With one notable exception, these are songs with “give” or “gimme” in the title — and given how ferociously Chrissie Hynde demands “Give it to me,” I wasn’t about to leave off “Brass in Pocket.” And yes, Rick Astley is rolled into the mix. Artwork from a mid-20th-century ad for “NoMend” hosiery.

Track listing for 111143-2:

1. The Rolling Stones: Gimme Shelter
2. Supertramp: Give a Little Bit
3. Abba: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)
4. Spencer Davis Group: Gimme Some Lovin’
5. George Benson: Give Me the Night
6. Crazy Elephant: Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’
7. Jessica James and the Outlaws: Give Her Up (Baby)
8. The All-American Rejects: Gives You Hell
9. Rick Astley: Never Gonna Give You Up
10. Spanky and Our Gang: Give a Damn
11. James Brown: I Don’t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing
12. The Chairmen of the Board: Give Me Just a Little More Time
13. Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush: Don’t Give Up
14. 1910 Fruitgum Co.: Indian Giver
15. Jerry Butler: Never Give You Up
16. Brenton Wood: Gimme Little Sign
17. Parliament: (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker) Give Up the Funk
18. Pretenders: Brass in Pocket (I’m Special)
19. The J. Geils Band: Give It to Me

We’ve updated to WordPress 2.8. The last few upgrades have turned up no serious anomalies, which motivated me to do the update without actually backing up the database, which proves, I suppose, that I’m a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

Joshua Allen argued last year that the perfect length for a pop single was 2:42, and put up a muxtape to illustrate, though muxtape.com subsequently ran afoul of The Authorities. Featured track: “There She Goes” by the La’s.

It occurs to me that no one (well, hardly anyone) puts out a song that short anymore. In contrast, there were three 2:42 tracks on the Beatles’ White Album.

I wrote about this phenomenon at greater length last year on another site, but I figured it was, um, time to bring it up again.

Entertainment Weekly has a list (with playable samples, if you can get their widget to work) called The 50 Most Heartbreaking Songs of All Time, which drew many comments, mostly along the lines of “How could you leave off [title]?”

Of course, we’ve already made an attempt at such here.

From C-60 Low Noise (and isn’t that a great name?):

Prog Rock! Just the word makes some people nervous. Long haired nerds with lots of instruments and money, making music for themself down in some dark basement. But on the other hand, whats wrong with that picture! Prog Rock have always been the ugly stepbrother of Rock, but some of the biggest selling album in the world have been pure prog-rock. Dark Side of the Moon to just namedrop one.

They suggest six tracks, which in prog rock ought to run at least an hour total, and so they do. The closer is indeed from Pink Floyd, but not from DSOTM.

Actually, these selections are not entirely random, and some of them might not be crap; this compilation originated from an urge to come up with something with high WTF factor for automotive purposes — in the unlikely event I have a passenger, that’s the response desired — and the name and graphic originate with the fabled Woot grab-bag, which I’ve been fortunate enough to purchase three times now. The songs range from very recent to more than thirty years old, which enhances the WTFitude.

Track listing for 111142-2:

1. Bazuka featuring Tony Camillo: Dynomite
2. She & Him: I Was Made for You
3. Deftones: Hole in the Earth
4. Daft Punk: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
5. Joan Baez: Time Rag
6. The White Stripes: Icky Thump
7. Plain White T’s: 1, 2, 3, 4
8. Alison Krauss + Union Station: New Favorite
9. Weezer: Pork and Beans
10. Leo Kottke: Up Tempo
11. Death Cab for Cutie: I Will Possess Your Heart
12. Stone Temple Pilots: Sour Girl
13. Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
14. The Replacements: Waitress in the Sky
15. Gorod 312: Nevidimka
16. R. E. M.: Losing My Religion
17. The Explorer Club: Do You Love Me
18. Susan Fassbinder: Twilight Cafe
19. Modest Mouse: Float On
20. Jimmy Webb: If You See Me Getting Smaller I’m Leaving

Jeff Robertson’s take on the legendary Warner/Reprise Loss Leaders:

The mix of artists even on a single one of these records [is] crazy diverse, and nothing is segregated by genre. On the early albums, you will quite literally find Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Randy Newman, James Taylor, and Gordon Lightfoot sharing the same record. This defies all notions of market segmentation.

Either they were really ahead of their time, reflecting how people would eventually put all those together on their mixtapes and iPods, or they just didn’t care.

They knew. They probably didn’t anticipate the iPod and its brethren, but they knew.

If you’re not familiar with the Loss Leaders, start here.

