Most Recent Random iTunes Plays
- Head Staggered - That Petrol Emotion
- It`s A Sin - Pet Shop Boys
- Color Bars - Elliott Smith
- Tough Guy - Beastie Boys
- Hedgehog - Luna
- My Back Pages - The Byrds
- Not Now James, We're Busy... - Pop Will Eat Itself
- Blue Monday - New Order
- Hewlett's Daughter - Grandaddy
- Dumb - Nirvana
- See How We Are - X
- Roam - The B-52's
- Mas Y Mas - Los Lobos
- I'm Not Angry - Elvis Costello
- Say You Miss Me - Wilco
One Weekend, Two Conference Titles
It was a conference title clinching weekend for both the Wildcats and the Illini.
On Saturday, the Cats took it to the SEC West-leading Crimson Tide of Alabama. Down 14 with 3 minutes to go in the first half (33-19), the Cats rallied to cut the deficit in half by halftime. In the second half, Patrick Sparks drilled the Tide to the tune of 20 points and the Cats won by seven. The win clinched UK's 43rd SEC title (the rest of the conference has a combined 42) to go along with the 6th straight SEC East title clinched earlier in the week.
On Sunday, the top-ranked Illini put down their Playstation handsets long enough to receive the news that they, too, had clinched a conference title. This one was a second-straight outright Big Ten title for Bruce Weber and the boys and came courtesy of a Michigan State loss in Bloomington. It represented the first back-to-back outright for the Illini since Red Kerr patrolled the narrow lanes at Huff Gym. The Illini had hoped to win it for themselves Thursday, but the Spartans couldn't oblige by beating the Hoosiers. All that remains for the Illini in the regular season is to win out this week and nail down an undefeated conference slate.
The Top 26 Albums of the 1990s (Part 1)
Who: Yo La Tengo
What: Fakebook
When: January 1, 1990
Why: Yo La Tengo has had one of the longest-lived and most productive careers possible for a band that most people have never even heard of. Guitarist Ira Kaplan took his rock-crit background and has put it to good use, with the help of Georgia Hubley (Ira’s wife and the band’s drummer) and bassist James McNew (although McNew didn’t actually play on this album). Fakebook was a rather odd choice for a band which was still in it’s early stages – an album of covers, including several covers of their own songs.
Throughout their career Yo La has vacillated between droning, feedback-drenched prog rock and the tenderest of ballads. This album is a little different in that the entire disc has a singular sound (acoustic strumming and brush drumming) which is rarely heard anywhere else in the Yo La Tengo catalog. The result is a new feel for the covers of their own songs as well as those of others. Looming over all are the exquisite harmonies that Kaplan and Hubley bring to the most memorable of the tunes (i.e., most of the disc). The image evoked is of the two of them spending late nights playing and harmonizing. Loverly. More here.
Who: Public Enemy
What: Fear Of A Black Planet
When: March 20, 1990
Why: A wonder of production upon its first hearing in 1990, this album still packs a sonic wallop like few others. The Bomb Squad production and Terminator X’s turntable beats undergird and provide on ongoing chorus to the raps of intellectual Chuck D and comic foil Flavor Flav. "Welcome To The Terrordome” is the epitome of this style, combining apocalyptic lyrics with a dense soundscape of samples of everything from Kool & The Gang to the Temptations and James Brown. More here.
Who: Matthew Sweet
What: Girlfriend
When: October 22, 1991
Why: 60s power pop updated to the 1990s. This was Matthew Sweet’s breakthrough album and contained all of the elements that sustained his successes throughout the decade: endless hooks, jangling chords leavened with Hendrix-style guitar rants, lush harmonies, and a touch or two of country honk and gospel flavorings. The centerpiece is, of course, the title song. The pristine production allows all of those elements (in particular the shimmering harmonies) to flow through at full force. More here.
A Bit Of Distracting Fluff
I suppose it comes with the territory of an undefeated top-ranked team with few challenges on the immediate horizon, but it was also only a matter of time until stories like
this started popping up.
Will Deron forgo his senior season to put his name in the NBA hopper? Nobody knows for sure, of course, but on a slow news day for a team with (now) endless coverage the mere thought will have to suffice. I guess it's better than having to play anybody in the next couple of weeks that are likely to beat you.
