Song of the Day 1/31/19

Blow Up the Outside World-Soundgarden

It's difficult to really explain what made me so drawn to this song because if I'm going to be honest as good as these guy's are I never really held this band on a level compared to their contemporaries regardless of how solidly good their music was it just never clicked with me but this song has always been something and in thinking through the various songs I've ever discussed this one has it's own special place because it's the song that eventually lead to me starting this blogger site and in order to understand that I have to post the original archived post I'd made to the song because it's kind of eerie to me the fact that I had almost the same exact feelings as the day I'd originally written this(Ignore the spelling errors):

 August 4, 2010 

Blow Up the Outside World-Soundgarden 

You know I'm going to be honest with ya world, I just wasn't really into anything today, I'm not too sure what it was but I just had a very moody little day that left me really unable to do much of anything, so like all great adults I took a nap. Yeah REAL mature of me wasn't it, but surprisingly enough it actually worked that and a nice chicken salad, and now I'm in tip top shape to present to all of you the song of the day. HELL YEAH!!! lol 

Well I remember reading that Soundgarden are releasing some new song that something like 4 people are excited for, and I dececided to give them a listen, becuase while most of the bands that Chris Cornell seems to be in are usually pretty decent, as a whole he just seems to bring down most of them and kinda make them result in only a handfull of really any listenable tracks, and for some reason or another this one is one of the few Soundgarden songs I can actually dig. I'm not really sure as to what it is cause normally I'm not too into tripped out psychedellic jams that like to start slow and quiet only to soon become a lound noisy bomb of feedback and confusing drug addled lyrics with simple yet slightly disturbing chorus'.......wait a minute I actually can dig on some of that this is just the one time they seemed to have actually been able to do that right. Eh better late then never I say but really this song is just surprisingly good and that's saying something considering I don't really like Chris Cornell but hey everyone's gotta have a moment of brilliants, don't they?  

Yeah that's  an interesting thing for me to read back but what makes this post stand out is the fact that I remember at the time I had a woman in my life that was a bit of an internet friend/facebook ex wife...hey I was young and awkward don't fucking judge, REGARDLESS this person was a bit of a creative muse for me and even though she'd long since deleted herself from internet existence I can still vividly remember her commenting that I need to start a blog already and in all my infinite wisdom I did and I guess you can say the rest is history.

THE GREATEST SONG EVER.

Of all the questions I can recall hardly ever being asked it's been on my mind for some time to talk about something I think every critic at some point in time needs to cover and since I'm near the end of this thing I figured WHY THE FUCK NOT RIGHT?!?!?!

So since 2011 I've done this series of articles where I try to discuss the greatest song of all time in theory and I guess that's a topic that's more difficult for me to do since I've only done it 4 times with the last one being posted on April Fools Day 2015 and being about Prince and my unironic but comical love of Purple Rain which in retrospect is awkward because he passed on just a little over a year after I'd posted that article and the rest of the world realized I was right.

In preparing for this article like everything I'm doing on here I've been going over some of the older post and looking at what I said back then and comparing it to what my thoughts are now on top of trying to come up with an accurate way to say what is the greatest song ever and before I get into what is the greatest song ever and what made me think this I feel there has to be some precedence laid because with a statement like that as much as every dick head armchair critic is going to take every chance to inform me of how wrong I am there's still a means of taking that away from them by laying some form of groundwork to make it less of an opinion piece and to lend some more weight to my thoughts that's immediately dashed away by my vocabulary but fuck em it's better than nothing.

Alright so if you're going to say that a song in question is the greatest song ever I'd say it has to follow some criteria of being both a critical and commercially successful piece of media because while sales aren't shit in retrospect for critics it's a lot harder for your average Joe listening to music as nothing more than background music to argue these things with you  when you can show them some numbers and figures to help prove a point that the track at the very least has some clout in terms of being worth considering with critics polls serving as one more nail in their uninformed coffin of invalid opinions.

Now with that in mind and looking back at the songs I've covered on top of a cursory Google search to see what comes up when you type in the greatest song ever I came to a realization that the first song I ever covered under this umbrella is in fact still without reservation the greatest song of all time and what song is that?