With the arrival of WordPress 2.7, I figured I’d give the joint a bit of a facelift. It’s different, but not that different.

Last year I sort of promised Michael Bates I’d have another Songs without Words, and “Rinky Dink” would be in it. Well, I do, and it is. (There’s also a discussion of pop/rock instrumentals at that link, and at this one.) And yes, it’s that David Seville.

Track listing for 111141-2:

1. The Tornadoes: Telstar
2. Spencer Ross and His Orchestra: Tracy’s Theme
3. The Rebels: Wild Weekend
4. A. B. Skhy: Camel Back
5. Johnny and the Hurricanes: Reveille Rock
6. Mongo Santamaria: Watermelon Man
7. Billy Strange and His Orchestra: Goldfinger
8. The Marketts: Surfer’s Stomp
9. Morris Stoloff and His Orchestra: Moonglow and Theme from Picnic
10. Los Indios Tabajaras: Maria Elena
11. The Incredible Bongo Band: Apache
12. Charles Randolph Grean Sounde: Quentin’s Theme
13. Dave “Baby” Cortez: Rinky Dink
14. The Brass Ring: Love Theme from Flight of the Phoenix
15. Sandy Nelson: Let There Be Drums
16. Les Paul: Whispering
17. Duane Eddy and the Rebels: Because They’re Young
18. Henry Mancini and His Orchestra: Baby Elephant Walk
19. David Seville: Armen’s Theme
20. The Astronauts: Baja
21. Ferrante and Teicher: Theme from The Apartment
22. Travis Wammack: Scratchy
23. Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass: Casino Royale
24. Chris Barber’s Jazz Band: Petite Fleur
25. The Fireballs: Torquay
26. Mantovani and His Orchestra: Games That Lovers Play
27. The Ventures: Nutty
28. The Beach Boys: Let’s Go Away for Awhile
29. The Champs: Tequila

Dr. Dave wrote the legendary Spam Karma plugin for WordPress, and while it was here it caught over 13,000 spams. He’s dropped development on SK, and with yet another new version of WordPress coming, maybe now’s the time to switch to something else. In the meantime, though, I thank Dave for all the work he put into this gizmo, and wish him well as he returns to Real Life.

Margi recommends some tunes for the treadmill, leading off with Rick James’ “You and I” and ending with “Boogie Nights” by Heatwave. A little over an hour, if you can hold out for over an hour. (I’m pretty sure I can’t.)

Admittedly, I haven’t come up with any new stuff in the better part of half a year, mostly because I’m having trouble coming up with Really Neat Ideas and I’d just as soon not grind out yet another sequel to one of the series already in place.

At the very least, I’d like to get 100 compilations done at some point. (I’m currently at 90.) I’ve learned over the years, though, that it’s impossible to force inspiration.

Of course, utterly irresistible to me, what with all the dust on my heart. This comes from Muzzle of Bees, and it leads off, sensibly, with Frank Sinatra and “The Way You Look Tonight.” The tenth and final track: “Song to the Siren” by Tim Buckley.

Insight within:

The real sadness of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” comes not from the fact this guy and girl are totally done, but that this guy is so sure they’re done that he’s decided to phrase everything in negative constructions: “It ain’t no use,” indeed. But beneath the bravado, there’s hurt in him, too. The line that’s always haunted me is “You could have done better, but I don’t mind,” which sounds like precisely the sort of self-preserving rhetoric one expects from a ten-year-old who is trying to dismiss the fact that you just stole his toy. Or, you know, a twenty-two-year-old kid who’s had his heart broken.

It doesn’t change so much in one’s fifties, either.

A number of folks have come through wondering how they could get their hands on some of this groovy Wendex stuff. The answer: they can’t, really. I’m not going to put myself in the position of having two thousand downloadable songs in the face of ongoing threats from, um, intellectual-property types.

Remember: this is here to show you what you can do by showing you what I, among the rankest of amateurs, have done. But it’s like a cookbook: you have to bring your own flour and eggs and such.

This time it’s 2.6.1. (I have learned not to mess with the .0 versions.)

Addendum: And by “2.6.1″ we mean “2.6.2.”

John Cale, after departing the Velvet Underground, made solo records. A lot of solo records. Boiling down a nearly-four-decade career to a single CD-R would seem impossible, but Jeremy Richey at Moon in the Gutter has taken a stab at it, with nineteen tracks, starting with two from the mostly-pastoral Vintage Violence, circa 1970, and winding up with two from 2005’s blackAcetate. Says Richey, “This isn’t much of an introduction but it is one killer CD.” I don’t doubt it.