I heard this song when Coldplay was on Loveline in August, and was immediately taken. The chorus is just amazing. The verse reminds me slightly of Duran Duran's "Save a Prayer", though. (Which strikes me funny, since I wrote a song on piano back in 1998 that also sounds like "Save a Prayer".)

I ended up picking up A Rush of Blood to the Head. Normally, I wait until I've heard three songs to pick up a CD, but it's been a while since I picked up a CD, so I figured I'd splurge. (It's not that I download like mad, either. I've mostly been listening to old stuff lately. Flat out nothing new has interested me in recent weeks, even to download.)

I'm still sifting through the CD - I may write a review at some point.

I've been listening to quite a bit of singer/songwriter stuff lately. Michael Penn's March is one of my all-time favorite records. A friend of mine let me borrow his tape of it back in early 1990 after I caught "No Myth" on MTV, and I completely fell in love with it. I tend to put it away for long periods of time, though, and I recently brought it out again to listen to this song.

One of the things that stands out about March is the unusual drum machine programming. In many cases, drum machines ruin songs. But on this album (as well as on the early albums by They Might Be Giants), it just works. The programmed sounds on March are so punchy and powerful. And, ironically, the fact that many of the programmed drum beats couldn't be played by a real drummer somehow makes them more appealling.

My only complaint - I wish they had separated the intro piece to "Bedlam Boys", "Disney's a Snow Cone", and given it its own track on the CD. It's not horrible, but it's kind of annoying to have to speed through it to get to the real song.

Jude Cole's A View from 3rd Street came out around the same timeframe as March and is in a similar vein, even if it doesn't quite meet its match. I don't think I'd listened to it in years, but "House Full of Reasons" was one of my favorites. I heard recently that Lifehouse hired Jude as their manager, and I have to wonder if he has a hand in their songwriting. There are some notable similarities.

I also borrowed my mom's Jim Croce compilation (36 All-Time Greatest Hits) recently. I can't stand most of his lyrics, some of which seem really trite, but the guitar playing on some of the songs is just phenomenal. "Photographs and Memories", for example. (I would really love to be able to write guitar noodles like those.) My mom listened to a lot of his stuff when I was in preschool, so songs like "Operator" (which is just brilliant) have a lingering appeal, too.

I recently stumbled over a copy of the 1998 Kevin and Bean Christmas CD in the bargain bin. That shocked me, considering it was only released in Los Angeles, and I live about three thousand miles from there. But finding that old disc somehow led me to pull out the other K&B Christmas CD's, and led me to this gem on the 2001 K&B CD.

This is a Christmas song, sure. But that really doesn't matter. This song is hilarious. Jack Black (of the D) sings vocals over Sum 41 in their "Pain for Pleasure" hair-metal guise. JB goes for the full Iron Maiden wailing in the beginning, and then sings about all kinds of completely absurd things he wants for Christmas. "A solid-gold harley with machine guns on the front", "a magical sleigh that's pulled by flying skunks", etc.

Listen here: "Things I Want" (RealPlayer)