Billie Jean-Michael Jackson 

#1 for 7 weeks, winner of 2 of the 8 Grammy Awards he won that night, an American Music award, half a billion views on Youtube, certified over 5x platinum as a single, and apart of one of the most watched and talked about television events of the millennium it's safe to say the second single from the top selling album of all time has a pretty good claim in terms of charting success to have the title of the greatest song of all time no doubt about that.

Yeah back in 2011 when I first wrote one of these I said that this was the best song of all time because it was this oddly dark and ominous tune that stepped out of Michael's territory of well crafted light radio friendly dance ready pop tunes and instead went about showcasing his ability to be more that meets the eye while also proving that you can be different and people will still buy it so in some case he opened the floodgates for a host of musically inclined people being able to maintain artistic integrity while also having commercial viability and that's a thing that's really important in the grander scheme of things because we can only have so much sugar coated garbage being shoved down our throats.

Jackson was a genius of sorts because he was a cold and calculated businessman that knew the vast majority of his decisions well in advance and released what was the most meticulously crafted things he could that would leave people talking for a long time and it worked more often than not even at his most over bloated he still did stuff that was of a level of quality that his contemporaries maybe minus Prince could really match and the thing that's always made this song stand out in comparison to everything else was the somewhat simplistic and straightforward nature of it because it's not a happy and upbeat tune it's a very somber and depressive tune that mixes just the right amount of disco production with a kind of funk groove and showcases a more held back side of Jackson he never really chose to do that often and it's this kind of strange direction that leads me to go back to it time and time again and really find myself thinking that it really is the best pop song to ever be made bar none.

It's after repeated listens still maybe one of the most fantastic songs I've ever heard and after all these years of asking myself what is the greatest song ever I think I've come to a point where if you were to ask me I'd probably have to say this song bar none.

Also it was in GTA Vice City which had the best soundtrack ever fight me fuckers!!!!!

Song of the Day 1/24/19

You know I'm really mad that these guy's became such corporate sellouts because that first album was a fucking banger and their second record still holds as something I more appreciate rather than enjoy in retrospect but that's irrelevant because even so there's one track they did that lead to the eventual sellout that I conveniently still remember as something special.

Out of My League-Fitz and the Tantrums

So I had to look back at my older post to remember just what it was about this track that had any relevance for me and looking back it's because this was a bit of a difference maker for this band they went from just being a throwback act to making more modernish indie rock affairs with killer melodies and great vocal harmony courtesy of the immensely talented Noelle Scaggs and this song is a good example of those properties in effect and even after the mass commercialization it's still a solidly great track that I still remember just randomly seeing uploaded onto YouTube at some random ass hour of the night giving a listen and just being blown the fuck away that I just had to make a random shot in the dark post that until I started covering more local acts was the most viewed post on this entire website so I've always had an interesting connection to this tune because it made me think maybe just maybe I may know my shit.

Now that's not so much the case anymore but for a brief moment in time I thought so...

Song of the Day 1/23/19

So we're at less than a month until the end and in that time I got a few things cooked up to post on here hopefully and one of those things is to cover all the songs that I give the most fucks about because they hold some special place for SOTD and with that in mind I think I should tell ya about what's probably one of my favorite songs ever.

Wolves(You Got Me)-DREAMERS

You know who fucking rules this god damn band and you know what got me into them? THIS FUCKING SONG!!!!

I remember at the time I covered this on that particular year end list I remember mentioning how this song reminded me of a song called Demon Dance with it's kind of throwback alternative tone and a set of lyrics that are simple but that impact me in a way that give it this explainable level of quality and hype that reminds me why I like these kinds of songs so much and over time it's really only continued to not only maintain that but have a host of positive memories attached to it.

These guy's where the first band to ever respond to one of my post about them on facebook when I first randomly made a post about how awesome this song is, I remember the first time I ever saw them live I was singing along to it front row and the lead singer gave me his pick, at that same show they signed my set list and wrote thanks for the kind words, and every subsequent time I've seen them this fucking song just hits me every single time especially the line, "You got me drugged up, you got me undone, falling in love like you do," at the end of the song it's just a fucking fantastic piece of music that doesn't often get the credit it deserves.

Yeah I love this song and you should to the guy's who perform it are swell dudes and will take all the fun selfies with ya...

