25 songs or so gsdgsd likes

by **Completely Off-Topic** » Sat Jul 31, 2021 10:27 am

Not gonna lie; I think Hunter Biden is a pretty cool dude.

by **gsdgsd** » Thu Jun 24, 2021 7:39 pm

Drinking and listening to music tonight. I finished this list before Fucked Up's "Dose Your Dreams" came out, which is a pity, because it may be my favorite album ever. And this is my favorite song on it.

What a band.

by **gsdgsd** » Wed Nov 09, 2016 3:35 pm

#1 - "So Long, Superman" by Firewater

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I was working as a music critic when I first heard about Firewater: members of Cop Shoot Cop and the Jesus Lizard doing a klezmer/Middle Eastern/gypsy punk band! What a bad idea, I thought. It sounded AWFUL.

It wasn't. The first album was great -- and when they played live a few weeks later, they were even better. Still, many years later, that first show is one of the best live sets I've ever seen.

They (or more accurately, he -- vocalist/guitarist Tod Ashley has really been the only consistent part of the band) have kept it up in the years since, and each album evolves and innovates, without becoming stale. Every album's been an experience, every album's been great. It takes a lot to keep interesting me after a couple albums. Firewater have never let me down.

"So Long, Superman" is a hell of a fun song, and one that's tied to some wonderful times in my life. It never gets old.

by **gsdgsd** » Wed Nov 09, 2016 2:09 pm

#2 - "Past Lives" by the Bronx

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Odd Bronx fact: their odd-numbered albums (I and III) are far superior to the even-numbered. This is from III. It's a wonderful song.

by **gsdgsd** » Wed Nov 09, 2016 1:08 pm

Well, I managed to unite you and Billy, so that's something.

by **pinback** » Wed Nov 09, 2016 1:05 pm

gsdgsd wrote:#6 - "Paradise City" by Guns N' Roses

[youtube][/youtube]

Ugh. Really?

by **gsdgsd** » Wed Nov 09, 2016 1:01 pm

Argh fuck shit piss

[youtube][/youtube]

by **gsdgsd** » Wed Nov 09, 2016 1:01 pm

#3 - "Life's A Dirty Rat" by the Flesh Eaters

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One of the legendary bands of LA punk, and I never really got into them until my late 30s. I had "A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die" when I was much younger but it was at a time when I didn't appreciate anything more complex than Youth of Today. Now? Now, they're never far from the gsdgsd rotation.

They have a few all-time great songs -- I could have thrown in "Bedfull of Knives" or "Dragstrip Riot" or a bunch of things off "Forever Came Today" -- but this is without a doubt my favorite. It sounds like three or four different great songs, all mashed together -- great riffs, anthemic choruses, Chris D's loony alley cat vocals, and unstoppable momentum. I mentioned earlier that most of the songs on here make me want to click back and listen a second time in succession -- I could listen to this one about ten times in a row.

by **Flack** » Tue Nov 08, 2016 6:55 pm

gsdgsd wrote:#4 - "American Waste" by Black Flag

Great song, great album, great band. I only wish I had discovered them earlier.

by **gsdgsd** » Tue Nov 08, 2016 2:21 pm

Well then.

#4 - "American Waste" by Black Flag

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I devoted a good chunk of my youthful life to hardcore -- doing zines, setting up shows, putting out records, roadieing for friends -- so it's surprising and a little weird that there's really only one pure hardcore song on this whole list. No Minor Threat, no Gorilla Biscuits, no Dag Nasty.

Black Flag changed my life. I was a lonely lil' metalhead nerd when I picked up one of their albums (based on one of the cool old SST ads that would show the covers of the complete Flag discography), and it opened up a whole new world. I went from there to the DKs and Bad Religion and Minor Threat, and there to the whole straight edge subculture and a place in the world. (and there to drinking, but.)

