Jump into the fire maan

"Gotta Get Up," the opening track on Nilsson Schmilsson, is somewhere on my list of favorite songs ever.

Goddamn. Gonna listen now.

Pearl Jam
Vs.
1993, This is how you make a sophomore album. After the major success of Ten it could have been super easy for Pearl Jam to set things to autopilot and just keep doing what they were doing. Instead they made a follow-up that was far more interesting than their debut. Vs is basically an album that moves the band forward by stripping things down - mostly. There's far less focus on soloing here than on the first record, with tempos leaning towards the slower end and more emphasis on acoustic guitars. It's not really PJ gone folk or anything, but it seems a more naked and vulnerable record. Tracks like "Daughter" or the absolutely gorgeous "Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town" show a side of the band that Ten never did. Though there's still plenty of rocking here. Both "Go" and "Animal" feel like they could have fit on the last album. But "Glorified G" has a groove to it that would have stuck out like a sore thumb, and "Dissident" is absolutely epic. While Ten definitely deserves the 'classic' status it has achieves, for me Vs is where the band really became the Pearl Jam that I love.

Red Hot Chili Peppers
Californication
1999, While many fans didn't feel like Dave Navarro meshed well with the band, I thought One Hot Minute was a pretty great record. But there's absolutely no denying that bringing John Frusciante back to the Chili Peppers resulted in instant magic. It's not like the band hasn't had a million lineup changes in the past. But Californication is like a glorious reunion. This combination of players just fucking works. (Oh yeah, Rick Rubin too). Admittedly the record is a bit front-loaded with all the singles appearing in the first half. But whatever. "All Around The World" is a great opener. "Scar Tissue" is still incredible. That single was like a celebration of the return of Frusciante back in the day. "Other Side" and "Parallel Universe" and the title track are all these solid and heavy sort of ballad rockers. There is less straight up funk here than on previous records, but then again One Hot Minute was pretty devoid of funk as well. To me this is just another in a fantastic 90's run for the band.

The Smashing Pumpkins
Gish
1991, Gish is a sort of unassuming debut. Don't get me wrong there's a lot of great stuff here, but it doesn't quite hang together album-wise the way their next few would. That is to say that it feels more like a collection of songs than an album proper in my head. But that's fine. "I Am One" still rocks. And "Rhinoceros" is friggin' gorgeous. As a whole this album definitely leans closer to the more mellow and shoe-gazey My-Bloody-Valentiny side of SP rather than the really stadium rocking stuff that they'd eventually become stars for. Don't get me wrong - this is a great band on this record, but I don't totally feel like they'd found their total identity yet. And truthfully I reach for Gish far less than most Smashing Pumpkins albums, but there's definitely enough here that I consider worth revisiting from time to time.

Sonic Youth
Bad Moon Rising
1985, The first time I heard "Death Valley '69," I got goosebumps. And really nothing has changed in the nearly two decades since I first heard it. Bad Moon Rising sits within Sonic Youth's discography as possibly their scariest album. There's something brilliantly unsettling about this record. And it starts before a single note is struck. Look at that cover art! Bad Moon Rising serves as a study of Americana the same way that Blue Velvet does. There's something totally sinister here. And unrelenting given that each song blends into the next with the help of various tape loops and noise. "Intro" is lovely but doesn't last long before going into the triumphantly dissonant "Brave Men Run." "Society Is A Hole" and "I Love Her All The Time" are sparse and moody pieces that harken back to the sound of the self-titled debut. I've never been a big fan of "Justice Is Might," so the second half sounds slightly less perfect to me as a song cycle, though culminating in "Death Valley '69" is obviously a huge fixer. Four bonus tracks have been tacked onto the CD forever. "Flower" is a pretty solid single that definitely fits the mood of the album, but "Halloween" is the true standout for me. Like it's easily one of my favorite tracks on this whole album. It's slow and creepy as fuck but in a totally beautiful way. As I've said this is probably SY's scariest album. And while it's thematically more focused than Confusion, I tend to prefer that one just slightly. But it's damn close.

Weezer
The Blue Album: Deluxe Edition
2004, The reissue of Weezer's debut includes a bonus disc (aka "Dusty Gems And Raw Nuggets") which reminds me an awful lot of a mixtape that me and some friends assembled back in high school. As each of us managed to get our paws on another new-to-us Weezer b-side from compilations or hard to find singles (remember, this was just around the time that the internet was starting to make online record shopping viable) we'd tack it onto the cassette collection. I still remember that when I finally got a CD burner with graduation money one of the first transfers I did was putting this b-sides collection on a CDR. The actual b-sides are classics. "Mykel & Carli," "Susanne" and "Jamie" are all awesome and could have easily fit on the album proper. "Jamie" in particular is one of my favorite Weezer songs ever. Then there's some live and acoustic tracks, which are certainly worth hearing but nothing revelatory. The previously unreleased stuff is interesting though. "Paperface" and "I Swear It's True" are pretty great and the demo of "Undone" is drastically different. It goes without saying that any deluxe reissue is a for-fans-only deal, but this is definitely one that fans will be pleased with.

