Sure, in recent days I've been so busy that all I could manage to post was a silly sliver of an image from an old Marvel house ad and a hastily snapped photo of a cozy dog, so you'd think this week's Five for Friday would be easily succinct and simple, wouldn't you? Oh no.

You see, I have a pair of dear friends who are reaching a major accomplishment this Sunday. I wanted to be there, but that's a practical impossibility. Which leads me to this humble little space. And one quintet will not do. Respond to one or respond to all, but...

As always, please play along...



Congratulations, whitneyrhiannon!

Five Songs By Trios

1. Sleater-Kinney, "One Beat." Janet Weiss's sharp drum beats kick off the One Beat album, and then those distinctive guitars kick in followed by the intensely hiccuping vocals and you're back in the sonic safety of Sleater-Kinney. I miss this band.

2. Violent Femmes, "Kiss Off." "I hope you know this will go down on your permanent record."

3. R.E.M., "Living Well Is The Best Revenge." In retrospect, it seems more clear than ever that the band should have reconfigured and renamed themselves after the understandable and admirable departure of Bill Berry. Those albums made without him are so comparatively pallid that it's a shame to file them next to the earlier R.E.M. offerings in the music collection. After a long stretch of diminishing returns, Accelerate isn't exactly a return to form, but it's a solid record on its own terms. And on something like this song, all propulsive force and intense playing, it sounds like the record Peter Buck always wanted to make: the crunchy volume of Monster but the more genuine, pleasingly unpolished feel of New Adventures in Hi-Fi.

4. Yo La Tengo, "Cherry Chapstick." You can't get a much better song title than that. Accompanied by beautiful buzz, Ira throws out the alluring image "There's a girl with cherry chapstick on and nothing more" only to concede "And she seems this close/but not to me."

5. Hanson, "MMMBop." Ahem...
From 1997, this may be the last gasp of Top 40 radio as a dispenser of music that is purely jubilant, freshly freeing and unapologetically fun. When a number one hit could be simultaneously disposable and timeless, when a song could capture the summer by sounding the way a perfect day at the beach feels and nonsense lyrics could somehow seem more profound than the fiercest lines from a pointed protest song. It is, by any measure, a great song.



Congratulations,bellafantasia!

Five Songs About Friendship

1. Bruce Springsteen, "Bobby Jean" My initial inclination with The Boss involved a guy named Terry and one particular soft, infested summer, but this tribute to a soon-to-depart bandmate from that other Born album came to mind. There's something so direct about this song--"Now there ain't nobody nowhere nohow gonna ever understand me the way you did." And oh the places that departing bandmate would go.

2. Matthew Sweet, "Good Friend." The demo version of "Girlfriend", it's basically identical except "Girlfriend" is replaced by "Good Friend." There's something even more satisfying about this crunchy rocking ode to satisfying romance being centered on friendship.

3. Pulp, "Like a Friend." Well, sometimes the songs about friendship aren't going to have the nicest message. "You are the cut that makes me hide my face/You are the party that makes me feel my age." I fucking love this song.

4. They Might Be Giants, "Birdhouse in Your Soul." "I'm your only friend/I'm not your only friend/I'm your little glowing friend/But really I'm not actually your friend." That goofy nightlight should make up its mind.

5. Billy Bragg, "Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards." Sure, the lyrics are about mixing pop and politics and considerations of what the use is, but to me it's about a spring day during my freshman year of college when satchpaige and I walked back from class and belted out this song at the top of our lungs despite the fact that neither one of was exactly Syesha Mercado in the singin' department. Something about that moment represented the proud proclamation of friendship to me. It also probably helps explain why we were always inept at picking up girls together. In that respect, I guess the old "Freedom Rock" commercial represents friendship, too.


And finally, in an unprecedented Five for Friday move...

Since I know bellafantasia is not especially inclined to throwdown with the music lists, here's a different five that I think she might feel more comfortable with (if only because it will inevitably lead to thoughts of someone who has two thumbs and hates Todd Packer)

Five Television Series That Earned Your Total Devotion

1. Freaks and Geeks. Let me say right off the top that any perceived rules about "no repeats" in Five for Friday responses are officially lifted for this week, because I can't bear taking away this answer from silent_spring (or firthofforth or inquiet or slomack or caker_66 or....). This 18-episode masterwork from Paul Feig and Judd Apatow remains the one show I'm most likely to repeatedly revisit. The closing scene of the pilot episode is as beautifully put together as anything I've ever seen on TV.

2. The Sopranos. I stand by the "no repeats" proclamation, but I'm still going to leave the profane, Shakespearean western for others. Instead, I'll look to HBO and reuse that "as beautifully put together as anything I've ever seen on TV" phrase for the closing scene of the whole series. The ludicrous animosity towards David Chase is so far off the mark that I wonder how many of the devoted viewers of the mob drama actually understood the show.

3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That devotion was admittedly strained the last couple of seasons, but all I had to do was rewatch "Hush" and my zealousness returned.

4. St. Elsewhere. In high school, this was the show that commanded my attention on a weekly basis and got my emotions wrapped up more tightly in fictional characters than I imagined possible. I haven't revisited it in years. I'm afraid it may be dated (especially as extended narrative television storytelling has advanced by leaps and bounds the last few years) so I think I'm content to stick with memories.

5. Late Night with David Letterman. How I miss those low-budget, rough-and-tumble days.