Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Janglin'

The sing along is dead. Long live the singalong. The Zeros bring it back without a vengeance, just happy soaring choruses is all. The first three songs of their debut album are sublime. The other handful are good, but sound just plain horrible when stacked up against them big opening guns.

Janglin' is the third track. It's pure fun, la la las, sha na nas, and everyone smiling and jumping and laughing in jubilation during the chorus.

No reservations, no indie rock cache, just sing along gawddamnit.

Bob Marley - Stir It Up

At 6:40 this morning, my alarm clock, which randomizes through about 1,300 songs, made the perfect choice. A few strums of a muted electric guitar. The whir and swoop of the organ. The shuffle of the bass. The background singers purring. Then Bob. Oh bob. It's been a long time, since you've been on my mind. Ahhhh. He is groggy just like me. But is he lulling me back to sleep? No, he is tempting me out of bed, urging me to go for a run, hinting at the gorgeous sunshine waiting for me outside. Luring me. Entreating me. Beseeching me. Stir it up, little darling. Go, rise, go forward. Propel. Enjoy life. This is the power of music, of rasta, of ja creation.

Cat Stevens - Hard Headed Woman

Other than "Father & Son" and "Wild World", most Cat Stevens' songs remain relatively unknown to the casual rock n' roll fan. Ask anybody who lived through the 70s, however, and you'll find out how big of a deal Cat Stevens really was. It's kind of like Elton John - the typical AM radio fan couldn't really name more than a handful of hits, but dig just a little bit deeper, and you'll find out the guy had a number one hit pretty much every year since 1970. Just a candle in the wind my arse.

"Hard Headed Woman" is lucky to have Cat Stevens at the helm. It is his trademark angry-ish snarly-ish, sounds like there's a bunch of Stevenses echoing together-sih, totally abbrisive howl that gives the somewhat banal lyrics a well deserved kick in the caboose. Tea For the Tillerman is easily one of the best album titles of all time, n'est ce pas?

I wonder if the artist now known as Youssef Islam knows a lot of fancy dancers out in the Himalayas these days...

Queen - We Are The Champions

Every once in a while (1971, 1986, 1993), a sports team comes along and, against all odds, as the all out underdogs, defeats the best team in the league in the playoffs. Rarely, or maybe never, do they beat the best TWO teams in consecutive rounds. Goodbye Caps, goobye Pens. 2010 Habs are on a roll.

Oh my Montreal Candians, this song is for you. Just listen to half of it though, because there are certainly two more rounds to go before you can sing it like Freddy.

Sidebar: Freddy Mercury is electric. Stage presence like no other. No man (gay or straight) could pull off that 'stache better.

Handsome Furs - All We Want, Baby, Is Everything

I cannot begin to tell you ho much I love this band. So cold, heartbreaking , distant, pulsating, electronic, rhythmic and detached, all at once, blended, drum machined and ground into the essence of the paranoia and disillusionment of our not so distant to the point that it is here and now future. All they want, baby, is everything.

What do we want? Who knows, today there is too much to want. I fancy their first album over their second, mainly because the droning, unbroken mid tempo fatalistic yearning just doesn't seem to cease, despite only being 9 tracks long. And they lives in Montreal. Heck yes.

And just look at them - they actually LOOK like their music. No, I don't mean they look like they believe in their music, that is bullshit. Their stage presence is completely organic, their sound is just so naturally, them. They're stage presence.

Oh and check out their sweet travel log on CNN.

That is all.

Television - Marquee Moon

"Marquee Moon" is one of the best albums of the 70s, 'stoo bad most people don't know about it. So many riffs, guitars dueling it out, back n' forth, all given so much room to breathe. Its like The Velvet Underground, but it isn't, because its all too meticulous, too tight.

Each "Marquee Moon" song baits you in, and none of them let you off easy. They start slow, minimal, one instrument at a time, no rush. And they just don't seem to end, because they don't want to go quietly. They make you work, they make you second guess exactly why you are listening in the firts place.

Tom Verlaine's voice could get on your nerves, but not in this context. he's like a third guitar out there; especially on the title track.

You can read more about this album being the birth of post punk. Label it however you like, 'sno denying aggressive and unapologetic riffing.