Dude... you did Blue just a little bit ago. And Vs. And Gish I think.

:confused:

This is the Blue deluxe bonus disc. Never did Gish. But yes. You called me on Vs though that was just a few sentences then.

HOLY SHIT IS THERE A BLUE DELUXE BONUS DISC oh wait no I thought you were talking about Joni Mitchell what a bummer.

Good talk.

I wasn't trying to be a ding dong. It's just that when you read something like this:


You can't help thinking about THE album called Blue, you follow. The one that IS blue and SOUNDS blue and FEELS blue.

ha! I thought you were being sarcastic. Ok, that's actually funny that you were literally like "oh wow! There's a deluxe? I'm gonna go buy it--- oh... :( " haha

noisereductions, have you heard Joni's BLUE? Not trying to be a dick. Just curious.

absolutely. I owned that one back in high school even. Admittedly was never a huge Joni fan, but Blue was one of the handful of her albums I did like. The one that I listened to the most back then was um... is it called Ladies Of The Canyon or something like that? It had "Help Me" which is prob my fav Joni song. Maybe I'm mixing up albums now. Like I said I was never really a big fan or anything, but casually liked some of her stuff.

EDIT: ok you had me curious. I was screwing up albums. "Help Me" was on Court & Spark, which I had on hand-me-down vinyl along w/ Canyons. Blue was one I bought on CD myself. Oh well.

No, I was being sarcastic indeed! Just not a ding dong! ...Look, eventually I'll explain my philosophy to ya. :)

giving Thurston Moore's "The Best Day" a listen

Sonic Youth
Walls Have Ears
1986, So Blast First put out a live album against the band's wishes so it was pulled almost immediately. It's hard to really know why they didn't want this out there, though. Walls Have Ears is almost legendary now. It's really a pretty important little snapshot of the band's transition from Bob Bert to Steve Shelley for instance. And it's an excellent live show with good sound quality and intense performances. Maybe the band even gets that now considering they included it in the discography section of their Sensational Fix book. What's really neat is that it was a double album (in its original vinyl format - it's since seen several CD bootleg releases...) which compiles two separate performances. The first half of Walls features Steve on drums and even features a couple of tracks that would soon appear on Evol, while the second has Bob on drums and focuses on earlier material. Hearing both of these drummers on one release, and scanning the tracklisting which runs through material from the self-titled debut, Confusion, Kill Your Idols, Bad Moon and even touching upon Evol stuff makes this live album absolutely invaluable.

I got it. Felt very obvious that you were being sarcastic to me, but I also felt that you weren’t being mean-spirited, which is cool.

“Blue” is a great album too. Obviously.

You know what, that one really has some kick to it. Whenever I put it on I’m glad I did. It’s layered and pretty and satisfying, and manages to sound kind of adjacent to some of the more tuneful, late period Sonic Youth material without sounding like “SY minus...” if that makes any sense.

Some music I've been listening to in the past week or so.

Good Area - Cubic Zirconia / Bad Karlshafen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezAwgqgQ_XA

Grant Hart (RIP) - The Argument
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSYMRorWJOU

Mike Cooper/Derek Hall - Out of the Shades
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbqVu17Hxhg

Eugenio Miccini - Concerti di Poesia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPpoxFJKN4

Sun Ra - Other Voices, Other Blues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5xcddbDuvk

Chrome - Techromancy
https://chromemusic.bandcamp.com/album/techromancy

Alice In Chains
Jar Of Flies
1994, I was liked how Alice In Chains would pump out these mini-albums between bigger releases. And I feel like they tended to be a bit more daring on them (for better or worse). But this one is interesting in that it was basically an album of acoustic tracks that the band recorded in a single week session. "Rotten Apple" is a super moody dirge that goes on for seven minutes, and "Whale & Wasp" is a rather creepy instrumental. The two big singles here - "I Stay Away" and "No Excuses" are solid, and totally sound like slower, more mellow versions of the heavier prototypical Alice In Chains. The closer "Swing On This" kind of fucks things up for me, as its upbeat country tone just feels out of place and feels like it ends things on a bum note. But overall I like what the band did here. It's kind of low stakes deal and a bit outside of the comfort zone of the sound of their proper albums. It's also a brisk half-hour which can be refreshing.

