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Friday, Dec 15 2017, 6AM
Good morning and happy Friday. We're counting down the top 48 songs of the year on The Morning Show, beginning with this Depeche Mode tune. Dave Gahan explained the meaning of the song's Anton Corbijn-directed music video to Entertainment Weekly (March 23, 2017): "Anton came to me - he's Dutch you know - and said [in clipped Dutch accent], 'So Dave, I have an idea. You're gonna wear a crown. You're this king walking everywhere, and you're gonna carry a deck chair…' And I didn't get it at all. But once we started and he showed me the footage I got what he was doing: The man who has everything, but really feels nothing. And we were in such remote places - like, five miles up in the Alps walking in the snow, in the Algarve in Portugal on these remote beaches, at Balmoral in Scotland, where we could walk for days and days and not see anyone.":www.youtube.com
# 47. Here's another great video, directed by the musician herself. Charlotte Gainsbourg cast her two daughters and joins with Dev Hynes (Blood Orange) to give us the story of an eternal idyll, from childhood through to death.: www.youtube.com
# 46. KEXP DJ Morgan had an exclusive interview with Beck earlier this fall: blog.kexp.org
#45. This is merely one of a number of great songs from LCD Soundsystem's "American Dream," which is on many top ten lists this year, including John's. Here's his complete list: blog.kexp.org
#44. Watch a great in-studio performance (that includes "Death March") by Algiers at KEXP in July.: www.youtube.com
#43. Surprise!! Pixies are on the Top 48 List. This weird and aggressive song was inspired by the cruel and surrealistic movie Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) by Spanish moviemaker Luis Bunuel.The reference to "Slicing up eyeballs" in the opening lyrics is to a shocking scene in Un Chien Andalou where an eyeball is being sliced open.
#42. As described by director Max Weiland, “this video is a comment on society’s obsession with celebrity and the music industry’s attempt to take advantage of that. A strange corporation harvests The Horrors for their real blood, sweat, tears and more, turning their bodily fluids into consumer products ready for the mass market.”: www.youtube.com
#41. Rostam Batmanglij will be at Neumos on Monday, February 19th, 2018. He'll be singing this song.
#40. Anne Erin "Annie" Clark (St. Vincent), who, by the way is 5'7" tall, will be in Seattle, performing at The Moore Theatre on two nights, Thursday and Friday, January 18th and 19th, 2018.
#39. Admit it. You don't know any of the lyrics except for four words.: genius.com
# 38. This song was off this Scottish band's first new album in 19 years. Be careful in watching the video if you have a seizure disorder: www.youtube.com
#37. Dan Auerbach said “'The King of a One Horse Town' is anyone who’s scared of the outside world. Anyone who’s afraid to go beyond their own block for fear of failure. It could be a drug dealer. A drunk. A professor. That's a feeling any of us can relate to.”: www.youtube.com
#36. Enjoy this essay about The National's song about "hopelessness and defeat": www.npr.org
#35. Michael Hutchence died 20 years ago on November 22nd, 1997. Read a little about his legacy.: www.abc.net.au
#34. Do you like this wonderful tune? It's yours --absolutely free --as a KEXP Song of the Day: blog.kexp.org
#33. "We set controls for the heart of the sun." There are so many reasons to love this song. Enjoy this essay by one fan.:sabotagetimes.com
#32. "When you write a bass line this good you better believe it’s gonna get played through the whole goddamn song." This perfect song is included in this list of the 10 best New Order songs: www.stereogum.com
#31. Mary Beth Patterson, better known as Beth Ditto, will bring her "fire" to The Showbox on Thursday, March 29th, 2018.
#30. Not long before he formed the Pixies, Black Francis went scuba-diving in the Caribbean. Some of the fish chased him around the ocean. The experience freaked him out, and "Where Is My Mind" is a pretty straightforward telling of the incident. The eerie "whooooo" background vocals were recorded in a bathroom to get that great echo sound.
