#408: Papas Fritas, "Hey Hey You Say" (1997)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ3BOfapvU4

The keyboard sets up a high synthetic run of 16th-notes, exact in their equal distances from each other; they strike me as the kind of sound I've seen reviews describe as "glassy", which I suppose means it's okay to pour wine on the synthesizer while it plays, but not to sing a loud, vibrato-heavy high C. An equally precise tambourine enters to match the pace, along with a slender bass line, not that different in feel from the one on "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes". Kick drums enter, tugging along human vocals: long drawn-out cries of "Yeeeeeeaaaaaah-ohhhhh". The verses play at the tension between rigid, pulsing music and a bounding enthusiasm: Tony Goddess's high, eager syncopated monotone singing joined, midway into every thought, by Keith Gendel and Shivika Asthana's roving harmonies. One of my beliefs about playlist-making is that transitions of mood should be disguised by song-to-song commonalities; here Modest Mouse's ominous beat for dancing has segued into a related ominous beat for twitching, and we've gone from one unreliable narrator (or several in a row, actually) to another -- unless you genuinely believe Goddess's chorus assertion that "Man on the telephone will never let me", and that would be easier if he ever finished the sentence.

That transition of mood, though: admittedly it's most obvious if you watch the video.

#418: Dowling Poole, "Empires, Buildings, and Acquisitions" (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIBbNEFOSpY

In one of my favorite Doctor Who stories, "the Empty Child/ the Doctor Dances" (set in WWII Blitz-era England), Christopher Eccleston's Doctor realizes that a teenage girl he's interacted with has been using the air-raid sirens as a chance to lead a group of younger homeless children into suddenly-abandoned houses to eat the food off the table of well-off Britishers while the residents are hiding from the bombs. She asks if he plans to stop her; he replies "It's brilliant! I'm not sure if it's Marxism in action or a West End musical."

#419: Gentleman Auction House, "Book of Matches" (2008)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLB0JQThdaE

I'm guessing you haven't heard this one: click the link, and enjoy a bouncy indie-pop song, firm thumping beats around pockets of air over which Eric Enger's high, conversational singing voice (and Kiley Kozel's soft girlish harmonies) can enunciate. The music builds nicely into (and out of) jubilantly defiant choruses, filled in by organ notes, fiery but precise guitar, and massed singing.

Intentionally or not, the song comes across as a reply to Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire".