I love good movies. Some of my all time favorite movies, ones of which I have watched again and again until I can no longer counts how many viewings I have had with these films, are a little bit complicated. Some of these films are both stunning and challenging at the same time. A taste of my favorites include The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Chinatown, Mulholland Drive, Persona, Come and See and more. All of these pictures have touches of material that are uneasy to watch or sit through, but then you are rewarded with some earnest moments that uplift you through their exquisite beauty.
Persona is the destruction of film and the human mind, but it is a gorgeous deconstruction. Music can have the same effect in an even shorter amount of time. Music doesn’t always have to be upbeat and catchy. It can be an experience of life. We all are affected by all sorts of feelings. Music can represent our lives, our confusions and our realizations that bring the entire world– the sky, clouds, trees and skyscrapers– down towards us and wrap us up like a blanket. These songs in this Lil mix are some defining musical moments that will hopefully encapsulate all of what life represents (its familiarities and joys amongst its searches of identity and challenges) for you as much as they do for me. Sit back and experience these mini-audio films. They won’t be easy, but I hope they’re as rewarding for you as they are for me.
1. The Doors-The End
This psychedelic freak out at the end of the self titled Doors debut has challenged listeners for decades, and it makes sense as to why. We start this list off with a straight forward rock song that downward spirals into a narrated hell without borders. This closer opened up Fancis Ford Coppola’s war epic Apocalypse Now, and it’s a great way to show how straightforward music can be blended beyond comprehension. This is our dive into this playlist, so hop on board!
2. Animal Collective-Kids on Holiday
This is like a straight forward 60’s folk song that has been smudged with the anxieties of a wandering mind. It is as grounded as it is scared about its own insecurities. It is a pleasant mixture of stability and panic.
3. The Jesus and Mary Chain-The Hardest Walk
This 80’s staple is so damn cheery but completely depressing. Maybe it’s the way the shrieking guitars hang over the melody like jagged hair covering one’s eyes. Either way, this is a great example of finding joy deep down within despair.
4. Radiohead-Like Spinning Plates
With a reversed melody that will disorient you, you will still find direction once Thom Yorke himself gathers his bearings. This well crafted whirlwind is as delicate as it is damning, and it is definitely one of Radiohead’s more under-appreciated tracks.
5. Juliette & The Licks-Death of a Whore
An actress like Juliette Lewis would know best how to jam the many facets of emotional filmmaking into a song, and she does with her anguished tantrum Death of a Whore. The song starts off simply enough, but it jumps into a state of humanistic anger before it slips into a sympathetic whisper. It is a wild ride, and we’ve all faced these many stages of grief.
6. Royal Trux-Funky Son
The infamous album Twin Infinitives is caked in hateful noise and wretched production, but there’s a heart to all of these Cronenbergs (a term I’ll take from the glorious Rick and Morty). This particular track has a catchy beat behind a miasma of noise and melted sludge. It’s hideous but with an odd sincerity, and you cannot look away from the mangling.
7. Nico-Abscheid
After Warholian muse Nico was done with The Velvet Underground, she underwent a solo career that was backed by TVU member John Cale a lot of the time. The Cale heavy release Desertshore is full of nightmarish daydreams, and Abscheid is a haunting staple that immediately hits you with his jarring string jabs. This funeral march from another world is led by Nico’s androgynous chants, and it’s a romantic departure.
8. Guided By Voices-Smothered In Hugs
This 90’s release was recorded with some of the worst equipment known to man, so the sound quality is akin to a megaphone being stomped on by a transformer. Nonetheless, the entire album is full of Beatles-esque charm, and Smothered In Hugs (one of the album’s longer tracks) is fine evidence of this. It’s submerged underneath musical dirt, but it’s a treasure to be clung to.
9. Björk-Ancestors
Medulla is composed almost entirely of voices, but one of the few songs with an accompanied instrument is Ancestors. A piano ties together the longing of Björk’s history with newly decorated Polaris winner Tanya Tagaq’s pushing for her heritage’s future. Tagaq’s throat singing is the heartbeat of the song, while Björk’s escalating vocals are the spirit. It can’t be more raw than this.
10. John Lennon-Mother
Oh, really? A Beatles’ songwriter has challenging music? Well, dive into Lennon’s solo material, and you’d surely find out that he has quite a bit of music that is full of pure self destruction. Mother is a piano piece that calls for his deceased mother and his father who left him. It ends off with some of the most humanistic singing you’ll ever hear as Lennon screams for the love of his parents like a child in the fetal position on the ground. It’s complete musical honesty.
