Hear This

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  Hear This Feel, feel, feel the heat of this song from Boogie Nights

  All day, all night you feel Dirk Diggler’s heat.

  April 5, 2013 | 12:00pm -

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  Hear This Never forget: when Spock sang about Bilbo Baggins

  A notorious pop-culture mashup that predates the era of pop-culture mashups.

  April 4, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This “Suddenly Seymour” is a heart-melting ballad made possible by killer vegetation

  The Little Shop Of Horrors cut is the best song ever sung by a guy to a girl whose ex-boyfriend the guy just fed to a man-eating plant.

  April 3, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This An imperfect Lemonheads song is nonetheless fantastic

  “Like mackerel in a net / I forget to forget”

  April 2, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This On “Yo Cousin Vinny” Joe Pesci’s acting and singing careers collided

  Seriously, he put out a record.

  April 1, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This Pistol Annies drink and toke their way through familial dysfunction

  The perfect pump-up music for the next horrible family holiday dinner.

  March 29, 2013 | 12:00pm -

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  Hear This Ned’s Atomic Dustbin was more than an also-ran of the early alternative era

  Great songs lurked beyond the hits.

  March 28, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This Untangling the threads of the Mad Men theme

  There are six decades of artistic expression tied up in “A Beautiful Mine.”

  March 27, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This This mid-’80s song gave a legendary compilation album its name

  Throwing Muses’ “Fish” is a hypnotic, chugging song with inscrutable lyrics.

  March 26, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This “I’ve Got A Testimony” puts religious ecstasy front and center

  The gospel song may have generic lyrics, but the music perfectly underlines the singer’s reason to believe.

  March 25, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This A SXSW standout promises to heed a mother’s advice

  “Catherine 1956” is PAWS’ vow to do something with itself.

  March 22, 2013 | 12:00pm -

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  Hear This Sia covers The Kinks, wallows in despair

  The chart-topping singer-songwriter brings her own flair to a classic track.

  March 21, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This Bright days of futures past with The Flaming Lips

  The band bridged two phases of its career when it sang about the “Guy Who Gets A Headache And Accidentally Saves The World.”

  March 20, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This A dubby deep cut from The Clash reverberates 30 years later

  This earworm hits hard.

  March 19, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This Skeletonwitch’s “Tragedy Of Days” is a sweet, screeching track of remembrance 

  The Ohio band’s cover is both personal and universal. 

  March 18, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This Feist makes a Leonard Cohen tune her own 

  “Closing Time” soundtracks a surreal scene in a film packed with oddities. 

  March 15, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” strikes a blow for country feminism

  Mary Chapin Carpenter’s hit served as a corrective to the genre’s “Stand By Your Man” image.

  March 14, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This A Judd Apatow movie inspires domestic strife between Fiona Apple and her label

  The sing-songwriter penned the kiss-off “Dull Tool” for This Is 40—to the chagrin of the people for whom she usually records.

  March 13, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This One of Dinosaur Jr.’s best tracks was relegated to a B-side

  Get an inside glimpse at the making of this year’s A.V. Undercover list.

  March 12, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This Lupe Fiasco’s “Hurt Me Soul” tackles hip-hop misogyny in 22 seconds

  The rapper takes a sorely missed personal approach to the genre on his debut.

  March 11, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This Even babies understand that Outkast is great

  What makes “GhettoMusick” particularly alluring to an infant?

  March 8, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This Let Róisín Murphy and So You Think You Can Dance teach you the “Ramalama (Bang Bang)”

  Zombie costume optional.

  March 7, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This A party-starter from Beck’s strangest album

  “Mixed Bizness” is scattered and head-scratching even for the guy who got “Get crazy with the Cheez Whiz” stuck in your head for all of 1994.

  March 6, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This Modern-day boy band One Direction inspires a toddler dance party

  A non-dancer learns to get down.

  March 5, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This The Pharcyde drops science about AIDS, Menudo, and Zig-Zags in “Soul Flower (Remix)”

  It’s a dance-floor classic, STD references and all.

  March 4, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This The “Johanna” reprise from Sweeney Todd is the musical in miniature

  How Stephen Sondheim uses musical resolution throughout the work to subtly suggest his characters’ arcs.

  March 1, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This A bad X-Ray Spex cover reinforces the original’s inimitable appeal

  There can be only one Poly Styrene.

  February 28, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This When Jermaine Jackson met Devo

  It’s actually a better fit than might be expected.

  February 27, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This An early Belle & Sebastian song offers sweet encouragement to school-age losers

  “Think of me as a friend, not just a boy who’s playing guitar.”

  February 26, 2013 | 1:30pm -

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  Hear This With his “Tender” remix, Cornelius made an already great Blur song even better

  It’s like a sweet little handwritten love note.

  February 25, 2013 | 1:30pm -