Christopher Arnott continues to footnote his 45s
The Five Satins, “In the Still of the Nite.” We drive right past St. Bernadette’s Church in New Haven several times a week when bringing our children to school.
Girls Against Boys, Bulletproof Cupid/ Sharkmeat. Incisive dissection of ‘90s pop through dark filters of volume and echo. Not casually experimental, not cynical. Masterful, throbbing with theory, understated yet almost too intense to hear all at once.
The Monkees, D.W. Washburn/It’s Nice to Be With You. Arguably the Monkees weakest-ever 45, yet dig who’s involved. The A-side’s by Lieber & Stoller, the B-side’s by Jerry Goldstein of The Strangeloves and The Angels, and both were arranged by jazz/pop great Shorty Rogers. (Best Monkees single ever? Undoubtedly I’m a Believer/Steppin’ Stone).
The Hues Corporation, Rock the Boat. The song credited with starting the disco movement. Has anyone noticed that the flip side is called “All Goin’ Down Together”? That’s some boat they’re rocking. Both songs emanate from the suggestively titled album Freedom for the Stallion.
The Magnetic Fields, “All the Umbrellas in London”/”Rats in the Garbage of the Western World.” I didn’t discover Magnetic Fields until 1994 or so, when they’d been around a few years. But I caught up quick. If I’d still been living in Boston when they formed, I believe I would have been a charter member of their fan club—word travelled fast among my friends about a band like that. As it was, I first saw them live at Yale’s GPSCY Bar, at a near-empty show sponsored by the now-defunct Yale rock zine Nadine. (If memory serves, and it might not, I think the other bands on the bill were Helium and Polvo.) At the time, there was no other band you could compare Magnetic Fields to, except maybe a certain sliver of John Cale’s career. 69 Love Songs came five years later, and then everybody knew Stephin Merritt. This single was released when Magnetic Fields still felt like a band—a Boston band, yet—and not just a songwriter who called up his musician friends when he wanted to record or tour.