[Christopher Arnott continues to expunge his old singles collection.)

1. Torn Apart, Extermination EP.
I honestly can’t remember why I own this generic hardcore 4-song slice of a guy screaming “Die!” Knowing myself as I do, and noting that this was purchased at the Tune Inn record shop (for $4!), I can only conclude that I saw this band play there—I was unlikely to purchase their record otherwise. I’m filing this under “Must have been better live.” On Life Sentence Records out of Baltimore.

2. The Pastels, Unfair Kind of Fame EP
The Pastels was my favorite band of the 1990s, an impossible broth of everything I held dear in rock at the time. I can shorthand their sound as bubblegum pop, slowed and sung deliberately off-key, but that doesn’t capture the mystical elements which emerged when this Scottish act set about to deconstruct and postmodernize pop music.
I saw The Pastels play twice, both in New York City. Once was at a hip indie club downtown. Once was in the Village (I think) at a sort of community center, where they were part of an Up Records showcase during the CMJ (college music journal) festival. Both shows blew my mind so profoundly that I couldn’t register the sounds made by the bands which went on after them—and which everyone else in the room was there to see. At the club show the headliners were The Pastels’ friends and benefactors Yo La Tengo. At the CMJ show they were followed by Elliott Smith. I had to leave the venue, even though Smith was all the indie rage at the time. The room was filled to capacity, so when I walked out, somebody was allowed in from outside. By a divine coincidence this happened to be Mark Mulcahy of Miracle Legion. The Pastels cause that sort of magic all the time. They’re still at it, releasing a whispery-sweet collaboration with TennisCoats in 2009.
This 2-record 4-song EP is related to the Pastels album Illumination, which I was given an advance CD copy of at that CMJ show. The EP includes the pick-hit from the album, “Unfair Kind of Fame,” non-album B-sides “Frozen Wave” and “Windy Hill,” and a My Bloody Valentine remix of the song “Cycle.”

3. The Chipmunks, The Alvin Twist b/w I Wish I Could Speak French.
The difference between “my” Chipmunks (the 1960s Saturday morning TV version) and my daughters’ Chipmunks (the two feature-length movies) is little more than the quality of the animation. The Peck’s Bad Boy attitude, the sped-up harmonizing, the harried guardians, all are classic; only the pop culture references change. But the original, pre-animation Chipmunks of the late 1950s, I’ve come to find, are infinitely cooler. With cartoon or CGI Chipmunks, the songs are backdrops to other action. The only joke in the song is that The Chipmunks are singing that song.
But the early Chipmunks singles, starting with The Christmas Song and definitely including The Alvin Twist, are self-contained dramatic confrontations. There’s the joke of the song itself, but then there’s the joke of when Alvin will revolt, and the anticlimax of when Simon & Theodore go wild as well. There’s the punctuation of David Seville’s slow burns. There are the set-ups: Alvin has hired an orchestra for the recording session, or Alvin doesn’t want to sing, or Alvin would rather play the harmonica. Then there’s the imagination angle, which is what really makes The Alvin Twist come alive—thinking about a chipmunk doing the Twist is funnier than seeing someone create it for a movie. You also have to give Chipmunks founder Ross Bagdasarian his due as producer and music arranger. I own a lot of cheap dance records from the ‘50s and ‘60s, and the band’s don’t often know enough to rock out. Not so for The Alvin Twist, which ends in a frisky guitar solo.

4.Reunion, Life is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me). A mid-‘70s Top 40 masterpiece which speed-raps through a zillion rock band names before slamming into a middle-of-the-road sing-along chorus. It takes the whole concept of rock nostalgia—a young science at the time this record hit—and confuses it beyond recognition: “B.B. Bumble and the Stingers, Mott the Hoople, Ray Charles Singers,” the chant begins. Can it get more random than that? The flip side, “Are You Ready to Believe?” is such a cheesy bit of soft-rock crap, replete with flute intro and faux tropical beat, that you are ready to believe that “Life is a Rock” was a divine miracle.

5. Trash, Carol’s Talking/Sheila 83.
The A-side has vocals by my hero Willie Alexander and Billie Montgomery (once his wife, married since 1985 to Joe Perry of Aerosmith). The whole band are Boston scene stalwarts, from keyboardist Lord Manuel to guitarist to Mr. Curt to bassist Brad Hallen. This is an uninspired ‘70s rock tune, over in a flash, but Alexander (who paces the vocal expertly) and Montgomery (whose main contribution is to moan sexily as the title character—make it distinctive. A wonderful rediscovery.