The Mental Jukebox

Each day, I will post video or audio of the first song that popped into my head on that day, no matter how embarrassing the selection; no matter whether I actually like the song. Each entry will be accompanied by commentary about the artist and the selection from my perspective as an entertainment journalist and lifelong music geek.

[twotoneboy]

Returning Sunday

The Mental Jukebox will return this Sunday, Sept. 30. Thanks for your patience.

[twotoneboy]

Not dead, only resting

For the record, I have neither forgotten nor abandoned this project. I've simply been insanely busy with advance coverage on DeLuna Fest (follow along at http://www.gopensacola.com/delunafest). But I've been jotting the songs down each morning, and I'll not only resume, I'll even play catch-up, after the festival. I may even sneak in a post or two during the festival weekend if I can.

[twotoneboy]

Foo Fighters - "Times Like These"

As I write these words, I'm just a few days from seeing -- and covering -- this band for the third time, as they headline DeLuna Fest on Pensacola Beach. And I can't wait.

I'd been a casual Foo Fighters fan before seeing them live in 2008 at the Pensacola Civic Center. Understand: I see bands perform as part of my living. I've seen hundreds of bands perform. I've forgotten seeing more bands than a lot of people will ever see in their lifetimes.

And when I say that 2008 show, which also featured Jimmy Eat World and Against Me!, was life-changing, it ain't hyperbole. It may be the best show I've EVER seen. If not, it's damn close.

Then there was the great Cee Lo Green incident of 2010. Foo Fighters were a headliner of last year's Hangout Music Fest. I was so busy working that it was mid-day Saturday before I would actually get to see a band (time was already blocked off to see the Foos headlining set that night); but I broke away to go catch Cee Lo's performance.

Twenty minutes later, I was still waiting when stuff started shifting around on stage -- and I spotted what I clearly recognized as Dave Grohl's guitar.

I knew something was up, but I had to be one of the few in the audience. Minutes later, festival owner Shaul Zislin came on stage and announced, "There's been a problem, and Cee Lo Green, forget you, the Foo Fighters are here!"

An electric shock went through the crowd, which surged toward the stage en masse as the Foos treated them to an afternoon bonus set as the world's greatest cover band. They opened with Alice Cooper's "School's Out," then launched into Queen's "Tie Your Mother Down" and Tom Petty's "Breakdown" before Grohl paused to tell the story of how they'd come to be on stage. Then he said, "we like to dedicate this next song to Cee Lo, because he's a friend of ours, and if he were here, we'd hope he would sing it with us." And they launch into Prince's "Darling Nikki."

One verse in, Cee Lo Green arrives and rushes to the stage, and everyone was treated to an incredible collaboration. The Foos cleared out and Cee Lo played a shortened, nothing but the hits set with his band. It was one of those electrifying, once-in-a-lifetime moments.

And of course, the Foos came back at the end of the night and tore it up with their own performance.

So after two amazing experiences like those, is it any wonder that I can't wait to see what the third time will be? Especially given that it's the end of the band's "Wasting Light" tour?

If you're not on Pensacola Beach on Saturday night, you're gonna wish you were.

I'm still trying to lock down my second Foo Fighters interview of my career. It looked like it was gonna happen last night, and I had Spotify cranking out the band's extensive library of great songs while I was concocting my questions. I fell asleep listening to Foo Fighters, and woke up to them still playing. So the fact that one of their songs was the first thing to come forward in the subconscious later was no surprise. "Times Like These" is just one of the band's huge hits and classic songs. I expect to hear it live on Saturday.

NEAR MISSES: The other two festival headliners are Pearl Jam and Zac Brown Band, the latter of which I have also interviewed this year. Consequently, the former's "Better Man" and the latter's "Chicken Fried" are also on replay in my head.

[twotoneboy]

Carly Rae Jepsen - "Call Me Maybe"

OK, before you start, look: I know that by any real measuring stick, this isn't a good song. It's a hook and not much more. It's the musical equivalent of empty calories.

But who doesn't want a candy bar once in a while?

I don't really listen to commercial radio, so I haven't heard this song nine hundred million times, like most of the world. I encounter it once in a while in the wild, and I've seen the occasional entry in the millions-long parade of lipsynching videos that Carly Rae Jepsen's little confection has inspired (my fave is still the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders' version, for obvious reasons). If I heard it all the damn time, I would despise this song with every fiber of my being.

But the main reason I almost -- ALMOST -- come around the other side to liking it is primarily that my friend Jody Link absolutely HATES it, and torturing him with it is far more fun that it should be.

You know you've been there.

And you know that when nobody's looking, you've probably sung this song to yourself -- more often than you'll care to admit.

Amusingly, though I've seen a few lipdubs, I'd never watched Jepsen's actual video for the song before just now. It's cute. And she's not hard to look at.

Do I take this in any way seriously? Hell no. But in the words of Douglas Adams, it's mostly harmless.

And yes, it was probably in my head this morning because of last night's season premiere of "Glee." And no, I make no apologies for loving the show.

NEAR MISSES: Want a 180? Go from this to the Runaways' infinitely cooler "Cherry Bomb." Also rattling around up there today, Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain," Icicle Works' "Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)," Echo & the Bunnymen's "Seven Seas" and the Cure's "The Lovecats."

[twotoneboy]

Phil Collins - "Two Hearts"

How does one write with any kind of conviction or depth about the musical equivalent of dry white toast?

And perhaps a deeper question: How does such a bland song have enough of a hook to become an earworm?

Look, I'm not trying to be too cool for school here. No, Phil Collins isn't the hippest artist in the world -- unless, these days, you're talking about the replacement hippest artists. But to outright dismiss the guy would be foolish and unfair. There was a time when Genesis was a groundbreaking outfit, and while that time was largely when Collins was just the drummer, while Peter Gabriel was still the frontman, he was still an integral part of the band. And even some of his early solo material is pretty damn impressive. "In the Air Tonight" -- genius song. "I Don't Care Anymore" -- damn.

I can even see the pop kitsch appeal of stuff like his cover of "You Can't Hurry Love, " "Sussudio" and his duet with Phillip Bailey, "Easy Lover."

But by the late '80s, Phil Collins had become about as vanilla as you get. This song is the aural equivalent of institutional grey walls -- and that's saying something, considering that it was co-written by famous Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier.

Even more incredibly, it comes from the soundtrack to the Collins-starring film, "Buster." That's right, someone thought Phil Collins, in 1988, had the charisma to be a big-screen leading man.

(Pause for laughter, and ...)

So. Yeah. There's that.

NEAR MISSES: Also rattling around in the noggin this morning, Imagine Dragons' "It's Time," Arrested Development's "Tennessee" (see them on tour if you can -- great live show!), Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out" and a bit of a Rolling Stones medley: "Brown Sugar," "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Satisfaction."

[twotoneboy]

Foster the People - "Pumped Up Kicks"

Just for the record, though this isn't being posted until early Sept. 13, it's actually the Sept. 12 entry. Another LONG day.

Appropriately, then, that the song is one that took a LONG time to become a mainstream hit. While it became ubiquitous last summer, I'd actually been hearing -- and loving -- Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks" for nearly a year before it reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song came out late in Sept. 2010 and quickly made it into heavy rotation on Sirius XM's Alt Nation, which is where I discovered it. By the time it was everywhere, the band had released an EP with two more songs, "Houdini" and "Helena Beat" that I came to love on Alt Nation, followed by the brilliant full album "Torches," one of my favorites of 2011.

"Pumped Up Kicks" became one of those zeitgeisty songs that it becomes trendy to cover -- Gotye and Kimbra's "Somebody That I Used To Know" is probably 2012's; Rhianna's "Umbrella" and Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" were past examples. I saw Weezer do it in concert last year. I still haven't seen Foster the People, but I'd love to.

The band's said to be at work on it's sophomore album, and I'm looking forward to hearing it.

It'd be wrong of me not to mention that this is likely another song that made its way into my immediate subconscious thanks to an appearance on "The Voice." Contestant Mackenzie Bourg did the song on Tuesday's show, earning a spot on Cee Lo Green's team. Charlotte Sometimes also did the song on the previous season.

NEAR MISSES: Part of why I've been so busy, and thus, late with some of these entries, is that I'm gearing up for DeLuna Fest (where I saw Weezer last year, in fact), and thus spending a lot of  time on getting interviews prepped for publication. The past two days, I've spent much of my time with Jimmy Cliff and Joan Jett, and thus, many of their hits are in my head -- "The Harder They Come," "Many Rivers to Cross," "One More," "Ruby Soho," "I Love Rock and Roll," "Bad Reputation," "I Hate Myself for Loving You." I also saw an amazing concert by Arrested Development tonight, so their biggest hits -- "Tennessee," "Mr. Wendall," "People Everyday" -- are still pleasantly ringing in my ears.

[twotoneboy]

Christina Aguilera - "Ain't No Other Man"

It's not exactly a mystery as to how Christina Aguilera's barnstorming 2006 funk/soul hit got stuck in my head this morning. I watch "The Voice," and contestant Devyn DeLoera tore it up doing this song last night -- winning a spot on Aguilera's own team. It takes stones to even sing a difficult song like this, much less in front of (er, after her chair turned around, anyway) the original artist. It'll be interesting to see how DeLoera does in competition.

But it's the Aguilera original that is in my head today, and it's not hard to understand why. That killer hook of "you've got style, you've got class, you've got soul, you're bad-ass" is irresistible. (Why NBC bowdlerized the word "bad-ass" from the song, crippling the hook in DeLoera's version, is beyond me. They allowed a clear reference to Christina checking out a contestant's unit to stay in, but you can't say "ass"? Cut the crap. "Ass" isn't all that offensive. Ass. Ass ass ass. There. I said it.)

While we're at it, can we lay off the "Christina's fat" jokes/references? Yes, she's clearly a bigger girl now than she was in the video above. But she is NOT fat. Curvy and thick, yeah, but there ain't a straight or bi guy alive that didn't want to be on the receiving end of that appreciative, appraising "hey hey hey" she let loose with after Blake Shelton made a comment to contestant Joe Kirkland about how "everything's bigger in Texas." Hell, a few gay guys I know probably would have said "what the hell" and gone for it. She's still smokin' and she can still sing.

I don't always appreciate the material Aguilera chooses, but you'd have to be deaf not to appreciate her pipes. This song, though, is a keeper. It's just plain fun.

She's come a long way from "The Mickey Mouse Club." Hell, she's come a long way from "Genie in a Bottle."

NEAR MISSES: Also playing in my head this morning, Blur's "Girls and Boys"; All-American Rejects' "Gives You Hell," which Kirkland performed last night; Shelton and Trace Adkins' "Hillbilly Bone"; Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy"; and the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up," which "The Voice" judges performed on last night's show.

NOTE: "The Voice" is the only singing competition show I watch, so you'll be spared "Idol" and "X Factor" commentary here.

[twotoneboy]

Twisted Sister - "We're Not Gonna Take It"

No, I didn't forget the blog today. It's just been that long, grueling and frustrating a day.

All the more appropriate, then, I suppose, that the day started with Twisted Sister's 1984 anthem of having had it all the way up to HERE stuck in my head.

This song -- and its brilliant video, which bears watching and appreciating -- is a perfect opportunity to release your frustrations. It takes a middle-school level of frustration with authority and whatever situation you find yourself in, and distills it to 3-and-a-half gloriously crunchy and catchy minutes of catharsis. And getting Mark Metcalf to basically reprise his role as Niedermeyer from "Animal House" in the video was a stroke of genius. (Don't worry if you haven't seen the film -- you'll get the character archetype quickly enough.)

More than 25 years later, this is still one of the '80s most iconic moments. Singer Dee Snider's glam-metal garb is still copied, imitated and parodied. And this song still gets a crowd going.

That is, unless you're Paul Ryan. The Republican candidate for vice president was playing this song at rallies, until Snider asked that he stop. He wasn't gonna take being associated with Ryan anymore.

Perhaps Ryan should have listened more closely to the lyrics?

"Oh you're so condescending Your gall is never ending We don't want nothin', not a thing from you Your life is trite and jaded Boring and confuscated If that's your best, your best won't do."

Doesn't that basically sum up the GOP platform?

NEAR MISSES: It's been a long day. I couldn't possibly tell you everything that's been in my head. But I've gotta point out the irony of having the Killers' "Somebody Told Me" in my head as I drove to work this morning, and then, two blocks later, seeing the friendly male "cash for gold" hawker on the street corner in a yellow party dress. "Somebody told me that you had a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend," indeed.