"Damaged" is the classic Black Flag album, and it's my favorite, but for my money the few songs with Dez Cadena as vocalist are the band's absolute high point. I'd only heard "Six Pack" and "Louie Louie" before I got my hands on the "First Four Years" comp, and assumed he was just a party singer. Then I heard this, and it tore my head off. More than 25 years later, it still does.

by **Billy Mays** » Tue Nov 08, 2016 12:32 pm

gsdgsd wrote:There's a reasonable argument that this is the greatest rock song of all time ["Paradise City" by Guns N' Roses]

No there is not.

by **gsdgsd** » Tue Nov 08, 2016 11:54 am

#5 - "Tired Climb" by Kylesa

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My favorite band of recent vintage. This song really marks the point where they started getting more shoegazer in with their prog-metal, but it's still plenty ferocious. Sadly, beyond this song, I thought the album in general ("Spiral Shadow") was oddly weak especially after the monumental "Static Tensions". The next two albums, though, were progressively better -- last year's "Exhausting Fire" was fantastic. Then they broke up.

by **gsdgsd** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 1:40 pm

#6 - "Paradise City" by Guns N' Roses

[youtube][/youtube]

Am I screwing myself by putting this at number 6? There's a reasonable argument that this is the greatest rock song of all time, so anything that comes afterwards is bound to disappoint.

Bonus points for the video, which still makes being a rock star look so cool.

by **gsdgsd** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 1:26 pm

(The Equals' original version of "Police On My Back" is also great, but I heard the Clash first, so their version always takes precedence.)

by **gsdgsd** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 1:25 pm

#7 - "Police On My Back" by the Clash

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A couple years ago I watched "Man on a Ledge," one of the stupidest movies in recorded history, and yet I remember it sorta fondly just because this song played over the credits.

As noted earlier, a lot of my old love for the Clash hasn't really held up, but I can listen to this song 15 times in a row. Probably the first two albums, too -- it may be time to dig them out.

by **gsdgsd** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 1:23 pm

#8 - "Stray Cat Blues" by the Rolling Stones

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Digression: doing this list has highlighted something that I suppose I know but never thought about -- for the most part I tend to be more album- than single-oriented. (I have some theories about why this is so, but they're boring.)

This means there are some curious omissions. Neurosis are one of my all-time favorite bands but none of their songs make the cut. Nothing from Jesu's astonishing "Conqueror" is here. Nothing from Steve Earle or Gun Club or Fugazi or the Beastie Boys or Izzy Stradlin's one great solo album or the Laughing Hyenas or etc etc etc.

I think, and have for a long time, that the Stones of the late '60s-early '70s -- "Beggars Banquet" through "Goat's Head Soup" -- were the greatest band of all time. But when I was picking one of their songs, I didn't go to "Exile on Main St" -- my favorite of those albums -- because I can't really separate any of the individual songs from the whole.

Instead, this one, which has everything that makes the Stones great: sleazy, seductive rock 'n roll, Mick sounding sly and witty, and absolutely godawful subject matter that wouldn't fly today. I love it.

by **gsdgsd** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 11:58 am

#9 - "Loretta" by Townes Van Zandt

[youtube][/youtube]

I could do a top 25 focused only on TVZ songs, but this is unquestionably the top. I've had some late nights where I just scour the web for different versions of this -- live sets, covers. Simple and beautiful. If our second kid had been another girl, I was going to push to name 'em "Loretta" after this song, so probably just as well we had a boy.

by **gsdgsd** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 11:34 am

#10 - "Supernova" by Liz Phair

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It's hard to overstate just how hip Liz Phair was in the mid-1990s. Not liking "Exile in Guyville" was like dismissing "Zen Arcade" ten years earlier -- it just wasn't done. It's weird how far she's fallen off the map, to the point where I had to check to see if she'd put anything out in the past decade (she has).

I checked out after 2003's self-titled album, which didn't stick with me, but a few years before I'd been all about Liz. The first two albums -- especially "Exile" but also "Whip-Smart," from which this song comes -- still sound so good. Jangly, wry and wistful.

I went with this clip rather than the actual music video because the video's censored, and frankly everyone needs to hear the line "you fuck like a volcano/and you're everything to me."

by **Jizaboz** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 11:30 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:That one by Mobb Deep, I can confidently say, sounds like nothing I have ever heard before. Amazing.

The first time I heard it in the early 90's I was tripping acid and riding in a guys truck with a lot of bass that had just borrowed the cassette. "Nothing like I have ever heard before" definitely describes that moment haha

Before I had heard them the only rap around that time I could tolerate was Wu-Tang and Cypress Hill.. but I ended up buying the first Mobb Deep.

by **Flack** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 5:34 am

This list is definitely the most obscure collection of songs posted so far (although I suspect someone will soon out-obscure it...). I have the Pixies and Frank Black albums and have heard of a few of the others, but I don't have any of these songs on my phone.

25 songs or so gsdgsd likes

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