This is random, and there’s no real rhyme or reason. But I wanted to share 10 songs I absolutely love—that you probably have never heard. So, here I go (PS: If you have suggestions, lemme know please) …
1. Soup, Blind Melon—This was on the band’s third album, “Nico,” which was released after the death of Shannon Hoon, the extraordinary lead singer. It was not on the album “Soup”—even though it was intended as the title track. That’s pretty weird shit, no? Another weird fact: It’s my all-time favorite tune.
•••
2. Taxi, Duo Live—True story: Back in 2003 I’m walking through Times Square when I’m approached by some guys handing out copies of their CD. It’s the members of Duo Live. They find out I’m a writer and beg me to listen. This song—the sad plight of a taxi driver who decides to commit a crime—jumps off the disc. I’ve only listened 435,543 times since.
•••
3. Amoreena, Elton John—I never knew this song until I met my wife, who’s a die-hard Elton fan. Absolutely love everything about it, starting with the purity of a young voice.
•••
4. A Letter to the New York Post, Public Enemy—This one came a couple of years after PE’s prime, but I’ve never understood how such a powerful, on-point jam got sorta lost.
•••
5. Hotel Song, Travis T. Warren—Interestingly, Warren became the Blind Melon lead singer more than a decade after Hoon passed. This is a solo tune that I just friggin’ love 1,000 times over.
•••
6. Had I Known You Better Then, Hall & Oates—John Oates never got the credit he deserved, but this song is just beyond lovely. And it’s entirely his.
•••
7. Delivery, Bad Ronald—A 34-second song about ordering Chinese food from a hip-hop group that released one album, in 2001, then vanished. Your kids will love it.
•••
8. Board Games, Mutlu—Six or seven years ago we saw John Oates in concert. He was meh. His opening act, a guy named Mutlu, was not. I have no idea how more people don’t know this one …
•••
9. One and Only, Larry Myer—In 1994 I was an awful music writer at The Tennessean in Nashville. Random CDs would arrive in the mail, usually from artists coming to town. I’d never heard of Myer, but I started listening and—21 years later—haven’t stopped. God, I love this song.
•••
10. Sun Goes Down, Eric Hutchinson—Album dropped about two years ago. Feel like people missed something big with this one.
