Wrapped Roundup: #60-51

The R.E.M. influence only continues to grow as we move further up the list. 

#60: No Surprises – Radiohead

Let’s skip straight past the jokes and talk about how great this song is, because I refuse to tolerate the notion that sad music only exists for sad people. Yes, a sad song can be perfect for a dreary day, but sometimes great music is just great music, and often great music fits just about any occasion.

OK Computer is a great example of an album with a song for every mood. No Surprises, as I’m sure most of you are aware, is the song that fits the sad mood. The bell tones in time with the melancholy, slow guitar lick are quintessential sad-song touches, and Thom Yorke’s quavering timbre doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence. The key to making this song a listenable song on all days outside of the worst ones is the key, which is a major one. Because if you just accept the energy of No Surprises at face value and sink into the music, the track’s sound is fundamentally happy. 

Just ignore the lines about being tired and unhappy, and the parts where Yorke asks to die with “no alarms and no surprises.” Easy!

#59: Telling Stories – Drivin N’ Cryin

Things were starting to get dreary there for a second, but luckily we have the musical impersonation of a short, temperate walk to cheer us up. 

Telling stories, did you hear the one?

Do you like to laugh? Did you hear that song?

Telling stories of moving on

Fallen angels and broken arms

Telling Stories is wrapped in acoustic guitar and harmonica. Kevin Kinney sweetly tops it off with good harmonies and an eager, kind voice. It doesn’t change much from start to finish, just lulling you further and further into contentment via simple guitar and uplifting vocals. At just over 3:30, it doesn’t drag on or try to be something it’s not. What it is is a simple ballad about growing up, presumably, and telling stories. There are challenges, but there’s also warmth and family, and what more could you really ask for?

If you’re looking for an introduction to Drivin N’ Cryin and you don’t love hard rock, this is the place to start. Really, all of Wrapped in Sky is a masterpiece, and if I ever convince one person to listen to it I will consider my life to be a success.

#58: Learning to Fly – Pink Floyd

Vibe switch! From the most humble, down-to-earth song I can think of to this song, a dramatic, high-flying soap opera of a track.

The first two things you hear when you turn on Learning to Fly are the earth-rattling drums and the electronic guitar/synth sound that assaults your ears with each passing measure. Then, you’ll find the chorus, and the operatic background vocals give the track an entirely new dimension of grandeur, and you’ll forget why you don’t listen to Pink Floyd very much. 

I don’t remember where this song came from, but I do remember being hooked pretty much instantly. Pink Floyd tends to be a bit too spacey for me, but if you really commit to that, you can get some incredible sounds. Learning to Fly is the epitome of that, a successfully soaring rock ballad that makes you want to try base jumping all of the sudden. 

#57: Talk About The Passion – R.E.M.

Back to the humble little tracks. Talk About The Passion is Murmur’s second great track, Radio Free Europe’s little brother that received plenty of acclaim but not to the same degree as its older lead single. It’s also the simplest track on the album, by a long shot. Or maybe it’s just the blueprint, the most faithful R.E.M. song you’ve ever heard.

What I can say for sure is that if you knew what R.E.M. sounded like but knew none of their actual songs, this song might be the most R.E.M.-ish track ever. The guitar is as jangly and arpeggio-focused as ever, Stipe’s vocals are clearer than they ever get on Murmur, and the lyrics are just as convoluted and nonsensical as you would expect. 

And at some moments, like the beginning of my time listening to R.E.M. and in particularly sentimental, summer times, this is my favorite R.E.M. song. No distortion, no breakdowns, no grand social statements. Just Stipe, Buck, Berry, and Mills, and a few words from a French class they took in high school or something. 

Not everyone can carry the weight of the world

Not everyone can carry the weight of the world

Talk about the passion

Talk about the passion

#56: Like A River – My Morning Jacket

The song of fall, truly. I don’t think Like A River will ever leave this list just because, for me, there is no fall without Like A River. 

This song relies on tension to an uncomfortable extent. The slowest of escalations, all the way from a repetitive acoustic arpeggio and some drum additions to soaring guitar and keyboard lines. All the while, Jim James serenades you with various signs of the arrival of fall.

Breeze has blown, leaves have fallen

Days grown short, river flowin’

Finally home, sun is shinin’

Where the sweet river windin’

Like a river flowin’, like a river windin’ its way

Like a river flowin’, like a river 

If you never listen to another song on this list with any intention, you should sit down somewhere you can see the sun and listen to this song, straight through. No distractions, just this song and peace. Transformative, in a way that only MMJ can be for me. 

