COME ON. COME ON. COME ON.

I’ll probably have to miss tomorrow due to excessive work and laundry, but I’ll definitely be back on Friday. In the meantime, here’s two personal favorites.

True Example, “Love Is Finally Coming My Way” – So right now I’m temping, which means I don’t necessarily have a regular source of income, which sadly means I have to curtail one of my absolute favorite ways to spend my time in the universe: wandering the racks at Amoeba looking for random compilations to buy as blindly as I can. I know compilations are supposedly “dead” thanks to file-sharing, but if you’re one of those people like me who can catch a nearly-physical buzz off suddenly hearing something great, compilations are still your best bet to spend your money on. Take, for instance, this little nugget of unalloyed Salsoul blisscore: you’d think someone would have made a reference to that breakdown or those ensemble vocals or All That Incredibly Warm Orchestration, but I’d never heard of it until I bought a Salsoul compilation on impulse. Admittedly, the compilation did come from the Flavas series (which trades on offering up super-deep non-single cuts from less-prominent artists, although that just raises the issue of how in the blue fuck this wasn’t a single), but that’s almost my point: if compilations are on their way out due to a rising tide of omniscient, then thank God I’m a dumbass or I’d miss out on the great stuff like this. (Click here to buy Salsoul Presents Philly Soul Flavas from Amazon)

Names, “Why Can’t It Be?” – Speaking of compilations, here’s maybe my favorite song to come off of a rock compilation (well, actually a power pop comp, but the song right after this one on the tracklist is Cheap Trick’s “Southern Girls” so let’s not split hairs), which is probably a more significant descriptor than you’d think. I’ve always found that the biggest stumbling block for me and rock music is that when a rock song I like stops kicking my ass, I inevitably catching myself talking about it in a distressingly George Will-esque fashion and quickly just move on in an embarrassed panic. Compilations, of course, are ten thousand times worse as far as that goes; their function is usually just to make you acknowledge that an awesome song exists, so I’m left feeling used-up towards a lot of music that I’d otherwise like a lot. This song, however, is the exception, pretty much because it’s so, well, exceptional – it’s introspective and moody like Big Star, but rollicking and pub’d up like a classic Nick Lowe track and wrapped up in a piano-driven melody big enough for ABBA. The rest of the CD is just kind of there (the aforementioned “Southern Girls” excepted, obviously), but god, as long as this song exists on my copy of the album, it ain’t going anywhere. (Click here to buy a used copy of the out-of-print Come Out And Play: American Power Pop 1 from Amazon)

Elsewhere: Hey, look, the greatest press release in history.