5 Above picks five great things within a specific category. Look out below--these are five that rise above.
Well, it was just a couple of days ago that I used a 5 Above column to tie in with the Only Three Lads podcast, anticipating an imminent episode where O3L hosts Uncle Gregg and Brett Vargo (and a Third Lad to be named later) will each offer a list of favorite albums that ya gotta own on vinyl. The question intrigued me enough that I decided to provide my own Top Five list of vinyl imperatives in response.
Each episode of O3L poses a Top Five challenge along those lines, with answers usually limited to stuff from the O3L classic alternative era of 1974-1999. And I don't know if I wanna get in the habit of answering those weekly challenges here at Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) HQ...but I don't know if don't wanna get in that habit either. You think you never know with me? Man, I never know with me.
Either way, after I wrote that previous 5 Above vinyl list, I finished listening to the most recent O3L, a two-part conversation with members of the Darling Buds, which found our assembled lads and ladette addressing the question of top five songs with the word "heart" in the title. And I found myself once again compelled to participate.
I spent the metric equivalent of no time at all coming up with this list. If I just looked at my iPod, I'd probably come up with a dozen more worthies. But the 5 Above placed paradoxically below are the five that occurred to me first.
HONORABLE MENTION 1: Not really, because it doesn't qualify. But mentioning "heart" makes me think of the band Heart, and thinking of the band Heart makes me think of that time when I was 17 in 1977, and a teen girl introduced me to Heart's "Kick It Out" while telling me about her ambition to pose for Playboy. That's...actually the whole story, but I padded it like a bra here.
HONORABLE MENTION 2: "Some Hearts" by Marshall Crenshaw. I don't even mind Carrie Underwood's version.
HONORABLE MENTION 3: "Heart And Soul" by the Monkees, the first single and best track from their uneven 1987 album Pool It! Sure, the album's iffy, but "Heart And Soul" is solid, its video was perfect, and it shoulda been a hit. Its path to chart success was impeded in part by T'Pau's contemporaneous smash record with the.same title, but the real blame lies with swinish programming mooks 'n' suits at MTV, who snubbed audience demand for the Monkees and instead suffocated the resurgent Monkeemania the network itself had helped to build just the year before. Bastards.
Now: Let's lay our hearts on the line.
5. LYRES WITH STIV BATORS: Here's A Heart
When I lived in Buffalo in the '80s, the Buff State radio station WBNY-FM hooked me on Boston's phenomenal fuzz combo Lyres and their Nuggets-worthy album On Fyre. I'd already been listening to Stiv Bators for a few years by then, commencing with his work fronting the Dead Boys while I was still in college in the '70s, his incredible power pop solo singles and album for Bomp Records after that, and his subsequent role as the lead singer of Lord of the New Church; I don't recall if I heard our Stiv's interim stint with the Wanderers before I heard the Lords or later on, after the fact. My Buffalo years had their ups, downs, and way-downs, but they did grant me opportunities to see separate club shows by Lyres and the Lords of the New Church, and I remain grateful for my good fortune.
I fell particularly hard for On Fyre, and often proclaimed (as a compliment) that Lyres didn't just want to be like the early Kinks, they wanted to BE the early Kinks. Cool goal! They succeeded in being Lyres, and that was fine by me.
"Here's A Heart" was originally recorded by 1960s British popmeisters Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich. I dig a lot of DDDBM&T (especially "Hold Tight"), but I don't even remember their "Here's A Heart." To me, the song belongs to Lyres and Stiv Bators, who combined forces for this 1988 single.
4. ACTION SWINGERS: No Heart And Soul
Listen: a band cool enough to twist the title of my favorite Sweet album Desolation Boulevard into their own Decimation Blvd merits immediate props in these quarters. I'd never heard of Action Swingers before plucking a used copy of that 1993 CD out of a record rack at a store in Lake George, NY some years after its release, but the punk urgency of "No Heart And Soul" got my attention, and it earned significant spinnage on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio.
3. THE FLASHCUBES: Sold Your Heart
"Sold Your Heart" by Flashcubes guitarist Paul Armstrong was one of my many Cubic fave raves in the late '70s, a loud and angry rant about the ache of rejection. But it's also pop, catchy as an STD, its rage borne by hooks, its melody unashamed to proclaim its essential pissed-offedness. The track was one of the Flashcubes' demos, originally unreleased, repunched and reclaimed for public consumption on the 1997 collection Bright Lights.
It was also a staple of the Flashcubes' live sets in '79, and the definitive "Sold Your Heart" is preserved on Flashcubes On Fire, a 2022 CD release of an absolutely incendiary 'Cubes show recorded at The Firebarn in Syracuse on May 26, 1979. My liner notes for that album explain why I'm such a fan; the disc itself provides an insistent, high-volume CASE CLOSED! in that regard.
2. THE RAMONES: Poison Heart
It's a given that my list would include the Ramones. My initial pick was "Listen To My Heart" from the Ramones' 1976 debut album Ramones, but "Poison Heart" (from 1992's Mondo Bizarro) emerged unbidden as the best choice. Mondo Bizarro was the first Ramones album recorded after bassist, songwriter, and founding member Dee Dee Ramone abruptly split from the group, but Dee Dee continued to write and submit songs to his erstwhile brudders-in-arms. Dee Dee co-wrote "Poison Heart" with Daniel Ray, and it's one of the very best latter-day Ramones tracks: Moody, surly, seething with a restlessness it can neither deny nor identify, delivered at a pace that breaks no necks but still simmers with the pure poison of resentment.
D-U-M-B? It turned out that accusation was incorrect.
1. THE SEARCHERS: Hearts In Her Eyes
The Greatest Record Ever Made!
And DAMN, I just thought of "Radio Heart" by Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band. But the list stands as is. Its heart, at least, is in the right place.
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Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!! https://rarebirdlit.com/gabba-gabba-hey-a-conversation-with-the-ramones-by-carl-cafarelli/
If it's true that one book leads to another, my next book will be The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Stay tuned. Your turn is coming.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.
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