Tag Archives: perfect albums

Album of the Month: Gish

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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

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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.

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Album of the Month: Girlfriend – Redux

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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)…

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Album of the Month: Kick

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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.

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Karaoke Thursday: “Burn After Writing”

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On the Impossible Past
On the Impossible Past

“Burn After Writing”
by the Menzingers
from the album On The Impossible Past
2012
Buy the album on Amazon

A couple of thoughts before I really dig in.  First, it’s kind of fucking amazing that neither one of us has talked in-depth about how fantastic this album is.  And it’s not like the band puts out constantly stellar material, but this particular album I’ll put up there against most of my favorite albums from my favorite groups.  Second, it’s totally Thursday and I never did a Karaoke Tuesday post, but two days late is hard to fake, so I’m coming clean.  The shame of this Karaoke Thursday post title will haunt me at least until I finish writing this post.

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Perfect Albums: Ten

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Ten
Ten

Ten by Pearl Jam
1991 Epic Records
Buy the album on Amazon

In my mind, a perfect album is one you can start playing at track one and go all the way to the end without wanting to hit skip. That’s no small feat in my book.  Ever since random access became possible with CDs, I developed a serious case of music ADD.  I’ll start a song I like, get to the chorus and want to skip ahead to hear another chorus.  Back in the day of vinyl and cassette you pretty much had to let an album or at the very least a side play through to completion.  For me, Ten is the prime example of a perfect album.  You can set and forget it.  Bonus points because it sounds even better cruising down the highway with the windows rolled down.

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