Song of the Day 1/19/19

Pynch-Dreamgirl

SO there's this band from here in KCMO called Dreamgirl and when you look them up on Spotify their top song has over 5 million streams which is insane for a local act so I'm wondering why is that the case?

3 minutes and 54 seconds later....

OH that's why they're fucking great!

OK I'm going to be honest I've known about these guy's for a while now and to say they're the most appropriately named group around is an understatement with some lighter than air vocals and a penchant for making some really groovy indie pop tunes you have a group who makes you feel like you're having a slow dance at a prom with every groovy groove they make and if you get the chance their self titled release from last year is quite a good release and they're making more strives towards a national tour so there's even more chances for people all around to experience the dream for sure.

A rant and Song of the Day 1/18/19

There's a song by a band called Middle Kids called Edge of Town and it's a pretty solidly good track that came out at a terrible time for me, it's this kind of lower end indie rock tune that's dripping in this overwhelming sense of pretentiousness that's made worse by the fact that the other songs on that EP just sounded like a half rate Paramore and I realized this band peaked with this song and I never bothered to listen to them ever again, but it's not honestly their fault when I think about it in retrospect because it was about the time this song came out that I was going through an angry lonely period of time where nothing was very good for me and I was starting to have this weird falling out with the radio because I guess these guy's, Glass Animals, and the most recent Catfish and the Bottlemen record at the time where being rammed down my throat and I got this feeling of not wanting to have to be a drone of what the radio wanted me to be all hyped for and I rejected in such a way that I didn't even really listen to much of anything new or national because I'd honestly gotten sick and fucking tired of being told that those bands as well as the vast majority of mdoern alternative rock wanted me to be into because I'd developed this feeling that it was all a bunch of fucking bullshit that dragged on and on and was only meant for teenagers to say they discovered something and that's awkward for me because I'd come to grips and have been doing this whole being a god damn adult thing and these tracks don't speak to me because they're the same old recycled as fucking garbage that I've been hearing for years it's not being broken because the radio station is wanting you in on a cool little secret it's all corporate telling you this is your band this is what you want and you all need to pretend that these are your songs and that's fucking bullshit because those aren't me or what I want to associate with you bastards haven't broken a god damn thing in years you just are hoping that everybody remains a dumb ass shell of a human not willing to actually have their own fucking taste and that really had tainted me and is why I don't really ever find myself listening to the buzz these days.

Although even with all that vitriol spilled I mention that song because even with the lack of fucks I have for that band there's a part of that tune just one part between 2:20-30 where things kind of awkwardly slow down and stop trying to be this anthem of sorts where she starts asking if some guy has something on his mind and then things just blow the fuck up in this blast of energy that's utterly captivating to me in such a way that it's literally the only thing about the song that I like and will occasionally still remember every now and then and just mark the ever loving fuck out over it's an utterly bombastically awesome way to end what's ultimately a pretentious piece of trash of a tune that at the time I tried my hardest to accept it as a good tune because of that but never could in time.

Cave-Mess

Now what does that rant have to do with this band? Well in all honesty not a god damn thing minus that one sentiment about when a song just comes at you out of nowhere with a sense of bombastic energy because that's kind of this little Kansas City Emo outfit.

Mess are a band with some of the prettiest most lighthearted  vocals I've heard from anyone in this city and those wonderfully dreamy vocals are usually situated over some very not happy lyrics that make you wonder how such a down trodden group of people can also manage to be so sad, pretty, and energetic because their live shows are a very energetic affair of a crowd of people who are incredibly into this band and radiate that energy into a group of musicians who surprisingly rock the fuck out way more than you would think they would listening to their releases.

They have an under produced charm to the way they approach tunes that's a good way to showcase their kind of unfiltered efforts and emotions, and if you get the chance you should give em a view they're a real surprise for sure.

Song of the Day 1/17/19

In Your Skin-Shadow Rabbits

So Shadow Rabbits are an alternative rock act from here in KCMO that have a sound that's what I imagine the coolest band you'd know would sound like. They have a host of tunes that evoke a kind of 60's rock and roll vibe with grooves that are incredibly slick and vocals so alluring that they're damn near hypnotizing in most instances and of the host of quality well constructed songs they've made this one in particular seems to really be something I fancy.

