Random Rules Playlist 043: Some Bands I Like To Name Check

Artists name checking other artists, and songs from those being name checked (and yes, one of them is R.E.M.)

Illustration by Grace Gill

Welcome to a brand new edition of RANDOM RULES! The point of this newsletter is to tell stories via playlists. Sometimes this means providing the perfect soundtrack for different holidays/seasons, or different times of the day (or weather conditions). So far we’ve also featured DEEP dives into genres like shoegaze, slowcore, outré hip hop and freak folk, playlists for holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, 4th of July, Pride Month, Memorial Day and Easter, plus fun themed mixes about The Devil, Nocturnal Concerns, UFOs, Insects, diss tracks outside of the hip-hop genre, songs about Florida, plus our ongoing Family Tree series which has covered Talking Heads, Slint, Matmos, Vivian Girls, Pedro The Lion and Pavement so far. You can access the archive, mostly for free, or you can upgrade to paid to have full access to our archive.

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OK, so artists name checking other artists is a pretty simple concept for a playlist, but I tried to take it to a new level by also including tracks from the artists who are being name checked, often resulting in five or six song sets of continuous name checking. I thought it would be challenging to find enough good songs in this category to make a playlist up to my quality standards, but instead I feel like I barely scratched the surface of the name check song (and this playlist is over 8 hours long, I could have REALLY taken you down the rabbit hole here, but I had to cut it off an publish at some point!). Once you really start digging, it becomes apparent that name checking is much more rampant than the casual listener might realize, there’s even artists who have made it part of their brand (hello Half Man Half Biscuit!)

I want to thank John Peel for the initial inspiration here. Peel often published lists of pop culture references in song, but his lists were even more wide reaching and included references to any other celebrities, political figures, historical figures, etc.) Also I should thank the nerds over on the Archers of Loaf To Zumpano Facebook group for helped me crowd source ideas here, with lots of great suggestions, many of which I was not previously aware of. Also big thanks to my daughter Grace Gill for the illustration (hopefully you figured out that this is a cat checking names off of a list!)

Track List (divided into sets, where it’s not obvious):

1. Debbie Harry - Family Fodder

2. X Offender - Blondie

Ramones Set:

3. I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone - Sleater-Kinney

4. Ramones - Motörhead

5. Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio? - Ramones

In this track, the Ramones manage to name check Jerry Lee Lewis, T. Rex, The Barbarians as well as classic DJs from the original era of “Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio.”

6. It’ll Be Me - Jerry Lee Lewis

7. Metal Guru - T. Rex

8. Bo Diddley - The Barbarians
   
   This song is an anomaly in that it’s not only a name check, but a cover song - it just so happens that they’re covering an eponymous track from Bo Diddley, bringing us to an unlikely concluding track for the Ramones set:

9. Don't Let It Go (Hold On To What You Got) - Bo Diddley

Replacements / Big Star set:

10. The Replacements - Art Brut

11. We're the Replacements - They Might Be Giants

12. Alex Chilton - The Replacements

13. Free Again - Alex Chilton

Pavement’s first Name Check:
14. Unseen Power of the Picket Fence - Pavement

15. Harborcoat - R.E.M.

Cheap Trick / KISS Set:

16. Cheap Trick Record - Bratmobile

17. Surrender - Cheap Trick

18. Heavy Metal Drummer - Wilco

19. In The Garage - Weezer

yes, all three of these songs (17 - 19) name check KISS (Cheap Trick got their KISS records out, Wilco tells the tale of the titular drummer playing KISS covers beautiful and stoned, while Rivers proclaims them to be “my favorite rock group.” Hard to ignore the triple name check.)

20. Strutter - KISS

Bowie Set:

21. Distopian Dream Girl - Built To Spill

22. Queen Bitch - David Bowie

Shonen Knife loves Redd Kross / Redd Kross Loves Shonen Knife:

23. Shonen Knife - Redd Kross

24. Redd Kross - Shonen Knife

Gimme Indie Rock Set:

25. Gimmie Indie Rock - Sebadoh

The ultimate name check song, which mentions The Velvet Underground, Stooges, Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, and Hüsker Dü. The plot thickens to include The Lemonheads & Superchunk when you also take into account the similarly-minded “Screaming Skull” from Sonic Youth. I couldn’t help but also throw in The Mats’ “Somethin to Dü,” the third song to name check Hüsker Dü, to round out the set.

26. In a Jar - Dinosaur Jr.

27. There She Goes Again - The Velvet Underground & Nico

28. T.V. Eye - The Stooges

29. Nothing Can Bring Me Down - Pussy Galore

30. Screaming Skull - Sonic Youth

31. Somethin to Dü - The Replacements

32. Pink Turns to Blue - Hüsker Dü

33. Half the Time - The Lemonheads

34. Skip Steps 1 & 3 - Superchunk

Pavement’s Second Name Check:

35. Stereo - Pavement

36. Limelight - Rush

The Boston Set:

37. My Sister - The Juliana Hatfield Three

In this track, Hatfield gives a shout out to the first gig she ever attended, the Violent Femmes with The Del Fuegos

38. Prove My Love - Violent Femmes

39. Crying In The Rain - The Del Fuegos

The Odd Couple: Lloyd Cole & Arthur Lee:

40. Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken - Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura wrote this song as a response to the Lloyd Cole song below, and the original track also happens to name check Arthur Lee and Love, so I rounded out the set with a song from The Make*Up that was released while he was in prison.

41. Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken? - Lloyd Cole and the Commotions

42. Free Arthur Lee - The Make*Up

43. Stephanie Knows Who - Love

Syd Set:

44. I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives - Television Personalities

45. No Good Trying - Syd Barrett

The Unexpected Minutemen To Dylan Pipeline:

I knew I wanted to include “Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs” somewhere on this playlist, so when I discovered that Uncle Tupelo had a song paying tribute to the Minutemen’s D. Boon, it just made sense to do a set with Uncle Tupelo into Minutemen, into FOUR other songs that name check Dylan (Dylan himself pops up again later on). Important note: this T. Rex song also name checks John Lennon, but he is represented plenty later on in the playlist.

46. D. Boon - Uncle Tupelo

47. Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs - Minutemen

48. Like Dylan In The Movies - Belle and Sebastian

49. Song for Bob Dylan - David Bowie

50. I Don't Live Here Anymore (feat. Lucius) - The War On Drugs

51. Ballrooms Of Mars - T. Rex

52. Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again - Bob Dylan

The Boss Set:

53. Cars and Girls - Prefab Sprout

54. Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen

55. Only the Lonely - Roy Orbison

Beastie Boys and their extremely specific name checks set:

56. Sure Shot - Beastie Boys

57. Zuzu Mamou - Dr. John

58. Everything I Do Gohn Be Funky (From Now On) - Lee Dorsey

59. Shocks of Mighty - Lee Scratch Perry

TMBG mini set:

60. Twisting - They Might Be Giants

61. Black and White - The dB's

62. Think Better Of Me - The Young Fresh Fellows

Said She’s Gonna Get Some Records from The Status Quo:

63. The Concept - Teenage Fanclub

64. Pictures of Matchstick Men - Status Quo

Slowcore referencing slowcore:

65. Les Étoiles Secrètes - Ida

66. Some Sinatra - Secret Stars

If You Don’t Got Mojo Nixon, Then Your Store Could Use Some Fixin’:

67. Punk Rock Girl - The Dead Milkmen

68. Elvis is Everywhere - Mojo Nixon

69. Mystery Train - Elvis Presley

“Part Time Punks” and its FIVE name checks:

70. Part Time Punks - Television Personalities

71. Fireworks - Siouxsie and the Banshees

72. O Levels - O Level

73. Read About Seymour - Swell Maps

74. Ain't Got a Clue - The Lurkers

75. Janie Jones - The Clash

Tom Verlaine & Richard Hell set:

76. Tom Verlaine - Alvvays

77. Some of My Best Friends Are Trains - The Waterboys

78. Kingdom Come - Tom Verlaine

79. New Pleasure - Richard Hell

Found a way to include John Prine!:
80. John Prine - Sun June

81. Illegal Smile - John Prine

The Mark E. Smith (The Fall) into CAN pipeline:

