Tag Archives: #albumofthemonth

Album of the Month: Gish

Gish

Gish
by Smashing Pumpkins
1991
Buy the reissue on Amazon

If I’m ever put on the spot with one of those “top ten albums of all time” questions, without hesitation, I’ll name Gish and then I’ll stumble around for while and name off albums that happen to be on high rotation at the time of the inquiry.  But Gish is always there.  In my mind it’s timeless and that has a lot of to with the lyrics. I don’t understand any of them. Continue reading Album of the Month: Gish

Album of the Month: Violent Femmes

Violent FemmesViolent Femmes
by Violent Femmes
1983
Buy the album on Amazon

I was planning on a different Album of the Month, but then my friend new Kelsey and I were talking about our top 5 bands. I had mostly not heard of hers (because I’m old) and she had mostly not heard of mine (also because I’m old). Violent Femmes were on my list, and though my main thought was trying to hold back from screaming out on the subway “how do you not know who the Violent Femmes are?!”, my other thought was “if their first album is not a perfect album, then brother, I don’t know what the hell is.” So Kelsey, this is for you.

Continue reading Album of the Month: Violent Femmes

Album of the Month: Girlfriend – Redux

Girlfriend
Girlfriend

“Nothing Lasts”
by Matthew Sweet
from the album Girlfriend
1991
Buy the album on Amazon

When Lance wrote up this album last week, it was pretty spot on. I completely agree with him that it’s one of the rare albums with nary a skippable song. I associate this album most strongly with my high school friend Joel Robinson (not of MST3K fame), as we had a shared love of it from the time it first came out. It is indeed a perfect album. I don’t want to rehash what Lance went into, but just to expand on a couple of points (and I’m going to ramble here entirely too long to just add it as an article comment)…

Continue reading Album of the Month: Girlfriend – Redux

Album of the Month: Girlfriend by Matthew Sweet

 

Girlfriend

Girlfriend
by Matthew Sweet
1991
Buy the Legacy Edition on Amazon

Chris and I have been talking about doing full album reviews ever since we started MNP a few months ago.  We recently set a goal of one album per month from each of us, which seemed manageable at the time, particularly since we had no other rules regarding what to pick or how to go about covering it.  You’d think it would be awesome having the ability to choose any album ever made, throughout all time and space but fuck if it’s not totally stressful – particularly on the first go-around.  You want to pick something great to initiate your catalog but at the same time you don’t to completely blow your load and have nowhere to go.  While my wheels were turning I became aware of the dates quickly advancing towards the end of the month, I have to get the entry done by the 31st.  The 31st, that date means a lot to me, which I’ll get into later… but it did make this album pop into mind and when I started doing a bit of research, I came across another interesting fact:

Twenty-three years ago today, Matthew Sweet released his masterpiece of an album, Girlfriend.

That sealed the deal.  My first album of the month will be Girlfriend. Continue reading Album of the Month: Girlfriend by Matthew Sweet

Album of the Month: Kick

Kick
Kick

Kick by INXS
1987
Buy the album on Amazon

Kick by Beck’s Record Club
2010
Download the album

Lance recently posted a full length cover version of this for #CoverFriday. Courtney Barnett’s version was respectable and a cool effort, but honestly didn’t do much for me. I finally finished listening to most of the rest of it this past weekend, and was watching it on YouTube, and then noticed the Beck’s Record Club full album cover version in the related videos. I liked it enough that I was considering just featuring it, but then decided it may be overkill to still do the real Kick later, so here we are. I also just learned on the Slicing Up Eyeballs Facebook page that the album was released yesterday in 1987, so the timing is fortuitous.

Continue reading Album of the Month: Kick