Blogging, Books, Cats, Music, Mayhem
If it weren’t for lucking into a few decent mix tapes and dubs of entire albums, I’m not sure what my musical tastes would be like today. Case in point, Starfish by The Church.
Starfish landed on my radar thanks to a guy named Kent who loaned me a mixtape with “Under the Milky Way,” “Reptile,” and one or two other songs off the album. (Not the entire thing, though, I had to dig that up myself shortly after.) Continue reading ““Starfish” by The Church (No. 29)”
You can’t hide from Danny Elfman. Well, I suppose you could, but you’d have to be a pop culture recluse to do so. He’s got 104 composer credits for a slew of films and TV shows, and then there’s this band… Oingo Boingo.
Naturally my first exposure to Oingo Boingo came from Weird Science, 1985’s John Hughes’ film that asks the important question “what if two nerds attempted to create the perfect woman with a home computer?” As a 15-year-old nerd, I loved this movie, and (of course) I also loved the title track. But it would be a number of years before I finally dug further into Oingo Boingo’s catalog. Continue reading ““Best O’Boingo” by Oingo Boingo No. 30″
Waxworks and Beeswax are a double dose of angular, jumpy, frenetic pop from Swindon’s XTC. This pairing captures the very best of XTC’s early period, before they evolved into a more “pastoral” (and Beatlesque) sound on later albums.
Officially Waxworks: Some Singles 1977–1982 and Beeswax: Some B-Sides 1977–1982 are separate albums. However, I’m lumping them together because that’s how I first found them, as a long-play cassette from Virgin released in 1982.
At 25 songs, it was one hell of a score when I still chose new music based on how much I could scrape together from part-time jobs. “This album has 12 songs, but this one is the same price and it’s 25 songs! Score!” I’ve never really thought of side two as b-sides, probably because XTC’s b-sides were usually just as good as their singles – and certainly better than a lot of bands’ singles. Continue reading ““Waxworks” & “Beeswax” by XTC (No. 31)”
If there was any doubt whether Tori Amos could live up to her debut, Little Earthquakes, it was shattered by Under The Pink. From the opening track, “Pretty Good Year” to the epic closer “Yes, Anastasia,” Amos knocks it out of the park.
Under the Pink is not a radical departure from Little Earthquakes, but it’s not just treading the same ground again either. If you loved the first album, you’ll almost certainly love this one – without feeling like “oh, it’s the same album all over again with a few tweaks.” It’s also, thankfully, not one of those albums where the artist was afraid of being in a rut and went and changed everything up to sound different. Amos may bust out a full album of death metal or bluegrass standards (or some combination of the two) one of these days, but this is not that.
Be My Thrill is probably the best release from a band that, so far, has had no bad releases.
If you’ve been following closely, you’ll remember that The Weepies‘ appeared on the list at No. 71 with Sirens. As much as I love that one, I have to give Be My Thrill an even better rating.
Since I already covered my thoughts on The Weepies in my earlier post, I’ll focus on a few of the songs on Be My Thrill that really stand out. Continue reading ““Be My Thrill” by The Weepies (No. 33)”
Cloud Nine may not be the strongest George Harrison work outside of The Beatles, but for many reasons it’s my favorite Harrison solo album. My reasons for loving this album? Let me tell you them…
At 17, when Cloud Nine was released, I was still strongly convinced that no band would ever equal The Beatles musically. I’d started to branch out musically, but the Fab Four still dominated my musical mindset. Harrison had been in a long fallow period – Cloud Nine was five years after the previous studio album, and it was also the last studio album before his death in 2001. But it did come along with a new wave of appreciation for The Beatles and some interesting follow-up projects. Continue reading ““Cloud Nine” by George Harrison (No. 34)”
Smile is The Jayhawks sixth studio album, its second release without Mark Olson. As much as I enjoyed Olson and Gary Louris’ work on alt-country classic Hollywood Town Hall the new direction suits them even better.
I suppose I’ll never be a “serious” rock critic. Doing a little research on Smile I find a lot of the reviews when the album came out were… tepid, at best. So-called Dean of American Rock Critics Robert Christgau gives little love to The Jayhawks and gives Smile a paltry C. To paraphrase a rather famous saying, I may not know much about music, but I do know what I like. And I do like, nay, love Smile. Unabashedly, emphatically, and joyously.
For the record, I’m referring to the original release of Smile and not the 2014 expanded reissue. Extra material is nice, but non-essential in my opinion. None of the new material on the reissue feels like it adds to the album, and it’s probably just as well without it. That may just be my “get off my lawn” reaction, though, to new songs that I’m unfamiliar with.
Barenaked Ladies Gordon, like Stunt, is all over the place musically and thematically. There’s frenetic and lighthearted pieces, pseudo-jazzy, and deep and introspective all mooshed together. Sounds like it should be a hot mess, but it’s well-balanced and there’s not a wasted track on the album.
Pretty sure I enumerated most of the reasons I love BNL in the Stunt entry, but let’s recap briefly; fantastic songwriting, incredible harmonies, superb musicianship, and killer live shows. All of the above are present on Gordon.
I don’t consider myself a big Radiohead fan, but OK Computer is just too damn good not to make the list.
OK Computer popped up on my radar sometime after I started aggressively looking for “new” music in the mid-2000s. At some point I realized that I wasn’t buying or listening to new music. New as in “new to me,” whether it was released yesterday, ten years ago, or sixty years ago. The problem was stagnation. I recognized some of OK Computer from college radio, of course – but I hadn’t given the entire thing a play through.
If you follow any of the music mags, you’ll know that OK Computer was widely hailed as the best thing since sliced bread, and then a backlash set in when lots of critics agreed it was overrated. I’m of the opinion they were mostly right the first time.
Pink Floyd responded in part to the punk rock movement’s fast, short, and aggressive tunes by… putting out an LP with five complex and relatively languid songs, three of which are longer than 10 minutes. And it is awesome.
1977’s Animals is an album that’s best experienced as an album. I suppose you could play “Sheep” or “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” as stand-alones, but why would you? If you’ve never listened to this one, you need to clear an hour (actually about 45 minutes) and sit down and give it some attention. Continue reading ““Animals” by Pink Floyd (No. 38)”