The Friday Five: January 16, 2015

Friday Five : |ˈfrÄ«dā – fÄ«v| : On the sixth day of every week, I hit the shuffle button in iTunes and share the first five tracks and thought for each track. Sometimes there is a playlist involved, occasionally we’ll have a guest, but most of the time it’s just me. The rest is up to you, our friends and readers! Fire up the media player of your choice and share the first five random track of your shuffle in the comments.

The Five:

“We Laugh Indoors” by Death Cab for Cutie (from The Photo Album, 2001)

I’m cramming this week’s Friday Five in between back-to-back meetings; let’s hope that we don’t run into any ten minute tunes!

I absolutely love those first couple of Death Cab records, perhaps even more than than I should. There was something about Ben’s words and delivery that spoke loud and clear to me.

“Too Shy” by Kajagoogoo (from Like, Omigod! The ’80s Pop Culture Box (Totally) (disc 4), 2002)

Holy “one-hit-wonder,” Batman! (I’m certain that someone is going to now correct that.)

“Silver Springs” by Fleetwood Mac (from Rumours (disc 3: More from the Recording Sessions), 2013)

Kill it! Kill it with fire!

My reluctant turnaround on Fleetwood Mac has only come with recent age, but even in my appreciation I still find Stevie Nicks’ bleating to be incredibly irritating. If there were a song on Rumours that I could do without, it may be “Silver Springs.”

“Elko” by Ash Reiter (from Paper Diamonds, 2010)

This one comes courtesy of Popdose alum, Michael Fortes. Rather than prattle on myself about how awesome Miss Reiter is, I’ll urge you all to go and watch the episode of the much-missed Parlour to Parlour that she is featured on.

“Please (You Got That…)” by INXS (from The Years 1979-1997 (disc 2), 2002)

Succumbing to the trend of the day is never the way you want to see your favorite artists go. At some point during the rise of the “Seattle Sound” the boys in INXS decided it would be a good idea to “grunge” up their sound and have a go at it. The resulting record, Full Moon, Dirty Hearts, is a mixed bag with more mediocre than good moments, and possibly a few plainly awful ones, as well. Oh, and look, it’s Ray Charles! If you’re scratching your head, you are not the only one. Full Moon, and it’s predecessor, Welcome to Wherever You Are, were permanent residents in the cutout bin. While the latter had a couple of shining moments, the former is likely the low point in the bands catalog—and I’m including Switch in that list.

What’s on your shuffle today?