A haunting piano intro leads into what's some retro tuned guitar work that perfectly compliments Ashley Dattola's chilled confident vocals that allure you in and give you this false sense of security as the melody just grows in intensity leading you down a spiral before things calm down and guitarist Jon Ulasien comes in and perfectly compliments Dattola as they lead the song out echoing, “as you wait now.”

This song fucking owns in a way that is more than the sum of it's parts for me and it's something that occurred to me one random show I remember seeing them play where they did it in front of a white sheet just letting their silhouettes be all you see and every subsequent time I've gotten to hear this song live has been fan-fucking-tastic in such a way that I think more people need to get around to listening to it.

Song of the Day 1/16/19

Colette-Faintheart

So you want an insanely catchy set of pop punk tunes ready to rock out to and sing every lyric to with a cute girl who's name most likely begins with the letter A then OH you need to acquaint yourself with this bands early 2018 release The Overview Effect because that EP kicks some serious ass and of all the tracks on it that tickled my fancy the most I'd have to say it was this little short but sweet number.

That Ep in question had a host of heavier more focused tunes that attempted and in most cases succeeded in being something fairly larger than the sum of their parts but if you where familiar with my adoration of their 2017 cut Two Hearted then you'd probably not be surprised to know that the tune that I liked the most was this fun little pop punk tune.

"We don't always have to be our insecurities, defining enemies we divide and disagree," it's something I frankly kept singing wrong until I typed out the right lyrics after looking them up on their website BUT YOU SURE AS FUCK KNOW IT DIDN'T STOP ME FROM SINGING ALONG! 

That's the biggest strength this tune as well as most of their catalog is just how easy it is to find yourself singing along to every single song and isn't that what makes pop punk so much fun?

Song of the Day 1/15/19

It isn't Love-Rachel Mallin and the Wild Type

Excuse me for a second while I fangirl out a bit on ya because this fucking group sometimes they just fucking get it.

HOLY FUCKING JESUS CHRIST ALMIGHTY IS THIS SONG FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC!

Ah ever since they dropped this little new wave tune on Spotify I've just been in awe people it's a simple song about the scary parts of love and relationships with a host of questions to ask about if the struggles make the relationship and how differences are a real thing (I'm into analogue, you're into digital) Rachel Mallin has written what's a very simple tune but the thing that makes it something special is it's lighter than air dreamy instrumentals and her just exceptional vocal performance.

There's a vulnerable charm to her subtle yet captivating singing that just hooks me in a way that she's yet to really do and in all honesty I get some these weird spine shivering feels whenever I listen to this song because of these slight vocal deliveries that are equal parts strong and sultry, weak yet confident, just the type of things I find myself obsessing over how to properly contextualize to you guy's but yet I fail at doing so beyond just telling you it's maybe the best song they've put out yet and to think I just originally remembered it as a captivating but overly feedback heavy live track the first time I heard it.

I like to give these guy's hell for not putting out I Pick Winners but when the songs coming out are this I can't be mad in the slightest this is a phenomenal piece of work you need to hear now.

Song of the Day 1-12-19

Black Soap-Ex Cops

You know I haven't done this in a hot fucking minute mother fuckers and as I'm making dinner listening to a YouTube feed of videos this song came up and I'm going to have to be honest with you this song is a FUCKING BANGER!

A slow start and some cooler than cool mildly new wave inspired guitar work with a heavy Joy Division tone you get this cooler than cool feeling that you're about to really listen to something tight just before Amalie Bruun's vocals kick in and you get something that's a little bit Shirley Manson esque and rather inviting before she just wallops you in the face with the chorus and it's exclamations about going to the city and drying your eyes you're instantly hooked on a tune that's very reminiscent of it's time in alternative music where bands like Metric where the rage and in some way it still feels like it'd fit in today's landscape.

This was rather high up there on that years best of list but I remember just kind of forgetting all about it for quite a while afterwards until I was going back through all my songs to write up about for these end of day's post and this song came up and yeah it's still probably more so now fucking fantastic and if you haven't heard it fix that RIGHT FUCKING NOW!

Sam's Best of 2017

Jonestown-Scruffy and the Janitors

The year end post for this song and my initial impression of it were the most viewed post on this blog.

