Deep Cuts Week, Day Five: When You Need Someone To Lead You Through The Cold Gray Dawn

The Rolling Stones, "Shine A Light" - This is a completely superfluous post, right? I mean, surely you all have Exile on fucking Main Street already if you're into music enough to know about mp3 blogs; anything else would be like, I dunno, reading the NYT Review of Books and only knowing James Joyce from his pubs. But then again, I guess that's not necessarily the point with this whole theme week; the point is to introduce excellent, undiscussed stuff into the discourse, and this - certainly the most show-stopping Rolling Stones track ever - sure qualifies on those terms. If you really want to get into it, I like to think of this song as being one of the absolute high-water-marks for Meaning-Rock, since even when you take it purely as high-handed appropriation of the gospel sound by a bunch of rich white apostates, you're still taking an active part in the debate (kinda like those parishoners that tried to get the Sex Pistols banned and such). I still remember buying Exile and London Calling (surely the other pillar of meaning left standing in the rubble of twenty-five years of postmodern pop music) within hours of each other, possibly even at the same store, after weeks of constant instruction by a certain midwestern Springsteen adherent from my freshman dorm; I eventually sold off London Calling (twice!), but Exile, or more specifically Exile as brought to its ultimate and logical conclusion in "Shine A Light", remains the best defense I've come across yet of all this rock and/or roll being perpetrated for a reason.

Well, okay - all that, and it's just unstoppable as a "last song". You better believe I had this whole week planned out. (Click here to buy Exile on Main Street from Amazon.com)

Good Shoes, "Small Town Girl" - I'd like to think that the combination of insane catchiness and charming first-single-ever-ness of this song give it sufficient legs on its own (moreso since I don't know a thing about Good Shoes beyond what all the blurbs on the record shop sites have to say, although everything they say practically effervesces with praise), and that I don't need to go into some long, drawn-out soliliquy about shitty fans of pop-minded indie rock. Seeing as how I've got to hit the road to go to Temecula, I won't. (Click here to buy the "Small Town Girl" single from Rough Trade)

ELSEWHERE

- Holy cow, make sure you head over to To Here Knows When today - if you're lucky, you can still cop the Phones remix of the new White Rose Movement single "Alsatian", which is a motherfucking monstrous monster of a monstrosity and is even better than the very very good original mix. I couldn't possibly be more ready for that White Rose Movement album to drop, either - I still want First Impressions Of Earth more than any other record imaginable, but gawd, EVERY WRM track has been a killer so far.