The Random Ten #4

(This edition of the Random Ten is written by Mike Keefe, another new member of our writing troupe. Mike will be adding content in various areas for the Musicarium, beginning with this column! Enjoy, and please comment below if you like [or hate] what you see or send a message to us at themusicarium@yahoo.com.)

The Rolling Stones- "Star Star"- Goats Head Soup (1973)

Maybe it's because of the peculiar title, maybe it's because of the colossal shadow cast over it by Exile on Main Street, but Goats Head Soup could very well be the best Stones album you've never heard of. This song, originally entitled "Starfucker"—which is the song's chorus, mind you—contains the most vulgar lyrics Mick Jagger ever put on record. "Some Girls" is its only rival in this department ("Black girls just wanna get fucked all night/ I just don't have that much jam") but this tune's got it beat by a mile. The filthiest lines: "And lead guitars and movie stars/ Get their tongues behind your hood"; "Your trick with fruit was kinda cute/ I bet you keep your pussy clean." Personally, I prefer the more subtle lyrical approach of "Under My Thumb." By 1973, however, that approach was of a bygone era. Nonetheless, this song rocks as hard as anything on Exile. Jagger voice starts off evenly but grows angrier and more impatient as he delves deeper into his foul harangue. The interplay between Keith Richards and the indomitable Mick Taylor is first-rate. Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman are propulsive, taut. Though I'm sure fans of Brian Jones would disagree, the lineup on this record is the greatest incarnation of the greatest rock and roll band. Their recorded output prior to this album—Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street—released consecutively—is equaled (surpassed?) in magnitude by one other group: the Beatles. Goats Head Soup is hardly their most beloved album, and it contains only one of their most beloved tunes ("Angie"), but it is, nevertheless, the Stones at their gritty best.

George Harrison- "Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)"- All Things Must Pass (1970)

Two words come to mind: regal, glorious. The song moves along leisurely. The piano pushes and the drums pull back. The piano literally rolls. The sound is lush and layered, courtesy of accused murderer Phil Spector. Sir Frankie Crisp was, apparently, the original proprietor of Harrison's mansion.

Outkast- "Da Art of Storytellin (Part I)"- Aquemini (1998)

Too often, popular rap music is empty and insipid; lyrically and musically shallow. Outkast, on the other hand, always comes off as being fresh and clever.

Arcade Fire- "In The Backseat"- Funeral (2004)

I got into Arcade Fire via Neon Bible, which I really like. It's not perfect, but it's very good—my very thoughts about the John Kennedy Toole novel of the same name. "In the Backseat" closes out Funeral. It seems a bleak song, but I suppose that's up for interpretation. It says a lot by saying very little, kind of like a Hemingway short story, so I enjoy that. I'm not being a chauvinist when I say that I prefer Win Butler's vocals to his wife's. Overall, I think the song works better in the context of the album.

Pearl Jam- "Garden"- Ten (1991)

If you had to name debut albums that were both the best work of their respective bands and rock classics, what would those albums be? I can think of only three: Led Zeppelin I, Appetite for Destruction and Ten. My inclination is to say that "Garden" is an underrated track, but that would be distorting the real situation. Yes, it is true that it is not as well known to the uninitiated masses as, say "Jeremy," "Alive" or "Black," but every single song on this album is an absolute monster. Mike McCready pours every ounce of himself into the solo. His sound is pure Hendrix and SRV.

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas- "Jimmy Mack"- Watchout (1967)

Holland-Dozier-Holland. What more needs to be said? You can't help but move. Tap a foot, a finger, something. The vocal delivery is cool and effortless. The best moment might be in the fade out when Reeves sings, "I'm not getting any stronger/ I can't hold on very much longer/ Jimmy Mack when are you coming back?" There is a barely detectable pause before she sings "coming back." Is it hesitation? Perhaps she's reconsidering the fellow who "talks just as sweet as" Jimmy? Or maybe Reeves was just on her fiftieth take? In the world of perfection that is all recordings Motown, it is a very human moment.

Warren Zevon- "Poor Poor Pitiful Me"- Warren Zevon (1976)

Zevon had a sense of humor. Who else would sing despairingly about getting too many girls: "These young girls won't let me be." Here's the best and most sardonic line of all: "She really worked me over good/ She was a credit to her gender." Listen for the baritone sax coming out of the right channel.

Buster Brown- "Fanny Mae"- 41 Original Hits from the Soundtrack of American Graffiti (1973)

One of the many gems on this compilation. Buster Brown, born Wayman Glasco, hit #1 on the charts in April 1960 with this, the tune he is best known for. It is a plea to his woman from a man who has been down on his luck: "Fanny Mae, baby won't you please come home/ …I ain't been in debt baby since you been gone." It's a simple blues that ambles along in no hurry whatsoever. The Wolfman Jack segments ruin this album. I only care about hearing the songs.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse- "Crime in the City"- Weld (1991)

This song is originally off Freedom (1989). Young claims to have permanently damaged his hearing while mixing this album. Listen to this song and you'll hear why. It is simply overpowering; an absolute aural onslaught. Neil backed by the Horse may be the most formidable live force in rock music. They are loud, oftentimes messy. They are deadly serious and in your face.

Radiohead- "All I Need"- In Rainbows (2007)

In Rainbows is the best Radiohead album since OK Computer. Unlike many music-conscious members of my peer group, I do not think Kid A is the be all and end all of modern music. Kid A was some kind of achievement and there are certainly interesting ideas, musical and otherwise, on the record. But occasionally, the songs become subservient to ideas and are summarily lost in the sonic wilderness. Recently, I caught some of "Which One's Pink?" a Pink Floyd documentary airing on VH1. At one point, Roger Waters, commenting on Floyd's pre-Dark Side era, said that he looks back on that period as the band "serving its apprenticeship"; the eccentricity and experimentation that went into albums like A Saucerful of Secrets, Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother, and Meddle were integral steps in honing the sound and vision that characterizes Dark Side and the albums that followed it. It might be strange to think that Radiohead, a band that had achieved a considerable degree of commercial and critical success by the time of Kid A, would have to "serve an apprenticeship," but I think that might be the best way to characterize what they have been doing since OK Computer. On In Rainbows, Radiohead get back to making songs. The sounds are still diverse, but they are always complementary to the song and overall artistic vision of the album; they are no longer ends in themselves. At the end of this track, when he sings "It's all wrong/ It's all right," it's classic Thom Yorke.

Mike Keefe