For the past couple years, Wilco has generously accepted song requests through their Web site, and today I learned that the offer extends to Jeff Tweedy’s solo shows. I had a ticket to Tweedy’s sold-out show tonight at the Orpheum in downtown Phoenix, and figured I might as well request a track.

It was harder to pick a song than I would have guessed. I’ve seen Wilco five times, from the smallest of venues to the largest, and had also caught a Tweedy solo show in Chicago during the storied Yankee Hotel Foxtrot era. As a result, I’ve heard the band play live just about everything they’ve recorded — and if I haven’t heard them play it live, chances are that even they don’t like the song. So who was I to beg something of them? If Tweedy was going to play a single request, why should my choice take precedence over the 18-year-old who has never heard the crowd sing along with “Jesus Etc.,” or scream “Nothing!” at the climax of “Misunderstood”?

But it is in the nature of the die-hard music fan to be greedy, and in that spirit this afternoon I began scrolling through the band’s catalog. I very asked for “Cars Can’t Escape,” an eerie YHF-era rarity, but for some reason my mind drifted to “Passenger Side.” It’s an old song, from Wilco’s first record, and on the surface it can seem slight: a broke-ass kid, who has no car to speak of, begs a ride off a girl. But “Passenger Side” is studded with charming little details: the speaker reveals that he has a “court date coming this June,” has $5 they “can put in the tank,” and, above all, that he hates riding on the passenger side. Rock songs have long associated a set of wheels with freedom, but rarely has one seemed this vulnerable.

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“United State of Pop 2009,” DJ Earworm. As he did last year and the year before, Earworm has mashed up the 25 most popular songs of the year: “Use Somebody,” “Poker Face,” “Just Dance,” “I Gotta Feeling,” “Love Story,” “Right Round,” “I’m Yours,” and so many more. As an audio yearbook, this is a masterpiece. (download)

“Joseph, Who Understood,” the New Pornographers. I’m not sure this is quite a Christmas song — but it is about Joseph and Mary and the baby Jesus, so I’m posting it anyway. “Joseph, Who Understood” is a kind of wounded lament from the dude who thought he was J.C.’s father, only to learn rather late in the game that he would merely be His caretaker. That plaintive chorus, sung to his wife, gets me every time — ‘You’re asking me to believe in so many things.’ Which is pretty much my feeling about religious belief in general. That said: Merry Christmas! (download)

“Missy’s Girls (Animal Collective vs. Missy Elliott vs. Chairlift vs. Phoenix),” Stereogum & team9. It has been my curse this year to have experienced zero enthusiasm for Animal Collective. While the rest of the indie blogworld went head over heels for Merriweather Post Pavilion, I listened to it a dozen times and wasn’t affected at all. It was as if I was born without the needed receptors for it. Anyway, this mash-up from Stereogum’s grand annual tradition suggests a use for AnCo that I can get behind — background sounds for remixes! “My Girls” strikes me as much more intriguing with Missy, Chairlift and Phoenix trading vocals over it. Heresy, I know. But it’s heresy I can dance to. (See also: Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” over U2’s “With Or Without You.”) (download)

(via Celine)

Via the AV Club:

Country:          “Something Like That” / Tim McGraw / 487,343 spins
CHR/Top 40:   “Yeah” / Usher featuring Ludacris & Lil Jon / 416,267 spins
Hot AC:           “Drops Of Jupiter” (Tell Me) / Train / 338,749 spins
Alternative:      “Last Resort” / Papa Roach / 221,767 spins
Rhythmic:       “Low” / Flo Rida featuring T-Pain / 206,864 spins
Album Rock:   “It’s Been Awhile” / Staind / 189,195 spins
Urban:             “Drop It Like It’s Hot” / Snoop Dogg featuring Pharrell / 169,511 spins
Urban AC:       “Think About You” / Luther Vandross / 147,818 spins
Gospel:            “Never Would Have Made It” / Marvin Sapp / 92,603 spins
Smooth Jazz:  “Pacific Coast Highway” / Nils / 29,328 spins

**

Smooth jazz!

Patton Oswalt’s live deconstruction of Newsong’s abhorrent “Christmas Shoes,” here accompanied by some witty animation, is well worth watching. The attention to lyrical detail suggests Oswalt would make a fine music critic; the impression of gay Jesus is a guaranteed laugh. (via)

“The High Road,” which is apparently the first single, is promising.

Make sure to get all your tragic news about actresses from a trained celebritologist. (Otherwise you may begin to believe the story is about the death of a woman and thus something that you should respond to emotionally.)

“Jesus Was a Crossmaker,” Frida Hyvönen. I’m heading home for Christmas today, and while I’m not religious, I’ve been enchanted lately with this cover of Judee Sill’s 1971 tribute to JC. It’s a devotional song, sort of, but it’s also dark and desperate — a yearning portrait of Jesus that paints him not as a savior but as a heart-breaking rogue. Hyvönen’s take is slower than the original, deeper and ultimately more affecting. (download)