The albums I bought from eMusic this month: Ra Ra Riot, Belly, Aloe Blacc

I buy most of my music from eMusic, an excellent website with prices that are a tiny fraction of what you'd pay on iTunes or Amazon. You have to spend a certain number of "credits" per month (a credit is usually, though not always, equal to a track), or you lose them when the next billing cycle starts.

[UPDATE: My timing was terrible here. Very shortly after I posted this, eMusic sharply raised its prices and switched from a credit-based system to a more conventional system where each track costs the same amount of money for everyone.]

Here's what I spent my 35 credits on this month (that's about $12 — an amazing deal):

1. Ra Ra Riot - The Orchard (August 24, 2010)

I love their instrumentation: violin, cello, guitar, keyboards (sometimes), bass, drums.

Here's "Boy."



From their previous (debut) album, here's "Ghost Under Rocks":



Ra Ra Riot sticks to a fairly predictable formula. And they're great at it.


2. Belly - Star (1993)

I bought this because I listened to the song "Feed the Tree" over and over back when I put it on my list of the best grunge songs, and I had to hear the rest of the album. Not as good as the Breeders' Pod or Last Splash, but still worth having. (I make that comparison mostly because the two bands played in a similar genre around the same time, but they also had overlapping personnel: the leader of Belly, Tanya Donelly, was in the Breeders' early Pod incarnation.)

Here it is: "Feed the Tree" — good enough to embed twice!

And here's "Gepetto," which today sounds a bit quaint in its mid-'90s-ness:

3. Aloe Blacc - Good Things (September 28, 2010)

eMusic describes the album well: "Gold-standard, pitch-perfect soul formalism."

Here's "I Need a Dollar."



"Miss Fortune":




4. I had a few credits left over for this month, so I used them up on a few live songs by Regina Spektor. One of them is "The Ghost of Corporate Future," a clever but understated little song that has a wonderful humanity to it. This is one of those songs that I can't put on as background music and go do something else; it unfailingly compels me to listen straight through.



People are just people, people are just people, people are just people like you . . .

The 40 greatest grunge songs (35-31)

It's Friday, which means another 5 songs from the grunge top 40.

(Click here for the whole list.)

A quick disclaimer, since the definitional boundaries of the list have drawn comment from around the blogosphere:

As I said last week, my goal is not to spend two months just providing a dictionary definition of the word "grunge." If anyone wants to make a list like that, more power to you — send me your blog post and we can compare our lists! (Church of Rationality has already accepted the challenge! Except instead of staying with "grunge" and narrowing the definition, he's taken the opposite route: switching from "grunge" to "alternative" and expanding the timeline.)

I'm trying to collect songs that fit in that general style (and time period) but that stretched the boundaries of grunge and milked it for all it was worth. If they stretch the boundaries past the breaking point so it's a whole other genre that you wouldn't even call "grunge," then ... cool!

But more important than any of that, the "grunge" premise wasn't intended to open up an academic debate on the proper use of the term (which could hardly be more antithetical to the whole idea of grunge) — it's just an excuse for me to make a list of music I like. If you like the songs too, then mission accomplished.

On that note, here's this week's installment:

35. Dig - Believe

This is how it's done: young people who are really adamant about something or other, with five chords and two great hooks.




34. Superchunk - Hyper Enough

The intro to this video is an all-too-accurate reminder of a thousand band practices. No envelopes being pushed here, just a great guitar lead and tons of energy.




33. Belly - Feed the Tree

Here's a twist: a song without a wall of distorted guitars. Clean grunge!




32. My Bloody Valentine - Only Shallow

I think this is the earliest song on the list. I've made a point of staying within the '90s. You could start looking for "seminal" grunge songs from the '80s, and then pretty soon you're listing tracks from the Velvet Underground and the White Album. This is from 1990 — ancient.

You have to give them credit for pretty much inventing the Smashing Pumpkins. Compare this song to the next one, "Rocket," which came out a few years later. (Of course, you'll notice I rated the Pumpkins higher than MBV. Originality isn't everything!)




31. The Smashing Pumpkins - Rocket

Guitar-fuzz ecstasy with a video about childhood that always gives me goosebumps.

This song has a beautiful production that couldn't possibly be captured on YouTube, so make sure to get out your copy of Siamese Dream, turn up the volume, and give it a listen.

I shall be free!



I highly recommend the Smashing Pumpkins music video collection on DVD — each song includes the official video + an alternate version + commentary by band members and others.

>>> Go to #30-26 >>>