High Rotation

Cover art of Go with Me by Seapony (Hardly Art, 2011)

A.K.A. the most-played/my favourite tracks of the approximate week listed in order of when I started listening to them recently. This inaugural edition features new songs by Mazzy Star, Jack White and the Black Keys. As usual, click the song-titles to listen. (Note: this is only a compilation of the stand-out tracks I've been listening to lately and deem worth sharing, not literally my most-played tracks. If I wanted to share those stats, I just would have kept my Last.fm account):

1. Blur - "Song 2" - I had a random urge to listen to this song. I think I moreso just had an urge to listen to a short, punchy song with a crunchy riff and randomly thought it'd been a while since I'd heard "Song 2." Surprisingly, I didn’t have it in my iTunes. Anyway, it's strange how I've liked this song since fourth grade (give or take), but I didn't know the lyrics until last week.

2. Eagles of Death Metal - "Wannabe in L.A." - I came across this song on a friend's Facebook page. I always knew EoDM rocked, but this song is just pure awesomeness. Also, I usually hate cheesy videos, but EoDM are so cool, I actually like theirs. Death by sexy indeed!

3. Mazzy Star - "Lay Myself Down" - Santa Monica shoegaze/dream folk group Mazzy Star are back after an essentially fifteen-year hiatus with "Lay Myself Down," the B-side to their Common Burn single, their first release since 1996's Among My Swan LP. I was never a huge Mazzy Star fan (except for their cover of Arthur Lee’s "Five-String Serenade" which I first heard the White Stripes cover), but I really like "Lay Myself Down." I thought such was strange, because I'm not a big Mazzy Star fan, but then I realized why I like the song so much: it's a damned country song, at its core.

4. Jack White - "Love Is Blindness" - Already discussed here.

5. Seapony - "Always" - Seapony really deserve a post of their own; they're just some of the best stuff I've ever heard. They sound like they're straight out of the 80s, with their lush, airy pop, post-punk drum-fills, watery guitar-hooks, reverb and twee-pop sweetness/simplicity/wholesomeness. I first heard this track on a friend's blog, and I just HAD to get rest of the album Go with Me (Hardly Art, 2011) immediately, which led me to the next track on the list.

6. Seapony - "Dreaming" - The opening track on Go with Me.

7. Plastic Flowers - "Drive Me Home" - I'm not usually into washed out, electronic-tinged pop, but I like the slightly sombre, spacey quality of "Drive Me Home" a lot. The song evokes a feeling of nostalgia for nothing in particular. I don't know much about Plastic Flowers though, because there are at least two acts named Plastic Flowers. I haven't really bothered looking into which Plastic Flowers is which.

8. The Chameleons - "Serocity" - Are you noticing a theme between this and the last three songs? If the song isn't actually from the 80s (as the Chameleons track is), it at least sounds like it is. I just love Mark Burgess' off-kilter vocals.

9. The Black Keys - "Lonely Boy" - Like "Song 2," I've had this song on repeat for up to an hour at a time. Got me finally listening to a lot of the Black Keys' older albums again which I hadn't done in a long, long time.