“Dolby’s Top 10 Funky-Songs-That-You-Wouldn’t-Really-Think-Would-Be-Funky”

Well yeah, they’re white… why would they be FUNKY! But they are. It’s one of the unexplainable mysteries of life. And who could miss it: the irony of The Clash, eventual progenitors of the song “Overpowered by Funk” in which they call the style “asinine,” actually making this list. Wow, talk about some artistically fertile self-loathing!
The truth is, for a white band to be funky implies an impressive and eclectic array of influences and also sound musicianship, tightness. Of course, Nirvana never did it, that I can think of, although I do remember Kurt Cobain actually listing N.W.A. as at least somewhat of an informing force behind their music. I didn’t list obviously any funk, nor did I any hip-hop… or the Talking Heads. “Shakedown Street,” too obvious. “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2,” too obvious. By the way, those two songs are like the same song. Anything else, pretty much was fair game and it’s amazing how soothing a little rump-shaking can be sometimes.

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10 XTC – “Melt the Guns”
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It’s a sad fact of life: this music is just DORKY. I used to like it a lot and still find it refreshing to an extent, but da**, it’s just so da** BRITISH it’s crazy. It’s like he’s not gay, he’s BRITISH!
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9 Queens of the Stone Age – “Do it again”
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Songs for the Deaf to be honest is an entity I tend to hold at a certain distance — I feel like to approach too close to it would be to absorb just an inordinate amount of human truth, about band egos, about the soul of the man, all that jazz… at least here we have a song about a chick (whereas “Everybody Knows That You’re Insane” on the next album would be Josh Homme’s kiss-off to former bassist Nick Oliveri, extant on Songs for the Deaf).
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8 Pavement – “Blue Hawaiian”
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Ah, adventures in subtlety… “Stare” is a pretty da** subtle song and this spicy little biscuit definitely at least rivals it therein. One of Pavement’s famous “raps” here, which would surely make Weezer jealous in the process. But then, what about Pavement wouldn’t make Weezer jealous.
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7 Jane’s Addiction – “Been Caught Stealing”
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This is of course one of those songs which is in a way hard to divorce from the classic video, sort of like Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight,” and indeed each of these is featured on my videos list (and yes this is a shameless plug thank you very much). But really, Rolling Stone, this band isn’t TIGHT? Music snobbery at its finest there, you might say!
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6 Led Zeppelin – “Hots on for Nowhere”
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Easily the most underrated Zeppelin album is their seventh effort known as Presence, which followed the promising but bloated Physical Graffiti and then, a near-fatal car accident suffered by Robert Plant. The poignance and feeling are there in droves on this material, which was recorded at their remote countryside cabin “Bron-Yr-Aur.”
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5 Beatles – “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da”
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One of at least two Beatles songs to eventually become the theme song of a TV sit com (Life Goes on, in addition to The Wonder Years’ “A Little Help from My Friends, which mind you collects the Joe Cocker cover of said song), this number just really did it for me here with fresh instrumentation including trumpet, piano, and of course, most importantly, a bunch of goofy yelling.
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4 Pearl Jam – “W.M.A.”
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R.I.P., competitors. It’s been real. And, as you know, way too the fu** real.
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3 The Clash – “The Magnificent Seven”
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To be honest, I’m not overly familiar with Sandinista!, that exclamation point of course further inculcating me on my criminal negligence, at least theoretically. This song in particular my sister used to put on mix tapes, nearly six minutes which goes by in a breeze.
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2 The Dismemberment Plan – “A Life of Possibilities”
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Here again, the buzz surrounding this album from Pitchfork makes it hard to fully digest, but then, this can be a good thing too when you get into the world just making sense, and sometimes your own little slice is your own little slice, which of course is the hardest part to accept at all.
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1 Spoon – “All the Pretty Girls Go to the City”
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I’ve been having religious experiences with this album left and right lately — the last two songs have always been my favorite but then on my second to last listen this particular number just hit me in the jugular and proved its awesomeness and on the very last one, it was the two simple but quirky jaunts “Don’t Let it Get You down” and “You Gotta Feel it,” the latter of which I certainly thought should be like twice as long as it was. Anyway, don’t let the pope hear these piano riffs. They’re fu**in’ evil.

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