Joe

Warren Zevon—Excitable Boy (1978):
Top-shelf Dad Rock, and good hanogver music. I'd considered sending this one in & I'm glad someone else did (331/459)

Deafheaven—Sunbather (2013):
Excellent stuff, probably the first Shoegaze-adjacent thing that I've actually liked without needing to try (334/459)

M83—Hurry Up, We're Dreaming (2011):
Only "Midnight City" broke containment. Very representative 2010s indie pop. Maybe more nostalgic than enjoyable (318/459)

Avenged Sevenfold—City Of Evil (2005):
Terrible. US bands can't do power metal, *way* too insecure for the necessary flamboyance (328/459)

BABYMETAL—BABYMETAL (2014):
Bit of a meme band, was a fun shock for the first few, but the bit got old pretty fast (301/459)

of Montreal—Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (2007):
Poppy indie. "Adventurous" which usually > "Maudlin" for me, but also often = "Annoying," unfortunately (307/459)

Talking Heads—Stop Making Sense (1984):
My preferred Talking Heads era, and more deserving of a slot on the original list than most of their actual entries (286/459)

Swans—To Be Kind (2015):
I was getting bored of post-rock, and then this completely got me back on-board. Outstanding work (294/459)

Ween—Quebec (2003):
I want to like these guys more than I actually do, but fun enough (280/459)

Bo Burnham—Inside (2021):
dunno if "aged badly" is exactly my feeling, but the time-capsuleness of it doesn't overcome that it's just kinda obnoxious. Probably did Burnham some good to make tho (284/459)

Accidentally fell off with posting these on here, though tbf the hit rate hasn't been very good for a while. Memorable ones below:

Bright Eyes—I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (2005): Lyrics-forward can be tough for me, and I should maybe one day get over my distaste for slide guitar (275/459)

Getting a head start on Fellowship and I'm taken aback by how much this slaps. I know I was like 13 when I last took a crack at it, but I remember it being a lot drier than it is

Unparalleled 60s Kitsch: Leonard Nimoy's "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3fZhJN4Tdc

Screenshot from the Rankin-Bass Hobbit cartoon: "Dopesmoker Edition," where all the audio has been replaced with Sleep's "Dopesmoker." Created by Gary King.

Mood Board:

Hobbit I-IV: - The narration is so conversational - English Pub Guy trolls - Thorin got put in a sack same as the rest of the idiots but still wants to be dignified - Important depiction of The Elves as fancy-free goofballs. Hecklers. - I remember just enough of silmarillion stuff that it’s very funny for Bilbo’s takeaway of Elrond to be “seems like a guy whose dad was important” - ah yeah the named runic weapons, very very norse saga - Rock Giants! Vampire baseball - goblin manhattan project Hobbit V-IX - Bilbo really is the primary template for the arthur dents and rincewinds of future british comedic literature. Self-pitying bois.

- Gollum’s described like something out of a moomin book. Makes sense Tove Jannson did illustrations for an edition of this. - “The answer’s not a kettle boiling over, as you seem to think from the noise you’re making” goddamn man - Whole sequence still rules, especially because these two are pretty evenly matched. peas in a pod. - More Ring Implication & foreshadowing than I remember! - (AH wow it’s because this part was rewritten between publishings! I distinctly remember my mom having a big negative reaction to the “finding’s keeping” line, which is only in the old publishing) - First solid Burgle - Wargs got language!

- Beorn’s so cool. It’s interesting to have gotten the bombadil diversion in lotr, while Beorn just got written out of it entirely. - Fun parallel to Gandalf organizing the Dwarves for this bit compared to Bilbo at the beginning. Still very much a Bit though. - Bilbo taking a page out of gandalf’s book for dealing with the spiders. Bit more swashbuckling. - *Extremely* interesting that Tolkien contextualizes the wood-elves (and elves in general) in this one as a type of faerie from the land of Faerie. Much more traditionally british folklore. - Jailbreaks always welcome

Hobbit X-XIV - much like the odyssey, the big memorable parts are in the first half. Lake town & ascent don’t got much interesting to me. - Narratorial disrespect for dwarves ramps up - Bilbo & Smaug really got the same energy as riddles in the dark. Something in the cant to it, the back & forth Hobbit XV-End - Lol @ the thrush needing to find another bird. World of talking animals but there’s still communication problems - I remember my mom having Thoughts on some of the moral complexities w/ the arkenstone thievery & negotiations. - Coming home to his stuff being auctioned off remains extremely funny

Reading along w/ Shelved by Genre for the Lord of the Year project. Haven’t touched any of this series in over 20 years. Trying to roughly match pace & get notes down before each episode goes up (the *naïve* naïve read). Finished The Hobbit today, notes below:

The Eleventh Hour, by Graeme Base

Sonic the hedgehog falling down a waterslide in labyrinth zone

The Podcast “Homestuck Made This World”

Palmer House from Twin Peaks (shot from s3 finale)

Mood Board

House of Leaves notes Navidson Record >>>>>>> all the Johnny Truant stuff. ch VIII: Interesting that the morse code thing invades the footnotes JT’s definitely making up the sex he’s having during these digressions Holloway going crazy in Ch IX is extremely Michael Crichton (derogatory) The whacky footnote orientation is cute, but also it seems like most of these contain no actual content of interest. more there’re for the vibe of the thing. on the one hand i’d prefer there to be more of a payoff for following the threads, but on the other hand the text had just got done warning me against going too slow.

