We’re back up and running after a week of down time, and, contrary to the supposed meaning of Labor Day, have been working all day to make some changes to the site. We’ve got a new toolbar up and running (ain’t it pretty?), and will be adding new features, editorials, and reviews throughout this week. Get psyched – it’s only going to get better.

Normally, we’d cap the day off with Daily News Picks, our ever-topical, ever-witty, often infuriating list of music news headlines. But given the holiday (and, admittedly, that there is no music news on Labor Day, except the Arctic Monkeys were recently struck by lightning), we decided to make a quick playlist, celebrating all things Labor Day.

1) Jackson Browne: “Take It Easy” Okay, so this song was more famously recorded by a band with a certain ornithological name. But Jackson Browne wrote it for them. And anyway, Browne’s rendition is more convincing, authentic, and grassroots. This is a music blog – fuck The Eagles.

2) Bruce Springsteen: “The Wrestler” The Boss’s best song of the last decade, brimming with exhaustion, sweat, and the regret that follows from any nine to five. Feel free to sub in any song by Springsteen. They’re all about the same stuff.

3) Kool Moe Dee: “I Go To Work” Let’s go back to a simpler time: 1989: when hip-hop still had a resemblance to the Super Bowl Shuffle. Kool Moe Dee wrote a song free of violence, misogyny, and culture clash, in favor of concluding a basic truth: everybody, does indeed, go to work.

4) The Arcade Fire: “Intervention” Get it? “WORKING for the church while your family dies”? See what I did there?

5) Sam Cooke: “Chain Gang” The ultimate song about work – sure, anyone born after 1985 really can’t be sure what a “chain” is, and why a “gang” needs to work on it. But with a chorus of grunting men, you know that chain is probably a lot harder than your cushy job.

Happy Labor Day. Daily News Picks returns tomorrow.

by Max Sebela