Back in the, well, day, I made the following cover:



A play, of course, on



which had come out the previous year. I don't think anybody gave much of a crap about my work, though. I still find it pretty bitchen myself. :cool:

I don't remember seeing that one, soup. I like it haha.

Yeah it seems to have a lot of SY sound in it especially Forevermore & Germs Burn. Not coincidentally two of my favourite songs off the album.

Is it too much to hope SY will get back together?

It's beyond too much, son! The best you can hope for is that if they get inducted into the R&R Hall of Fame (itself highly dubious, not that I care) all four members will show the fuck up!

DRINKS - Hermits On Holiday

Protomartyr Relatives in Descent

Dude, I think about this EVERY TIME I think about the album. Either album. I didn’t realize you had made the graphic, but hats off to you sir.

Like, I was thinking about this when I posted that comment about The Best Day earlier today. No fucking kidding.

Holy Molly Parker Posey! :eek:

not a son, I'm a bunny

Well excuuuuuuse meee... :)

I almost made a joke about Parker Posey’s... ahem... holes. You probably get the gist. Stopped myself, but still wanted to admit it.

Sonic Youth
Evol
1986, I've long called Evol my favorite album. I mean my favorite album of all time. My one desert island disc if you will. There's something about it - everything really. That cover art. The liner notes. Even the title. Evol is violently beautiful, right from the opening of "Tom Violence." It is immediately clear - or at least within seconds - that this new lineup with Steve Shelley on drums has gelled into something perfect. The material here is just as intense and visceral as on previous records, but there's something just gorgeous and lulling about a lot of the songs here. Maybe it's that explorations of love are buried here under much of the noise. The droniness of aforementioned "Tom Violence," or the plinky percussive strings on "Shadow Of A Doubt" with its whispered Kim vocal balance out the rushing almost-pop of "Starpower," grotesque storytelling of "In The Kingdom #19" or the thrillingly horrifying "Marilyn Moore." Later on Kim delivers a narrative over stray piano on "Secret Girls" and eventually the whole thing is wrapped up with what is one of the greatest rock songs ever recorded: "Expressway To Yr Skull." This is one of those records where every track could be my favorite. Strangely the CD version has always tacked on the bonus track "Bubblegum" which just doesn't fit well with everything that preceded it in my opinion. But that's a pretty minor complaint about the best album ever recorded.

Sonic Youth
Sister
1987, There's always been this certain tone I've gotten from Sister that I'm not quite sure how to describe. It's way less warm than Evol. It's darker. And the guitar notes feel like knives. It feels more akin to Confusion or Bad Moon than Evol, but is clearly written by the same band that created that record. But this one opens with "Schizophrenia," a song about insanity which certainly starts things on a different foot. While certainly there are mellow moments here like on "Beauty Lies In The Eye," or the absolutely beautiful "Cotton Crown," for the most part Sister just fucking rocks. "Catholic Block," "Stereo Sanctity," "Tuff Gnarl"... these are some songs made up of pure energy. "Pacific Coast Highway" feels like the one true throwback to the nightmares of Bad Moon and Evol. Sister is really kind of a weird record. It takes some strange chances and yet none of them feel super daring - even the cover of "Hot Wire My Heart" somehow fits here cohesively. Maybe even weirder is that the version of "Master-Dik" included as a bonus track on the CD release manages to make some sort of sense on this album even with its goofy rapping. In that sense Sister may well be the most interesting record that Sonic Youth created in this era.

Dude, no one likes your shitty taste in music. Sonic Youth? They had a minor hit or two back in the 90s. Who gives a fuck?

:).

I feel that Sister is, like, empirically better than Evol. Factually better. Better in every way. But I superlove Evol.

Evol and Bad Moon go together real well in my opinion. Excellent transition from one sound to another, but I feel like Evol was slightly more transitional than Sister, which felt like the natural completion of the early era of the band.

Daydream is a universe unto itself, but Sister is the peak pre-Daydream album, and my personal favorite SY album (even though it’s not the best, because Daydream is the best).

I personally prefer Sister to DDN, but yeah Evol is my favorite.

I personally prefer it too, but I think DDN is a better, more realized work. It’s the old favorite vs. best thing. Sister is my fave, DDN is the best.

Taking out Hot Wire, Master Dik and Bubblegum vastly improves each album, in my opinion. Master and Bubble weren't on the originals anyway, right?

So, going by the original sequence...

Hot Wire still sucks. And Sister should end with Kotton, not White Kross, which belongs earlier in the sequence.

Evol coheres more as an album, as a flow of thought. It is objectively better.

But fuck it. I'm not a critic and prefer Sister, which is and probably always will be my #1 fav.

Honestly though these are all great albums. Picking a best is like whatever. So yeah. Picking favorites means something more personal to each of us I'm sure.