by Ary Barroso (1939)

Aquarela do Brasil, which is the most famous song from the namesake country, most vividly calls to mind the disutopia of Terry Gilliam’s psycho baby mask, plastic surgery, and radically bombed vision. However its been adopted, covered, and used so many places by so many people you might be more familiar with it from the Disney goes Latin animation Saludos Amigos or the discofied version by this week’s style icons The Ritchie Family. No matter the version you listen to though, you feel the strong urge to sway your hips and take a plane to warmer climates (accompanied creepy images of squashed bugs and huge golden Samurais if you still can’t get the Gilliam association out of your head).

Click here to see the rest of Aquarela do Brasil

by Queen (1986)

If you’re anything like me then you have more than a few X Files reruns filling up your DVR; and if you’re a lot like me then you get to relish, albeit ever so briefly, the final seconds of the Highlander theme song (“I am immortal/ I have inside me blood of kings!!”) as the sub-par television show comes to its rightful end and the the compressed credits, which have been running at triple speed below and to the right of a Caprica teaser, increase to their full size and the song’s volume increases… It’s a moment of sheer bliss for me (find joy in the little things, right?), that I try to take in at least a couple of time a week.

Unsurprisingly, the song’s awesomeness is due to the glittery talent of Queen who, back in the day, were the go-to act for science fiction epic songstressing (see the incredible Flash Gordon theme). The theme is actually entitled Princes of the Universe and has a video where Freddie Mercury does battle with Chris Lambert (see below) – although I wish it were Clancy Brown as The Kurgan sparring with FM… though how could so much greatness accurately be captured on-screen at one time?

Click here to see the rest of Princes of the Universe

by Guns N’ Roses (1991)

Do you remember the good old days when Edward Furlong was a promising young upstart that you had a teenage crush on? When Axl Rose was still kind of kicking ass and taking names (but those names were NOT Tommy Hilfiger)?

Remember when another notch in the Terminator franchise was actually something to get excited about? I remember those days, back when I had a small allowance burning a hole in my pocket which I used to purchase the You Could Be Mine single cassette tape (yes, the early nineties still saw plenty of cassette sales, particularly for single releases). It all came flooding back to me in the single millisecond of humor/frivolity in the bleak and forgettable Terminator Salvation when the now gruff voiced and angry John Connor listens to a lyric or two before doing something… I’ve forgotten exactly what at this point, but I’m sure it triggered a nearly 45 minute action sequence entirely devoid of suspense.

To further take yourself back to those heady days, do enjoy the music video below/after the jump where Arnold Schwarzenegger attends a G N’ R concert only to determine that Axl is a waste of ammo. Excellent foresight, Governor.

Click here to see the rest of You Could Be Mine

by General Larry Platt (2010)

I don’t watch American Idol, I don’t listen to top 40 radio and, quite frankly, I’m kind of obnoxiously snide about both. But just the other day the stars aligned while I sat in a car and the remix of this Idol sensation was playing. It’s far more than a mere joke though, at least in my mind. First of all the singer, General Larry Platt is a respected civil rights activist who marched with Martin Luther King Jr, second of all he may just be the next Biz Markie.

Idol might churn out the kind of pop I’m anything but a fan of, but I think Pants on the Ground could be (after who knows how many seasons of ratings domination) the best thing to come out of Simon Cowell’s muzak machine.

by Elvis Presley (1957)

Blue Christmas is a rare sad Christmas song that was performed by tons of people but made oh so popular by the great Elvis Presley. Though, to be honest, lately I’ve grown very, very fond of the indie rock darling Bright Eyes version. Please forgive its inclusion in a phone company commercial.

Phish, live at the UNH Fieldhouse May 8, 1993

Phish has never been an easy band to love, it takes hard work and an extremely specific social context for the music to take hold – but once it does, once it becomes the official soundtrack to youthful good times, it never fully leaves the lives of its long-time listeners.

