#coabba

[objectivesubjectivity]

“I’m in really love with you”

I’m pretty sure I remember more about D’Angelo’s near-nether-regions than I do of the entirety of Voodoo.

I distinctly remember my childhood babysitter playing Voodoo for me and my younger brother and I distinctly remember questioning her judgement due to the shirtless cover and the conspicuous “Parental Advisory” label. I also distinctly remember, years later, picking up a copy of it myself, giving it a spin, and being surprised at how little it did for me. It felt lost, meandering, with nothing to grab onto. The music was subtle, understated, a bit dull. The vocals over-harmonized, blurry. The whole album glazed over me like a disappointing high: I gave up 70 minutes of my life and this is what I got out of it? Maybe I didn’t get it. Maybe I still don’t. Pitchfork gave it a 10. Whatever.

I clearly cared enough about the artist to succumb to the pressures of social media and music critics because I tacked on Black Messiah to my amazon.com order of To Pimp A Butterfly and Carrie and Lowell. But I wasn’t expecting much, expect maybe to feel outside of the cultural conversation once again. 

I’ve thought a lot about expectations over the past month or so; Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black suffered under their tremendous weight. It’s so easy to affix our wants onto something that we literally have no control over and feel let down when it doesn’t meet each and every demand. But the inverse is true as well; a trouncing of low expectations can lead to sheer elation. And Black Messiah trounced.

I fell in love with these 12 tracks. Gone was the expansive muddiness, replaced by tightly wound melodies and sticky hooks, all glued together by extraordinary musicianship. I gobbled this album up, played “The Charade” on repeat about a dozen times, and couldn’t stop talking about it with anyone who had the ear to listen. 

This past week, I found myself falling deeper into these tracks: the whistling in “The Door,” the boogie-woogie harmonies of “Sugar Daddy,” the thick bass of “Another Life.” I daydreamed of growing old with this album, sharing it with younger generations, moving from “love” to “really love.” The dashing of negative expectations had endeared me to this album on a level I hadn’t reached in years. 

As I was vibing along to Black Messiah for the second time last week, I happened to notice a telling lyric in “Back to the Future” that I never truly heard before: “So if you're wondering about the shape I'm in / I hope it ain't my abdomen that you're referring to.”

Maybe D’Angelo knows a bit about expectations too.

What I listened to last week (in addition to the Top 100 Contender):

Top 100 contenders in bold.

HAIM - Days Are Gone

Pusha T - Daytona

Grandpaboy - Dead Man Shake

Albums listened to in total: 2,298

Top 100 Contenders: 117

Next week’s album: Method Man & Redman - Blackout!

Think I missed an album? Challenge me! The list is alphabetical by letter.

[confessionsofabargainbinaddict]

Physical media, memory, and a blog, two and a half years late

I still own most of my mixtapes. And not the “mixtapes” that were actually CDs burned from iTunes playlists. No, the mixtapes where I spent countless hours clocking individual track time by rewinding songs on my Sony Discman and notating on looseleaf the timestamp in order to make sure the tracks would fit on the blank cassette (I still have most of that leg work as well - the pre-internet world was supremely different). And they exist almost as aural photographs, snapshots of a feeling or a phase; able to communicate, through sound, what I never was able to say out loud (I love you or I’m scared or I want to feel like I matter). 

This physical documenting of my life through tracks by Less Than Jake and The Ataris and Counting Crows was integral to my childhood, to my growth. Just hearing a song from one of these early tapes would bring back a rush of memories and countless tales of unrequited love and existential crises.

This isn’t a blog about mixtapes. But it is a blog about physical media. And it definitely is a blog about memories. 

A not-so-short time ago, a good friend mentioned that his parents were beginning the process of packing up and moving out of their Palo Alto home. If I were normal human being, I might ask things like “where are they moving?” or “why are they moving?” or “how do you feel about them moving?” But, having once visited said house, I quite distinctly remembered my friend’s CD tower, so, of course, the first thing that came to my mind was, “What are your parents going to do with your CDs?” He said something about them getting rid of them. I offered to buy them but he seemed wary of that proposition so I dropped the line of questioning and moved on to the normal, human stuff... (where, why, how do you feel about it, etc... etc...). 

A couple months later, having put the memories of his collection out of my mind, my friend, more or less, made me this bargain: he would give me his CDs if I wrote a blog about them. I, of course and without hesitation, agreed. 

I was expecting plenty of early Hopeless/Sub City punk and hardcore but my friend went a step further: he gave me albums purchased at shows, DIY pressings, side projects of bands never big enough to warrant the label “side project.” These albums were more personal, more obscure, more thoughtfully selected than what I originally anticipated.

And then over two years passed. And I didn’t write the blog. And I didn’t quite know why.

Last weekend, I was about to drive this same friend down to Philly for his bachelor party and a thought occurred to me: I should make a playlist. The playlist was built with artists I knew he liked, artists he had turned me on to, and nearly all the tracks he had gifted me from his parent’s move.

Each and every time a song from one his childhood CDs came up, it prompted a story: I saw them in the back of a bakery, I went to school with the singer’s daughter, I remember when they stopped being “screamo” and went “post-rock.” These aural photographs unlocked memories, perhaps ones never shared without the aid of these tracks. 

