10 Nebraska Gemini Killers (November 19th - 23rd)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

It's Friday night and I'm getting this all done now before a big weekend visiting the In Laws. They have a lovely 5 acre patch of bushland but hardly any 3G coverage. I'm hoping to get in a bit of kayaking on the lake while I'm there, so that should keep me distracted from the Internet. Keeping me from getting distracted at work next week, I've got some sweet, sweet tunes.

I have the vast dichotomy of a collection of Ice Cube songs and Springsteen's homemade classic, Nebraska. A classic also from The Lemonheads. Because @sunky got me thinking about Wild Nothing, I'm playing Gemini; Los Angeles from LA punks X is here; you can thank Metal Evolution again for Van Halen. The final disc from The Motown Years is here, as is an Us3 album I only recently found. Patterson Hood, Drive-By Trucker is here with a solo effort. And last of all, as a tribute to the band's announcement that they've played their last show (some would say, thankfully) I have the 25th anniversary edition of INXS - Kick.

Check it out.

• Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska
• The Lemonheads - Come On Feel The Lemonheads
• X - Los Angeles
• INXS - Kick 25th Anniversary
• Van Halen - Van Halen
• Us3 - Questions
• Michael Jackson - The Motown Years (Disc 3)
• Patterson Hood - Killers and Stars
• Wild Nothing - Gemini
• Ice Cube - 10 Great Songs

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Cody ChesnuTT
2. Mumford & Sons
3. Paul Kelly
4. Alice Cooper
5. Wild Nothing

Song of the Week : Cody ChesnuTT - 'Til I Met Thee

If you haven't already heard it, check out the new Cody ChesnuTT album, Landing On A Hundred. It's packed full of some really funky soul. 

The only other ChesnuTT track I knew before this was Look Good In Leather, which is funky as hell, but not very serious and soulful. The tunes on this album seem to borrow from all over the Soul spectrum, grabbing Stevie Wonder style rhythms here and there, Sam Cooke crooning and on my SOTW, Marvin Gaye's horns.

The song is 'Til I Met Thee and I am sure you will hear the Marvin Gaye all over it. There's the horn section and the doo wop backing as well as the smooth bass and the layer on layer of instrumentation. I guess ChesnuTT picked it up too, because he seems to be trying to channel Marvin through his voice as well. 

Adios

Thanks for stopping by. May this weekend be the one you have that epiphany you've been waiting for; and may you get as much of a lie in as you need.

Hasala malakim.

People's Official Wild Dummy Trick (September 10th - 14th)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

Just a quick one today. I'm at home looking after Miss 3 and I am sick as a fully chrome set of mags. I thought about not posting this weekend, but since my target audience is me, I'm the only one who misses out. So, let's get into the music shall we?

A couple of kitschy sets this week in a compilation of Journey's best and Fastway's soundtrack to the long forgotten 80s horror film Trick Or Treat (starring Skippy from Family Ties with a cameo from Ozzy Osborne). There's a few old favourites from Something For Kate, Kathleen Edwards and A Tribe Called Quest. The new Meliisa Etheridge album is here - she seems to have gone back to her rock roots and is playing all guitars on every song. Also new is Dylan's dark Tempest and Wild Nothing's Nocturne. Because I've been listening to a bit of electronic music lately, I decided to get on someone who does it right, so I added Portishead. Rounding it all off, Ozi Batla's solo album is here because I recently heard the new Evil Eddie song and it reminded me. 

Check it out:

• Fastway - Trick or Treat
• Something For Kate - The Official Fiction
• Portishead - Dummy
• Journey - Greatest Hits
• Wild Nothing - Nocturne
• Melissa Etheridge - 4th Street Feeling
• Bob Dylan - Tempest
• Kathleen Edwards - Failer
• A Tribe Caled Quest - People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
• Ozi Batla - Wild Colonial

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Ice-T
2. Tracy Chapman
3. Digable Planets
4. Sex Pistols
5. Pegz

Song of the Week : Digable Planets - Dog It

As for my favourite track this week, it's a cut from one of my 5 or 10 favourite Rap albums, Digable Planets - Blowout Comb. For my weekly work list, I try to avoid playing the same things all the time and keep it fresh every week. That leads to me deliberately avoiding great albums like this one and Pneumonia etc. Thing is, when my brain told me to slip Blowout Comb on this week's list, I checked back and found that August 2010 was the last time it made the cut. 

I chose this song, Dog It because it is "hella" funky. The brass and the bass on the track are as cool as can be and the whole thing puts me in the New York groove (won't Kiss be pleased!). The other reason I chose it is because all week I've had a bar of lyrics from it stuck in my head - because it's a catchy rhyme and because it's clever:

"Now, I'm making bacon,

Still saying wa assalamu alaikum" 

It's a good groove for a Friday afternoon. I hope it gets you dancing.

Okey Doke

Thanks for stopping by. That's it then. I best go away and try hard not to shrivel up with dehydration and die. I'll see you all next week, with a good deal more energy I hope.

Go Eagles. Because if you don't 'go', that's it for 2012. Hasla malakim