Top 5 Songs That Are Impossible to Put in a Playlist

McBane here. Despite all my bluster, I’ll be the first to admit: I pretty much don’t understand anything. Aside from the Dallas Cowboys, foreign policy and mind-shattering tantric sex…when it comes to the sea of knowledge, I’m pretty much adrift in the horse latitudes. (You are too, more or less. Luckily for you, you’re just too stupid to realize it. Asshole.)

One of the things I don’t understand is how I’m supposed to listen to music anymore. Do albums matter? What function does the radio have nowadays? Is it weird that I have a YouTube playlist and an iTunes playlist and that they don’t overlap at all?

Understanding how to experience music has largely become ineffable. But I do know this: stick these five awesome songs in a playlist and people will look at you like you just puked in the church collection basket.

5) “Ballroom Blitz” - Sweet

This song is, in a way, kind of glam-metal sounding, but also incredibly high energy. And yeah, it’s kind of gay, too, in that faggoty hair-band way (and by gay I mean they can do anything…no, wait…I’m thinking of retards). All-around great song.

By the way - shouldn’t it be more surprising that most glam cokeheads have traditionally tended toward producing power ballads? Ballads seemed to be the standard for excellence in the era, and I don‘t know why; who has the patience for a guitar solo when you‘re on coke? Why don’t more cokeheads put out music that sounds like Ballroom Blitz, or more bluntly, anything by The Ramones?

Life is mysterious.

4) “You! Me! Dancing!” - Los Campesinos!

This is a song about dancing that, as it is wisely pointed out by someone whose name I can't recall, you probably can’t dance to, unless you bust out your Charlie Brown. Interesting song construction: starts off with a massive escalating musical clusterfuck at the beginning that, if you played with the bass up all the way in your car, might lead to you giving abortions to pregnant women. (“Ahhh! My baby!”)

Anyway, when you’re ready for the intro to stop, the song gets poppy in the middle, breaks out some chimes, and then segues into some weird babbling shit at the ending.

Pretty awesome, right? Doesn’t go with anything, does it? Let’s move on.

3) “The Moneymaker” - Rilo Kiley

You may also know this song by the original title, "Raptor's Asshole."

Jenny Lewis's voice is kind of on the wrong end of her endlessly fluctuating (and perplexing) cool/annoying seesaw here (kudos though for sliding up the bass note at 3:11 - KA-POW). However, Sennett (and de Reeder to some extent) steal the motherfucking show, busting out some goddamn KILLER sleaze-guitar riffs (all while sporting some excellent lounge-lizard tuxes).

An FYI to enhance your cultural Q rating: killer sleaze guitar that doesn’t sound stupid is generally regarded by knowledgeable guitarists as very, very rare, and very, very cool. Yes, I‘m completely making this up. But you must admit, this song is way too high class to be grouped with other slutty songs that share solidly strummed sleaze. (Again, I barely even know what I‘m saying right now. I just like the alliteration.)

2) “The White Rabbit” - Jefferson Airplane

Seems as though it was written purely to make you have a terrible fucking trip after dropping acid…which seems like a dick move, doesn‘t it? Most people who write songs about dropping acid tend to be users themselves, and generally don’t want to spread open their puckered assholes to spray drizzling shit all over other people’s parade.

But whatever the motivation for this song, it really stands awesomely on its’ own four rabbity feet…but topples over in a playlist.

1) “Bohemian Rhapsody” - Queen

Where would this song and “Ballroom Blitz” be without Wayne’s World? In an Eastern European zone of cultural mediocrity, that’s where, buried under a pile of techno tripe at the nightclubs while everyone spazzes out on X and glow stix, boogying till sun-up in their Capri pants.

Luckily, these songs have not yet met such a dark fate. They can be liberated.

Rock on, reader.

Rock on.

And don’t let the man keep you down with his playlists.