[twotoneboy]

LeAnn Rimes - "How Do I Live"

"Oh, and anything by Diane Warren will also result in your death. Oh, except 'Rhythm of the Night.'" - Lorne, played by Andy Hallett, in the "Angel" episode "A Hole in the World," written by Joss Whedon.

The story behind that quote and why it is apropos to today's entry: The character Lorne on "Angel" was a demon who could read others' auras while they were singing. To this end, for some time he operated a karaoke bar, and while the bar was eventually destroyed, this ability was constantly used throughout the series. In the scene in question, a not-very-nice person named Eve is being ordered to sing. Lorne has just told her that if he discovers through reading her aura that Eve is guilty of what he and the Angel Investigations team suspect her of, he will kill her. And then, he warns her of the other capital offense in this situation.

Me, I'm with Lorne (which means, I suppose, that I'm with the writer of the episode, Joss Whedon -- hardly shocking, if you know me). Diane Warren has foisted upon the world some of the worst, most overwrought musical compositions of all time. Of all time! (Thanks, Kanye -- I got this.) Among her horrifying "achievements," "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," "Because You Loved Me," "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" -- a litany of huge hits that are played incessantly to this day and that yet, nobody with the slightest shred of musical taste will admit to liking, much less owning.

And this song -- this horrible, wretched earworm -- may be at the top (or bottom, depending on how you're counting 'em down, Casey) of that list. It's No. 4 on Billboard's all-time Hot 100. It stayed on the Hot 100 for 69 weeks -- a record finally broken by Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours" in 2009 -- and still holds the record for the most weeks spent in that chart's Top 10. It stayed in the Top 25 on the country sales chart for 5 1/2 years.

And LeAnn Rimes' version wasn't the only hit version, either. Rimes recorded the song first, and it was intended for use in the film "Con Air." The producers thought Rimes' version too poppy and youthful -- she was all of 14 at the time -- despite Warren having written the song specifically for Rimes. They commissioned another version from an older country singer, Trisha Yearwood. Neither ended up making the soundtrack, but both got released and were successful. Both hit the Top 25 on the Hot 100; Yearwood's version only stalling at No. 23 when the label stopped manufacturing the single to force people to buy the album (oh, those pre-iTunes days of yore).

And incredibly, both versions were nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocalist Performance. Never before had two versions of the same song been nominated in any category in the same year. Yearwood won the Grammy, but Rimes' was more successful and was ultimately the enduring version.

And yet: This song sucks. SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKSSS. It has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I cannot see a situation where anyone would ever choose to listen to this of their own accord. (Rimes' voice is nice, as always, but that alone does not a listenable song make.)

And yet. And yet, it was huge and unavoidable and stuck in my damn head this morning for no discernible reason.

And short of the specifics of the trivia above, I could write this same damn entry about virtually ANY song in the Diane Warren catalog.

Except "Rhythm of the Night," recorded by DeBarge, which I'll cop to kinda liking.

If all of this doesn't point to demonic involvement, I don't know what does.

Ugh. I need a palate cleanser.

NEAR MISSES: Any of the songs that followed in my mind this morning would serve well as that cleanser: Joan Jett & the Blackhearts' "I Love Rock & Roll," Duran Duran's "Union of the Snake," Rollins Band's "Liar," Minor Threat's "Straight Edge" and Fugazi's "Repeater." I'm thinking the harder and more raucous, the better -- I need the aural equivalent of battery acid to burn away the corrosion this garbage of a song has caused to my brain...

[twotoneboy]

Pixies - "Debaser"

Ah, now here's a sign of a good morning: When you wake up and the first song that pops into your head is the lead track from perhaps the greatest album ever made.

OK, there are days when I'd call that the Clash's "London Calling" and we'd be talking about the title track. But there are just as many days -- maybe even more -- when I'd be citing the Pixies' seminal 1989 album "Doolittle" and this barnstorming introduction to a perfect album.

