THE LA'S – There She Goes, The La's (1990)

'Heroin ruins lives.' But it can also do this. 'But-- morality, empirical evil, inevitability, heartache, badness, I knew this guy who--...' But it can do this.

THE GUN CLUB – For The Love Of Ivy, Fire Of Love (1981)

'Gonna buy me a gun just as long as my arm / Kill everyone who ever done me harm!' If you can drink all day, get fat, dye your hair, mumble something about voodoo and the swamp and the blues and Elvis and hell and drinking all day and then earnestly belt out that line... you, too, can be as cool as GUN CLUB frontman Jeffrey Lee Pierce.

BLONDIE – I'm Gonna Love You Too, Parallel Lines (1978)

The best thing since (well, before) TONI BASIL's 'Mickey'. Yes, that means it's a transcendental work of art. Okay: back to your MODEST MOUSE.

THE EXPLODING HEARTS – I'm A Pretender, Guitar Romantic (2003)

It began 10 minutes after the first spin. It lasted upwards of 72 hours. The first line of this song repeated continuously in my head like nothing (not 'Hey Jude', not 'Für Elise', not THE SPICE GIRLS' 'Wannabe') ever has. All but one member of power-pop-as-oxygen quartet THE EXPLODING HEARTS died in a bus crash just after releasing this, their debut. Appropriately, it's the best fucking thing you'll have heard in forever. Again: beer.

GRAM PARSONS – $1000 Wedding, Grievous Angel (1973)

Conversation probably overheard at a JOY DIVISION rehearsal circa 1979:

-- 'Ian, why do your songs always have to be so goddamn wide-eyed sugar-shot optimistic?'

-- 'I can't help it, man—but I hear you. My inexhaustible peppiness is beginning to frustrate.'

-- 'You need to learn to be melancholy now and then. What can we do?'

-- 'I'll go get the record with that '$1000 Wedding' song on it.'

© Reuben Ham

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