It Takes Two

Tonight, with my iPod on shuffle, “This Beat Goes On” by The Kings flowed into . . . “Scream & Scream Again” from the new Wussy album? It was a jarring bit of incongruity, as disorienting as hearing a cat recite Shakespeare. I had never encountered “This Beat Goes On” without it slamming headlong into “Switchin’ to Glide,” the only other Kings’ tune known to vast swaths of mankind.

It made me wonder what has happened to the two-fer, the rock radio convention that recognized that certain songs simply cannot be played without also playing the next song on the album. You know, “We Will Rock You”/”We Are the Champions.” “Eruption”/”You Really Got Me.” “Hearbreaker/Living Loving Maid.”

But all of those examples are at least a quarter century old, and I’m having a hard time thinking of any of a more recent vintage. So I ask, whither the two-fer? When was the last time two separate songs merged into one perfect whole? Anyone?