songs

Another one for the Creepsteen playlist. This one flips the gender, pulls back on the tempo, adds a dose of glittering atmosphere, and sounds like a witchy incantation. It upends the power dynamics of the original: if Bruce is issuing a macho proposition, Bat for Lashes is a siren’s lure. Both play with a stereotype, […]

First let me confess that I am weirdly fond of Springsteen; before he became rock and roll’s dad, young Bruce was weirdly hot as hell. And anyone whose songwriting shows that they know their girl groups gets a thumbs up from me. Lately I’ve been really into women covering Springsteen, and Electrelane’s aggressive and almost

I would follow Amy Taylor’s voice off a cliff. I think what I love the most about this song is the way she sings like she’s summoning us, like she’s our fearless leader or maybe our cult leader, calling on us to rise up and follow her into the thick of a fire. She shouts

When you sing along with I Wanna Be Sedated, it becomes so instantly clear that it’s a girl group song, and that girl groups were punker than punk!

I’m sorry I’m sorry but every August as soon as the season starts to show the slightest whiff of wanting to change my brain gets totally colonized by nostalgia and all I want are moody tunes about missing people. Somewhere I still have an old calling card that I could use to make long distance

Jackie DeShannon is so underrated. Just about she wrote is a total banger (see: When You Walk in the Room, Breakaway, even Put a Little Love in Your Heart, which has deeply corny hippie-pop vibes, yes, but it’s great anyway and the horn section is killer). She may have co-written Needles and Pins but didn’t

I truly cannot get enough of Teena Marie and the way she lets you know a song is going to be a total banger by starting it with a whoop. So many of her songs are such odd assemblages of hooks, strange vocalizations, and bridges that take you to unexpected places. Teena Marie was so

I’ve probably only actually done karaoke once or twice in my life, and I cannot think of any circumstance in which I will be singing karaoke any time soon. However! This does not mean that I am not always on a quest for a perfect karaoke song. Gaga is generally near the top of my

Nothing calms me down light wave after wave of guitar distortion that just obliterates and washes away my anxious thoughts. I could float on it forever.

I had forgotten how deep and crunchy the bass lines are on the Gossip’s first few albums and when I was listing to Yr Mangled Heart in the car tonight it flooded back. I remember loving this song at a moment when I was haunted by boys who had hurt me but now it feels