82. Southern Mark Smith (Big Return) - The Jazz Butcher

83. I Am Damo Suzuki - The Fall

84. I'm So Green - CAN

Silver Jews Set:
85. I Feel Extra-Natural - LVL UP

86. Good Friday - WHY?

87. Random Rules - Silver Jews

Orange Juice’s Ode To The Four Tops:
88. I Can't Help Myself - Orange Juice

89. I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) - Four Tops

Neil Young Name Checks into Hendrix, Hank and Zeppelin references:

90. Neil Jung - Teenage Fanclub

91. Highlands - Bob Dylan

92. From Hank to Hendrix - Neil Young

93. Downtown - Neil Young

94. I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You) - Hank Williams

95. The Last Day Of Jimi Hendrix's Life - The Mountain Goats

96. Spanish Castle Magic - Jimi Hendrix

97. Black Dog - Led Zeppelin

The Beatles And The Stones set:
98. Beatles And Stones - The House of Love

99. The Eagles and the Beatles - The Jesus and Mary Chain

OK this is where it gets kind of complicated - this JAMC track is an obvious response track to the House of Love song (that was released in 1990) and in classic Mary Chain fashion, the title is misleading and the track is actually about The Rolling Stones. Over a riff lifted directly from Joan Jett, they manage to also reference The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Dylan, Small Faces and Andrew Loog Oldham. I could have easily gone down a side rabbit hole just based on this song, but it fits better as part of the Beatles vs. Stones thread here.

100. I Go Crazy - Queen

101. Beatle Bones N' Smokin' Stones - Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

102. The Beatles - Daniel Johnston

103. Tomorrow Never Knows - The Beatles

104. She Said Yeah - The Rolling Stones

Nick Drake Set:
105. I Saw Nick Drake - Robyn Hitchcock

106. Nick Drake - Mogwai

107. Nick Drake Tape - Clem Snide

108. Hazey Jane II - Nick Drake

Pleasantly Unexpected R.E.M. Name Checks:

109. That Someone Is You - R.E.M.

110. Broken Promise - New Order

111. Brand - New - Life - Young Marble Giants

Another unexpected name check from Belle & Sebastian:

112. I'm a Cuckoo - Belle and Sebastian

113. Cowboy Song - Thin Lizzy

The Coolest Person Alive, Kim Deal:
114. Cool As Kim Deal - The Dandy Warhols

115. Kim deal - the pillows

116. Coast - Kim Deal

The Unfortunate Third Pavement Name Check:

117. Memory - Surf Curse

118. Range Life - Pavement

119. Siva - The Smashing Pumpkins

120. Sin - Stone Temple Pilots

An oddball pair of name checks from Hot Chip:
121. Keep Fallin - Hot Chip

122. You Met Your Match - Stevie Wonder

123. What Deaner Was Talkin' About - Ween

How To Get From The National to Spiritual Jazz in four tracks:
124. Eucalyptus - The National

125. Miles Iz Ded - The Afghan Whigs

126. Pharaoh's Dance - Miles Davis

127. Astral Traveling - Pharoah Sanders

RIP OZZY:

128. Eye On The Bat - Palehound

129. Paranoid - Black Sabbath

An Obvious Pairing:

130. The Boy with the Arab Strap - Belle and Sebastian

131. Here We Go - Arab Strap

A Loving Tribute:
132. For The Mekons et al - Palace Brothers

133. I'll Have to Dance Then (On My Own) - Mekons

Somehow the Only Shoegaze Name Check On The List:
134. Where on Earth Is Kevin Shields? - P.S. I Love You

135. drive it all over me - my bloody valentine

The Only Logical Segueway Into the Final Set:
136. Daft Punk Is Playing at My House - LCD Soundsystem

Name Check Overload: These Songs contain at least 4 or more references and I didn’t have time to follow all of these threads to their logical ends, but wanted to include these songs because they’re all great:

137. Teachers - Daft Punk

138. Hot Topic - Le Tigre

139. Ex-fan des sixties - Jane Birkin

140. Greatest Hits - Mystery Jets

141. Song to Woody - Bob Dylan

142. All the Young Dudes - Mott The Hoople

143. Sweet Soul Music - Arthur Conley

144. Losing My Edge - LCD Soundsystem