1.  “‘The Underdog’ has a million chords,” says Daniel. “A lot of songs on this record are just one or two chords. There’s a lot more droning.”
Britt Daniel, on the rawer new Spoon record, to Spinner (also).
2. “’Virgin mishandled an earlier remaster series,’ says Partridge, ‘and there were all sorts of bad color separations and [...]

Cool things about this clip (which, mind you, is not of the quality of the picture above, from the same show):

XTC “Life Begins at the Hop” (m4v) (right-click and save as)
1. XTC pulled a Beatles (or is it a Steely Dan) and quit touring after Andy Partridge collapsed from exhaustion while on the road in [...]

The songs I’m posting today provide decent insight into my complicated personal romantic history. Prior to my current relationship, which sounds like this, love songs were excuses to revisit past experiences and sensations, which were generally marked by just-missed opportunities, outright exaltation, and retroactively resonant moments of nervous chatter. Here are a few of the [...]

I had a record number of replies for Volume II of the Cover Mix Contest, but only one got every track properly identified, with song titles and both artists. It’s also totally unfair, because the winner is Brian Ibbott, the proprietor of The Cover Song Podcast at Coverville.com. Now, to be fair, I didn’t issue [...]

Each year when driving to my mom’s house for Christmas, I force myself to get in the spirit by playing this song in my car. It always works.  Andy and Colin allow themselves to get caught up in the celebratory spirit–which is enough of a shock from these oft-curmudgeonly souls–but not enough to reduce the [...]

(This is the fourth installment of marathonpacks’ Top 50 of the 90s list. To see #50-41, click here. To see #40-31, click here. To see #30-21, click here. The fifth and final installment will be posted Thursday.)

20. Mos Def-Black on Both Sides (Rawkus, 1999)
The last two installments of this list will draw heavily [...]