote this song (I assume that no pop divas write their own material unless noted otherwise) I say that this performance was Aguilera's gift to the world. Her personal life is her gift to the celebrity gossip industry. Instant cure for those crappy, self-loathing moments.

11. "Seasons in the Sun" by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. These guys are fahking awesome. Members of 4 different punk bands got together to do "what if" versions of popular songs. The original version was drippy and ridiculous, whereas Me First... crafts it into something that sounds like it should be the opening theme music for a Ben Stiller movie.

11a. "Walk Like an Egyptian" by the Bangles. Stupid song, utterly pointless, but production and performance-wise I love how they cast an "urgent" pall over the song to make it seem really, really important. I didn't appreciate it as much until I heard the Me First and the Gimme Gimmes version, and realized that musically they played the music "straight", just punkier.

12. "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" by Daft Punk. This was my departmental theme song a few years ago. Unlike Cher's antics with "Believe", this song cleverly works the "voice through a synth" angle. I don't know who the rapper is who decided to bastardize this song, but do yourself a favor and get back to the source material before the re-hash eats your brain.

So what else are the uncool kids listening to these days? <EM>