That say's a lot and 2017 was a year where I seemed to try the whole journalist approach and it was interesting if not inconsistent beyond comprehension....I also was a fucking drunken mess of a person that was dealing with a host of isolation and drinking problems that I don't and haven't really told anyone about and while I've so severely cut down on my booze consumption to a point where I could be considered sober to some regard this year was my last ditch effort of things to be and yeah looking back the bands I covered went on to some really great places and I did some pretty fucking cool ass stuff that year that made the depression easier to hide.

I made some good friends in this community Scruffy in question being among many musicians that have showcased a lot of love for my kind words about them so much so to a point where I've convinced them to do some show's for me in my personal endeavors which is something I have a hard time truly expressing just how good that makes me feel I'm sure I'll come up with something come February but yeah this song it's special in a weird way because re-listening to it as I'm typing up all of these nostalgia post and looking at the post I made those years I'm brought back to seeing them at the tank room along with Rachel Mallin and the Wild Type and Momma's Boy in what was maybe one of the best bill's I'd seen in a long time and I remember the performance of this song and the venue just kind of not doing it justice because it was too clean sounding in there you didn't quite feel just how real this song really was and I remember not thinking much of it and the eventual snowballing of momentum it'd build and it's crazy just how it went from that to this and even now the rare times they play it I can't help but still be blown away.

Well that was the various best songs of the years now I'll probably keep getting more and more personal with a host of random songs that all mean something to me here and there so stay tuned.

Sam's best of 2016

Cool Heat-Momma's Boy

This year I tried to truly help this community out by letting people know about how fucking good the music in this city is but it also didn't help the fact that 2016 in mainstream radio sucked ass through a fucking straw and I started to really fall off with the buzz because most of their programming started to go to fucking shit and the following 2 years have gone on to me pretty much never listening to them for more than a few minutes a month.

Now with that bit of vitriol out there this year's offerings in the local alternative music scene were fucking great and this song OHHHHH I spent so many drunken fucking nights just alone and blaring the ever loving fuck out of this surf inspired bit of garage rock glory and if you go back and read the incredibly expletive filled post about this song you'll know it was a track that just kind of came out of nowhere and opened a world of possibilities to me because this is not only an outstanding piece of music from who may be the best band this city has to offer but the song that kind of really got me to attempt to truly start trying to heal the wounds from years prior by going out, making an ass out of myself, and living my fucking life it also happen to be about this time frame that I had started to get a job that wasn't a complete shit hole of toxicity and realize that growing up is inevitable and that I'm going to have to be a fucking adult and do some shit all for myself.

The transition was made and while it was a rough ride to get there this song showed me that I can become a thing again it's just gonna be uncomfortable and also the most rocking time of your life fucker.

OH and one more thing Momma's boy FUCKING RULE! And their live show is a religious experience you should all experience yourself because when they fire on all cylinders they'll blow your fucking mind dude.

Sam's Best of 2015

Sorry for the delay i got sick and that's no fun but now that I managed to remember here's this years selection...

Entropy-Grimes Fet. Bleachers

This was the first year I really started to take note of the local Kansas City music scene  which this years list actually had 3 bands who've gone on to do some pretty spectacular things which is fucking bad ass.

Now on the topic of this song this 3 minute piece of pop perfection that even now almost 4 years later I hear and truly and agree with what I did back then I'd started around March the day I first heard this song and made a list of songs I thought where great that year and this was the first song I put down and to this day I still believe it to not only be the best song of that year but one of the best of the decade no fucking shit.

Now go back to my post about Cee-Lo Green a few day's ago and you can almost apply the same thing to this track switching the disco tones for tribal beats and a very large and in charge character in Cee-Lo for a very petite and unassuming Grimes and take the questions and throw them straight out the window because this is a great piece of pop music that blends a certain amount of joy even with some fairly sadish lyrics.

Sam's Best of 2014

I Love You(But I hate your Friends)-Neon Trees

Neon Tree's are maybe my guiltiest pleasure and one of the most criminally underrated commercial pop rock bands to ever walk the face of the earth and I truly would put their 2012 release Picture Show in my top 10 albums of all time looking back and as cheesy as it is that and this album both inspired me to write a story I am still working on to this day and would one day hope to turn into a comic or movie or even Netflix series or something.