#29. Watch John Darnielle and the Goats performing this classic survival anthem live: www.npr.org
#28. Read a very positive review of Spoon's "Hot Thoughts," released this year: consequenceofsound.net
#27. Will Toledo (aka Car Seat Headrest) and his Seattle compatriots Naked Giants absolutely killed it at The Neptune last year in November.: www.youtube.com
#26. You can watch the video for "Beehive" while you are downloading "Nocturne," a John Richards chosen Song of the Day from Mark Lanegan's latest, "Gargoyles": blog.kexp.org
#25. Watch this "force of nature" in a live performance of "Oo La La": www.npr.org
#24. KEXP gives you a free Song of the Day , chosen by our scintillating DJ's, each weekday. John chose "Star Roving" for your enlightenment earlier this year: blog.kexp.org
# 23. The National moved and inspired us with a wonderful in-studio performance on November 29th. That performance will be up on KEXP's Youtube channel on Monday, December 18th, 2017.
#22. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club will be playing The Showbox on Tuesday, February 20th, 2018.
#21. Read an Allmusic biography of Mad Season: www.allmusic.com Then, watch this performance: www.youtube.com
#20. Zoe goes to the window..Looks to the street...Lights up a smoke...It's 04:18..." Here are the lyrics to "Perfect Coffee": genius.com
#19. Frontman Win Butler said about the song:
"There’s sort of an everything-nowness to life. I feel like almost every event and everything that happens surrounds you on all sides. Some of it is fake and some of it is real and some of it is trying to sell you something and some of it is profound. Every moment of everything refracts into a thousand different things. It’s trying to capture some of the experiences of being alive now in all its flaws and all its glory."
#18. An extraordinary cover of the Woody Guthrie classic. Sharon Jones died in November, 2016. The Dap-Kings were present at her death. Here, Gabriel Roth recalls those final days: beta.latimes.com
#17. John picked this song by New Paltz, New York duo Diet Cig as a KEXP Song of the Day:blog.kexp.org
#16. This review of "The Underside of Power" calls it a "sanctified soundtrack for revolution": uproxx.com
#15. This review says that Slowdive's first album in 22 years was certainly worth the wait: exclaim.ca
#14. “Call the Police” is a big, bold anthem with emotion to spare, and near shameless about its grip on the heartstrings. Multi-tracked vocal harmonies, high-necked bass vamps, guitar feedback tangling like downed live wires—they spare no excess in their pursuit of extreme feeling.": pitchfork.com
#13. Look at these hairy musicians in the video for "I'd Kill For Her": www.youtube.com
#12. This is The Breeders' first new song since 2009.: www.npr.org
#11. Q-Tip spoke to Beats Radio about the call-to-arms to rise against the voices of bigotry, saying:
"We're just lovely musicians and artists and that's all we do, is speak and paint pictures and try to speak to a climate but hopefully we will call some sort of uprising internally in that young Jimmy Carter and that young Angela Davis. Hopefully we will, 'cause that's the type of thing we do. And that's why 'We The People' is more of an encompassing and not just us - it's all of us as people."
#10. Watch Hurray for the Riff-Raff perform "Hungry Ghost" live during this KEXP in-studio performance four months ago.: www.youtube.com
#9. Vocalist Ellie Roswell said that she wanted to write a song that was unsubtle and totally unashamed. "I kind of wanted to make one of those head out the window on a long drive tunes. And I wanted to try my hand at like a hold-nothing-back love song. That was my thoughts. But other than that I just kinda let it go where it wanted to go… I just think if you hold back it will sound worse won't it?"
#8. Go! behind the scenes to learn about the terrific video for this song: pitchfork.com
#7. "Got drunk and barfed in my shadow..." You'll want to know these lyrics, so you can sing this anthem to self-indulgence loudly: genius.com
# 6. Acquire "Halfway Home" by Toronto band Broken Social Scene for free. John Richards chose it as a KEXP Song of the Day this year: blog.kexp.org
#5. Luke and Nick have just released a new EP, "On Our Way Home." Watch the new video from the EP:pitchfork.com
#4. Sorority Noise will sing "No Halo" when they play Chop Suey on Sunday, March 18th, 2018.
#3. Watch singer Tunde Adebimpe encourage strangers in the great video for this song. "I just happen to like looking at people and wondering what’s up," Adebimpe told Time of the clip's inspiration. "We got some people together, some of whom we ran into on the street while we were shooting, and did that. We asked if they could quietly (or not) go to brighter or darker places inside themselves [and] let us be there with them for a little while. Everyone's sifting through something, right?":www.vevo.com
#2. They're going to perform "Valley Boy" and many other songs from the well-received "Cry Cry Cry" at The Showbox on Saturday, January 13th, 2018.
Ahhh.....the Friday song. 35 plays this year. Consider a year-end donation to KEXP to support the "music that matters.: www.kexp.org