Hard Times
While I’m admittedly not a huge fan of the pop-punk sub-genre, this general distaste does not apply to Paramore, a band that has stayed consistently great despite multiple line-up changes and subsequent genre shifts. With that said, it’s no surprise that their pivot to a more 80s-New Wave-inspired sound would be my favorite of their eras. When “Hard Times” dropped as a single back in 2017, my immediate reaction was “Wait, have they always been this good?” (The answer was yes.)
Elevator Operator
While Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett’s debut album is a fairly versatile listen, the album’s opener “Elevator Operator” immediately tells audiences what a treat they’re in for. Rife with her signature wit and charm, Barnett tells an equally amusing and poignant story about life, death, and the pursuit of a job as an elevator operator.
Girls And Boys
Blur opens their third album “Parklife” with “Girls and Boys”, a sly and somewhat satirical track about casual hookups that perfectly encapsulates the nature of the band’s “Life” trilogy of albums. The best part? As great as this tune is, it’s not even the second-best Blur opening track, as the anthemic “For Tomorrow” and gut-wrenching “Tender” have always been my personal favorites. Regardless, the danceable groove of this track made it a no-brainer to include here.
Paprika
Japanese Breakfast is one of my favorite bands working today, and it was their 2021 album “Jubilee” that introduced me to the wonderful sounds of Michelle Zauner and company. While my love of leadoff single “Be Sweet” was what sold me on checking out the album, the opener “Paprika” immediately made me realize that I was in for something special. Written about the highs of performing live music, as well as the subsequent lows of coming down from it, this gorgeous piece of orchestral pop never fails to put me in a dream-like state of joy and wonder.
IGOR’S THEME
Tyler, the Creator tends to start his albums off with one of it’s most quality cuts, and I guess it only makes sense that my favorite album of his would open with his best intro as well. While the lyrics “ridin’ round town, they gon’ feel this one” and a handful of others permeate throughout the track, the mixing puts more emphasis on the instrumental than the vocals, which are pitch-shifted as they are throughout a majority of the album’s runtime. With it’s fuzzy and abrasive opening drone, “IGOR’S THEME” is one of the best ways an artist has illustrated what is in store for the listener.
Nikes (Contains Explicit Language)
The four year gap between Frank Ocean’s debut album “channel ORANGE” and follow-up “Blonde” felt like an eternity. That is, of course, until you remember that it’s been double that amount of time since “Blonde” and there’s still no word on if and when a third studio album will materialize. If it does come to fruition, I have very little doubt that it will be worth the wait, as “Blonde” certainly was. The opening track “Nikes” might feel like an odd pick, as it’s far from the most popular, or even most acclaimed track from “Blonde”. But I’ve always found it to be a highlight, especially because of how forward-thinking it was sonically. Much of this is due to the use of pitch shifting and autotune on Ocean’s voice, something that was polarizing at the time, but has arguably paved the way for mainstream listeners to grow more comfortable with experimentation like this.
In The Flowers
While “Merriweather Post Pavilion” was seen as Animal Collective’s most accessible project at the time of its release, it also became their most beloved by critics. The album’s pop appeal is still somewhat muted however, as while some of the songs feature some wonderfully infectious choruses, they’re often preceded or followed by ambient instrumentation that might test some listeners’ patience. While Animal Collective became my favorite musical act of all time, even one of their most straight forward albums took me a couple of tries to fully get into. “In The Flowers” however, blew me away on first listen. It’s one of those songs that I wish I could hear for the first time again, as what follows the lyric “If I could just leave my body for the night…” changed the way I think about music forever. You might not have that same experience, but I don’t think I could showcase album openers without giving a props to a personal favorite song, album, and artist, all in one entry.
Cover Story: Dancing in the Dark
If you know only one Bruce Springsteen album, it’s probably 1984’s “Born In The USA”. Outside of its somehow still misinterpreted title track, if you only know one song from that album, it’s probably “Dancing In the Dark”. And if you’re at all tuned into the indie scene, you probably know the name Lucy Dacus, as she’s one of the three members of sad girl supergroup boygenius, along with Phoebe Bridgers and Julian Baker. After their self-titled EP but before their debut full-length album and the three Grammy awards that came with it, in 2019 Dacus released a collection of originals and covers, aptly titled “2019”. Not only was “Dancing In The Dark” the song that turned me into a Springsteen fan growing up, but it was Dacus’ cover of it that introduced me to her so far flawless body of work.
While many artists have covered Springsteen throughout their careers, none have done so in a way that captures the spirit of the original while entirely making it their own as well as Dacus did with her rendition, which is why I thought it would be the best way to introduce the “Cover Story” segment of “Friday Night ICE”. Which version do you prefer? I’m gonna do my best to stay neutral, not because I don’t want to sway the results, but because I genuinely don’t think I could choose. One’s a childhood favorite, and the other is a perfect reinvention. But I look forward to seeing which one wins the poll, and I’ll announce the winner on next week’s episode!
Who did "Dancing in the Dark" the best?
Sorry, there was an error loading this poll.
Who did "Dancing in the Dark" the best?
Sorry, there was an error loading this poll.
HAT TRICKS: It’s Working, Song for Dan Treacy, and Someone’s Missing from MGMT’s “Congratulations”
In 2007, MGMT quickly became one of the hottest names in indie rock with their debut album “Oracular Spectacular,” which to this day can still be found in the window of basically every chain record store like Newbury Comics. While the album was well received, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that it, along with the band themselves, were at least somewhat overshadowed by its three biggest songs, “Time To Pretend”, “Electric Feel” and “Kids”. As much as I love those songs, I’ve always felt that MGMT deserved to be known for more than that. Namely, their 2010 follow-up, “Congratulations”.
Song for Dan Treacy
Some people consider this to be a sophomore slump, and respectfully, I consider those people to be goofballs who are wrong. I’m kidding of course, but I’m not kidding about how much I love this album. What I feel like a lot of people forget is that the songs on “Oracular” that weren’t those three popular singles, don’t really sound anything like those three popular singles. A lot of the deep cuts show the band eager to explore sounds inspired by 60s psychedelia, something they would go all in on with Congratulations. So, I don’t find this record to be a hard left turn into the weird, but rather, the natural evolution and refinement of the direction they were already heading.
Someone’s Missing
That’s not to say that this album isn’t weird, as seen by the 12-minute odyssey “Siberian Breaks”, which on its own could be viewed as a hat trick since it’s basically 3 songs combined into one track. Now, I think that’s awesome, but I can understand why listeners who were wanting something a little more digestible were underwhelmed back in 2010.If you were one of those listeners, I highly recommend giving the album a second chance, especially if you relisten to “Oracular”, as you might hear how they aren’t as different as they initially seemed. While MGMT were able to get in the public good graces with 2018’s “Little Dark Age” especially with its title track going viral on TikTok and eventually overshadowed their original trilogy of singles from the late 2000s, my favorite album of theirs will always be “Congratulations.”
