Mike Doughty - Haughty Melodic is 10

In my iTunes library, Mike Doughty's Haughty Melodic, which came out 10 years ago today, has a rare distinction where every single song is rated 5 stars. It's just one of my favourite albums, from end-to-end. I've got every song embedded below. There's no way I was going to pick favourites of favourites from this album.

One of my fondest memories of listening to this album is plugging in my iPod on a flight and snoozing and gazing out the window while listening to the whole thing on repeat, letting the songs wash over me and resonate through me. I think this album just came along at a perfect time in my life where something about the album, and I mean everything about this album, the songs, the lyrics, the melodies, the band and instrumentation, not to mention Mike's voice and delivery, all fit perfectly into my psyche.

"Looking At The World From The Bottom Of A Well"

"Unsingable Name"

"Madeline and Nine"

"Busting Up a Starbucks"

"White Lexus"

"American Car" I will always love the lyric, "My circus train pulls through the night, full of lions and trapeze artists, I'm done with elephants and clowns, I want to run away and join the office"

"Tremendous Brunettes" Dave Matthews picks up the second verse in this tune

"I Hear the Bells"

"Sunken-Eyed Girl" The lyrical imagery on this tune is incredible. While wandering around New York City last summer, many of the lyrics came to my head.

"Grey Ghost"

"His Truth Is Marching On" This one's got a riff that's somewhat reminiscent of Soul Coughing's "Circles".

"Your Misfortune"

Pic from Amazon.

Mike Doughty revisits Soul Coughing songs; releases video for Super Bon Bon

Mike Doughty separated from Soul Coughing in 2000 and never revisited their tunes. Until recently.

Here's a video for the new version of "Super Bon Bon" from his new release of revisited Soul Coughing songs called Circles Super Bon Bon...

And here's the original version from Soul Coughing's 1996 album Irresistible Bliss.

Five-by-Five: Five Recent Five-Star Songs: Pearl Jam, Hanoi Rocks, DIIV, Mike Doughty and N*E*R*D

Just five amazing tracks that came up on iTunes recently. Hope you enjoy as much as I do.

Pearl Jam "Rats" from 1993's vs.

Hanoi Rocks "Tragedy" from their 1981 album Bangkok Shocks Saigon Shakes Hanoi Rocks

DIIV with "Doused" from last year's Oshin

Mike Doughty "Ossining" from 2003's Rockity Roll

And N*E*R*D with "She Wants to Move" from 2004's Fly or Die

Five-by-Five: 2005 was a very good year

As I posted last week, 2005 stands out as an amazing year in music for me. I discovered some amazing bands and some of my favourite bands put out their strongest albums in 2005. Here's part two of my Five-by-Five post on amazing tunes from 2005.

"Monster Hospital" from Metric's guitar-driven Live It Out

"Sunken-Eyed Girl" from Mike Doughty's super-solid Haughty Melodic

"Anytime" from My Morning Jacket's unbelievably good Z

"Abel" from The National's near perfect Alligator

The title track from The New Pornographer's stupendous Twin Cinema

Not to mention Hard-Fi's The Stars of CCTV and Maximo Park's A Certain Trigger that I featured in another Five-by-Five post.