"The Spins" by Potty Mouth

Song: The Spins
Artist: Potty Mouth
Album: Hell Bent
Also try:  Liz Phair, Speedy Ortiz, White Lung, Royal Headache
Commentary: At Pygmalion Music Festival, the schedule was wrong. The Potty Mouth show that was supposed to start at 10, ended at 10:08. As a result, I only saw 5 minutes of the show (I was 3 minutes late!). It was my favorite song and a half of the whole festival. Damien Jurado (who I love) played in the perfect auditorium for his echoing vocals and Youth Lagoon puts on a rad show, but Potty Mouth sounds even better in person than on their sweet new album, Hell Bent.

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"Reflektor" by the Arcade Fire

Song: Reflektor
Artist: Arcade Fire
Album: Reflektor
Also try:  Do you not know who Arcade Fire is? Okay, maybe try Vampire Weekend or something if you like this.
Commentary: New Arcade Fire. Fun. Seems like they have some fresh sounds too, which is exciting. Also, seems long. It's exciting that it sounds new (new electronic tinge?) and still awesome and still Arcade Fire.

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"Warm in the Winter" by Glass Candy

Song: Warm in the Winter
Artist: Glass Candy
Album: After the Dark 2
Also try:  After the Dark and After the Dark 2 are both excellent
Commentary: You don't even have to like electronic music all that much to like the After the Dark compilations, this song is a rollicking starter for the 2nd. The spoken word over the track may be too much for some people, but I think it goes well here and doesn't detract.

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"All I Know" by Big Sean

Song: All I Know (ft Wiz Khalifa)
Artist: Big Sean
Album: Detroit
Commentary: I should call this blog Cole's Earworms or something, because I just learned that word and mostly I post songs as they get stuck in my head. "All I Know" uses an excellent sample from Bloc Party's "Banquet", which I'm sure helped the catchiness. It also follows the whole mixtape's catchy raps (I'm afraid I don't even know the language one uses to talk about rap music...), especially as in "Woke Up", "I'm Gonna Be", and "Life Should Go On". Smooth.

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"Casper" by Daniel Johnston

Song: Casper
Artist: Daniel Johnston
Album: Yip/Jump Music
Also try:  the rest of the Kids soundtrack, Songs in the Key of Z
Commentary: The other Casper song (besides the friendly ghost) that Daniel Johnston contributed to Kids is this one, "Casper." It's a 1995 movie about what everyone was afraid of happening to "youth" in the city. Adding to a dope soundtrack, Daniel Johnston sings this little ditty about one of the main characters. With lyrics like "Casper lives in a world without promise" and "feeling like a bowl of spaghetti", Daniel Johnston paints his own picture of youthful angst and ennui.

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"Bouchraka Ya Kalbi" by Mohamed Effendi El-Achek

Song: Bouchraka Ya Kalbi (which can be translated as "Be Happy, My Heart")
Artist: Mohamed Effendi El-Achek
Also try:  the Syrian people
Commentary: I'm not trying to make a big political statement about Syria by posting a song from Syria. Or maybe I am... I do like Teju Cole's answer to the question "What's the right answer to Syria?" and he said, "I don’t know man. ... Somehow, we must keep the humanity of the people in Syria before us. Anything thing we do or do not do, or say or do not say, should be about them, not about us. We must live perpetually in hope of a negotiated settlement."

Note: I'm also not tryna romanticize some pristine, untroubled Syrian past by posting a song recorded in 1908.

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"Retrograde" by James Blake

Song: Retrograde
Artist: James Blake
Album: Overgrown
Commentary: Next time I'm hit with something I might say "SUDDENLY I'M HIT", like James Blake...
James Blake has released two excellent albums and you should probably listen to them both in their entirety. Make sure you have speakers that give you some good bass, especially for "Retrograde" here.

