Funeral to Finish

  Number 478 and we're finally at some recognizable Classic Rock.  What is "Classic Rock"?  I've been thinking about this a lot lately.  When I was in high school, Led Zeppelin and the Kinks and the Beatles were all Classic Rock, even though all of those groups had released albums within the preceding 15 years.  Led Zeppelin's last album came out in 1979, just a few years before I started high school!  The Kinks put out an album in 1983!  I remember seeing the video for "Come Dancing" on MTV.  And they seemed ancient.  If we kept the same definition of Classic Rock based on how long ago the last album came out, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" would be Classic Rock.  So would Vampire Weekend!  Those do not seem like Classic Rock. My theory is that Classic Rock is essentially guitar-based rock released from the 1950's to about 1979.  Then Classic Rock abruptly ends and so even something that SOUNDS like Classic Rock, like "Permission

  Sadly, the first time I became aware of Selena was when she was shot and killed by the president of her own fan club in 1995.  My familiarity with Tejano music remains sparse to this day.   Listening to this album as a totally uninformed Gen X dude, the one thing I was immediately struck by was track 4, " Fotos y Recuerdos " because, here's the thing, it's basically a cover of "Back on the Chain Gang" by the Pretenders but with different words!  ( Wiki calls it "sampling" but it's a lot more than just a sample.)  The original song is about a frustrating and unworkable relationship: I found a picture of you, oh oh oh oh What hijacked my world that night To a place in the past We've been cast out of? Oh oh oh oh Now we're back in the fight We're back on the train Oh, back on the chain gang Selena's version is more or less about the same thing: I have a picture of you that I kiss every night before I go to sleep it's kind of

  Another album I really like!  Actually, probably half an album.  This is a double album that probably should have been a single album but far be it for me to tell Miranda Lambert how to run her life.  ANYWAY we're all familiar with breakup songs, of course, but Miranda is out here with a whole fucking breakup ALBUM.  It's really something.   We all have our breakup songs.  Maybe when you broke up with that guy you were with for two years right after you started your job "The Ecstatics" by Explosions in the Sky was playing and now that song will forever be linked to him and that whole period in your mind.  For me, "Gravity Rides Everything" by Modest Mouse is like that.  But when you're Miranda Lambert and you're breaking up with a guy who's Blake Shelton and then your ex starts dating Gwen Stefani, you don't just have a breakup song, you write your own breakup songs and you write a lot of them. There's a little bit of everything here, l

  It is here, at #481, that we arrive at the first album that I both (1) owned on CD, and (2) still listen to regularly.  I might even still own it on CD, if I knew where my CDs were.  I left a bunch of them at my old apartment, which became my ex-wife's apartment, and then they went into storage, and then I got some of my stuff out of storage, but that's a story for another time. It seems fitting that the first album on here that I personally owned is this twee, gentle nerd-pop record from this charming band, Belle & Sebastian, a Scottish band named after a children's TV show, naturally, because it reflects my own gentle nerd-pop sensibilities.  I would say this is a perfect album to put on while, say, making a brunch of croissants and carefully sliced fruit and peach bellinis for your hipster friends in the late 90's, but it probably doesn't have enough guitar for that so maybe it's a perfect album to put on while painting abstract still-lifes in your stud

  "If you want to get a white girl in bed, play some 90's hip hop."  I was recently discussing this album with a woman and that's what she told me.  OK, the woman was my sister.  Needless to say, I did not inquire further.  If you want to get a white guy - or, indeed, any guy - in bed, play whatever the fuck you want.  German industrial, avant garde classical, Tibetan throat singers, the soundtrack to "My Fair Lady," a Larry the Cable Guy album, all of it will be 100% successful, I guarantee you. So.... once again, here we have not something I listened to much.  Of course, I knew "Officer," just from its ubiquity, but for some reason I had Pharcyde compartmentalized in my head as some kind of joke-rap weed band and that's not them at all!  I mean, they definitely have a sense of humor and seem to be familiar with and fond of marijuana, but this album is really good!  I was immediately reminded of De La Soul, or maybe even Tribe Called Quest, wi

  This is the real shit.  Remember when we talked about John Mayer's fake blues a few days ago?  This is the real thing.  John Mayer's all like  Pain throws your heart to the ground Love turns the whole thing around No, it won't all go the way it should But I know the heart of life is good But Muddy says Well, now it getting late on into the evening And I feel like, like blowing my home When I woke up this morning all I had, I had was gone Now it getting, late on into the evening, man now I feel like, like blowing my home Well now, woke up this morning, all I had was gone Well, brooks run into the ocean, the ocean run in, into the sea But don't find my baby, somebody going to sure bury me Which one sounds more like the blues?  "Hey, it's all gonna be okay, hang in there slugger," or "EVERYTHING I HAVE IS GONE AND I AM GOING TO BE BURIED"? A lot of the songs are just Muddy Waters and his guitar but you don't even really notice.  There is so mu

  I am admittedly mostly ignorant in the ways of the club banger, but as a Gen X'er, this whole album mostly sounds like Madonna to me.  I was getting my eardrums blown on on earbuds but I really think this is meant to be played over huge speakers in a thickly populated dance club, maybe with some molly and a vodka Red Bull.  It's not my thing at all, but it was good accompaniment for an exercise run/walk, all in that 130-150 bpm sweet spot that's good for exercise. But who cares about Lady Gaga's "Born this Way" right now?  It appears that we will finally be rid of Donald Trump and his corrosive, debilitating attacks on the body politic.  I'm far from the first to make this point, but what I'm really looking forward to is just the absolute leisure of being able to not think about politics for days or weeks.  I think a really underappreciated part of Trump's destructive strength was how much mental energy he required.  Every day, we'd have to g