by Straitjacket Fits

~ My slow conversion to alt rock ~

Summers when I was home from college were pretty dead. Little bit of camping, a little bit of visiting family, whole lot of sleeping late, reading fantasy books, and praying the AC didn’t give out. It was also a lot of late night MTV, especially on the weekends. You got Headbangers’ Ball on Saturday, and 120 Minutes on Sunday. For one summer, these guys were all over MTV late night. It’s a solid mellow tune exactly like you would want late at night. It’s got a nice mix of strummed and arpeggiated guitar lines, and vocals that ride along with the song instead of trying to climb all over top of the music. There’s really nothing remarkable about it other than it’s a well-crafted slice really ’90s alt-rock and does a great job of encapsulating the feel you got from those old MTV shows that highlighted their specific genres of music.

by Van Morrison

~ The song of all trades ~

There might not be another song out there that can fit on more radio formats than this one. It fits oldies stations, adult contemporary, adult alternative and singer-songwriter stations, classic rock stations play it just fine, and so do top 40 stations because it still sounds fresh even today.

You can’t get away with it on a hip hop or urban contemporary station, but I’ll bet if you snuck it into a contemporary country station, you wouldn’t get any complaints from the listening audience.

It’s just a timeless tune that exemplifies the word “classic”.

by Journey

~ Streetlights on the bay ~

Journey love singing about their hometown. There’s plenty of tunes about San Francisco. “Lights” is probably the most famous. But this one is more cinematic.

You can picture Jesse either on a motorcycle or a convertible. I’ve always gone for the motorcycle, but I know others that prefer four wheels to two.

Either way, it’s pretty easy to imagine cruising around San Francisco at 2am with Steve Perry’s vocals soaring out of the speakers as you’re one of five cars on the road heading West down Filbert Street from Coit Tower toward either Taylor or Hyde and then to Market St and heading further away from the waterfront before grabbing something heading South into the Castro district or the Mission district.

It’s tough when you’ve been riding those streets forever and now nobody knows your name. But still, they ride

by Paul Westerberg

~ A perfect marriage of song and movie ~

If this song didn’t appear on the Singles soundtrack, would you still think it’s the perfect song for that movie? Arguably, yeah it still is. Fortunately Cameron Crowe had the good sense to put it on the soundtrack because although “Crown of Thorns” hits a more perfect moment in the movie for the vibe of its scene, this song manages to capture the vibe of the entire movie both lyrically and musically. And that’s really saying something since Westerberg is from Minnesota and the movie is the quintessential Seattle flick.

It’s an active, upbeat, peppy song that still talks about how hard it is to make a connection with someone. The main theme is how unintentionally mis-matched we all are, and why, and what the hell can you do about it? The sing-along intro gets you pumped up when the song first hits your speakers and even if you have a hard time following Westerberg’s busy lyrical flow, you can still manage the NA-NANA-NA’s with him.

by Candy Dulfer

~ Police sirens for a contemporary jazz song? ~

Candy Dulfer is not your normal smooth jazz sax player. First of all, her backing band has far more edge to it than you expect for a contemporary jazz group. Second of all, she’s been on tour with Prince and plenty of other more mainstream acts.

This tune from 2008 is a good example of her lyrical delivery with the saxophone and how tight the band is. The syncopated rhythms and the phrasing where the band lays back and lets her take over combine for a song you really wish you could sing along with. This isn’t elevator jazz, it’s definitely contemporary, and you could even say it kind of rocks.

by The Cure

~ Yes, I have been known to dance ~

I was never a huge fan of the Cure in there earlier years, even though I lived in Europe in the mid-80s when they were building a huge following on the continent. I got to be a fan off of the strength of “Fascination Street”, and it’s still a favorite today.

But this is the one I dance to.

And by “dance” we’re not talking about something from the Step Up movies or anything like that. But when I used to cover late nights or overnights at the radio station, I would slip this one in, crank up the in studio monitors, and spend 5 minutes dancing up and down the hall outside the main booth. It’s just got a good groove for those of us that can’t dance worth a crap to still be able to dance. It’s a nice rolling bassline that lets you keep your feet moving without having to think about it too much, and the guitar doesn’t distract from what you’re trying to get your body to do.

And since I can really only muster about one thing at a time with the body at this point, that’s a very good thing