Tim

Rolling Stone Rank: 136
 
 Hey, long time no post.  Figured it was time again to whip out the old google-machine here and talk about some good music.  This post is inspired by the new Weezer song; which, by the way, is not very good.  Yes, it still has a trademarked catchy chorus, but the song is just lazy.  Rivers even screams at the end.  The same man who moaned in agony over this is beginning to hurt, now is screaming over memories?  Meh. 
Anyways, Tim.  Great album, I recommend to anyone interested in the beginnings of grunge sound.  To be honest, thinking back on it, I confused a lot of these songs with the Pavemet album. 
Sorry about the lame review right there, These'll get better.  I mean, I've only done 130 or so of these, I'm not even hitting my stride yet.  Right-O, so sorry to offend you die hard Replacement fans out there, night!

Stats

Album: Tim
Artist: The Replacements
Year: 1985, good year
My Favorite Song: Bastards of Young
Next Up: Dre

I liked this:

When you try to imagine what other people are thinking, you have no choice but to start from inside your noggin. In there, with your perturbations pushing up against you, among your inescapable self, you think your thoughts and feelings must be evident.

Greatest Hits

Rolling Stone Rank: 135

Greatest Hits, as you know are not my favorite thing to write about.  Even the way RS talks about it is ridiculous:
        John has put out numerous greatest-hits packages over the years, but none as important as   
        this single-disc collection released by MCA during the piano man's...
How can a greatest hits be important?  What, because his best songs are in one place?  I'm not saying they aren't good songs, and it isn't good marketing, I'm just asking how it is in any way artistic?  Did John have any input into what songs were selected for the collection?  Are they arranged in any particular way?  I'm guessing not, and so it doesn't need to be included in list of the best recordings ever.  That being said, the songs are great, and a good listen.
  

Stats

Album: Greatest Hits
Artist: Elton John
Year: 1974
My Favorite Song: Don't let the Sun Go Down On Me
Next Up: Replacements

Slanted and Enchanted

Rolling Stone Rank: 134

The only thing I knew about Pavement before listening to this album was that they played the PTI opening song, which did nothing to prepare me for this album.  Liked it a lot.  Very "indie rock" sounding.  Think the extra white noise of Bleach-Nirvana with the strangeness of Beck with the energy of the White Stripes.  Yeah, I think that's a good analogy.  Anyway, lots of fun to listen to, especially while doing something active.  I happened to also get a listen to some of the extra tracks on the re-release, very enjoyable.

Gonna talk about something else her, RS changed their website layout.  It bothers me.  It bothers me for the same reason most popular websites bother me, and maybe these things bother you as well.  Now the computer that I blog on is my brother's old powerbook.  It gets by, but it's not the words best computer.  So whenever I head to sites like the newly designed RS, or ESPN's main page, or whatever, it takes me forever to navigate my way through the page.  Whether it's huge ads that take up half the screen, or just videos that immediately start playing when you get the page, it's a huge hassle.  Ugh, it's even worse for their top 500 list.  I just think that it would be in their best interest to make their page accessible to largest amount of people, and it's such a  turn off to deal with things like this.  Do you have issues like this?

Stats

Album: Slanted and Enchanted
Artist: Pavement
Year: 1992
My Favorite Song: I like the opener: Summer Babe (Winter version)
Next Up: EJ

Ready to Die

Rolling Stone Rank: 133

Ok, well.  What do you want me to say?  It was enjoyable, yes.  Biggie does a great job of drawing you into the world lived, or at least the world he imagines himself in.   I really enjoyed the songs he sampled, or rather the songs his producers sampled for him.  Well, other than my usual objections, I liked the album.  The songs flowed together well, nice producing Mr. Combs, and for the rapping was better than some of the stuff higher on this list.  Of course, when I say better you have to take it with the grain of salt that I have absolutely no idea what "good" is.  Anyway, off to Meg's birthday, later ninjas.

Stats

Album: Ready to Die
Artist: The Notorius B.I.G.
Year: 1994
My Favorite Song: Things Done Changed
Next Up: Pavement

To keep him strong moving in the right direction

Holy Crap, three months without a post.
Sorry about that, I'm working on it.  One more week of school, so as is my custom I will flood this blog with entries with my free time.
Sidenote: I'm watching Letterman, and Paul just played to the lead-in to "Living for the City" when they went to commercial.  Remind me of two things.  One, I love that song, and Two, I'm moving to the city soon.  Which affects this blog significantly, because with two hours of train rides I'll have a quite a bit more time to listen to albums again.  so, yah.  That's all for now, later ninjas.

March 2010

Still not ready to review the next album, mostly been thinking if it's worth it to keep going with these albums.  I've gotten through the top 100, not sure where the drop off happens.  Or if it happens.  No, it has to happen, right?  Well anyway, a few weeks ago my ipod stopped working, which set me back in listening.  So for the past few days I've been having to catch up on all the Mr. Tony I've missed. 

Anyway, I just wanted to check in blog, let you know I haven't forgotten about you.  Jazz season is a week away from being over, and I'll finally get my nights back.  Just a few thoughts before I sign off:

Three of my friends are moving/have moved away from home again.  Of course when I say home, I mean the general Chicagoland area.  It's strange sort of occurence.  When college ended, most of my friends moved back to Chicago, like it was just another summer that they were home from abroad.  I guess I thought that like me, coming back here after college meant they were gonna give it a shot around here.  But what I think is more likely, is people just needed a little saftey net for their life.  They want to explire the world, but they wanted to make sure they if they fell, they'd land among their true friends. Well, they've gathered up their courage, it makes me think that maybe I too will take on that challenge. 

It's been a year to the day since I decided to make changes in my life.  Things are going all right, although admittedly not as far as I thought they'd be.  It's been quite a year, lots of ups and downs.  Riding out these winters defintely takes its toll.  But the sun will shine again, the snow will melt, and I dunno, something about smiles returning to the faces.

Night.