Random Gang Of Four Lyric
Man and woman need to work
It helps us define ourselves
We were not born in isolation
But sometimes it seems that way
We live as we dream, alone
We live as we dream, alone
We live as we dream, alone
Most Recent iTunes Random Plays
- Fortunate Son - Creedence Clearwater Revival
- X-Static - Foo Fighters
- Don't You Want Me - The Human League
- Back In The Saddle Again - Aerosmith
- Captain Kennedy - Neil Young
- Electric Guitar - Talking Heads
- Any World (That I'm Welcome To) - Steely Dan
- Turtlehead - Camper Van Beethoven
- Thank You for Sending Me an Angel - Talking Heads
- Chemical World - Blur
- I Love You For All Seasons - Fuzz
- The Modern Dance - Pere Ubu
- Ana Ng - They Might Be Giants
- New Star in the Sky (Chanson Pour Solal) - Air
- Eight Days A Week - The Beatles
The Top 19 Albums Of The 1980s
Who: Joy Division
What: Closer
When: Released July, 1980
Why: A little trip inside the mind of a manic depressive (sans mania). An almost unparalleled vibe of doom and gloom; I say almost only because a parallel may exist somewhere – certainly none comes to mind. Just imagine if this album had also included “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” the band’s most notable – and blackest – song from the era. Light a candle, turn up Side Two, and sink into the abyss. More here.
Who: David Bowie
What: Scary Monsters
When: September, 1980
Why: The end of a remarkable string of albums by the Thin White Duke. From Ziggy Stardust in 1972 through this 1980 classic, an extended peak of almost unmatched length. Scary Monsters was the last of the line, but what an end. Bookended by two versions of “It’s No Game” – one tight, one loose (a la Neil Young) – every song is memorable, led by “Ashes To Ashes” (the album’s biggest hit, and a tremendous sing-along) and “Kingdom Come” (a Tom Verlaine cover with perfectly effective affected vocals by Bowie). More here.
Who: Prince
What: Dirty Mind
When: October 1, 1980
Why: Whoa. It’s hard to overstate what a slap in the face this album was when I first heard it in college. I was a little late in coming to it. I bought it used in the early spring of 1981, but I listened to little else for a solid month after that purchase. It’s mixture of punk ethos, funk sensibility, DIY attitude and unbridled sexuality was like nothing I had ever heard before. Excluding his Royal Badass Self, there’s been precious little like it since. Songs like “Party Up” and “Uptown” were meant to rock, and that they did. Songs like “Sister” and “Head” were meant to shock, and that they did. And “When You Were Mine” still stands as probably the greatest, most infectious pop song ever written. One look at the album cover let’s you know what this guy has in mind – to throw you down on the rusty bedsprings and rock your world in every way you can imagine. Don’t forget the headphones. More here.
Who: Talking Heads
What: Remain In Light
When: October 8, 1980
Why: Unlike Dirty Mind, I snagged this one on its release date. I spent that entire month of October, 1980 listening to it over and over and over. To this date, hundreds (thousands?) of listens later, I don’t think I’ve heard everything that was thrown into the awesome three-song first side of the album. The entire album feels like the butterfly that emerged from the chrysalis of “I Zimbra” on Fear Of Music. This is especially the case on the Side One closer, “The Great Curve,” a mind-boggling piece of production by Brian Eno and David Byrne. Four separate overlapping, interlocking vocal tracks weave over, around and through each other like an audio Escher print. A stunning aural tapestry. More here.
Who: Kraftwerk
What: Computer World
When: May, 1981
Why: The beginning of electronica and techno music? Amost certainly. Just about any strain of electronic dance music you can think of from the last 20 years can be traced back to this album. My first notion that something new was afoot here was during the summer I spent in Detroit (1981) when the black radio stations (WGPR? Probably.) started playing “Pocket Calculator” and then “Home Computer” in heavy rotation. It may not seem so radical now, but the idea of a Detroit Urban station playing a couple of songs by a quartet of German technophiles was pretty mindbending stuff in the summer of 1981. More here.
Who: X
What: Wild Gift
When: May 1, 1981
Why: It took a while, but the punk ethos eventually found its way across the country to Los Angeles. The scene was captured in Penelope Spheeris’ movie The Decline of Western Civilization. Prominently featured in that movie was this band of sun-drenched yet pallid malcontents. What hits you first about this album, their sophomore effort, are the eccentric harmonies between John Doe and Exene Cervenka (husband and wife, at the time). The eccentricity mostly lay on Exene’s side. John’s melodies were rich and smooth, a mellow baritone. Exene’s harmonies were wailed in a slightly flat tone, and the result was disturbing, memorable and beautiful.
