Late-Night Audio: The Jam - 'Down in a Tube Station at Midnight"

The Jam is awesome. Nuff said.

Late-Night Audio: Erasure - "A Little Respect"

I like Erasure a bit more than I should. They don't even have the best songwriter from Depeche Mode. Still, if you want to listen to melodramatic-yet-uptempo synthpop, Erasure's your band. Their songs are ridiculously catchy. I have a tendency to sing material from this group's catalogue to myself when no one's listening. I did a pretty killer version of this song at a karaoke party once.

(No, I am not into the Pet Shop Boys. Neil Tennant sounds like a whiny hamster.)

Late-Night Audio: The Jacksons - "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)"

Everyone remembers the early Motown hits ("I Want You Back", "ABC", "I'll Be There", etc.). In comparison, the Jacksons' late-70s funk masterpieces are unjustly overlooked. This is from the album Destiny, and suffice it to say, if you like Michael Jackson's Off the Wall, you should get that record. Especially since the album version of this song is over seven minutes long, and totally justifies that length.

Late-Night Audio: A tribute to John Hughes

Filmmaker John Hughes passed away this Thursday. Noted as the architect behind such odes to eighties adolescence as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, and Ferris Bueller's Day Of, it's important to remember how deft his soundtrack choices were. Make no mistake, John Hughes had an active part in selecting the songs that backed the suburban travails of Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall. While the characters in John Hughes movies came from all adolescent cliques, the soundtracks were more often than not dictated by the sort of tastes held by the kids with the big hair and eyeliner that listened to college radio. John Hughes soundtracks were loaded to the gills with the sounds of that over-reverbed beast known as "modern rock": an 1980s American radio programmer's cross-section of post-punk, New Wave, and alternative rock that was on the "cutting edge" (in actuality, often the most commerical cuts from this sort of music and overwhemingly British, hampered by a production style that would date them horribly).

You know I just noticed the other day that in Ferris Bueller's Day Off that the protagonist has Flesh For Lulu and Killing Joke posters in his bedroom? In the case of the former, Ferris doesn't strike me as the sort to be into shitty second rate goth. As for the latter, well, hey Killing Joke is cool, but also an unlikely choice.

Anyway, let's focus on the cream of the crop of music from the John Hughes filmography. First up is the hit anthem of The Breakfast Club, "Don't You forget About Me" by Simple Minds.



In my humble opinion, this is the only decent song Simple Minds ever made. I wouldn't recommend delving into their catalog, unless you have a hankering for ham-handed U2-esque arena rock without the talent. And if you don't like U2 in the first place, imagine all the things you hate about U2 except blander and with a ginger Scotsman out front instead of Bono.

One of the more bizarre soundtrack choices was when "Eighties" by Killing Joke appeared during a party scene in the latter half of Weird Science. You may have heard that Nirvana was sued by Killing Joke because of similarities between the main riff in "Eighties" and that in "Come As You Are". I for one don't think they're all that close. Really, it's not as if it's as big stretch for two bands to play an A note followed by an F# note in in two separate songs.

Yello's "Oh Yeah" is a bit overfamiliar due to its brilliant use in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, so it's easy to miss how avant-garde the song and the band that made it actually are. Take a look at the video: accompanied by the song's ominous riff, rumbling rhythms, and bassy vocals, it's almost discomforting in its low-budget surrealism.



Probably the definitive John Hughes soundtrack was the one for the 1986 monument to teen ennui Pretty in Pink, which featured the likes of Psychedelic Furs, INXS, Echo & the Bunnymen, New Order, and The Smiths. It's like a KROQ DJ's wet dream. The re-recorded version of Psychedelic Furs' "Pretty in Pink" is not a patch on the original recording, which is one of the great post-punk tracks of all time. Psychedelic Furs are odd in that back in the 1980s they were a wee bit overrated (two decent albums followed by a lot of mediocre material that sold mainly on inertia) but are unduly ignored now. The original "Pretty in Pink" is the best case for their talents:



Echo & the Bunnymen's "Bring on the Dancing Horses" was originally released as a single to promote the band's compilation Songs to Learn and Sing. Accompanied by a fantastic Anton Corbijn music video, "Bring on the Dancing Horses" is a strong contender for the best single ever released as a new bonus track from a compilation record. Too bad the video is no longer on Youtube, due to Warner Bros. pulling its wares from the site due to royalties disputes. So here's a live clip on Japanese television. Ian McCulloch looks confused as hell while the presenters converse in Japanese:



My personal favorite John Hughes film tune is "If You Leave" by Liverpudlian synthpop fops Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, from the end of Pretty in Pink. Yes, it's overwrought and kind of cheesy, but it's gloriously so. I will never deny the power of a great pop song. C'mon, they fucking nail the execution and emotion of that song. The chorus has been my cellphone ringtone for years, and I'm quite disappointed that I can't transfer it to my new phone.

Late-Night Audio: St. Vincent - "Actor Out of Work"

You hear that cool guitar break between the verses? Well, on the album it's not played on a guitar.

And that's rad.

Late-Night Audio: Beasts of Bourbon - "Psycho"

I'm not a big fan of most eighties Australian alternative rock. Far too bar band-y for my tastes. Still, it never hurts to explore. That's how I found this Beasts of Bourbon song, which is a cover of a Leon Payne tune. Gotta love that understated intensity, enhanced by a video consisting of a long lingering take on the singer's face.

Late-Night Audio: The Boy Least Likely To - "Be Gentle With Me"

This song is for Francesca, who is very tired and very exhausted:



Life can be cruel sometimes, but cheer up!

Late-Night Audio: Sandie Shaw - "Long Live Love"

As a bonus for tonight, here's something on a different tack:

Late-Night Audio: Pizzicato Five - "Happy Sad"

I was browsing through Allmusic and I eventually ended up at the bio page for Pizzicato Five, a long-running Japanese pop group. "Happy Sad" is the only song by the group to chart in the United States. So of course I had to look that up on Youtube. It's a perfectly alright tune, but it would've been totally unremarkable if it were an R&B release in the early 1970s. Just sayin'.

Late-Night Audio: The Long Blondes - "Once and Never Again"

Hi there, I'm A.J. I'm primarily going to share with you songs I listen to late at night (because I am prone to staying up unreasonably late), as well as music-related Youtube videos I find in the wee hours.



I was a big fan of the four-song EP British group The Long Blondes released on What's Your Rupture? a few years ago. I didn't keep tabs on them, but I eventually discovered their lackluster second album on Rough Trade Records. However, that led me backwards to the 2006 debut album Someone to Drive You Home, which has become one of my favorite records to come out in the last few years.

This is my favorite song on the album. Simply put, it's a fantastic pop song: short, upbeat, and insanely hooky. While The Long Blondes typically draw upon 80s post-punk and disco, this song sounds closer to The Pipettes or even (God forbid) No Doubt. It's a nice change of pace that pays off well, and I sure as hell can't stop playing this on my iPod.