VIRTUAL MIX TAPE: "13 Wonderful Will Songs - Vol. 4"

Yes, that’s right, it’s time for another installment of songs that I love and that I hope you’ll love, too. And if you don’t, well, it ain’t like this thing is behind the paywall, so what’d you pay for it, anyway?

In conclusion, listen or don’t, but if you do, I hope you dig it…and if you really dig it, consider upgrading to a paid subscription!

1. L.E.O., “Goodbye Innocence” (2006 - Alpacas Orgling)

If you can’t tell from the name of this group that their music is an homage to Jeff Lynne and his work within Electric Light Orchestra, rest assured that it will be 100% evident the moment you press “play.” L.E.O. is somewhat of an all-star pop affair led by Bleu, but this song’s greatest moment comes at the 3:04 mark, when we hear that all-too-rare musical beast: a vocal turn from Andy Sturmer, late of Jellyfish. It sets my heart aflutter every time I listen.

2. The Merrymakers, “She’s a Radio” (1995 - No Sleep ‘Til Famous)

This Swedish group was a discovery from the Not Lame Records mail order catalog, and it’s surely one of the best investments I ever made. Although I’d been a power pop fan for awhile by this point, it’s definitely the record that made me more aware of the Swedish pop scene, and it remains one of my all-time favorite albums. No matter how many times I’ve spun it over the years, I somehow feel like I love it a little more each time.

3. The Rutles, “Another Day” (1978 - The Rutles)

You probably know the deal on the Rutles: the late Neil Innes, even more late of Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, wrote the music for the Beatles parody mockumentary called All You Need is Cash, though it’s generally just referred to these days as The Rutles. Anyway, this track was an obvious homage to Paul McCartney’s bouncy pop contributions to The White Album, but in addition to being memorable for being insanely catchy, I’ll always remember it because it made me look up the word “pusillanimous.” Still can’t spell it properly, but at least I know what it means. (What, you think I’m going to define it for you here? Look it up like I did!)

4. The Elements, “Ordinary Day” (2003 - Shake Yer Popboomerang)

There’s something slightly cruel about a band releasing a single so good that it puts them on your radar for the long haul, only for them to never release another blessed thing. Such was the case with The Elements. Dammit.

5. Paul Williams, “Someday Man” (1970 - Someday Man)

Given my age and the era in which I grew up, my familiarity with Paul Williams began at an early age, since he was a very special guest star on The Muppet Show, appeared in Smokey and the Bandit, and popped up on a plethora of variety shows. As such, I obviously knew he was a singer and even came to know a few of his songs, but this one completely eluded me until my parents gave me Listen to the Band, the Monkees box set, and I heard their version of the track. I eventually hunted down Williams’ own version, bought a digital copy of the album from which it hailed, and that’s when I really started to appreciate Paul Williams as a singer/songwriter.

6. Michael Penn, “Try” (1997 - Resigned)

Like most people, my first exposure to Michael Penn was courtesy of his first hit single, “No Myth,” from his debut album, March. That record was released on RCA, but after his sophomore effort, Free-for-All, failed to match the success of its predecessor, Penn went elsewhere. I phrase it that way because I don’t know if he jumped or if he was pushed, but either way he eventually ended up with a new record deal with Epic Records, hence the title of his third album, Resigned. (Get it?) This song leads off that LP, and it feels like an actual miscarriage of justice that it didn’t scale the upper reaches of the charts, if only because of its video. Per Director’s Library, “Michael Penn’s single ‘Try’ was PTA’s first music video, made during the time he was in post-production on his second feature Boogie Nights. The video consists of a long uncut take and was shot using crew (featuring some cast) that had recently finished on Boogie Nights with him.” Have fun spotting the notable names in the mix.

7. Tenacious D, “Wonderboy” (2001 - Tenacious D)

As much as I love this whole stupid album, I feel quite certain that the biggest reason this track found its way into regular rotation for me was because it was one of the few tracks I could play with my wife in the car. (Her tolerance for the D is pretty limited once they started getting filthy.) That said, it’s such an epic, soaring rock track that I would’ve loved it no matter who’d recorded it.

8. Big Country, “Alone” (1993 - The Buffalo Skinners)

I’ll probably never get to a point where I hear a Big Country song and don’t find myself bemoaning the fact that lead singer Stuart Adamson is no longer among us. That guy’s voice was a thing of beauty, so distinct that you’d always recognize it the second you heard it. This wasn’t the band’s last album with Adamson, but it’s the last one that made any impact in the States, and this song was why it got the success it did.

9. Roy Wood, “Any Old Time Will Do” (1975 - Mustard)

This is one of those tracks where I find myself really wracking my brain to remember how I first heard it, because it certainly isn’t something I would’ve just heard on the radio. I can’t swear to it, but I think it was included in a series of CDs that was used as between-acts music during the 1999 International Pop Overthrow concerts, and that I happened to be at one of the shows where it came up. And if that wasn’t it, then I honestly have no idea. However I found it, though, I loved it on first listen and made a point of hunting down the song as quickly as possible in order to have my own copy.

10. People on Vacation, “Cruel Summer” (2014 - Here Comes the Reign Again)

Here we are at the obligatory cover song of this volume, and this selection comes from a fantastic collection of ‘80s covers compiled by my buddy Andrew Curry over at Curry Cuts. I always love it when an artist takes a song and changes it in a way that makes it feel like a completely different song while still maintaining the melody and all of the hooks from the original. This is a fantastic example of such.

11. Del Amitri, “Drunk in a Band” (2002 - Can You Do Me Good?)

If there’s any question as to whether or not Del Amitri has been pigeonholed as a result of their hit singles up to this point, when I went to Discogs to check the date of release for this album, I saw that one of the style descriptors used for the LP is “soft rock.” All it takes is the first few seconds of this track to confirm that they ain’t all that soft with their rock. It always struck me as nuts that this album never came out in the US, especially since the band’s previous albums had spawned hit singles. There’s no accounting for taste, I suppose.

12. The Sighs, “Living in Dreams” (1992 - The Sighs)

In the early ‘90s, there was a U.S. label called Charisma Records, and I always found it confusing when looking through artists’ back catalogs, because there was also a British label called Charisma, and the artists signed to the two Charismas were absolutely nothing alike. I literally just found out while writing this paragraph that the two labels were completely unrelated. Well, that certainly explains it. Anyway, I loved the U.S. Charisma because they released a number of wonderful pop records by the likes of Jellyfish, Brent Bourgeois, Frazier Chorus, and Something Happens. Also in the mix: the Sighs, whose self-titled debut was full of great pop tracks. Weirdly, one of the least overtly poppy tracks was released as the first single (“Heroes Are Made for Falling”), and I’ve always felt like that’s the biggest reason it wasn’t more of a success. If they’d released this song instead, it could’ve been huge. (That’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it.)

13. Pet Shop Boys, “Home and Dry” (2002 - Release)

Pet Shop Boys are a perfect example of an artist that started out almost as huge in the US as they were in the UK, maintained some semblance of that success for a few more years, and then gradually lost virtually all of their US success outside of their diehard fans. Meanwhile, back in the UK, they’re still breaking big with virtually everything they release. This song came out not long after my wife and I got married, and a few years later, when I started going to various press junkets and traveling on a regular basis, she used to listen to it because it so perfectly summed up how she was feeling about my absence.