Page 141: hasn’t happened yet, we’ll see if ai art moves the needle at all page 320: “had exhaustion not caught up with *me*”??? - prefer this less as a clue of Zampanò being a character from the record, and more as a 4th wall break in his narration page 336: Minotaur cuts: curious what the “disturbing coincidence” is - ah ok JT seeing himself in it Book ended: more straightforward than I was expecting it to be, most of the time when it decided to get goofy with turning the book sideways and/or backtracking were not too many layers deep; more for vibe than puzzle-solving

Navidson reading House of Leaves in the void, burning the pages: At first glance, commentary about the act of reading? Writer has big thoughts about writing, as they tend to. Johnny Truant storyline never rose above interminable. Gen X ass notions about depth & extremity. Just go listen to some NiN you fucking dork. The overall structure of this is interesting in that it’s actively prompting the reader in interpretative directions

House of Leaves first read takeaways:

Marillion—Misplaced Childhood (1985):

It's an interesting historical artifact, if nothing else. Demonstrates that 80s production really, really screws up the vibes when trying to cargo-cult Gabriel-era Genesis. Phil Collins & co definitely made the right move by pivoting to pop music

Album 273/427

Jaco Pastorius—Jaco Pastorius (1972):

Bass showcase album. Some nice sunny day jazz

Album 273/427

A black and white photo from an old baking cookbook which shows how to shape the dough for a crown brioche. It looks suspiciously like a certain obscene meme picture (goatse) that Bluesky just banned.

From the 1966 Sunset Magazine “Sunset Cook Book of Breads”

Nic Jones—Penguin Eggs (1980):

UK folky singer-songwriter. Little bit too sleepy for my liking, but I appreciate that Nic Jones can actually sing. Not all guys in this space have that going for them.

Album 272/427

Porcupine Tree—Fear of a Blank Planet (2007):

Liked it less than Steven Wilson's solo album that came across this earlier. Also if we're grading on a curve for being 21st-century prog, I'm still probably reaching for something like Mars Volta first.

Album 271/427

Agalloch—The Mantle (2002):

Pretty decent folky prog metal/post-metal kind of thing. Album cover promised an intensity undelivered by the music imo

Album 270/425

Charly García—Piano Bar (1984):

Down-the-middle 80s rock, which can sometimes drift a little too sleepy for my liking. Thankfully, it clocked in a little bit peppier than the norm

Album 269/425

Ex-Easter Island Head—Norther (2024):

Pretty interesting, and not easy to categorize. It's not quite ambient, but it's also not nearly as frenetic as the usual UK Electronica tempo. But also not trip hop, either.

Album 268/412

Louis Armstrong—The Best of The Hot 5 & Hot 7 Recordings (2000):

Hard to sum up. Has the same issue as a lot of the pre-1960 ones from the original list, where it's *really* not meant to be listened to As An Album, but also Armstrong was a titan who deserves eternal recognition.

Album 267/412

David Allan Coe—Once Upon a Rhyme (1975):

Above replacement country music. I actually grabbed a couple songs off here for the highlights playlist, which doesn't normally happen.

Album 266/412

Depeche Mode—Speak & Spell (1981):

Depeche Mode Beach Episode

Album 265/412

Wet Leg—Wet Leg (2022):

Oh no, music styles that I have nostalgia for are now acceptable retro mining!

Oh no, this is like 3 years old already! I'm wildly late to the party on the retro mining too!

Can basically hear them counting on their fingers to keep the lyrics on-rhythm lol

Album 264/412

Robyn—Body Talk (2010):

Weird experience. It's Swedish pop music, but Swedes basically invented american pop production, it's unmistakably That... but since I've never heard it out in the wild, I can actually escape it by pausing it and walking away when I decide I've had enough.

Album 263/412

Mr. Bungle—California (1999):

Pre-Y2K really was a golden age for white funk. Glad that they did that while the getting was good, I enjoy this kind of thing. I hate tv & channel surfing, but I apparently like listening to an album that reminds me of channel surfing

Album 262/412

Yoko Ono—Fly (1971):

Put it on the main list, cowards!

I actually really liked sides 1 & 2—Ono's vocals didn't bug me the way they seem to for most people, and "Mindtrain" is great. Toilet Piece too.

Sides 3 & 4...are admittedly a bit much, tho. Title song shouldn't have been 20min

Album 261/412

The Notwist—Neon Golden (2002):

German rock/electronica hybrid thing. Not quite trip hop, but seems to be drifting that way every now and then. Pretty good rainy day music

Album 260/409

Beyoncé—RENAISSANCE (2022):

Fundamentally it's coffee shop music, even if it does talk dirty to you sometimes. I'd be lying if I tried to act like it wasn't a pretty fun listen though.

Album 259/409

Weezer—Pinkerton (1996):

Ok I liked that *way* more than blue album. In a departure from the attitudes of rockers long past, it makes the brave decision to present sleaziness as something that's not even a little bit cool or interesting

Album 258/409

Soul Coughing—Ruby Vroom (1994):

The vocals sound like an obnoxious mashup between CAKE and Smash Mouth, and I wish I were able to get past that better, because there's a lot of very fun things happening in this on the music & production side.

Album 257/409