This week’s list is one part eulogy to the passing of summer, one part acceptance of heading back to work and at least in my case, a shitload of rap music about school and education. While there’s a song acknowledging the way teachers like us sound by Wild Flag, Kanye rallying for more school spirit and Vampire Weekend (and I) not giving a fuck about an Oxford comma, I had to limit myself a bit. Mac Miller’s Senior Skip Day and I Love High School made it to the final round, but something about Miller praising skipping class to get high and waking up hungover before high school hit a little to close to the line where artistic expression interferes with my all too real role as a teacher who would be hella pissed to know any of my students were emulating Mac Miller’s lifestyle within six years in either direction of entering my class. (Given I interact mainly with the mid level humans, I suppose the post side of six years would be the only route to me accepting a laissez faire view toward Mac Miller mimickery.) Either way, there’s plenty of school inspired noise contained in the playlist below.
Over the course of the last week or so Mac’s had me listening to Graham Parker’s earliest (at least that I can find) release, Squeezing Out Sparks. To be honest, prior to this installment of the album trade, I’ve never heard of the guy. I will never lie in saying my musical erudite goes barely beyond a decade if I’m lucky. So I listened, over and over again. And between the overwhelming sound of 1979–as far as I know what that sounds like–I found instantly memorable songs, infectious melodies and pseudo anthems remniscent of Billy Bragg covering Woodie Guthrie. And as I listened, I started creating a playlist of all the free association sounds I could somehow link to Parker. The Hold Steady do that whole talk-rock thing, Langhorne Slim carries similar rhythyms from time to time, Ha Ha Tonka loves the kinda anthems, Blitzen Trapper sounds like something from a vaguely familiar era and The Big Pink’s hollowed out sound is uncanny stacked up against a few of Parker’s tracks. As evidence of my highly convoluted compare/contrast thesis (damn, school starts next week) I’ve put a playlist together with a sampling of my favorites from the aforementioned artists, staggered Parker/other and so on.
