November 22, 2010 - What Is a Two Minute Pop Song?

As usual, I had no idea what I wanted to do for this week's show. I asked a few people for ideas and they gave me several good ones. I'm sure I'll be using most of them over the next several months but one kept whispering in my ear, "pick me, pick me". The theme that wouldn't leave me alone was.....What makes the 2-minute pop song so good?


The Beatles were the masters of the 2-minute pop song and there have been so many great songs since them. I decided to put a time limit on the songs I chose. The had to be at least a minute long and couldn't exceed two and a half minutes. I sent 38 songs to John and we got to play 22 of them. Here's what we played:


The Merrymakers - A Fine Line
The Spongetones - Always Carry On
The Smithereens - Something New
The Nerves - When You Find Out
Nick Lowe - Heart Of The City
The Beatles - I'll Follow The Sun
The Who - La-La Lies
The Kinks - Harry Rag
The Zombies - A Rose For Emily
Giles, Giles & Fripp - One In A Million
The Beat Farmers - Happy Boy
The Ramones - Spiderman
XTC - Pulsing, Pulsing
All - Nothin'
Game Theory - Exactly What We Don't Want To Hear
The Loud Family - Sword Swallower

The Rooks - Steeplechase
Buzzed Meg - Loves Made A Fool Of You
House Of Freaks - This Old Town
The Knack - It's You
Adrian Belew - If I Fell
Adrian Belew - Come And Get It


To keep things different, I decided to use alternate versions for most of the 60's music. For The Beatles and The Who I used versions recorded at the BBC. The Zombies track was an alternate version taken from the 4-disc box set Zombie Heaven. And for the pre-King Crimson Giles, Giles & Frioo, I played the mono single version instead of the album version of One In A Million. I thought about using an obscure Kinks song, but I like Harry Rag way too much to ignore it.


After this, John aired his interview with Kate Taylor. Thanksgiving is only a couple days away and I'm sure it will be a very hectic week for both John and myself. Instead of waiting until the last minute to decide what next week's show will bring, I've made a decision already!

Next Monday will be a Thanksgiving Leftovers show! We'll play a bunch of songs that weren't played on previous shows because we ran out of time. With the whole year to choose from, there are still some great songs that didn't quite fit on other shows. I hope everyone here in the States has a great Thanksgiving and I hope you tune in next week.