The concept is pretty straight forward: stoned nerds meet up in the late ’80s in the Burlington, VT area. Channeling the sounds of the Grateful Dead and Frank Zappa, they become the ultimate bar band on acid, then they cross over to playing colleges. Over the next ten or so years they produce some of the most popular and enduring music of the ’90s (yet never really appear on MTV or FM radio) with a serious bent towards goofiness and a penchant for mind-bendingly intricate musicianship. Constantly touring, they close the decade out as one of the world’s highest grossing live acts.

What’s so appealing about this music is that it’s always in good spirits – it’s always ready to affect your mood in a positive way – and the song I’ve selected here is a prime example of the band at their finest… or, more accurately, phinest.

If you spent any time at all around a high school parking lot or university hacky sack green in the early to mid 1990s, you’re probably familiar with the refrain ‘Bag it, tag it, sell it the butcher in the store’. If not, I’m sorry because you totally missed out.

Reba is comprised of three distinct movements (and a parenthetical fourth: the final, whistled refrain), the first, which includes the lyrical portion of the song, tells the children’s booky tale of an over-eager cartoony home-chemist (kind of betraying Trey’s roots as the son of a woman who wrote songs for Sesame Street); the second portion sounds like what you might expect if an early 1960s eastern European master of animated film commissioned an avant garde jazz quartet to score an unfinished film he created based on the first part of the song (the narrative of Reba mixing all these crazy ingredients in her bath tub); finally, at around the 6 and a half minute mark, the song opens up and… well, you really ought to hear for yourself.

Click here to see the rest of Reba

by Nino Rota (1960)

Nino Rota made beautiful music for films, and never more beautiful and fanciful than when working on a film by Federico Fellini, and never more whimsical and wonderful than his theme to the classic La Dolce Vita.

It’s a piece of music that can whisk you away to glamorous and magical worlds.

Fellini said of Rota, “He was someone who had a rare quality belonging to the world of intuition. Just like children, simple men, sensitive people, innocent people, he would suddenly say dazzling things. As soon as he arrived, stress disappeared, everything turned into a festive atmosphere; the movie entered a joyful, serene, fantastic period, a new life.”
Click here to see the rest of La Dolce Vita Theme

Here's what I wrote back on April 6th:

I can not, for the life of me, figure out why Sugarman, the amazing 1970 song by little-known Rodriguez, never became a smash hit here in the USA. It's like a long-lost dreamily upbeat Donovan track, minus the chilling goofiness of Mellow Yellow but imbued with the naughtiness of Codeine's derided subject matter; it seems, to me, to be an ode to the pleasures of drug-taking.

Now considered a “cult” classic rock song, Sugarman is a huge hit in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. Propelled by its recent appearance as a sample in a song by someone called “Nas”, maybe this spectacularly catchy song will finally catch on and reach a wide American audience, inspiring them to swing their shoulders like hippies and let the sound carry them away.

Originally a Motown singer, Rodriguez came Icarianly close to stardom but lost it all with a bunk record company then went on to shed his musical roots, living quietly and eventually making a run for local office in Detroit.

While I'm sure he's a well rounded man who's enjoyed his life and recent re-discovery, I can't help but feel sad about all the music he could have made if he'd stuck with it through the years. Though, just ask the Rolling Stones what the last good song they recorded was (answer: none)… Maybe we should just count our blessings that we're left with this singular and underplayed gem.

RUNNERS UP:
What You Won't Do For Love
Somebody Loves You
Deamon Lover
Naughty Girl
Yes We Can Can
Once Bitten Twice Shy

My sister saw Michael Damian in concert when we were kids; all I remember was my own envy and my dad saying that he opened with Rock On and closed with Rock On?twice.

Speaking of Damian, you should try to track down the volume of TV Carnage that features an astoundingly in-depth Current Affair piece on the time he got attacked by an angry fan during a mall parking lot performance.

The song is a remake of a David Essex hit, but only Damian's version had the honor of gracing the Corey and Corey film, Dream A Little Dream.