#55: Revolution – The Cult

I could not believe the hate for this album when I looked up reviews. Apparently nobody appreciates good old-fashioned nonsensical rock n’ roll anymore!

Yeah, I get it. The Cult at their peak produced good, not great rock. Most of their songs have lyrics that are not only nonsensical and/or indecipherable, but usually just bad. Ian Astbury’s vocal inflections don’t help. If I wasn’t raised on their music, if I didn’t have a personal connection to it, maybe I wouldn’t enjoy it that much.

But no, that’s not true, because it turns out that sometimes all music has to do is make you feel like running through a brick wall. And as it turns out, this album, Love, is brimming with songs just like that: Revolution, Love, Phoenix (oh, don’t get me started on Phoenix), Hollow Man, Rain, Nirvana… every single one, nearly. And when you have to power through orgo lecture, orgo discussion, and orgo lab lecture in rapid succession every Thursday, that kind of music is exactly what you need.

So I dare you. I dare you to listen to this album and tell me it’s not good because of all the reasons I already mentioned, because the reality is that it’s fantastic, and I will not be persuaded to the contrary.

#54: Evil Eye – Franz Ferdinand

I could just say all the same things about this song, except Franz Ferdinand gets freaky with their music and makes it, well… freaky.

Some people get a freak outta me

Some people can’t see what I can

Some people wanna see what I see

Some people put an evil eye on me

Nowadays, I have a hard time listening to this song. It’s a seriously acquired taste, focusing on reverb-heavy, overbearing lyrics and the same repeated guitar riff. But it has a seriously catchy groove and fun, slightly spooky synths and lyrics. Those are all pluses, and I won’t apologize for listening to it as much as I did this year. I will beg Franz Ferdinand to please, please, please release more songs like this on their new album so I can listen to them again, because the reality is that it doesn’t get much better than Evil Eye in their discography. 

#53: Harborcoat – R.E.M.

The consensus best song on Reckoning and one of R.E.M.’s finest opening tracks on any album, Harborcoat is one of the songs that made me fall in love with the band. It’s their greatest display of vocal layering, featuring two simultaneous choruses that say completely different things. It’s the epitome of the jangle-pop that got them where they are now in alt-rock history. It’s the true beginning of their political messaging. It has everything you want in an R.E.M. song, and yet it’s absent from most top-10 discussions.

Why? Because it’s simple and not particularly flashy. Stipe never soars into the upper register or says anything particularly flashy. The solo is taken by a harmonica, and it’s short and sweet. The groove never changes, and Buck doesn’t do anything impressive with the guitar. 

That’s why I love them, though. This song could have been brainstormed, composed, and recorded in an hour in a studio, and we would never know because everything about it is perfect. You could find ways to make it more impressive, flashier, more commercially appealing, but you couldn’t find something to get angry about. You call it safe, conservative – I call it masterful, compelling. R.E.M. knew what they could do, and they didn’t feel like doing anything else at the time, early in their careers. Clearly, that worked out for them. 

#52: Not Like Us – Kendrick Lamar

From the top rope, it’s the biggest of Kendrick’s anti-Drake diss tracks. I’m just a bit embarrassed to see that I listened to Not Like Us significantly more than I listened to Sing About Me, I’m Dying Of Thirst, but in all fairness, this is an absurdly catchy song that carved out an incredibly huge niche in pop culture this year. 

I’m pretty sure there are thousands of people who care way more about rap beef and popular culture that could tell you everything that is significant about this song, so I won’t bother. What matters to me about this song is that it got me into Kendrick to begin with, and from there I found a lot of Kendrick Lamar songs that are far more significant in many ways. So thanks, Not Like Us, for putting me on. 

#51: Underground Umbrella – Drivin N’ Cryin

Back in business. This is about as intense as Wrapped in Sky gets, the emotional and musical climax. Still, it’s trying its best to draw you in. Kinney barks odd phrases at you, daring you to understand what’s going on. The guitar is furtive and minor. Louder and louder, until you get blasted with a wave of sound, instruments completely indistinguishable from one another, resolving into one big guitar solo. 

Doesn’t get much better as far as 90s rock goes. Argue with a wall.

And with that, we’re halfway done! Hope the journey through my listening hasn’t been too terribly boring. If you read this far, let me know if there’s anything you want me to do differently through the last half of these tracks. Thanks for reading!