31. The Chills, “Singing in My Sleep”
If you like Kiwi Rock, I was always told, you simply must listen to the Chills’ 1990 album Submarine Bells. Well, I like Kiwi Rock well enough: The Verlaines have recently become an incredibly important group for me, The Clean make me dance in the privacy of my bedroom, and (it all started here) the JPS Experience were one of the things that got me through a hard first year of college. (If the world is as full of things as strange and charming as “I Like Rain,” I figured, life would probably end up being worth sticking around for if only for surprise value.) But I listened to Submarine Bells several times and it just never clicked. All these bands have in common (besides New Zealand-issued drivers’ licenses) is a sort of sonic texture that causes writers like me to resort to the adjectives “shimmery” and “dreamy” entirely too much. (Just dig up some of the music and hear what I mean; God knows there are downloads of dubious legality to be found everywhere on the Internet.) In the case of the Chills, I think their stuff is too quiet and subtle for the in-store CD player stations (do they still have those?) or brief online snippets that I tried to use to familiarize myself. In any case, this song is a bit of floating gorgeousness; I thought it’d provide a nice in-between-dances naptime feeling (or something for my indie-rock-loving friends to sort of shrug rhythmically along to, perhaps in pairs).
32. The Church, “Under the Milky Way”
See, not really danceable. I think the back-to-back placement of these songs (plus the next one) was a product of Ashley telling me, two days before the wedding, “IT’S DONE ENOUGH! And you’re the only one who’ll be paying this level of attention anyway!” Still, this is a classic, the kind of song that the word “atmospheric” was coined for.
33. Neko Case, “This Tornado Loves You”
I waited to read One Hundred Years of Solitude forever because, I figured, anything that snugly canonized and beloved of most of my friends could safely be saved for a moment when I wasn’t in mid-careen from one interest to another. For the same reason I didn’t get into Neko Case until my homegirl Ali started playing her on the way to the neo-evangelical church I attended with her for solidarity’s sake (me, I’m into the bells and smells and female priests). I knew I’d get around to falling in love with Neko Case; no need for urgency. Except, of course—as I learned in Garcia Marquez’s case and learned again now—with great art, it’s always urgent.
34. Kool Blues, “I’m Gonna Keep On Loving You”
Someone else has a song by this name. KB’s is much older, and awesome. I found it on one of those wonderful Eccentric Soul compilations that Numero Group puts out.
35. The Brilliant Corners, “Teenage”
I am obsessed with this group, none of whose music was in print when I stumbled on them last summer. (The Growing Up Absurd and What’s in a Word mini-albums are now for sale on eMusic, and I’m counting the minutes till my dowloads refresh. I want this band’s ex-members to get whatever money’s coming to ‘em.) I have no idea how this wasn’t a hit in the summer of 1987. It’s like a more pub-rock/R&B-influenced version of the Smiths, and that basically sounds like listener heaven. Certainly this song’s hormone-addled, bored-to-distraction lyrics remind me of where I was emotionally when Ashley and I met in high school.
36. Gilberto Gil, “Procissao”
I wanted to see some serious dancing to this one. There were enough Tropicalia fans in attendance that I would’ve, if it weren’t for you, Calvin the Sexton.
37. De La Soul, “Eye Know”
As romantic as rap gets. Check out also this ukelele cover:
38. Love Theme from The Breakfast Club
Did you even know The Breakfast Club has a love theme? I didn’t, until Ashley started raving about it one night: “You know, it’s when Ally Sheedy gets all cleaned up for her big moment with Emilio Estevez, and Molly Ringwald throws herself at Judd Nelson, it goes kinda like, DA-da-da-da, da-da-da, DA-da-da-da, da-da …”
“Not ringing a bell,” I said, so she produced the CD from somewhere on her person. With a little digging, I found out this is actually the composition of a former Psychedelic Furs keyboardist. John Hughes made slightly racist films about teenagers too pretty and too wealthy to actually be the misfits he wanted us to think they were, but man, did he have taste in music.
39. Nelcy Sedibe, “Holotelani (Daughter-in-Law)”
The Indestructible Beat of Soweto is one of the most influential various-artists compilations ever made, both for musical and political reasons (this was late in the apartheid era), but the listener doesn’t have to be burdened by any of that knowledge to see the instant significance of these songs: that is, delight.
40. The Clean, “Thumbs Off”
Another happy punk-rock blast.
