Category: Listen

  • Isolated: “Love Machine” and Lots of Others

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    Much treasure here: PublicService’s 39-track-deep collection of isolated Motown vocals. Among the pretty, strange, awe-inspiring delights, these:

  • Versions: “If I Were a Carpenter”

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    Tim Hardin’s “If I Were a Carpenter” is notable for sounding great covered by lots of different people and for the correct use of the conditional, past-tense verb (aka the 犀利士 subjunctive mood). If I were a songwriter…

  • Isolated: “Tom Sawyer”

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    What about the voice of Geddy Lee?

  • Isolated: “Tracks of My Tears”

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    There’re an amazing number of these amazing isolated tracks posted on YouTube and elsewhere. A flurry of them arrived after separations carved for Rock Band (the game) and its ilk were hacked. Of all the amazing amazingness–some of which we’ll post here from time to必利勁 time–this is a stand-out: “Tracks of My Tears,” minus the…

  • Outtakes: Fab Four

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    Beatles fans have heard the readily available Anthology outtakes plenty. The web goes deeper. Check out, for starters, oldclevelandboy’s outtakes collection on Soundcloud. This early version of “She’s a Woman” is especially fun given Ringo’s clear uncertainty about when the chorus hits. Guess they hadn’t rehearsed it much before showing up in the studio, which…

  • The Best Songs of 2015

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    These are definitively the best songs of 2015. So says… Pitchfork Drowned in Sound Gorilla vs. Bear Bands Under the Radar Congratulations, bands!

  • Versions: “Tobacco Road”

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    Here are a bunch of takes on the J.D. Loudermilk-penned song, “Tobacco Road.” Covering first-person songs is iffy business. Trickier still when the lyrics start… I was born in a trunk Mama died and my daddy got drunk Many have tried, not all have succeeded. (Always thought it was “born in a dump” but the…

  • Seven Most Listenable Podcasts About Music

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    If you’re not already a rabid consumer of podcasts, it’s time to get rolling. There’s something about a podcast–intimate, informative, usually funny–that’s unlike radio (more thinly sliced topics), unlike conversation (you’re just listening), and frequently better than both. For music podcasts, you can do worse than starting with the glut of offerings from the BBC and…

  • The Fever is High

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    Here’s the old, abandoned Tumblr site that first collected a bunch of “One of These Nights” solos and miscellaneous other home-spun You-Tubed entertainments: the fever is high. Also a bunch of songs with whistling in them. Last post there, this lovingly edited compendium of “Black Dog” covers: Someone else’s whistling song playlist:

  • Versions: Memphis

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    It’s the inaugural post of a we’ll-see-how-long-it-last series, Versions–assertively curated lists of much-covered songs. Not just any much-covered songs, but ones you might want to hear over and over, or at least add to occasionally shuffle upon in your overstuffed Spotify library (if that’s how you do things).  First up: “Memphis, Tennessee” (aka “Memphis”) Chuck…