Someone will come to help you

One of my ongoing beefs with the futurist contention that music is destined to move entirely into the cloud, that access will obliterate ownership, is the inevitability of gaps in the libraries of music streaming services. I love that streaming is available but I will mourn the day it becomes the only thing available, because no streaming service will ever offer everything. The vagaries of music licensing are just too, well, vague. Do we want high-quality, deep-value songs to disappear simply because the Acme Streaming Service can’t license them for streaming?

This is a roundabout way of introducing you to the fact that two songs I have included in the original version of Volume 5 in the Fingertips Eclectic Playlist Series are not available on Spotify. I did my best to replace the absent songs with reasonable fits, but anyone who has ever spent time aiming for a tightly conceived mix will know that there is no precise replacement. And, so, here: “Afternoon in Kanda,” from Jesse Harris, should actually be Oscar Isaac’s affecting cover of “The Death of Queen Jane,” from the soundtrack to the film Inside Llewyn Davis; and where the true version of the playlist has the song “Stoned Out of My Mind,” by the Chi-Lites, I have substituted “Drowning in the Sea of Love,” by Joe Simon. Spotify only carries three songs from the Inside Llewyn Davis soundtrack, for unknown reasons, and, as many times that “Stoned Out of My Mind” by the Chi-Lites is available on Spotify, it appears always to be a re-recorded version, not the original 1973 studio version, which I prefer without hesitation.

The good news is the playlist will eventually appear as originally intended when I get around to making a Mixcloud version. [Ed. note: Mixcloud version now available.] The less good news is I still haven’t gotten a Mixcloud version of Vol. 4 online yet, so Vol. 5 is no doubt a good few weeks from being Mixclouded. The bastardized Spotify iteration will have to do in the meantime. And there are of course plenty of fine tunes on board, as always. I am happy to include the overlooked Elvis Costello treasure “No Hiding Place,” from his rapidly created 2008 album Momofuku; the whole album isn’t operating at quite the same level, but that would be difficult, as this song stands up with the best of anything he’s written, in my mind. The Boz Scaggs song that follows is from his landmark Silk Degrees album, but it is a song I had entirely forgotten about until I heard Bruce Warren play it recently on one of his casually masterful weekend radio shows on WXPN here in Philadelphia. The St. Vincent song, from her new-ish self-titled album, is a formidable keeper, a song which I feel will emerge in future decades as powerfully evocative of whatever it is we are going through right now. The Grays’ song “Both Belong,” meanwhile, from the first half of the’90s, strikes me as powerfully evocative of a time period that until recently seemed not very long ago but now seems nearly as remote as the one other rock’n’roll decade that rivals it for its breadth and quality of music (which to me would be the ’70s). By the time we get to “Dime a Dozen Guy,” an overlooked Marshall Crenshaw treasure from 1999, things seem back in the realm of the more recent past, somehow. What went on from 1994 to 1999 that makes those five years seem like almost 15 in retrospect I will leave to historians to fathom.

And for those who are interested but are not Spotify members, here is the Mixcloud widget:

And for one and all, here are the songs featured, along with year of release and album of origin, if any:

“Här Är Det (Here It Is)” – Ebba Forsberg (Ta Min Vals/Sjunger Leonard Cohen, 2009)
“The Rainy Season” – Howard Devoto (Jerky Versions of the Dream, 1983)
“A Shot in the Arm” – Wilco (Summerteeth, 1999)
“One in a Million” – Maxine Brown (single, 1966)
“No Hiding Place” – Elvis Costello and the Imposters (Momofuku, 2008)
“Love Me Tomorrow” – Boz Scaggs (Silk Degrees, 1976)
“Love and Anger” – Kate Bush (The Sensual World, 1989)
“Digital Witness” – St. Vincent (St. Vincent, 2014)
“Sick of Myself” – Matthew Sweet (100% Fun, 1995)
“Lost” – Dusty Springfield (A Brand New Me, 1970)
“Talking” – Annuals (Such Fun, 2008)
“Myself to Myself” – Romeo Void (It’s a Condition, 1981)
“Both Belong” – The Grays (Ro Sham Bo, 1994)
“Down to Zero” – Joan Armatrading (Joan Armatrading, 1976)
“The Death of Queen Anne” – Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis: Original Soundtrack Recording, 2013) *
“The Execution of All Things” – Rilo Kiley (The Execution of All Things, 2002)
“Stoned Out of My Mind” – The Chi-Lites (Chi-Lites, 1973) **
“Dime a Dozen Guy” – Marshall Crenshaw (#447, 1999)
“The Fox” – Niki & The Dove (The Fox, 2011)
“We Belong Together” – Rickie Lee Jones (Pirates, 1981)

* replaced on Spotify by “Afternoon in Kanda” – Jesse Harris (Sub Rosa, 2012)
** replaced on Spotify by “Drowning in the Sea of Love” – Joe Simon (Drowning in the Sea of Love, 1971)

If you are just tuning in to the Eclectic Playlist Series, I suggest likewise going back and seeing what you missed in the first four installments, as follows:

– Volume 1 (featuring Brian Eno, Ben Folds Five, Laura Veirs, New Order, et al.)
– Volume 2 (featuring The Stone Roses, Arcade Fire, Björk, Randy Newman, et al.)
– Volume 3 (featuring Liz Phair, Vampire Weekend, Connie Francis, Stevie Wonder, et al.)
– Volume 4 (featuring Courtney Barnett, the Grateful Dead, the Cars, Portishead, et al.)