And it made me wonder if, in our digital age of music, there’s room for this kind of memory making. Just consider the process. My friend, whom I didn’t know in high school, went to see some shows and bought some CDs. Then, decades later, he gave me said CDs, and then, a couple years later, we accessed a piece of his childhood through them. The constant is the item, the physical disc, that enduring piece of plastic that contains multitudes. Will, in twenty some-odd years, some thirty-something still have that Spotify playlist from their adolescence? Will they play it to their children, their friends, their spouse? And will it launch them into a bed of nostalgia only inhabited by those specific tracks? Or will the playlists, like the near fate of these CDs, just get thrown away in a digital dustbin to make space for new sounds, new styles, new stories? 

I checked and only a handful of the albums he gave me are on Spotify. It’s pretty clear that, without my intervention (and willingness to have more stuff in a NYC apartment), it might have been the end of the road for these songs. And perhaps an end of the stories as well.

I, for one, am glad that they still exist.

_______________________________________________________________________

Here is the list of albums he gave to me with Spotify links where they actually exist:

Under a Dying Sun - Under a Dying Sun

Inventing Edward - We’ve Met an Impasse (By Midnight We’ll Be Naked)

Dexter Danger - Forever Broken

Dexter Danger - It’s Not Pretty Being Easy

Fifteen - Survivor

Fifteen - Lucky

Jeff Ott - Will Work For Diapers

Eleventeen - Everything I’ve Ever Wanted To Say

The Muckruckers - Sporting Life

The KGB - The KGB

Denison Witmer - Philadelphia Songs

Sissies - Look Back and Laugh

The Art of Arrows - The Art of Arrows (good luck finding ANYTHING about this band online)

(And just in case you’re doubting my research, the following is the ONLY thing I stream on the internet from the Sissies’ album “Look Back and Laugh.”)

[objectivesubjectivity]

“Well...All Right”

Sometimes less is more.

I remember when 311 put out Transistor. I remember rushing to the store to buy it and the overwhelming joy I felt about its 21 tracks (23 if you count the pre-gap and secret track). CDs had the capacity to be 80 minutes, why not utilize all of it? 

There was a sense, perhaps youthful, that more meant better, especially in an age where we were shelling out 15 bucks a pop to cop the newest sounds. Or to put it in 311′s words: “You want more beats for your buck...” Maybe it wasn’t all good but with more songs, there was a greater chance you’d at least get a hit or two. You could always skip tracks you didn’t like. After all, it wasn’t a cassette. 

I actually believe cassettes are an album’s best friend but that’s for another time.

Thousands of albums later, I understand that just because you can fill space doesn’t mean that that space should be filled. Furthermore, one of the attributes of a great album is that every moment feels necessary. Too many moments to fill can lead to sloppiness, repetition, a lack of focus. Time and time again I’ve listened to albums outstay their welcome or prematurely fall flat. Intentionally filling space is an art that easily bests even the greatest of musicians.

Which brings me to Blind Faith’s, Blind Faith. While it still clocks in at a healthy 42 minutes, its 6 tracks are a massive outlier in a world of full of 11s and 12s. And, whether knowingly or unknowingly, Blind Faith use this to their supreme advantage. Each track is its own world, infused with a plethora of influences and surprising elements. Everything feels remarkably intentional and precisely placed, from the “skanked” guitar in the post-chorus of the supremely stellar “Well...All Right,” to the lonesome strings in the latter-half of “Sea of Joy,” to the well-deserved drum solo of “Do What You Like.” Not a second is wasted, everything is earned.

And precisely because of that intention, that sense that every track is uniquely specific and superb in its own right, I have eagerly returned to this album and poured through these tracks.

And that’s pretty easy to do because there are only 6.

There is also some irony imbedded in the fact that I hadn’t heard one single track from this album before the summer of 2018 and that, after going in blind, I took it on faith that this album would withstand multiple replays and make the cut (it does and it did and you saw what I did there, right?). 

What I listened to last week (in addition to the Top 100 Contender):

Top 100 contenders in bold.

Erykah Badu - Baduizm

Toad the Wet Sprocket - Bread & Circus

The Black Keys - El Camino

Janelle Monáe - The Electric Lady

Albums listened to in total: 2,314

Top 100 Contenders: 116

Next album: eels - blinking lights and other revelations

Think I missed an album? Challenge me! The list is alphabetical by album title.

[objectivesubjectivity]

Objective Subjectivity: Phase 2

Or my quest to discover the Top 100 albums of all time continues

So here we are.

Three years ago I embarked on a journey that took me through my entire CD collection in an effort to try and delve, head-first, into my subjectivity and answer the question of why I like what I like (You can read all of my musings here). Over that time span, I listened to 2,253 albums and 120 of them I deemed worthy of contending for a “Top 100 albums of all time” slot.

Which brings us to Phase 2: It’s time to cull.

Each week I will be focusing in on 1 of the 120 albums: where I discovered the album, what it means to me, and whether or not it deserves to be on the final list.

But, since I’m a glutton for punishment, there are curveballs:

I will continue to listen to newly acquired CDs (there are currently 187 in the queue) and allow for those albums to join the Top 100 Contender list.

I will revisit all of the “On Second Thought…” and “Surprising Non-Contender” albums listed in Phase 1. (Albums that I had on the list but then I changed my mind OR albums that I thought would have made the list but didn’t.)

I will allow others to suggest albums I may have missed/undervalued the first time around. To aid in this, here’s a blog that is purely a list of every CD I listened to in alphabetical order by album title. I will provide a link to this list at the bottom of each blog.

Each week, including this one, I’ll let you know what’s coming up so you can listen too if you so choose.

So let’s get on with the project! First up was going to be Chance the Rapper’s, “Acid Rap,” but since he is officially taking pre-orders for his debut album, cementing “Acid Rap’s” mixtapedom (and since I made an exception already seeing it was a purely digital release), I am removing it from the Top 100 Contenders list. So, instead, first up is Augustana’s “All the Stars and Boulevards.” I hope you’ll join me!

Recap

Total albums listened to: 2,253

Total albums on the “Top 100 Contenders” list: 119

This week’s album: Augustana  —  “All the Stars and Boulevards.”

Think I missed an album? Challenge me! The list is alphabetical by letter.

[objectivesubjectivity]

“Numbers and Symbols” albums recap.

3 weeks and 40 albums (7 weeks and 110 including catch-up albums), this is recap #27 of 26.

Discoveries

1. Endings

I tend to place unduly weight upon endings, like there should be some grand resolution or importance. But, as this project revealed, that is far from the truth. Sometimes things just end. And, over the past 7 weeks, as I wrapped up the two and a half year process of listening to each and every studio album in my collection without finding any more contenders, that sentiment is precisely what I left with. And that’s perfectly okay. 

2. Beginnings

But maybe that’s because I’ll never be finished. There will always be more music, more albums, more bargain bins, more folks willing to part ways with their CD collections (thanks @fivestarjamz!). In other words, this ending isn’t the ending. 

3. The Future

So, in the next couple of weeks or so, I’ll post a full-project recap with all 119 contenders, some assorted facts and data, and some ideas for phase 2 of this journey (I still have to whittle this list down). Stay tuned. There’s so much more subjectivity to objectively discover!

Surprising Non-Contenders

De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising: This isn’t all that surprising. I remember having a difficult time making my way through the entire hour and seven minutes when I was back in middle school. That being said, the first half of this album is pure hip-hop gold.

Top 100 Contenders from the “Numbers and Symbols” Albums

This is also reflected in the image at the top of the blog.

Odds and Ends

Total albums listened to: 2,252

Total contenders: 119

Total weeks spent: 102

Total PPP (Pop-Punk Plethora) albums listened to: 133 (or 5.9%)

Total Debut albums on the Top 100 list: 23 (or 19.3%)

Total +60 albums on the Top 100 list: 22 (or 18.5%)

Total PPP albums on the Top 100 list: 2 (or 1.68%)

[objectivesubjectivity]

Ladies and Gentlemen...

...The final 12 albums. 

For now.

What I listened to last week:

Top 100 contenders in bold.

Catch Up Albums (Albums I missed or purchased/acquired since beginning the quest):

Landscapes - Life Gone Wrong

Handguns - Life Lessons (PPP #130)

Gates - Parallel Lives: Thrice-lite. Not a bad thing, just an interesting observation.

Senses Fail - Pull the Thorns From Your Heart: This has a ton of screaming for an album that’s ostensibly about the power and necessity of loving one another.

My Iron Lung - Relief

Four Year Strong - Some of You Will Like This, Some of You Won’t

Kid Cudi - Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven

Hit The Lights - Summer Bones (PPP #131)

Destroyer - This Night

Coheed and Cambria - Vaxis - Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures

Jason Mraz - We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.

Forever Came Calling - What Matters Most (PPP #132)

Albums listened to in total: 2,250

[objectivesubjectivity]

I love a good cover song but due to the strict guidelines I created for this project, most of my collection of cover albums won’t be seeing the light of day as they tend to be compilations rather than traditional albums. This is a great disservice to the masterful arrangements found on  “Folkways: A Vision Shared - A Tribute to Woodie Guthrie and Leadbelly,” and “The Duran Duran Tribute Album,” but it also saves me from listening to “Rock Music: A Tribute to Weezer,” and basically all of the “Punk Goes [insert genre here],” disasterpieces. 

But as luck would have it, this past week, I ended up listening to three cover albums, all very different in tone and style, and it got me thinking about what makes a good cover and, furthermore, what makes a good cover album.

The first was from the kings of the punk cover: Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. These arrangements are simplistic in nature (figure out the power chords and speed up the damn thing) but Me First, every now and then, has the ability to transcend the anarchic destruction or satirical rendering of the original track that plagues most attempts and present something that feels both reverent and original. The tempo and distortion can breathe new life into old tracks and on “Have A Ball,” songs like “One Tin Soldier” and “I Am An Island” are given this treatment. But 12 tracks are a lot, even for an album clocking in at under 30 minutes and most of the other tracks either fall victim to the punk cover curse or come off apathetic. 

And then there’s “Version,” Mark Ronson’s Motown-ing of acts such as Radiohead, Britney Spears, and Ryan Adams. Like the punk cover, there is also a formula for this treatment: give it a funky beat, toss in some horns, and record it to tape. For much of the album, it works: “Stop Me,” “Apply Some Pressure,” and the magnificent “Valerie,” possess earnestness and heart, that while perhaps present in the original, are entirely novel in Ronson’s reimagining. But there is also a sheen of self-gratification present in these tracks. The majority of the songs stem from the mid-aughts and, sonically, are aged backwards: “now” doesn’t sound as good as “then.” If you only hear one or two tracks out of context this criticism is far less present than if you listen to the entirety of the album. While the punks might not care, Ronson wants the listener to know that he thinks he can do it better.

And then there’s “Hope,” which is a cover album of songs by the band who wrote those songs in the first place. Manchester Orchestra’s “Cope” is a barrage of straightforward, smart, aurally engaging rock and roll and “Hope,” is basically “Cope” acoustic. I used to salivate at acoustic renderings: the original “Punk Goes Acoustic,” is the one exception to the previously mentioned shit-shows of “Punk Goes...” albums. But as I grew older, I started to hear “stripped-down” as code for “I need some money.” So I approached “Hope” with great trepidation and for the most part, my initial concerns were validated. But then “Every Stone” stripped nearly everything away and brought forth a haunting beauty that is masked by the wall of sound in the original. And I became a little less cynical about why a band might want to take a stab at reimagining their compositions. 

“Every Stone,” in many ways, presents the perfect reason to cover a song: the artist hears something imbedded in the original work that they want to bring to the surface. This is remarkably evident in Johnny Cash’s version of “Hurt,” or Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah,” or even The Ataris’ “Boys of Summer” (@ me bro). And while both Me First and Ronson have their examples, it’s hard to string together an entire album’s worth of material that reaches this level. 

“The Duran Duran Tribute Album” does it but unfortunately it’s not a stop on this journey. 

Here are some Spotify links to the tracks referenced:

One Tin Soldier I Am A Rock Stop Me Apply Some Pressure Valerie Every Stone (Cope Version) Every Stone (Hope Version)

What I listened to last week:

Top 100 contenders in bold.

Marianne Faithful - Vagabond Ways

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

Archers of Loaf - Vee Vee

The Hives - Veni Vidi Vicious

Mark Ronson - Version

Dillinger Four - Versus God

The Verve Pipe - The Verve Pipe

The Promise Ring - Very Emergency: A far cry from “Nothing Feels Good,” but Tracks 2-5 are fucking stellar.

Thrice - Vheissu

Panic! At The Disco - Vices & Virtues

Pinehurst Kids - Viewmaster

The Verve Pipe - Villains: Like most people, I bought this album because of “The Freshman.” But perhaps unlike most people, I’m really glad I did. “The Freshman,” may, in fact, be my least favorite track on the album.

Depeche Mode - Violator

Neko Case & Her Boyfriends - The Virginian

Onelinedrawing - Visitor

Pearl Jam - Vitalogy

Viva Death - Viva Death

Coldplay - Viva La Vida or Death and All of His Friends: This was a track or two away from landing a contender spot and, while remembered for its title track (or, rather, the first half of the title), it should be remembered for Violet Hill and Lovers in Japan/Reign in Love.

Matchbook Romance - Voices

Jay-Z - Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life: I don’t get it.

Slipknot - Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses

Jay-Z - Vol. 3... Life and Times of S. Carter: I still don’t get it.

Gatsby’s American Dream - Volcano

Volcano, I’m Still Excited!! - Volcano, I’m Still Excited!!: This is Mark Duplass’s band (you know, the guy from The League and Creep) and they sound like Rivers Cuomo had a younger brother who also wanted desperately to be cool but in an entirely different way than Rivers. It’s absolutely worth your time.

cky - Volume 1

She & Him - Volume 1

She & Him - Volume 2

D’Angelo - Voodoo

Pearl Jam - Vs

Catch Up Albums (Albums I missed or purchased/acquired since beginning the quest):

2 Chainz - B.O.A.T.S. II#METIME

Rainer Maria - Catastrophe Keeps Up Together

Mercury Rev - Deserter’s Songs

The Dictators - Go Girl Crazy!

Me First & The Gimme Gimmes - Have A Ball

Manchester Orchestra - Hope

LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem

Propaghandi - Today’s Empires, Tomorrow’s Ashes

Albums listened to in total: 1,884

[objectivesubjectivity]

I’ve just listened to the 2000th album in this quest. How fitting then that the 2000th album just happens to be a Top 100 contender? 

But it’s not just a contender; “Why Do They Rock So Hard?” somehow perfectly encapsulates my current relationship with music. 

It’s an album that simultaneously celebrates and disparages the medium. On the one hand, it’s chock-full of RBF’s well-worn, bite-the-hand-that-feeds-them schtick. They rag on fame (“She’s Famous Now,” “Down in Flames”), their fans (“We Thank You For Not Moshing,” “We Care”), and even themselves (“Scott’s A Dork,” “The Kids Don’t Like It”). There’s a persistent negative and cynical aura. Even the album cover, with Aaron obnoxiously silhouetted in shorts with his double guitar, screams: “Don’t blame us, you bought it!” 

But on the other hand, it’s a genre bending, technically impeccable, catchy-as-fuck record. The musicianship alone is leaps and bounds above any Less Than Jake or Bosstones effort and it pays frequent homage to a variety of diverse genres including jazz, funk, dub, and metal. They clearly cared about the making of this album. 

Their actions spoke louder than their words.

Over the past two years and a handful of months, I’ve inundated my ears with enough music to last a near lifetime. There have been hours of surprise and exaltation and there have been hours of mediocrity and exhaustion. Weeks where I dive headfirst into an ocean of sound, pouring through 6 or 7 albums a day, and weeks where I struggle to put on my headphones. Sometimes a blog post appears out of thin air and sometimes I struggle to find even a song I want to write about. 

I say that love music with a fiery passion and yet, there have been times during this quest I that I want to give up on it entirely. I’m sitting next to a stack of ~30 cds that I just bought, waiting to be heard, and I find myself asking, “why?” I understand RBF’s cynicism all too well.

But there’s a moment, late in the album, right after the words “we had our chance” and “we made our point,” are sung, where the harmonies and horns converge, creating a splendor of sound and the lyric “but you’re not gonna take that away,” comes blaring through the speakers and reminds me there is a purpose to all of this.

So I venture forward, through hell and high water. No matter how negative I feel, no matter how cynical my thoughts have become, my actions speak louder than my words. 

What I listened to last week:

Top 100 contenders in bold.

Dinosaur Jr. - Where You Been

Taking Back Sunday - Where You Want To Be

Cobra Starship - While the City Sleeps, We Rule the Streets

Liz Phair - Whip-Smart

The White Stripes - White Blood Cells

Handsome Boy Modeling School - White People

NoFX - White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean

Liz Phair - whitechocolatespaceegg

Punch Brothers - Who’s Feeling Young Now?

Wilco - The Whole Love

Redman - Whut? Thee Album

Reel Big Fish - Why Do They Rock So Hard?

Albums listened to in total: 2,000

[objectivesubjectivity]

“V” albums recap.

1 week and 29 albums, this is recap #22 of 26.

Discoveries

1. V is for 5

“V” is now the fifth letter bearing no contenders, the other four being Q, O, J and K. 

2. But why no contenders?

One apparent reason could be sample size. The total albums in each of the non-contender letters are as follows:

J: 15

K: 26

O: 45

Q: 6

“V” falls firmly into this data set with only 29 albums. But it also comes on the heels of “U” which landed a contender with only 33 albums, tossing a curveball into the sample size argument. So, in the process of searching for a subjective yet data-driven explanation, I went to look at a metric I haven’t really examined yet: Surprise Non-Contenders. 

This was a category I hadn’t planned to write about at the beginning of this project but it quickly became clear that it was worthy to log all the albums I preemptively thought might make the list but upon further or more focused inspection did not. It appeared for the first time in the “C” albums recap and has been a staple of the recap blogs ever since. 

Upon examining the non-contender letters, I found the following amount of “Surprise Non-Contenders” in the recap blogs:

J: 0

K: 0

O: 0

Q: 1

V: 1

This seems to make sense, again, due to sample size: less albums in the letter equal less albums I could preemptively think of as possible contenders. But once more, “U” throws a wrench in the theory: “U” has 2 “Surprise Non-Contenders.” In fact, all the letters with contenders (save for “N” and “R”) have 2 or more. So while this nullifies the argument regarding sample size, it strongly argues for the strength of familiarity: having more albums that were possible contenders before this project started is more predictive than the sheer amount of albums in a particular letter. Quality wins the day. 

Which seems obvious but it’s still kinda cool to see some random data point back it up.

Surprise Non-Contenders

The Verve Pipe - Villains: Back in the summer of 96, I unintentionally landed a ticket to 101 KUFO’s, “ROCKFEST.” This was a time when summer radio festivals were hot shit AND before KUFO started exclusively playing Nü-Metal. Since the ticket was free, I convinced my dad to drive us out to Estacada, OR to check out some bands whom I had heard maybe one or two tracks prior. We arrived in time to see Super Deluxe, Sweet Water, and Howlin’ Maggie and were debating staying for the next band, but when they started playing, we shrugged our shoulders, and made our way back to the car. I had only heard the song, “Photograph,” and wasn’t all that into it. A month or so later, “The Freshman,” started getting radio play and I, a middle schooler, thought it was the greatest song ever written. It was The Verve Pipe. The authors of “Photograph.” The band my dad and I walked away from barely into their first song (which, in hindsight, was probably “Barely (if at all)”). I never forgave myself for skipping out on ROCKFEST early.

Perhaps that was the reason I fell so deeply into “Villains”: I didn’t want to miss out again. I bought it days after I heard “The Freshman,” and immediately began to explore this album, piece by piece. What it gave me back was worth every examination. From the longing of the aforementioned “Barely (If at all)” to the simple, poetic presence of “Veneer,” I stuck by this album like Linus and his blanket, refusing to let it go.

Perhaps that is the reason why, now, I’m leaving it off the list. I cannot question its merit (it is a emotive, beautiful, complex painting of an album) but I can question my motives. And even Linus will one day outgrow his blanket.

Top 100 Contenders from the “V” Albums

This is also reflected in the image at the top of the blog.

