{"id":8242,"date":"2010-03-13T15:20:59","date_gmt":"2010-03-13T19:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=8242"},"modified":"2010-03-13T15:20:59","modified_gmt":"2010-03-13T19:20:59","slug":"the-list-2010-20-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=8242","title":{"rendered":"The List 2010, #20-11"},"content":{"rendered":"

OMGGOMGOMGOMG!
\nIt's the next-to-last<\/a> set in the 2010 List! So amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n 20<\/span><\/td>\n\n <\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n REM<\/td>\n\n 1982<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n Chronic Town\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nThis is their first non-single release, but still just five songs. It's a cleaner, crisper sound than they went for on their first full-length album, \"Murmur\" (which always feels a bit lazy and hazy, to me). This is a bit of a rarity these days, since it's only available (in the US anyway) as an add-on to their \"Dead Letter Office\" collection.\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n
\n 19<\/span><\/td>\n\n <\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n Sea And Cake<\/td>\n\n 1994<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n Sea And Cake\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nI started listening to this band when their second album, \"Nassau\" (1994), came out. And then I got into their third album. Then the fourth, fifth, etc.. It wasn't until they started releasing records that didn't do anything for me (2007 or so) that I went back and listened to this one, hoping it would be more like the S&C that I loved. It was. And it's been in my car CD player ever since. It's breezy, light, energetic jazzy post-rock. It is, actually, ideal for driving around, top down, aimlessly.\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n
\n 18<\/span><\/td>\n\n <\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n King Crimson<\/td>\n\n 1981<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n Discipline\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nGuitar god Adrian Belew had just finished stints with David Bowie and the Talking Heads when guitar god Robert Fripp (who had also worked with Bowie and the Heads) asked him to join Fripp's new band, \"Discipline\", along with bass ace Tony Levin and drummer Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, etc.). They quickly decided to drop the name \"Discipline\" and instead become the next incarnation of Fripp's longtime project, \"King Crimson\". And so it was. Deliciously, but not surprisingly, this album sounds a bit like a cross between the technical prog rock of Yes and the nervous new wave of the Talking Heads - a comparison made even easier by the fact that Belew's voice is easily mistaken for David Byrne's. But, regardless of the comparisons, the songs here are fantastic. The music is fiercely complex but still, somehow, remains accessible; and Belew's playful clever words are miles from the oft-overdone stuff that previous King Crimson lyricists came up with.\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n
\n 17<\/span><\/td>\n\n <\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n Gillian Welch<\/td>\n\n 2001<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n \"Time, The Revelator \"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nThis is a primal record. No artifice or embellishment. Unadorned. Pure. As if Gillian and David walked to the top of an Appalachian mountain and pulled these songs right out of the soil, root and all. The sound is so authentic it's almost unbelievable that neither of them are actually from the south.\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n
\n 16<\/span><\/td>\n\n <\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n The Pretenders<\/td>\n\n 1980<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n The Pretenders\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nThis is the pinnacle of punk's first wave. You can have your Clash and your Sex Pistols; this blows them all away. Sweet and mean and rough and tender, melodic, raging, exuberant, pensive. It does everything. Perfectly.\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n
\n 15<\/span><\/td>\n\n <\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n Belly<\/td>\n\n 1993<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n Star\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nWhen Tanya Donnelly formed Belly, she combined the quirky melodic new-wave pop of her first band, Throwing Muses, with the playful experimentalism of her last band, The Breeders. The result was airy, dreamy, and fantastically catchy.\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n
\n 14<\/span><\/td>\n\n <\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n Talking Heads<\/td>\n\n 1980<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n Remain In Light\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nThis is a deeply groovy record, with a thick layer of Fela Kuti-style Afrobeat on the bottom. On top of that, funky guitars skitter across the rhythm, Adrian Belew's jungle-beast guitar screams and growls, and Byrne's wry-and-dry vocals and puzzling lyrics keep the whole thing weird. This was their apex. Everything before was set-up, and everything after denouement.\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n
\n 13<\/span><\/td>\n\n <\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n Cowboy Junkies<\/td>\n\n 1988<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n The Trinity Session\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nNobody has ever done slow-motion country blues quite like The Cowboy Junkies (though Mazzy Star gave it a good try), and this is purest example of how they do it. It's a fantastic collection of songs, and it sounds<\/i> amazing. The empty church it was recorded in<\/a> is present in every sound you hear - that big warm natural reverb and the sense of space it creates, the players' palpable restraint and deliberately low volumes as they try not to overpower each other while all playing into a single central microphone. It's not really billed as a \"live\" record, but it is. And according to me, it really deserves to be known as one of the best live recordings, ever.\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n
\n 12<\/span><\/td>\n\n <\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n The Cure<\/td>\n\n 1986<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n Standing On A Beach\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nThis is a bit of a special entry. It's included here not for the hit singles compilation - which is really good, actually, but I try not to include compilations on The List. Rather, this is here for the flip-side of the cassette version of the compilation. That's where they put all of their non-LP B-sides (and remains the only place you can find those songs in that grouping). And, though they were recorded separately over many years, the songs work as a group; they make a nice little album. Now admittedly, these songs are not the best songs The Cure ever did; a couple are pretty weak, but most are at least better than average. But what I like about this is the same thing I like about REM's \"Dead Letter Office\" (#35); the songs show the band trying different things, having fun, ending up strange places, sounding a bit different from the sound they went for on the official albums.\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n
\n 11<\/span><\/td>\n\n <\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n Fleetwood Mac<\/td>\n\n 1977<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n Rumors\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nLike The Cars' first, there are a half-dozen songs here that are still in constant rotation on the radio. It's one of those albums that overflows with fantastic songs - even my least favorite song here (\"Oh Daddy\") is good enough that the record as a whole benefits from its presence (something which can't be said about The Cars' first).\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Behold the penultimate histogram!
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OMGGOMGOMGOMG! It's the next-to-last set in the 2010 List! So amazing. 20 REM 1982 Chronic Town This is their first non-single release, but still just five songs. It's a cleaner, crisper sound than they went for on their first full-length album, \"Murmur\" (which always feels a bit lazy and hazy, to me). This is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-list-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}