“Country Feedback”
by R.E.M.
from the album Out of Time
1991
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Continue reading November Five-Star Shuffle: “Country Feedback”
Violent FemmesI 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.
“The Wrong Child”
by R.E.M.
from the album Green
1998
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Sorry to disappointment our adoring fans, because I know I am one day late on my 5-star entry for last week, so getting it in now. And what a punch in the gut depressing entry it is. I think I’ve mentioned before that I was a big R.E.M. fan in my youth, probably up until around Automatic for the People. I don’t remember if Green was their first album I had, and I might argue that Document or Life’s Rich Pageant are better albums, but Green is still the pinnacle of their albums for me. The one that had the most impact and stuck with me the most. In fact, thinking about it now, I should probably do it as an Album of the Month at some point, so let’s get to the song.
Continue reading November Five-Star Shuffle: “The Wrong Child”
“Somebody to Shove”
by Soul Asylum
from the album Grave Dancers Union
1992
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Soul Asylum is one of those bands that I never normally think about; they don’t really orbit in my 90s universe of music. But occasionally a song of theirs will come up on the local 90s station or Pandora/Spotify/iTunes and I gotta give it up to them. They’ve got some great tunes, and this is definitely one of them. Continue reading November Five-Star Shuffle: “Somebody to Shove”
“Dead”
by They Might Be Giants
from the album Flood
1990
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This is probably my favourite TMBG song. There’s something about it that’s so simple and so beautiful and so catchy. I actually made Lance try this with me once or twice at karaoke, acapella, looking at the lyrics on my phone, when there was a lull in songs in the queue, because I just want so badly for it to actually be in the book. It never ever will be, but this is one of those songs that we would totally add if we ever opened a karaoke bar, and that if we actually lived in the same city (or country) we would practice together until we could nail it. It’s such a fun song to sing (I can never decide which part I would prefer to do), even if it’s just doing it loudly in the car. If I’m in a place where I’m alone and can sing this, I will almost always do it a few times in a row when it comes on shuffle.
“Nothing Lasts”
by Matthew Sweet
from the album Girlfriend
1991
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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)…
“Twin Peaks”
by Angelo Badalamenti
from the album Music from Twin Peaks
1990
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“Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me”
by Angelo Badalamenti
from the album Music from Twin Peaks
1992
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Lance mentioned that Monday was craptastic in his last post, and I would upgrade that to the entire week shaping up to being pretty crapperific, However, the best thing I’ve heard all week was the reboot of Twin Peaks. Hell. Yes. That made me so happy. So then made me realize these two albums would make great entries for this month’s theme. Not entirely in the MNP vein (not that that’s ever stopped me) but they came out in the exact same formative time as most the other things we post here.
Continue reading October Soundtracks: Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
“Smells Like Teen Spirit”
by Tori Amos (originally by Nirvana)
from the album Crucify
1992
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I had something else totally in mind and was working through what to write, and then I got busy and forgot to post until Lance just reminded me. I’m late for EST and probably Central, but I’m going to make it in Mountain Time. Even though I had already thought through my other choice, this pick just came to me in a flash and seemed like the better choice.
“Add It Up”
by Violent Femmes
from the album Violent Femmes
1983
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I wasn’t sure what to post today, and then, no lie, all three versions that I have of this song came up in a row on shuffle on the way home, so I’d better post it or the universe is going to have me get hit by a bus tomorrow or something. How have I not posted any Femmes yet? I love #KaraokeTuesday and #CoverFriday, but Lance is right that we need some other day for everything else (and yes, next month I will try to post another monthly theme, though even that may not be open-ended enough).
“Losing My Religion”
by R.E.M.
from the album Out of Time
1991
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Sure, this was a big hit off of a big album that really brought R.E.M. into the mainstream, but the only really important thing is that this is the song that represents Brenda losing her virginity to Dylan. I’m pretty positive they played parts of this song somewhere around 87 times during that episode of 90210.