Tag Archives: favorite songs

Thirty Years On

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Yeah, I’m pretty sure y’all saw this coming some time ago.  My unhealthy obsession with the music of 1988 deems it necessary that I do the occasional thirty-years-on post this year.  But hey!  This time I’ll focus only on the music and spare you the personal stories you’ve heard enough times already.  This’ll be like my Blogging the Beatles posts from a few years back, taking my favorite music from my favorite year specifically from a listener’s point of view.  I don’t have any set schedule or plan for this series , so it’ll most likely be sporadic, depending on the release dates and so on.

I decided to use the classic Guns n’ Roses “Welcome to the Jungle” (or as my friend Chris once call it back then, “Welcome to my Uncle’s”) as my header video for this introduction for a few reasons.  Even though the track had been released back in July of 1987, it was still getting heavy airplay alongside their other classic single “Sweet Child o’ Mine”.  Originally I was not a GnR fan at all, lumping them in with all the other hair metal bands of the day.  But on the same token, they were essentially the hardest-sounding band out there at the time.  A quick look at the early January pop charts and you’ll notice that pop music was leaning perilously towards the ‘lite’ side.  It was refreshingly inclusive and included multiple genres and performers, sure, but you’ve got to admit that there wasn’t much of a spine to many of those songs.  GnR was the much-needed exception to that rule.

It was time to look a bit deeper into the independents if I was going to satiate my need for exciting music.

Jonc’s Best of 2017 List!

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cosima to build a house

from Cosima’s “To Build a House” video

As always, it was tricky to figure out which albums to put on these lists, because I listened to a hell of a lot of music.  I decided this time out it wasn’t just about repeated listenings, but albums that made me stop and notice.  The list is quite varied this time out, featuring electronic sounds, punk, a heartbreaking soul ballad, a greatest hits album and a live album, quirky alternative pop, and more.  And yes, I do suggest you check them out if you haven’t already.

2015 Albums
15. Lydia Ainsworth, Darling of the Afterglow
14. The Jesus and Mary Chain, Damage and Joy
13. Minus the Bear, VOIDS
12. UNKLE, The Road: Part 1
11. Liam Gallagher, As You Were
10. Rainer Maria, S/T
9. Spoon, Hot Thoughts
8. Elbow, Little Fictions
7. Sylvan Esso, What Now
6. Jeff Lynne’s ELO, Wembley Or Bust
5. LCD Soundsystem, American Dream
4. Elbow, The Best of
3. U2, Sounds of Experience
2. The Sound of Arrows, Stay Free
1. The New Pornographers, Whiteout Conditions

2015 Singles
15. Rainer Maria, “Lower Worlds”
14. Alice Merton, “No Roots”
13. UNKLE, “The Road”
12. Lydia Ainsworth, “Ricochet”
11. Sylvan Esso, “Die Young”
10. Elbow, “Magnificent (She Says)”
9. Spoon, “Hot Thoughts”
8. U2, “You’re the Best Thing About Me”
7. Portugal. The Man, “Feel It Still”
6. Gang of Youths, “What Can I Do If the Fire Goes Out?”
5. The Sound of Arrows, “Stay Free”
4. The New Pornographers, “High Ticket Attractions”
3. LCD Soundsystem, “Tonite”
2. Japandroids, “Near to the Wild Heart of Life”
1. Cosima, “To Build a House”

Many Welcome Returns: New Releases from Classic Bands
Chuck Berry, Chuck
Paul Draper, Spooky Action
Dishwalla, Juniper Road
Living Colour, Shade
Rainer Maria, S/T
Ride, Weather Diaries
Slowdive, Slowdive
The Darling Buds, Evergreen EP
Roger Waters, Is This the Life We Really Want?

Best Reissues and Box Sets
The Beatles, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Deluxe Edition
Lloyd Cole, In New York (Collected Recordings 1988-1996)
Curve, Doppelganger and Cuckoo
Golden Earring, Complete Studio Recordings
George Michael, Listen Without Prejudice/MTV Unplugged
Yoko Ono, Fly, Approximately Infinite Universe and Feeling the Space
Prince & the Revolution, Purple Rain Deluxe Expanded Edition
Radiohead, OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017
The Smiths, The Queen Is Dead [Deluxe Edition]
The The, Radio Cinéola Trilogy
U2, The Joshua Tree Super Deluxe Edition
The Who, Maximum A’s & B’s

The Singles 2017

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Entry #1…the 2017 best-of compilation! Same mix rules apply as per the last few years.

Tape 1, Side 1
1. Spoon, “Hot Thoughts”
2. The New Pornographers, “High Ticket Attractions”
3. Japandroids, “Near to the Wild Heart of Life”
4. Elbow, “Magnificent (She Says)”
5. Cosima, “To Build a House”
6. Arcade Fire, “Everything Now”
7. Grizzly Bear, “Mourning Sound”
8. Portugal. The Man, “Feel It Still”
9. St Vincent, “Los Ageless”
10. LCD Soundsystem, “Tonite”

Tape 1, Side 2
1. Minus the Bear, “Last Kiss”
2. Radwimps, “Zenzenzense [Movie Version]”
3. Beck, “Up All Night”
4. U2, “You’re the Best Thing About Me”
5. Nothing But Thieves, “Sorry”
6. Sylvan Esso, “Just Dancing”
7. UNKLE, “The Road”
8. Rainer Maria, “Lower Worlds”
9. Alvvays, “Plimsoll Punks”
10. The Sound of Arrows, “Stay Free”
11. Decomposure, “Cordillera: Let’s Go Back to the TV Screen”

Tape 2, Side 1
1. The Districts, “If Before I Wake”
2. Cold War Kids, “Love Is Mystical”
3. The Jesus and Mary Chain, “Amputation”
4. Spoon, “Can I Sit Next to You”
5. Dishwalla, “Give Me a Sign”
6. The Charlatans UK, “The Same House”
7. Depeche Mode, “Where’s the Revolution”
8. Slowdive, “Star Roving”
9. Gorillaz, “Saturnz Barz”
10. Future Islands, “Ran”
11. Weezer, “Feels Like Summer”
12. Arcade Fire feat. Mavis Staples, “I Give You Power”

Tape 2, Side 2
1. Lydia Ainsworth, “Ricochet”
2. Radiohead, “Lift”
3. Wire, “Short Elevated Period”
4. Sylvan Esso, “Die Young”
5. Broken Social Scene, “Halfway Home”
6. Alt-J, “In Cold Blood”
7. The War on Drugs, “Pain”
8. Grandaddy, “Way We Won’t”
9. Maxïmo Park, “Get High (No, I Don’t)”
10. The The, “We Can’t Stop What’s Coming”
11. The New Pornographers, “Whiteout Conditions”

Tape 3, Side 1
1. Gord Downie, “Introduce Yerself”
2. Colony House, “You & I”
3. Alice Merton, “No Roots”
4. Hollerado, “Born Yesterday”
5. The Beatles, “Penny Lane [Stereo Mix 2017]”
6. Minus the Bear, “Robotic Heart”
7. The National, “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness”
8. Temples, “Certainty”
9. The Sound of Arrows, “Beautiful Life”
10. The New Pornographers, “Avalanche Alley”
11. LCD Soundsystem, “American Dream”

Tape 3, Side 2
1. Gang of Youths, “What Can I Do if the Fire Goes Out”
2. HAIM, “Want You Back”
3. Royal Blood, “Lights Out”
4. Wolf Alice, “Yuk Foo”
5. Tricky, “New Stole”
6. Jeff Lynne’s ELO, “Twilight [Live]”
7. Liam Gallagher, “Wall of Glass”
8. Death from Above, “Freeze Me”
9. Ride, “All I Want”
10. Slowdive, “Falling Ashes”
11. Gorillaz, “We Got the Power”

Coming up: Entry #2, the end-of-year favorites lists!

Tis the Season

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nichijou santa

I’ll totally admit to having a soft spot for Christmas music, whether it’s pop, alternative, or classical.  Even during my retail and warehouse years, and especially during the HMV years.  I never quite got all that cynical when it came to hearing holiday music.  On the contrary, it usually gets me in a good mood, even when the streets and the malls are packed with far too many people.

Wishing all and sundry the best of the holiday season! Thanks for sticking around Walk in Silence all this time! 🙂

Meanwhile, 1985

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Personal:  Eighth grade into ninth grade, going from Junior High to High School.  A long-awaited, much-needed change of pace, setting, and mood.  After nearly fucking up my educational track by getting an F — in English, of all things, thanks to boredom, inattention and distraction — I get my shit together and become a middling student for the rest of my school years. Not nearly as inept socially as I was in junior high; I embrace the fact that I’m a nerd and a weirdo.

Writing:  Headlong into the Infamous War Novel project.  Still finding my way through it, with multiple false starts, outtakes, and notebooks.  Somewhere along the line I come up with the brilliant idea of creating an outline via a set list of music, and it all starts coming together.  Eventually I’ll start a draft that will take me about two years to finish, in between music listening, homework and social life.  A few unrelated snippets written at this time that don’t really go anywhere.

Music:  Listening to a lot of Top 40 countdowns on the weekends while listening to rock radio during the week.  Music collection still small but expanding thanks to used record stores and trips to the mall.  Creating mixtapes from stuff off the radio in high gear now.  I start cataloging these mixtapes on a steno pad.  [Decades later I use this same list to recreate the mixtapes on mp3.]  Probably one of my favorite eras of pop music in the 80s…a lot of really great stuff came out between 1985 and 1986.

Meanwhile, 40 years ago…

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Yesterday afternoon, A and I headed to the Alamo Drafthouse to see the 40th Anniversary of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I barely remember going to see it the first time out, considering I was six years old (I either saw it at the drive-in or in Gardner, the same place I saw Star Wars), though I do remember bits of it when watching it on TV in later years.

Of course, this made me think of all the music that I’d heard about that time, mostly on the little crackly radio that was in the kitchen for years. I remember the above ‘disco version’ of the Close Encounters theme, as we owned the album and the single.

So let’s see…what other songs do I remember from that era? [This obviously doesn’t include the classic punk from that era, which was way off my radar for quite a few more years.] A lot of these were singles my sisters bought, or tunes that we’d hear on the radio. This of course was back when AM was still the preferred listening band, so most of these I associate with either listening on my cheapo record player or on the car radio whenever we went for a ride. [Or in some cases, the jukebox at Bellinger’s!]

…hey, what can I say? I was six years old. I loved this stuff. :p

Fly-by: N do I need apostrophe T need this torture

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Remember when I said that various systems at my Day Job usually go all kerflooey when I go away on vacation? Well, surprisingly enough none did.

But as of yesterday, our email server has decided to flush all the many and intertwining sorting rules down the loo so everything, from requests to reports to auto-replies and everything else lands in our main Inbox.

Which means that my particular job, which happens to be quite email-heavy, is currently now twice as slow and twice as much of a pain in the ass. Which means I’ve been working straight out all day long.

So this means a fly-by. I happen to be listening to a bunch of albums from 1986 at the moment (currently playing as I write this: The Mighty Lemon Drops’ Happy Head) and of course the most excellent debut from They Might Be Giants was part of this listening experience. The video above sold me on them from the start and I’ve been a big fan since.

Hopefully I’ll have something of more substance next week. Sorry about that!

Recent Purchases, July Edition

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More new and reissued tunage from 2017, for your perusal…an interesting mix of old and new, loud and soft, ambient and danceable this time out.

Tory y Moi, Boo Boo, released 7 July.

Public Service Broadcasting, Every Valley, released 7 July.

Broken Social Scene, Hug of Thunder, released 7 July.

HAIM, Something to Tell You, released 7 July.

Yoko Ono, Fly, Approximately Infinite Universe and Feeling the Space reissues, released 14 July.

The Dears, Times Infinity Volume Two, released 14 July.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets OST, released 20 July.

Dunkirk OST, released 21 July.

Nine Inch Nails, Add Violence EP, released 21 July.

Cornelius, Mellow Waves, released 21 July.

Declan McKenna, What Do You Think About the Car?, released 21 July.

Arcade Fire, Everything Now, released 28 July.

People Like You, Verse, released 28 July.

New Vacation Compilations

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anime music listening

As always, when we’re going on vacation, I always create a new compilation or two to listen to during the flights.  I’m a little behind in creating these, so they contain tunes from most of the spring and summer of 2017 (including a few reissues).

Here’s the playlists, with the YouTube links where available.  Enjoy!

Walk in Silence XIX

Side 1
1. Cold War Kids, ‘Love is Mystical’
2. The Drums, ‘Blood Under My Belt’
3. Overlake, ‘Winter Is Why’
4. Spoon, ‘Can I Sit Next to You’
5. Mutemath, ‘Hit Parade’
6. The Charlatans UK, ‘Different Days’
7. Sylvan Esso, ‘Die Young’
8. Dishwalla, ‘Give Me a Sign’
9. The New Pornographers, ‘Avalanche Alley’
10. LCD Soundsystem, ‘American Dream’

Side 2
1. Radwimps, ‘Zenzenzense [Movie Version]’
2. Lydia Ainsworth, ‘What Is It?’
3. Wire, ‘Short Elevated Period’
4. Imagine Dragons, ‘Believer’
5. 311, ‘Too Much to Think’
6. The Charlatans UK, ‘There Will Be Chances’
7. Day Wave, ‘Wasting Time’
8. Bush, ‘Mad Love’
9. Future Islands, ‘Ran’
10. Slowdive, ‘Falling Ashes’
11. Gorillaz, ‘We Got the Power’

 

Untitled XXIII

Side 1
1. Ride, ‘All I Want’
2. Future Islands, ‘Cave’
3. Liam Gallagher, ‘Wall of Glass’
4. Lydia Ainsworth, ‘Ricochet’
5. Wire, ‘Brio’
6. Royal Blood, ‘Lights Out’
7. Alt-J, ‘In Cold Blood’
8. U2, ‘One Tree Hill’
9. Alexiane, ‘A Million On My Soul [Radio Edit]’
10. Maximo Park, ‘Get High (No, I Don’t)’
11. Big Wreck, ‘Skybunk Marché’

Side 2
1. Radiohead, ‘I Promise’
2. Cold War Kids, ‘Can We Hang On?’
3. Phoenix, ‘J-Boy’
4. Toro y Moi, ‘Girl Like You’
5. 311, ‘The Night Is Young’
6. Panda Riot, ‘Ghosting’
7. Au.Ra, ‘Above the Triangle (ii)’
8. Sylvan Esso, ‘Just Dancing’
9. Slowdive, ‘Sugar for the Pill’
10. LCD Soundsystem, ‘Call the Police’