What is it that makes this track so damn perfect? Is it the blistering guitars from Joey Santiago and Black Francis? Is it the raging, ragged, howling vocals of Black Francis (a.k.a. Frank Black, born Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV), tempered just slightly by the contrast of Kim Deal's sweet voice? Is it Deal's throbbing bassline, kicking off the tune? David Lovering's driving drums? The lyrics, based on "Un Chien Andalou," Salvador Dali and Luis Bunel's surrealist film?

It's all of that. It's alchemy. It's lightning in a bottle.

And it's what Kurt Cobain was trying to capture when he wrote "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

"I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies," Cobain famously told Rolling Stone in 1994.

You can definitely hear the influence in this track. And you should hear the whole album, because it's amazing.

The tension in the band's sound was indicative of the tension in the band itself. They nearly split after this album. They did split, seemingly for good, in 1993, and it was thought to be one of those "they'll never reunite" breakups.

It finally happened late in 2003, with the first live gig back coming in 2004. They've only recorded one new song since, "Bam Thwok," but they've toured extensively.

I finally got to see the Pixies live when they toured for the 20th anniversary of "Doolittle." It was an incredible experience.

They're not on the road at the moment. Who knows when -- or if -- they'll do more? If "Doolittle" -- hell, even if "Debaser" -- were all they ever did, that'd be enough. But they did SO much more, together and apart.

If this song is new to you, I hope it has opened your mind to greatness. (Yeah, that sounds pretentious, but fuck it -- this is the Pixies we're discussing, here!)

NEAR MISSES: I played a few rounds of SongPop this morning before I got to the keyboard, so it's a mess in the Mental Jukebox, with everything from "Buddy Holly" by Weezer (another band of Pixies disciples -- if you don't believe me, go listen to the Pixies' "I Bleed" and Weezer's "Undone (The Sweater Song)" back to back) to "Only the Good Die Young" by Billy Joel competing for mental airtime. But after listening to "Debaser," I'm on to the next track on "Doolittle," "Tame," and the rest of this incredible album.

[twotoneboy]

Ingrid Michaelson - "The Way I Am"

This song seems to be on every time I go into a restaurant anymore, so it was surprising to learn that the romantic little indie-pop ditty was actually a Top 40 hit in 2007.

Yep, Ingrid Michaelson is, unfortunately, an artist I don't know much about, but this song does make me want to change that, as does her fierce independent streak that I read about when I cruised her Wikipedia entry. After this song hit and she started to get a lot of songs played on TV, she was courted by all the megaliths, but she held out for a deal that kept her artistic control. I like that.

I also like her voice on this simple, pretty song. More, please.

Warning: Those with clown phobias probably shouldn't watch the video.

NEAR MISSES: Also rattling around in the noggin this morning, Daft Punk's sublime "One More Time," Neon Trees' epic "Animal," Fishbone's brilliant "Party at Ground Zero" and Deep Blue Something's execrable "Breakfast at Tiffany's." And there's still a bit of Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" in there, too -- damn, but that Bill Clinton can give a speech.

[twotoneboy]

Men at Work - "Down Under"

Weirdly, I'd actually rather write about the second song that popped into my head this morning, but this 1982 pop classic beat that song out, and those are the rules I set for myself with this project.

So, to perhaps the best-known song by the Aussie fivesome -- and I call this an '82 single because that's when it hit in the U.S., where it took the band's landmark debut, "Business as Usual," a year to come out after success in its native land "Down Under."

Now, it feels like this song might well be the Australian national anthem, Aussies consider it quite a patriotic song, playing it regularly at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, especially when Aussies won medals. This, despite the song having references to marijuana in its opening lyrics, and over-imbibing to the point of illness later in one version of the chorus.

I think it still influences most Americans' ideas of what Aussies are like -- including the stereotype that Aussies are overly rowdy. If nothing else, it certainly brought vegemite into the American consciousness.

So some 30 years on, this song endures, in large part because of its hooky flute line. That hook was based on an Australian children's folk son called "Kookaburra." Unfortunately, it came out in 2009 that the folk song was not public domain, as had been believed, and while its writer, Marion Sinclair, had been dead since 1988, a music publishing company that owned the rights sued Men at Work for copyright infringement -- and won.