The second thing that hits you about this album is the sense of furious, desperate love that suffuses so many of the songs as they try to make sense of the Doe/Cervenka relationship. To be married in the midst of such a nihilistic, hedonistic scene was an act of almost utter temerity, and songs like “We’re Desperate,” “Adult Books,” “In This House That I Call Home,” and “When Our Love Passed Out On The Couch” grapple with the difficulties of trying to hold on to a relationship in the midst of a hurricane of squalor. Strong stuff.
Of course, the third thing that hits you about the album is that it rocks. Hard. No one before or since has played a punk guitar with as much diffidence, amusement or killer riffs as has Billy Zoom. More here.
Who: X
What: Under The Big Black Sun
When: July 1, 1982
Why: The follow-up to Wild Gift, Under The Big Black Sun continued to explore the territory of relationships in the midst of decadence. Added to the mix, however, was an exploration of the grief engendered by the death of Exene’s sister, Mary. Even more strong stuff from a band that was quickly getting used to doling it out with a ladle. These two albums represented the peak of L.A. punk, and really a peak of American rock music in the ‘80’s. X expressed a purely American sensibility; in a manner that evoked their roots in country and rockabilly music, while updating it to a now timeless punk sound. More here.
Who: Elvis Costello
What: Imperial Bedroom
When: July 2, 1982
Why: Elvis Costello took another giant step away from his angry young man persona – one which always had a whiff of artifice about it – with this bit of transcendent Tin-Pan Alley. The mature themes of the album – pain, regret, betrayal, shame – have a much deeper resonance than the themes of anger, spite and revenge that he had explored on earlier albums. The tunes, likewise, had a much more mature feeling, a wider range of instrumentation to go along with more complex chord structures and progressions. In all, an album that was probably much truer to Costello’s deeper, more traditional sense of popular music, but every bit a classic on a par with This Year’s Model and Armed Forces. More here.
Who: Violent Femmes
What: Violent Femmes
When: January 1, 1983
Why: 1983 was the Year of the Debut as two of the most notable first-time efforts hit the streets. First to drop was Violent Femmes, a raw and distinctive hybrid of punk/new wave/rockabilly/blues from a trio of Cheeseheads featuring a standup drummer, an acoustic bassist and a singer/songwriter of singular vision and clarity. Gordon Gano blended the jittery angst of adolescence with a mature sense of subject matter and an apocalyptic vision that tended towards Old Testament imagery. An explosion of an opener that could never quite be sustained over the course of a long career. More here.
Who: R.E.M.
What: Murmur
When: April, 1983
Why: The second notable inaugural of 1983 came hard on the heels of Violent Femmes, and was in many ways its polar opposite. Far North vs. Deep South. Hard-Edged vs. Smooth. Explosive vs. Insidious. Violent vs. Murmured. Murmur is in fact one of the most perfectly titled albums in history. The word is considered to be the most sonorous in the English language, and that perfectly matches the languid feel of the album. Likewise, few album covers so perfectly match their musical contents as this one. The songs are aural kudzu, drawing you closer and closer as you lean in to try to understand the language, until you find yourself covered by the tentacles and wrapped in its fuzzy embrace. The combination of jangling Byrds-like guitars, distant vocals and harmonies (always subsumed in the mix), and cryptic lyrics pointed the way to a new Southern Sound in 1983. More here.
Who: The Replacements
What: Let It Be
When: October 2, 1984
Why: This album was when the Placemats held it on a knife’s edge. As they moved from dissolute drunkards to a real band, Let It Be was the album when they held both sides of their collective personality within their hands. The result is their best, most entertaining album. You want adolescent hijinks? It doesn’t get much more adolescent than “Gary’s Got A Boner” or “Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out.” You want sensitive tunesmithing? “Unsatisfied” and “Answering Machine” fill the bill nicely. You want a KISS cover? How ‘bout “Black Diamond?” The best of the ‘80s brand of alternative rock. More here.
Who: The Smiths
What: The Queen Is Dead
When: June, 1986
Why: One of the seriously great bands of the ‘80s, but not everyone’s cup of tea. Morrissey and Johnny Marr have gone on to have decent careers, but together their partnership was on a par with Lennon & McCartney. The strengths of each perfectly dovetailed with the weaknesses of the other. To put it more bluntly, Marr was the perfect anchor to Morrissey’s too frequent flights of fancy. Add to that a kickin’ rhythm section and you have the greatness that was the Smiths in the mid-80s. Like their generation-mates in New Order, they are best remembered as a singles band, but this is the one album that really coheres enough to make this list. The subject is, of course, Morrissey, the struggles of his love life, and the resultant effects on his psyche. More than one generation of pale young boys have now grown up taking to heart the emotional messages of “Never Had No One Ever,” “Cemetry Gates.” “The Boy With The Thorn In His Side” and “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.” All the maudlin crooning is perfectly counterbalanced by Marr’s ringing and shuffling guitar. A near perfect album that never seems to age. More here.
Who: Prince
What: Sign “O” The Times
When: July 6, 1987
Why: The second great album of the ‘80s by His Royal Badness. This one was a double album featuring songs of almost every stripe. The eponymous opener was really unlike anything Prince had previously done, a sinuous epic encompassing AIDS, smack, gangs and the spiritual, all over a minimalist drum & synth line with a touch of Prince’s Hendrixian guitar. As the album goes on soul, house, Sheena Easton and cross-dressing all get thrown into the mix, leading to the album’s other center of gravity, “I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man,” the only extant rival to “When You Were Mine” as the greatest and most infectious pop song ever written. A spectacular end to Prince’s eight-year run of unrivaled splendiferousness. More here.
Who: New Order
What: Substance 1987
When: September 1, 1987
Why: From the shattered remains of Joy Division came New Order, made up of the other three members and the drummer’s girlfriend. While their ‘80s output included several great albums (Power, Corruption & Lies, Low-Life, Brotherhood, Technique), their real forte was the single, which is where this mid-career compilation comes in. While not truly an album, it encompasses the best work, in the best format, of the band that was the best in the world in the mid-80s. The album, like the band, grows in power and performance from their early Joy Division-esque work, through the conceptual breakthrough of “Temptation” and “Blue Monday” until it explodes in the matchless lineup of album-ending songs, “Perfect Kiss,” “Subculture,” “Shellshock,” “State Of The Nation,” “Bizarre Love Triangle,” and “True Faith.” Those six singles truly represent the full flowering of an almost symphonic conception of the dance single. This is spectacular music. More here.
Who: Camper Van Beethoven
What: Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart
When: May 24, 1988
Why: For their first couple of albums Camper Van had noodled their way through genre-busting mixes of off-the-beat styles (ska, reggae, country, Eastern European balalaika music), along with a medium-sized underground hit with “Take The Skinheads Bowling.” This 1988 album, however, was far beyond noodling. It was a true masterpiece. All of the same elements were there: Eastern European influences (“Tania”), country knock-offs (“O Death,” “Never Go Back”), Zeppelinesque rave-ups (“Waka”) and every song was a keeper. By kicking up the production values and concentrating a little more on the structure of the songs (and by taking a little more time between bong hits?) Camper Van capitalized on all the promise of those first two albums. More here.
Who: Billy Bragg
What: Worker’s Playtime
When: October 25, 1988
Why: The most political singer of his generation; the most tenderly romantic singer of his generation; both at the same time. That is Billy Bragg. This album tends towards the romantic side, but no song by the ol’ bloke combines the two quite the aplomb of the album closer, “Waiting For The Great Leap Forward.” “Mixing pop and politics, he asks me what the use is. I offer him embarrassment and my usual excuses.” Terrifically clever lyrics combined with a classic chord progression. Almost certainly the single best song Billy ever committed to vinyl. More here.
Who: The Pixies
What: Doolittle
When: March, 1989
Why: The proto-Nirvana. Kurt Cobain often said that he really didn't understand all the fuss about his band, since they basically stole their sound from the Pixies. Listening to Doolittle it is not hard to understand what he was talking about. Nirvana's siganture was in their dynamics -- soft verses followed by loud thrashy choruses. Whether going from loud to soft (as on "Tame") or from loud to louder (as on "Debaser"), those dynamics are much in abundance on this album. The other things much in abundance are, of course, the tunes and hooks. An album with no bad songs (not surprisingly, since the band put out three albums before they released a single crummy song), the tuneful numbers come in rapidfire succession, especially when the album hits its crescendo on Side Two ("La La Love You," "No. 13 Baby," "There Goes My Gun" & "Hey"). More here.