This song is a bombastically catchy and snarky fucking tune that showcased a band like me hiding their eventual decline into obscurity though one last bombastic effort of vitriol covered in some false sense of joy that is this songs poppy instrumentals, Tyler Glenn's cheeky vocal performance, and the kind of playful lyrics.

Overall looking back at this list there was a host of strong fucking songs from the criminally overlooked, "Black Soap," by Ex cops, Kimbra's, "90's music," and many many more that didn't even make the list it's rather crazy in all honesty.

What's also crazy to think of for me because I almost didn't make it beyond this year and this album at the time was basically an emotional crutch that I clung onto for dear life because I was confused, scared, and on the constant verge of wishing I'd never decided to get better but rather fade away so it's hard to reflect on these emotions and reading that number 1 post I figured that I had a lot I wanted to say but never really could bring myself to actually bringing forth and this is when my writing really started to be affected because of it.

Sam's Best of 2013

The Mother We Share-CHVRCHES

If there was ever a time frame when 96.5 the Buzz truly defined me it was this year and looking back at that particular year end list it's like basically letting the machine dictate my taste and while there's a few odd ball choices here and there are plenty of tracks that are me doing exactly what they wanted, but even with that in mind this list holds a special place for me because even with that knowledge there's some genuinely great stuff on there and I really do legitimately still have a big adoration for this tune especially considering where this band went since then.

This song is really a sign of things to come because over the past couple of years the whole let's rip off Depeche Mode and New Order style really seems to have picked up steam and a host of new wave inspired tones are really starting to become a thing to the detest of some rock journalist and the joy and elation of some listeners I'm not a hundred percent sure my stance considering I like these things but at the same time it is a tone that could let more pop in than I'd care to listen to for any reason.

I like this band but I'm over the honeymoon phase and it was the day after one of their show's the following year that I had the worst day of my life so it's hard to look back on them too fondly or listen to a lot of music from this or the following year very fondly and while 2013-15 where some of the most involved and consistently strong year end list in retrospect they also happen to be soundtrack to a guy trying to cover up trauma.

Sam's best of 2012:

Anyway-Cee-lo Green

I'm just gonna admit it I fell off the bandwagon in regards to my fandom of this guy after his follow up to the Lady Killer and even that record in retrospect hasn't aged as well as the music it clearly tried to be but god fucking damn it I FUCKING LOVE THIS GOD DAMN SONG.

You ever watch a movie that you know isn't a quality piece of media but you love every fucking second of it because it just makes you feel good in it's lack of quality?

Well that's kind of how I feel about this song disco infused ball of cheese courtesy of a man who's kind of a douche bag, but like I said at the time this song's quality is similar to Discovery-era Daft punk in that it's quality is similar to child like innocence it's good because it makes you feel good you have a tune that has a lot of warm tones, and simple lyrics that are easy to sing along to and just goofy enough to look past the sheer absurdity of them (“for worse or for better, you make me better,”) and I from what I can remember of 2012 as a year I needed an escapist piece of music that wasn't dumb ass angry white boy music and Cee-Lo as a whole opened my eyes up to giving R&B a chance and while I still love me some aggressive rock and roll I don't just listen to that I kind of explore it all and this man is honestly partly why that's a thing for me.

Now if only Cee-Lo would put it ON FUCKING SPOTIFY!

Sam's Best of 2011

Rope-Foo Fighters

Prior to this song I personally thought Dave Grohl was a fuck riding the coattails of Kurt Cobain's legacy and that the Foo Fighters made OK at best music then one morning I was woken up by this song's world premier in the KC area and that all changed.

I couldn't ever really consider myself a fan of this band beyond a handful of tracks but of that handful of tracks that make me get why people enjoy this group this song is probably still the one that I'd stand behind as being the track that is everything great about this band.

It's a straightforward high energy rocker with a simple but effective solo near the end point, Grohl perfectly mixing his scream/sung style of vocals, and at the time it didn't get overplayed to a point of making me hate it which is quite the rarity when it comes to this band because like a host of other acts I've enjoyed over the years the radio makes and breaks everything you could possibly love and this song managed to avoid that fate and be an anomaly of a decision I can look at in retrospect and whole heartedly say is still a legitimately great piece of work.