By Aaron Levy (CIVL Station Manage) – Email
Print Edition: September 24, 2014
CIVL Station Manager Aaron Levy wants you to think of songs, not wrongs, when you think of bombs this week.
Outkast
“Bombs over Baghdad”
Really upbeat, really popular, and I feel like it’s already forgotten, despite being a classic Stankonia track that speaks perfectly to the political nature of the mid-late ‘90s and early 21st century from an Amerikkkan perspective. Trippy video that kind of reminds me of Willy Wonka’s tunnel of love and chocolate.
Matthew Good Band
“The War is Over”
“They fear sex and not the bomb, and the rest is just ad-libbed.” The finale on their debut album (before the secret track), this song is about as folk-oriented as he’d get until Hospital Music a few years back. It’s a song about maturity and changing times.
Rage Against the Machine
“Bomb Track”
One of the first pentatonic riffs I ever learned, Rage is synonymous with a fiery underbelly hoping to change the system and alert youngsters to their growing inability to live the kinds of lives they want to. They broke up, reunited, and made lots of money though … soooo … yeah, that.
The Runaways
”Cherry Bomb”
The original Joan Jett offering, pre-I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll, as a teenager, and one of the first and most effective youth and alternative rock outfits, packaged and prepared in order to reel in that demographic from an act that actually was that demographic. Sounds like the Go-Gos, right? Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch …
TV on the Radio
“Bomb Yourself”
A sprawling experimental piece towards the end of their debut Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes album, this song epitomizes the kind of subtle, sarcastic, and often, of course, ironic hipsterisms laden across TVOTR’s career-spanning output, whether through Kyp’s Rain Machine, Dave’s blogs, or Tunde’s public statements. It’s not their best.