Who: The Cure
What: Disintegration
When: May 1, 1989
Why: A decade bookend to Closer in the dark and darker department. Black and sludgy, few albums have ever explored the dark night of the soul with as much depth as this, the last and best in a string of great Cure albums in the 1980s. The centerpiece of the album is the title song, a despairing look at the decay of a relationship coupled with a droning, hypnotizing bass line and an ever-ratcheting tension. All of this combines to provide a sense of impending doom, the circle of fear and loathing pulling itself tighter and tighter until the oxygen is gone, the mind clouds and the blackness descends. The paragon of a true Cure song. Even though the band ostensibly still exists, they might as well not have bothered, as they would never be able to top this song or this album. More here.
Who: The Stone Roses
What: The Stone Roses
When: May 2, 1989
Why: The first and best album from the Madchester mini-invasion at the turn of the decade. So many great songs, beginning with the twin-punch openers, “I Wanna Be Adored” and “She Bangs The Drums,” and ending with the twin-punch closers, “I Am The Resurrection” and “Fools Gold.” No shortage of cheek in these lads. No shortage of great tunes and great playing either. More here.
Most Recent iTunes Random Plays
- (See the Sky) About to Rain - Neil Young
- Lovin' Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again) - Richard Buckner
- Forget It - Cut And Paste
- You Tore Me Down - Yo La Tengo
- Ironhead - Helmet
- Too Many Creeps - Bush Tetras
- From Head to Toe - Elvis Costello
- Surrender - The Chemical Brothers
- It's Gonna Rain - Violent Femmes
- Denis - Blondie
- Long, Long, Long - The Beatles
- With Our Love - Talking Heads
- Out On A Limb - Hüsker Dü
- Girl in a Box - Blake Babies
- Target - Hüsker Dü
2004 Mix CD Lineup
The 2004 edition of my year-end mix CD series has been completed (completed a while ago, actually), and the lineup is:
She Wants To Move - N.E.R.D.
C'Mon C'Mon - The Von Bondies
Never Never - The Libertines
The Battle For Straight Time - A.C. Newman
Float On - Modest Mouse
Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand
Mockingbird - Eminem
Sniff - The Kleptones
Tighten My Tie - The Like Young
Neighborhood # 2 (Laika) - The Arcade Fire
It's You - P.J. Harvey
Caught In The Rain - Preston School Of Industry
It's A Hit - Rilo Kiley
Shake The Sheets - Ted Leo + The Pharmacists
Vertigo - U2
Encore - Jay-Z + Danger Mouse
Jesus Walks - Kanye West
American Idiot - Green Day
The Hidden Track - Earlimart
The Rat - The Walkmen
Farther On - Vetiver
Size Too Small - Sufjan Stevens
Surf's Up - Brian Wilson
Yes. That Brian Wilson.
Meanwhile. Elsewhere.
The chatter is growing regarding a 16-0 SEC season for the Wildcats. This one seems a lot less likely than a 16-0 Illini season. A lot less likely. While the SEC is even weaker than the Big Ten -- by a large margin -- it seems as though the remaining road trips to Nashville, Gainesville, Columbia and Tuscaloosa are all but certain to result in at least one L.
Don't look for it to come in Gainesville, though.
Nodenyin' Illini
Last night's "Bloodbath at the Breslin" was truly a sight to behold. This was the one, the one where the Illini would finally fall from their lofty undefeated perch. The one where this team would true itself to the century of its predecessor teams and find a way to lose the big one.
Didn't happen.
Direct quotes from two Izzone residents will attest to the shocking and stunning nature of the beating laid on the Spartans last night. "I'm shocked," said one. "Yeah, shocked. And stunned," said another.
As a matter of fact, the whipping that was laid on Tom Izzo's bunch makes it clearer than ever that a 16-0 Big Ten season is not only possible, it's probable. Right now I put it at about 75/25 that these Illini will be the first undefeated Big Ten squad since 1976.
And don't look now, but the chances are increasing for this team to do the impossible.
39-0.