Frontman Colin Hay and guitarist Ron Strykert wrote the song in 1978 and were the credited songwriters, and Hay insists that the plagiarism was unintentional. Multi-instrumentalist Greg Ham added the riff a couple of years later in a jam session, and it stuck.

The court decision was unpopular, and the song remains beloved in Australia.

In his final years -- Ham died in April of this year -- he worried that he'd be remembered as nothing but a plagiarist. Thankfully, that hasn't proven true.

Hay re-recorded "Down Under" this year -- and pointedly changed the flute riff.

NEAR MISS: Only one other tune on the Mental Jukebox this morning. One can't hear Bill Clinton give a soaring, barn-burning speech without the theme song of his initial White House campaign, Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop," soaring to the fore. "It'll be, better than before, yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone ..."

Ironically, a tour supporting Fleetwood Mac is what helped break Men at Work to U.S. audiences in the first place.

[twotoneboy]

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - "Home"

For some reason, I keep missing Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

The band has played two festivals I've covered over the past three years -- DeLuna Fest 2010 and Hangout Music Fest 2012 -- and both times, I've been too busy working when they performed to get to the stage. Which is a shame, because I always hear good things about their performances, and I would sure love to hear this charming little ditty performed live.

This song should almost be too cute to work -- the catchy chorus, the whistling, the spoken word segment -- but it all comes together as such an endearing package that you can't help but fall for it. From Jade Castrinos' opening refrain of "Alabama, Arkansas, I do love my ma and pa," you're hooked.

I did get to see an odd, solo acoustic set by Castrinos last year. Hopefully, I'll someday get to see the full band in all its shamanistic glory.

NEAR MISSES: First of all, a hearty "screw you" to the sports department at my paper for getting Miley Cyrus' horrible "Party in the U.S.A." stuck in my head. It was a VERY near miss to that being today's entry. Also popping up this morning are Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" and the different tune of the same name by Moby (with vocals by Debbie Harry).

[twotoneboy]

Walk the Moon - "Anna Sun"

I'm going to tell you a secret.

Every music snob in the world has, at some point, smugly and confidently smiled and proceeded to bullshit his or her way through claiming to know more about a particular artist or album than he or she actually knows. This usually happens in conversations with other music snobs, as it is a point of pride for the music snob not to admit that another music snob knows more than he or she does.

I'll feed you no such bullshit in talking about Walk the Moon, whose glorious '80s throwback anthem "Anna Sun" came forth in my consciousness this morning. Before looking up the video to post, I'd never laid eyes on the band. I'd only heard the song -- repeatedly -- on Sirius XM's Alt Nation channel. And I knew they'd also done a beautiful in-studio cover of David Bowie's "Let's Dance" for the channel. That's it.

After seeing the video, I definitely want to know more. As much an '80s throwback as the song itself, this video and its themes of reconnecting with childhood are just plain fun. I could find myself really liking this band if their other stuff is as good.

Time to seek out the album.

NEAR MISSES: Also rattling around in the noggin this morning were Don Henley's "Sunset Grille," Rick Derringer's "Rock & Roll Hootchie Koo" and Sleeper Agent's sublime "Get It Daddy."

[twotoneboy]

Barenaked Ladies - "One Week"

It's frankly still amazing to me that this song was a No. 1 hit in the U.S., albeit for (appropriately enough) one week. It shouldn't have worked. It should've been too quirky for mainstream American radio -- a criticism the Barenaked Ladies had faced for years, despite five albums filled with hooky gems like "Brian Wilson" and "If I Had $1,000,000." But somehow, this stream-of-consciousness little ditty found its way into a lot more heads than just mine this morning.

In fact, it got so overplayed back in 1998 that it can be easy to forget that the lyrical interplay on this song is incredibly witty and charming, especially if you're a pop culture nerd. My favorite couplet is probably "Like Harrison Ford, I'm getting frantic/Like Sting I'm tantric/Like Snickers, guaranteed to satisfy," but there are little gems like that scattered throughout the song. And the catchy tune doesn't hurt a bit.

A lot of obsessive BNL fans are also big fans of my favorite band, They Might Be Giants. Me, I never made the connection. Yes, they're both quirky rock bands, at the root, but while I appreciate much of the BNL catalog, the band never quite clicked with me the way TMBG has.

