Perfect Songs

Hi internet. This is Austin.

I don't have much time to write today, so I figured I would write a little bit about some songs I consider perfect, or at least as close to perfect as is possible.


1) Rocketship - I Love You Like The Way That I Used To Do



Rocketship are a band that always seem to be not very well remembered. Whenever people bring up genres like twee or shoegaze or plain ol' indie pop, all genres that Rocketship reside in, Rocketship never seems to be mentioned. And I think part of that is because, while this album is good on the whole, they never really made another song that was as good as this. But how could you ask that of them with a song this hugely awesome. It's a happy, twee, mega-catchy 60s-esque pop song with shoegaze bridges and amazing screeching organs (best part of the album) straight out of 1965. This is really the band, and even this song in particular, that made me fall in love with 60s pop. It's really fascinating to listen to a Turtles song and see the basis for this song. Which leads me into...


2) The Turtles - You Baby



Everyone knows who the Turtles are (who hasn't heard "Happy Together"?), but I first really listened to them after Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo cover this song with Howard Kaylan of the Turtles. It's a gloriously brief, catchy, 3-chord popfest. It's almost like a proto-jangle pop song; I could totally imagine the dBs covering this. When you hear someone mention a "2 minute pop song", this is essentially the song they're talking about.


3) The Ramones - Oh Oh I Love Her So



The Ramones second LP, Leave Home, isn't usually regarded as the most representative in the Ramones discography because of it's softer sound and poppier songwriting. People usually list the debut or Rocket to Russia as their crowning achievements, but while they both have more "classic" Ramones songs, the debut's production is atrocious to the point of being unlistenable and Rocket isn't the most consistent album in the world (I'm lookin' at you "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow"). But the production and songwriting of Leave Home is superior in both categories. This song in particular stood out to me, because the lyrics were so hilariously, Americanly commercial: "I met her at the Burger King/Fell in love by the soda machine".


4) Guided By Voices - Gold Star for Robot Boy



What can I say: one of the catchiest songs ever written, one of the best albums ever made, one of the best bands of all time.



Austin.