11. Pixies-River Euphrates
What Pixies song isn’t difficult? Well, it was hard to pick one, but I went with the 60’s girl group song gone possessed River Euphrates. It is one of the most awkwardly catchy songs I’ve ever heard, as the hooks are all clumsy and off putting. How the hell does this song make me want to dance? That’s the magic of Pixies, I suppose.
12. Converge-Phoenix in Flight
Metalcore bruisers Converge have always added the right amount of humility to their ungodly music. One of their more enchanting pieces is Phoenix in Flight: A droning display of noise that blocks out the pleas of the singer. It almost sounds like a demonic orchestra. The next track is Phoenix in Flames: A drum solo that kills the previous song. We’ll leave that out so we can enjoy the self implosion of this song without its inevitable death.
13. Pavement-Loretta’s Scars
Slanted and Enchanted is a classic album of the 90’s, possibly because it feels like a release that was impossible to create. How can a song like Loretta’s Scars exist? It’s so out of tune, off the rails and hum drum. Yet, it’s as magical as drawing glances from the one you love the most. There’s something truly captivating amidst this rusty blur of a song, but maybe not knowing quite what it is is why it is so alluring.
14. Sonic Youth-Tuff Gnarl
One of the best bands at making sense of chaos; Sonic Youth had to appear here. Tuff Gnarl is signature Sonic Youth, with its out of tune guitars being slammed on top of talk-sing vocals and a pummeling drum attack. It goes from a delightful indie song into a freak-out, but a tame one at that (compared to some of the stuff Sonic Youth has been capable of). A good starting point for this highly imaginative band.
15. The Horrors-Sea Within a Sea
What a weird evolution this band has had. They went from straightforward garage rock right into a shoegaze fog. Sea Within a Sea, their finest effort, is a deep-dish song that extends into an extreme breakout as a means of a bridge. It then leads into a glamorous, shimmering transcendence of an outro. With a transformation of a melody into many shifting waves of sound, Sea Within a Sea is definitely one of the rock highlights of the last decade, and it is a borderline tear-jerking take on change.
16. Salem-King Night
This witch house group haven’t released any material after this album, but it’ll be tough to top this absolutely shocking intro anytime soon. This obliteration of beauty is terrifying to year, and yet it is so magnetic, too. You hear a sample of Oh Holy Night being smashed to smithereens by haunting bass and demonic electronics. It is a gorgeous massacre that will make you think twice about how you once felt about that once cleansed song.
17. David Bowie-Be My Wife
Bowie’s masterpiece Low is a revelation of his drug highs and the soul crushing withdrawals he suffered after he quit. The final song with coherent lyrics on this album is Be My Wife. It is a distorted pop song that begs for companionship. His final line (again, within a song that has understandable lyrics) is “sometimes I get so lonely”. His sanity is taken away by a fuzzed guitar solo, and it’s the last we ever hear of him being normal for all of Low. It’s devastating, but it’s pure musical genius.
18. Can-Oh Yeah
This experimental Krautrock band reached their zenith over the span of three albums. My personal favorite, Tago Mago, features this hypnotic song that has machine-like drum patterns and a sinister organ that looms over it. The bass feels like a looping conveyor belt to match the calculated rhythms. It all sounds like a human computer on the verge of crashing (including singer Damo Suzuki’s initial reversed vocal tracks), but it ends on a climactic explosion of passionately played indie rock chords.
19. My Bloody Valentine-No More Sorry
Shoegaze masters My Bloody Valentine have a whole slew of material that can work on this list. I picked No More Sorry because of its sheer dominance over the listener. This eerie track is full of anger, bitterness and honest vengeance. If you took Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Were Made For Walking and soaked it within the actual feelings she may have had, you’d get this intense track. It’s possibly the most emotionally upfront the band has ever been.
20. Brian Eno-Baby’s on Fire
Eno’s debut is a glam rock opus, and his filthiest song on there is the Robert Fripp companion track Baby’s on Fire. It’s a judgmental song full of sneer that erupts into Fripp’s most electrically organic guitar solo. There is concentrated attitude here that is set ablaze midway through, and you can’t help but admire the burning body along with Eno himself.
21. The Velvet Underground-Sister Ray
We end off on the greatest rock jam of all time. This hideous tale of heroin driven orgies that conclude in murder and the cops knocking the door down is all done in one take. It is a cluster of ideas and emotions, and most of them are primitive. This solely improvised song is a mind panicking during a compromising situation while you are loaded on a plethora of drugs. The zenith of the track, the dying organ sounds that burst through the middle of the song (provided by Cale, found previously in the Nico track above) is one of the most jarring moments in contemporary music history. That, along with the entire 17 minutes of hell, is rock and roll at its absolute best.