On the off chance that you have never heard this song (in which case, you probably need your parents' permission to be on the Internet) and you think you don't know the Barenaked Ladies, think again: They're responsible for the theme song from the uber-popular TV series, "The Big Bang Theory."

NEAR MISSES: You can't mentally "hear" a song "Weird Al" Yankovic has parodied without also hearing the parody, so his "Jerry Springer" is in there this morning, along with Bruce Springsteen's "Rosalita," Prince and the Revolution's "I Would Die 4 U," Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," the Beach Boys' "I Get Around" and the Bloodhound Gang's "I Wish I Was Queer So I Could Get Chicks." Yes, it's been an active morning on the Mental Jukebox.

[twotoneboy]

Bee Gees - "How Deep Is Your Love"

I recently had an interesting debate with a few friends about the Bee Gees and their place in musical history. It stemmed from a query I posted on Facebook asking for the greatest three-person bands of all time, noting that duos, and groups of four or more are far more common than three-person bands. There were, of course, three people who made up the Bee Gees -- Gibb brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice -- but the debate centered on whether the Bee Gees could properly be considered a "band," as opposed to a vocal group. My feeling was that while all three brothers were talented singers, songwriters and musicians, the Bee Gees were primarily a vocal group, several friends vociferously argued otherwise.

It was quite interesting to see how the debate brought out what you might call "closet" Bee Gees fans. For many years after disco rose and fell, you'd never find rock guys admitting they loved the brothers Gibb. Of course, the Bee Gees lengthy career was far more than disco, but thanks to the group's massive success with the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack -- which included this lush, mid-tempo ballad -- they became indelibly linked with the genre; so much so that, some 35 years later, some of their defenders still came across as a bit defensive about their love for the group.

Let's be clear, though: There should be no reason to have to defend an appreciation of this group's talents. There's a reason these songs are still beloved, decades later -- they're damned good. My exclusion of them from my ultimate trios list wasn't based on a lack of appreciation for the group, it was simply a matter of semantics. I wanted bands; I still don't think of the Bee Gees as a "band," but more of a vocal group.

This particular track, while a classic, has never been my favorite. I tend to prefer the group's more upbeat stuff. But it's still got an amazing hook, which is probably why it still pops up in the noggin.

NEAR MISSES: Also rattling around in the noggin today, the theme from "Invader Zim," the Kaiser Chiefs' "Ruby" and, after writing this, several other "Saturday Night Fever"-era Bee Gees tracks, including "You Should Be Dancing" and "Stayin' Alive."

[twotoneboy]

Gorillaz feat. De La Soul - "Feel Good Inc."

I'm a sucker for just about anything that involves Damon Albarn. Going back to the '90s Britpop wars, I'll take Blur over Oasis anytime. Almost everything Albarn touches is creative, interesting and highly listenable, and this track from Gorillaz, Albarn's "cartoon band" formed with "Tank Girl" creator Jamie Hewlett, might represent the apex of those skills. The song was unavoidable, of course, when it was initially released, being maybe the first song to get a massive boost from being featured in an iPod commercial. It marks Albarn's only entry into the U.S. Top 40 from throughout his entire career -- no, even Blur's "Song 2" (whoo hoo!) did not chart that high, despite it now being ubiquitous, especially at sporting events.

Aside from the subtle, danceable groove and Albarn's laconic vocals, "Feel Good Inc." is made perfect by raps from the legendary De La Soul. Incredibly, this song is responsible for the hugely influential De La's only Grammy Award -- the song won for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, and was nominated for Record of the Year in a rare year that produced a very competitive list of nominees that actually seem to be standing the test of time, aside from Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together." Also nominated were Kanye West's "Gold Digger," Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" and the winner, Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams."

Gorillaz and De La Soul memorably performed the track live on the Grammy Awards -- yes, the cartoon band were holograms years before Tupac -- and collaborated with Madonna as "Feel Good Inc." led into her "Hung Up."

NEAR MISSES: Also rattling around in the noggin this morning (er, afternoon -- I slept in, sue me) are Stevie Nicks' "Talk to Me"; Rush's "Tom Sawyer," "Free Will" and "Limelight" (I went on a bit of a Rush binge last night); Night Ranger's "Sister Christian" and, most unfortunately, Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe."