(July 2017) I have completed episode 129 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to a band’s full discography. This edition: THE RAMONES. No band better represents the evolution of my musical tastes. In the 1980s, I considered their music as crude, unoriginal noise for simpletons. By the 2000s, I recognized them as f***ing genius.
Favorite album: The Ramones
Favorite song: Havana Affair
Special sauce: Dee Dee
Compared to expectations: same
(June 2017) I have completed episode 128 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to a band’s full discography. This edition: THE 13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS. One of the first psychedelic rock bands that emerged in the mid-1960s, and from Texas of all places.
Favorite album: Easter Everywhere
Favorite song: Tried to Hide
Compared to expectations: ↓
(June 2017) I have completed episode 127 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to a band’s full discography. This edition: THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS. Remember those smart-aleky guys in your high school band who also ran the Science Club? It turns out they grew up to might be giants.
Favorite album: Flood
Favorite children’s album: No!
Favorite song: Birdhouse in Your Soul
Special sauce: John
Compared to expectations: same
(May 2017) I have completed episode 126 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to a band’s full discography. This edition: STYX. I listen so you don’t have to. On the Guilty Pleasure Nostalgia Playlist, I would put Peak Styx a notch below Peak Foreigner and two notches below Peak Journey. (Although post-peak Styx is less insufferable than the other two post-peak.)
Favorite album: The Grand Illusion
Favorite song: Come Sail Away
Compared to expectations: ↑
(May 2017) I have completed episode 125 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to a band’s full discography. This edition: MOBY GRAPE. Their first album helped define the San Francisco Sound in the Summer of Love. They then journeyed through the modes of late 60s/early 70s rock — blues, country, folk, boogie — but unremarkably so IMO.
Favorite album: Moby Grape
Favorite song: Hey Grandma
Compared to expectations: ↓
(May 2017) I have completed episode 124 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to an artist’s full discography. This edition: ELLIOTT SMITH. Talented singer-songwriter, one of the rare artists who tried to sound as quiet as possible.
Favorite album: XO
Favorite song: Tomorrow Tomorrow
Compared to expectations: same
(May 2017) I have completed episode 123 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to an artist’s full discography. This edition: TOM WAITS. One critic aptly described his voice as “like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car.” Great lyrical storytelling too. I am drawn more to the weird stuff than the ballads or the jazz/piano material.
Favorite album: Rain Dogs
Favorite song: Gun Street Girl
Favorite period: 1983-87
Compared to expectations: ↓
(May 2017) I have completed episode 122 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to an artist’s full discography. This edition: TY SEGALL. Frenetic, lo-fi, fuzzy garage rock. And one day you realize he is Syd Barrett reincarnate. So prolific — in10 years, nine albums and a couple dozen EPs and singles.
Favorite album: Manipulator
Favorite song: Thank God for Sinners
Compared to expectations: same
(April 2017) I have completed episode 119 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to a band’s full discography. This edition: FLEETWOOD MAC. Remember that they put out eight albums before becoming the Gods of Soft Rock after Buckingham and Nicks joined, first as a pure blues band, then blues-rock, then early-70s pop rock. The Rumours album is remarkable: 9 of the 11 tracks got radio play from what my ears tell me.
Favourite album: Rumours
Favourite song: Oh Well
Worst album: Time
Special sauce: Christine McVie
Compared to expectations: same
(April 2017) I have completed episode 118 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to a band’s full discography. This edition: BOSTON. Simultaneously everything that people love about classic rock and everything that people hate about classic rock. A future historian of 20th century music couldn’t provide a better singular example of a Classic Rock Album than their debut LP.
Favorite album: Boston
Favorite song: Foreplay/Long Time
Worst album: everything else
Compared to expectations: same
