I’m back on my musical genome project this week, and I’ve arrived at my first aberration.
First, a few words about how I went about categorizing my tastes. I scanned my music library for artists whose entire discographies I own (or near enough to not make much difference) but discounted anybody who is only two or three albums into a career. Then I started scanning that list (of 35 artists) for similarities.
Today’s Random Weekends selection is a track from Volume 3 of Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series.
Before the Dylan-philes jump down my throat about the incorrect lyrics I’ve included below, understand that I have just included the “official” lyrics to this song posted on Dylan’s own website. He obviously changed them quite a bit when recording the track, but I like to offer both in order to explore the contrast.
The Random iTunes Fairy must have read the blog this week and developed a hankering for some Fountains of Wayne.
This track is from Disc Two of the band’s 2005 collection of rarities and B-sides, Out-of-State Plates. Like most albums of its sort, this one is padded with non-essential tracks. It has a few memorable moments, such as new single ‘Maureen‘ and a deadpan cover of Britney Spears’ ‘…Baby One More Time.’
I can’t think of a better choice as my first example of a ‘Melancholy’ artist than Aimee Mann. She’s probably the first three results on a Google search of the word melancholy (that’s the 21st century version of the old picture-in-the-dictionary cliché).
Yes, she’s the saddest, loneliest woman to ever strap on a guitar, and I love every damn minute of it. Nobody captures existential malaise or Gen X ennui as well as she does and, all the better, she does it with a mordant sense of humor and an acute melodic ear.
Fountains of Wayne is the first ‘Pure Pop’ representative in my personal musical genome project. They have pretty much perfected the art of power pop, synthesizing a host of influences into a supremely pleasing package.
My daughters are particularly drawn to Fountains of Wayne’s music. It started with ‘Hey Julie’ and ‘Stacy’s Mom’ then expanded to include ‘Troubled Times,’ ‘Hackensack’ and ‘Bright Future in Sales.’ And they didn’t know at first that all of these songs were by the same group.