Odds and Ends

Total albums listened to: 1,884

Total contenders: 112

Total weeks spent: 81

Total PPP (Pop-Punk Plethora) albums listened to: 79 (or 4.2%)

Total Debut albums on the Top 100 list: 22 (or 19.6%)

Total +60 albums on the Top 100 list: 21 (or 18.8%)

Total PPP albums on the Top 100 list: 1 (or 0.89%)

[objectivesubjectivity]

Catch up albums pt. 5

13. It occurred to me, while being surprisingly awed by Blind Faith’s self-titled (and only) album, that there is a distinct disadvantage to catch up albums, mainly the fact that I’m almost certainly listening to them for the first time. Especially in comparison to an album like Graceland which has been in my aural network since early childhood. So does that mean that albums such as the aforementioned, “Blind Faith,” are just that good or is something else going on in my subjective brain?

14. It occurred to me, while surprisingly enjoying Marilyn Manson’s “Antichrist Superstar,” that I was glad I didn’t sneak this album by my parents back in middle school. The associations Manson had at the time may have fused with my incessant need to be “unique” to create memories that, now, might distract from the album itself. A sort of time warp back to an era of Jncos and feigned angst. 

(Who am I kidding. I bought the knockoff Jncos from my local Fred Meyers. Also, did you know that JNCOS ARE COMING BACK THIS YEAR???)

(Wait? Apparently JNCOs never went away?)

But since I never attempted to peel the Parental Advisory label off this particular CD back in 1996, I got to listen to it baggage free this past week. And I enjoyed the fuck out of it. 

15. One cannot remove time and place from subjectivity. 

What I listened to last week:

Top 100 contenders in bold.

Catch Up Albums (Albums I missed or purchased/acquired since beginning the quest):

Tool - Ænima: Having never heard this album prior, and subsequently, having never heard these songs unedited, I was fairly impressed that Ænima became a radio hit due to its abundance of a certain F word.

The Bouncing Souls - Anchors Away

Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar

Guns N’ Roses - Appetite For Destruction: This isn’t a good album. Sorry.

Rock Kills Kid - Are You Nervous?

Radiohead - The Bends

Goldfrapp - Black Cherry: When they’re on, they’re ON. The title track is fucking ON.

Blind Faith - Blind Faith

Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks: Totally surprised that this one missed the list. 

Red Hot Chili Peppers - By The Way: After listening to Stadium Arcadium, I wrote the following: “It doesn’t matter how many good (sometimes great) songs RHCP can write, 28 of them is just too many.” Replace “28″ with “16″ and you have my review of “By The Way.”

Collective Soul - Collective Soul

Kraftwerk - Computer World

Roxy Music - Country Life

Deltron 3030 - Deltron 3030

Bob Dylan - Desire

The Doors - The Doors: Some people love this band. Some people don’t. I lean toward the latter.

They Might Be Giants - Factory Showroom

Tom Petty - Full Moon Fever: Pretty good Side B for an album whose first half is basically a hit parade.

Sonic Youth - Goo

Local H - Ham Fisted: Okay, okay, so Local H isn’t better than Nirvana. But they certainly give them a run for their money.

Rob Zombie - Hellbilly Deluxe: 13 Tales of Cadaverous Cavorting Inside the Spookshow International: I don’t think listening to this album now or in 1998 would have made a difference.

Albums listened to in total: 1,905

[objectivesubjectivity]

Two years ago, I had this crazy idea to listen to ever CD I own in alphabetical order with the intention of figuring out my Top 100 Albums of All Time.

So far, I’ve listened to 1,847 albums, picked 112 “Top 100 Album contenders,” and discovered a variety of interesting tidbits about my subjectivity and music in general.

Today marks the beginning of year three.

Thank you to everyone who’s joined me on this quest, whether for the entire route or just some legs along the way.

I’ll be back next week with a U albums recap.

And as always, if you’re looking to shed some excess CD weight (I’m looking at you Best Buy), hit me up. No research project is worse off by having too much data, right?

[objectivesubjectivity]

You may remember this song from the 90s. 

If you don’t, I strongly suggest you reacquaint yourself with it.

What I listened to last week:

Top 100 contenders in bold.

B.o.B - Strange Clouds: B.o.B sounds like Lupe Fiasco...had Lupe debut album been “Lasers.” 

Tourmaline - Strange Distress Calls

Idiot Pilot - Strange We Should Meet Here

Paul Simon - Stranger to Stranger: SIMON SAYS “MOTHERFUCKER.” TWICE. IT’S REALLY WEIRD TO HEAR THOSE WORDS COME OUT OF HIS MOUTH.

Whiskeytown - Strangers Almanac

The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come: I’ve been on this earth nearly 33 years and last week, I finally listened to an entire album by The Smiths. 

Straylight Run - Straylight Run

Jane’s Addiction - Strays

NaS - Street’s Disciple: It’s truly difficult to listen to the lyrical brilliance, passion, and thoughtfulness NaS applies to socially conscious and political tracks and then hear the entirely unnecessary and disgustingly misogynistic “The Makings of the Perfect Bitch.” 

Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros - Streetcore: This was the closest album to landing a contender spot this week. It caught me totally off guard and utterly wowed me.

Swingin’ Utters - The Streets of San Francisco

2Pac - Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.: Most of this album sounds like a West Coast “It Takes a Nation...” Except for the hits, which sound like what we’ve grown to expect 2Pac hits to sound like. 

Christina Aguilera - Stripped: “Make Over” brought rock to mainstream pop two years before “Since You’ve Been Gone.” Sorry, Kelly.

Koufax - Strugglers: I have now finished their discography and I can say, without a doubt, that while none of their albums are impactful enough for a Top 100 spot, they write consistently interesting (and at times excellent) songs and get stronger with each release. They only have 4 albums. I highly suggest you spend some time with them.

Sublime - Sublime

Self - Subliminal Plastic Motives

The Life and Times - Suburban Hymns

Total albums listened to: 1,623

[objectivesubjectivity]

I buy CDs. I may have mentioned that before.

Normally I spend, on average, less than $3 a CD: bargain bins, deep discounts, garage sales. 

But every now and then, I do something throughly irrational.

In honor of my recent purchase of DAMN. COLLECTORS EDITION even though I already own the regular album, here are some of the most unnecessary ways I’ve spent my hard earned money on CDs in the past.

I mail ordered Less Than Jake’s “Bootleg a Bootleg, You Cut Out the Middleman” because I was convinced that live albums were the shit. Or rather “the s#!&”: the live album was a bootleg of a radio broadcast so the entire thing is edited. And nothing disrupts a song quite like the sound of scrambling a track to keep us from hearing a “fuck” or two.

I bought American Hi-Fi’s live album “Rock’N’Roll Noodle Shop: Live From Tokyo” because it was an import. Never mind the fact that they had literally only released one album prior to this. You know that thing when new bands just “play the album?” Yeah, that was pretty much it.

I once spend nearly $20 on a new copy of Staind’s “Break the Cycle.” 

I bought Weezer’s “Hurley” at a Best Buy or maybe a Target but only because it contained 4 bonus tracks I wasn’t going to get at the other location.

I bought a hard copy of each Run the Jewels album even though I had already downloaded them from their website for free. But it’s Mike and El, so it’s definitely worth it. And most likely rational.

I could have easily rearranged the track listing on my iTunes and achieved the same result as buying the collectors edition of DAMN. But no. A collector’s gotta collect!

And, just for fun, here are some scenarios in which I would part with my hard earned money for completely unnecessary reasons:

Chance the Rapper decides to press his mixtapes to CD

Frank Ocean’s “Blonde.” Not “Boys Don’t Cry.” “Blonde.” The full album, with all the tracks, in that order.

RxBandits original pressing of “Halfway Between Here and There,” because it has a different track listing and it’s technically a Drive Thru Records album I don’t own (I saw a copy of it at my friend’s local music store in L.A. and had to fight myself to not spend the $10. I’m still regretting it).

What I listened to last week:

Top 100 contenders in bold.

Farewell - Run It Up the Flagpole

Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels

Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 2

Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 3

Walking Concert - Run To Be Born

Deerhoof - The Runners Four

Rush - Rush

Catch Up Albums (Albums I missed or purchased/acquired since beginning the quest):

Prince and the Revolution - Around the World in a Day

Ludacris - Back For the First Time

Friction - Blurred in Six

D’Angelo - Brown Sugar

Kendrick Lamar - DAMN. COLLECTORS EDITION

Common - Finding Forever

The Books - Lost and Safe

The Chainsmokers - Memories...Do Not Open

Prince - Prince

Albums listened to in total: 1,392

[confessionsofabargainbinaddict]

Et tu, Best Buy?

[objectivesubjectivity]

There is no reason for “Out of the Vein,” to be a good album. 

3EB could have coasted on their “doot-doot-doos,” falsetto “turn arounds,” and white boy rap post-scripts to put out an album that sounded like the shittier version of “Blue,” which, in turn, was the shittier version of their self-titled debut. 

But they didn’t. 

Instead, they pushed the petal to the floor and penned their most balls-to-the-wall rock songs, replete with slick riffs, anthemic refrains, and mathy breakdowns. Jenkins’ lyrics dripped with lust and regret; At times too intimate, they tiptoed the thin line between revealing and uncomfortable. They weren’t interested in carbon copying the three chords that propelled them to 90s rock stardom - both “Semi-Charmed Life,” and “Never Let You Go,” utilize the 1-5-4 chord structure - they were interested in seeing just where they could go as a band, what they could accomplish.

A while ago, I wrote about about “pivot” albums. This is different. This is a “give-a-shit,” album (GaS). This is a band embracing their sound and expanding upon it. And I love when bands sound like they give a shit.

It’s easy for a band to coast, to find a winning combination and ride it for decades to come. And that’s not a bad thing. Less Than Jake, one of my favorite bands, have been doing that for over 20 years. Cake, Built To Spill, and Aimee Mann all coast and are all damn good at it. 

But coasting can limit the potential of what a band can accomplish. I’ve always felt that Motion City Soundtrack never fully embraced the unique sound crafted on “I Am The Movie,” and instead, discovered how to pen a killer pop-punk emo tune. “Broken Heart,” “Make Out Kids,” and “Her Words Destroyed My Planet,” are solid tracks, instantly catchy and quotable, but they’ll never be “The Future Freaks Me Out,” or “Perfect Teeth,” or “A-OK.” 

It’s also easy to shit out an album. Hell, Cartel did that in 20 days while living in a see-through bubble for an MTV reality show. And you can buy that album. For $12.50. On Amazon. Today.

3EB had all the makings of a band set to coast. They could have shit out albums for decades to come and people would have flocked to them. I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t be a part of that crowd. And yet, they didn’t. They battled against the monster of mediocrity and gave a shit. And I thank them dearly for that. So does my wallet.

For all of this, “Out of the Vein,” doesn’t get a contender slot. It’s lows are really low and once you hit that level, it’s hard to pull yourself back up, no matter how good the song, “Company,” is. 

Other GaS albums:

Tom Waits - Bad As Me

The Starting Line - Based on a True Story

The Matches - Decomposer

Ghostface Killah - Fishscale

Better Than Ezra - Friction, Baby

Less Than Jake - GNV FLA (I know, I know, it contradicts my point from earlier)

Maritime - Heresy and the Hotel Choir

Audio Karate - Lady Melody

Braid - No Coast

Thursday - No Devolución

Counting Crows - Somewhere Under Wonderland

Our Lady Peace - Spiritual Machines

The Verve Pipe - The Verve Pipe

Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly

What I listened to this week:

Top 100 contenders in bold.

A Fine Frenzy - One Cell in the Sea

The Bloodhound Gang - Once Fierce Beer Coaster

Beck - One Foot in the Grave

Yellowcard - One For The Kids (PPP #49)

Avail - One Wrench

Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx

MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

Jets To Brazil - Orange Rhyming Dictionary

The Streets - Original Pirate Material

Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days

Small Brown Bike - Our Own Wars

EPMD - Out of Business: Erick Sermon, 9th Wonder, Kanye West. The top three hip-hop producers of all time. End of story.

Rogue Wave - Out of the Shadow

Third Eye Blind - Out of the Vein

R.E.M. - Out of Time

Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band - Outer South

The Police - Outlandos d’Amour

Owen - Owen

Owls - Owls

Unwritten Law - Oz Factor (PPP #50)

Albums listened to in total: 1,172

[objectivesubjectivity]

It’s 2005. I’m a junior in college living in a house with 7 other dudes. Beer cans and cigarette ash litter the common room floor. Nightly Mario Party tournaments and 3 AM disco fries from The Argonaut become a near daily ritual. And every morning, without fail, the theme to “Chappelle’s Show” loops indefinitely on our collegiate fireplace: the 35-inch television we spend countless hours gathered around. In an inebriated, sleep-deprived state, someone forgot to turn it off so the home screen of the DVD collection plays and resets and plays again. It stays this way until someone stumbles out of bed and switches the input to play Shadow of the Colossus or to put on a Godard film for class.

And then it repeats.

It was a time we all remember fondly but would all prefer to keep firmly in the past.

It was during that year I discovered Talib Kweli (along with Q and Not U, Gnarls Barkley, Amy Winehouse, of Montreal among countless others) while we combed through episodes of Chappelle for the 5th or 6th time that month. “Get By” was a more than your average banger: smart, aurally rich, and captained by a sick Kanye West beat. So it was no surprise that, when I eventually got my hands on “Quality,” it knocked my socks off. So much so, that, while listening to it this past week, my current feelings on it threw me for a loop.

I tend to listen to my musical proclivities from high school with a more discerning ear; My brain wasn’t fully developed, I had lower standards, I desperately tried to be “outside of the box.” But I don’t think that way when it comes to college. Sarah Lawrence was full of “outside of the box” people so why should I be as critical of my taste then as I was in the preppy, rich-kid halls of Lincoln High?

But as I listened to track after track of Kweli’s slightly behind the beat rhyming layered over slick, radio-ready production, the wordplay and constant consciousness began to grow monotonous and mediocre, and I had to wonder about where my love of this album originally came from. 

And it led me back to the debauchery and dirt of Slonim 9.

Perhaps “Quality” is best left as an album I’ll always remember fondly but prefer to keep firmly in the past.

Update

I recently came across a copy of Tom Waits’ “Nighthawks at the Diner,” and didn’t quite know what to do. It is, most definitely, not a “studio album,” but it transcends the standard definition of a “live album” as well. Along with this, I have been struggling with whether or not to throw Nirvana’s “MTV Unplugged in New York,” into the ring for a similar reason. The matter is further complicated by the fact that Keith Jarrett’s “The Koln Concert” has been labeled a “Top 100 Contender.” 

So, after some thought, here’s what I landed upon: I’m going to remove the live albums from this quest. After this journey is finished, it may be worth it to comb through my live albums with a similar scrutiny, but that is a separate project. I’m going to stick with my initial boundaries: only studio albums, no compilations, no EPs, no live recordings. 

What this means tangibly is that I’ll go down to 86 albums on the contender list and 1276 listened to in total (before adding this past week).

What I listened to last week:

Top 100 contenders in bold.

Talib Kweli - Quality

Jurassic 5 - Quality Control: The whole album is a bit much, but Jurassic are really an excellent crew. 

Emery - The Question: Up there with Mae for one of the more interesting and least cringe-worthy Christian emo acts. 

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Question the Answers

The Vandals - The Quickening

Gym Class Heroes - The Quilt: Once again, Busta Rhymes shows up to throw down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuJiPsOEEKs

Catch Up Albums (Albums I missed or purchased/acquired since beginning the quest):

Michael Jackson - Bad

Brian Wilson - Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE

George Michael - Faith

Prince - Musicology: Good News: Prince is fucking great. Bad News: There are 37 more studio albums I now have to find/listen to. 

Michael Jackson - Off The Wall

Albums listened to in total: 1,287