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"Open" by Rhye

Song: Open
Artist: Rhye
Album: Woman
Also try:  Miguel, Frank Ocean, Janelle Monae
Commentary: I got Rhye's Woman in the spring with a few other albums and Woman didn't immediately stand out. A few more listens, though, had Michael Milosh crooning album opener "Open" in my head. The whole album's worth some listens too. Nice instrumentation, killer hook.

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"Loose Lips" by Kimya Dawson

Song: Loose Lips
Artist: Kimya Dawson
Album: Remember that I Love You
Also try: 
Commentary: Twice this summer I made connections with people about anti-folk songs I listened to in high school. I don't think I'd ever said the word "anti-folk" or discussed the genre with anyone. Part of me believed it only existed ephemerally in a network of websites frequented by teenagers in the early aughts. And since I'm in 20th grade now, and no longer 9th, I was amused to hear an 8th grader singing Kimya Dawson's 2004 non-hit, "Loose Lips" a month ago. She was insufficiently impressed with my hip knowledge of hip music, but I know I'm "with it". What?!? "Loose Lips" was in Juno? I LISTENED TO ANSTY PANTS BEFORE JUNO! Man, forget Juno.

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"Thy Chosen Bride" by Daniel Higgs

Song: Thy Chosen Bride
Artist: Daniel Higgs (frontman of Lungfish)
Album: Ancestral Songs
Also try:  Lungfish, Danielson, DM Stith, David Eugene Edwards
Commentary: Sort of raga-style banjo noodling and make sure you wait for the vocals. I don't know what draws me to the devout mystic fervor of the likes of David Eugene Edwards, Danielson, and Daniel Higgs, but I find it pretty enthralling.

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"Heartbreaks + Setbacks" by Thundercat

Song: Heartbreaks + Setbacks
Artist: Thundercat
Album: Apocalypse
Also try:  Miguel, Frank Ocean
Commentary: It was the co-production by Flying Lotus that drew me, but it was the slightly off-kilter electro-beat that kept me. Catchy, but definitely fits my criterion of being interesting/different enough to be worth a listen.

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"Catfish" by Waxahatchee

Song: Catfish
Artist: Waxahatchee
Album: American Weekend
Also try:  Liz Phair, Mirah, Microphones, Perfume Genius, Scout Niblett
Commentary: I hate posting the first song from an album, because it looks like I'm not even trying. But this song is an excellent intro to an excellent album. I've been sneaking away from my job all summer to find a quiet place to absorb Waxahatchee's genius. The new album, Cerulean Salt, is pretty groovy too, but I'm a sucker for that lo-fi aesthetic, if you haven't noticed yet.

"When a Fire Starts to Burn" by Disclosure

Song: When a Fire Starts to Burn
Artist: Disclosure
Album: Settle
Commentary: This is one of the songs I played to get the teenagers moving at summer camp this year. It worked.
Note: I don't think the video is particularly sensitive to people's religious practices. However, Christians are not an oppressed class (despite claims to the contrary). So, it doesn't seem like as big as a deal to me to depict vaguely Christian motions in a fictional motivational speech setting.

PS - Summer hiatus is over. Surprise.
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"Glad Girls" by GBV

Song: Glad Girls
Artist: Guided by Voices
Album: Isolation Drills
Also try:  Sebadoh, Superchunk, Steven Malkmus, the Hold Steady
Commentary: I don't know what the story is with this video; not sure if they had the technology to make that vid in 2001 (maybe it was cutting-edge!) Anywho, Robert Pollard's a pretty prolific songwriter, so obviously there's some variation in the quality of his contributions. I like this song (and album) pretty well, but go for Bee Thousand for the peak of critical acclaim. A prototypical turn-of-the-decade (90s-00s), lo-fi indie rock song, "Glad Girls"'ll get stuck in your head.

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"Song about Stalin" by Esslam Yousobof

Song: Song about Stalin
Artist: Ashoug Esslam Yousobof (or Islam Yusufov) and Essmaeel Alikperoff
Also try:  Hmm, I don't know. If you know of anything good in similar musical traditions, let me know.
Commentary: This was probably sung at a time when it was deadly (in what is now Georgia) to criticize Stalin, so I assume it's laudatory. But I'm not posting it because it's about Stalin! Listen to this man kill it with that singing. I love the versatility of the human voice, especially as evidenced by the diversity in world music traditions.
There does appear to be some misinformation on the label: it says "balaban" but I don't hear anything that sounds like a double-reed woodwind. Also, it does seem like it would be some folk instrument, and not a cello or bass viol.

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"World Domination" by Joey Bada$$

Song: World Domination
Artist: Joey Bada$$
Album: 1999
Also try:  Pro Era
Commentary: I like the samples here. Joey Bada$$ has some trill rhymes and a chill sound.

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"Hrissaido" by Marika Papagika

Song: Χρυσαΐδω
Artist: Μαρίκα Παπαγκίκα
Also try:  "а я по лугу" and "Kuk kuger"
Commentary: A prolific Greek Singer of the early 20th century, Marika Papagika has a captivating voice. I discovered her through Jeff Mangum's curation of Yeti 5. So I guess I also can credit to him the opening of "world" folk music traditions for me as well. What a rich and rewarding terrestrial oeuvre has arisen from the revitalization of musics from old 78s, as conveyed by the Internet. Especially after listening to Marika Papagika's funereal, yet angelic, voice, one mourns the Westernizing influences borne on the wings of colonialism.

Also, Tsamiko (Greek: Τσάμικος, Tsamikos) is a traditional Greek folk tune (and accompanying dance), while Χρυσαΐδω is apparently a name.

"Song for Lula" by Phosphorescent

Song: Song for Lula
Artist: Phosphorescent
Album: Muchacho
Also try:  BPB's I See a Darkness, Paleo
Commentary: I've always thought of Phosphorescent as a second-rate Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (who, granted, himself puts out second-rate BPB about half the time). IMO, Phosphorescent's 2013 offering, Muchacho, is a pretty nice folk album with well-written songs (okay, he's had some before) , decent lyrics (if questionable song titles), and interesting electronic touches. Matthew Houck doesn't sound like he's trying to rip off Will Oldham anymore and this album's nice.

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"Trains Across the Sea" by the Silver Jews

Song: Trains Across the Sea
Artist: Silver Jews
Album: Starlite Walker
Also try:  Will Oldham, Uncle Tupelo, Stephen Malkmus, M. Ward, Devendra Banhart
Commentary: David Berman is easier to swallow if you always thought voices like James Taylor's were plain and boring to the point of being unlistenable. Eminently quotable, yet singing with a sort of laissez-faire approach to tonality, Berman has a book of poetry if the voice grates on you. I guess it also takes a certain suspension of disbelief to accept the complete oeuvre with its perfect, American similes ("his sister was like the heat coming off the back of an old TV") and an admixture of bad puns ("come to Tennessee, 'cause you're the only ten I see") and earnest one-liners culled from bumper stickers and "men's room walls." The Silver Jews are part of the strong core of the Drag City catalog, listen up.

choice lyrical sample: "In 27 years I've drunk fifty thousand beers & they just wash against me like the sea into a pier"

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"headz in da cloudz" by the Danielson Famile

Song: headz in da cloudz
Artist: Danielson Famile
Album: A Prayer for Every Hour
Also try:  Half-Handed Cloud, CocoRosie
Commentary: I read about Daniel Smith's 1995 thesis project-cum-concert-cum-family reunion almost a decade after the fact when I was like 14 and thought he was so cool. They dressed up like nurses, a giant tree, and later sailors. And then there's their deranged circus music with the yelping falsetto of Daniel Smith. Music this far left-of-the-dial, but with both evangelical lyrics about Jesus and indie rock cred is a pretty interesting phenomenon (matched only, perhaps, by Danielson's sometime collaborators, Soul Junk). Danielson's something special.
PS - The original performance of the song (not the music video) sounds like it was some *awesome* performance art (ask the Internet for deets).

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