Chuck Eddy

150 Best Albums of 1997 Chuck Klosterman, who was generous enough to write a foreword for a book I wrote once, was born with at least one skill I wasn’t — namely, the ability to write things that lots and lots…

5100 words on obsolete newfangled technology, electronic art-rocktica, block-rockin' big beats, chart-toppin' eulogies, triumphant teen-bops, ancient novelty folk, economic booms, Bono's spawn, Zimmy Spice keeping it unreal, CD-Rom Barbie girls, keys to jeeps, and my 150 favorite albums on 1997.

(Boston Phoenix, not LA Weekly. Will try to find it.)

150 Best Albums of 1988 “Possibly the most revered year in hip-hop,” the sticker on my copy of Ohio backpack rapper and producer Blueprint’s 2005 CD 1988 calls the year it’s named after, and &#8220…

I have their album #33 in 1988 (guess I went with the US release date), but I put its picture at the top of the post, and I did write about it at the time (LA Weekly I think -- need to check my files.)

And then there's the first Huey Lewis & the News LP (or two?), after Huey's stint backing Elvis Costello etc. in Clover, when Huey + News seemed to want to be an American Boomtown Rats (sometimes in Thin Lizzy mode.) Or at least dressed like they did.

(If "glam era" is cryptic, I mean his tenure as Bryan "Guy" Adams with Nick Gilder in the band Sweeney Todd, who sounded more or less like the Sweet or T. Rex. So that might count too I guess.)

Also, I don't at all know Alanis's early records or Tori Amos's metal LP, but they must have been impersonating *somebody* at those points in their career, right? And then there's that early (but post-glam-era!) Bryan Adams single ("Let Me Take You Dancing") that people compared to Michael Jackson.

First answer that came to mind (though I hope not the best that will): Beastie Boys starting out imitating Bad Brains (who were never exactly "pop stars," so they probably don't count.)

Almost none, since I knew the names of almost no artists when I was 10. Best guess: Perry Como, since my dad had and played his best of LP: "Don't Let the Stars Get In Your Eyes" (8 years before I was born) and even more likely "Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom)" (4 years and 10 months, darn close!)

German album roundup, 1996 Twangy, hiccuppy, goofy, guttural Golden Lemons. More evidence of my alleged Teutonophilia. Though it’s not like I’m entirely positive about all these schallplatten. And why the droney …

Fwiw, I wrote about Scatman's album when it was new. (As if anybody would have expected otherwise.)

Ano: Bone Born Bomb (Toy's Factory Japan) 3.

Blanco Teta: La Debacle De Las Divas (Les Disques Bongo Joe Switzerland) 5; Mellow & Sleazy/Tman Xpress: Midnight in Diepkloof (Mellow & Sleazy South Africa) 5; Witch: Sogolo (Partisan) 3; Djeuhdjoah & Lieutenant Nicholson: Danses Divines (Hot Casa France) 3...

PAZZ & JOP PRODUCT REPORT

YEAH: Various: Não Estragou Nada (Príncipe Portugal) 7; Los Thuthanaka: Los Thuthanaka (Los Thuthanaka) 7; Neba Solo: Tuma Duma (Blanc Manioc Mali/France) 7; Elkotsh: Rhlt Jdi (Heat Crimes Greece) 5; Esinam & Sibusile Xaba: Healing Voices (W.E.R.F. Belgium) 5..

Ano: Bone Born Bomb (Toy's Factory Japan) 3.

Blanco Teta: La Debacle De Las Divas (Les Disques Bongo Joe Switzerland) 5; Mellow & Sleazy/Tman Xpress: Midnight in Diepkloof (Mellow & Sleazy South Africa) 5; Witch: Sogolo (Partisan) 3; Djeuhdjoah & Lieutenant Nicholson: Danses Divines (Hot Casa France) 3...

Yeah, I was surprised to actually agree with her about something for once.

160 Best Singles of 1985 Every summer for the past, well, at least two summers, Brad Luen has hosted a “retro-poll” on his Substack where anyone who wants to can vote for their favorite albums and singles of wh…

A few weeks back when @bradluen.bsky.social announced a best records of 1985 (= 40 years ago) poll, I figured I'd be too busy. Then I realized I could use a top 20 LPs list I’d made in 2021. Then next thing I knew I also had not only top 20 singles, but an extra 140, plus 3500 words about them!

1985 poll: Results Ramshackle drink-punk beats every continent

And here are the results of Brad's poll:

150 Best Albums of 1985 The big hard-news music stories of 1985, for those who weren’t there yet or who understandably forgot, were the spate of charity efforts doing their darnedest to stem starvation in Ethiopia a…

My album list from 4 1/2 years ago:

160 Best Singles of 1985 Every summer for the past, well, at least two summers, Brad Luen has hosted a “retro-poll” on his Substack where anyone who wants to can vote for their favorite albums and singles of wh…

A few weeks back when @bradluen.bsky.social announced a best records of 1985 (= 40 years ago) poll, I figured I'd be too busy. Then I realized I could use a top 20 LPs list I’d made in 2021. Then next thing I knew I also had not only top 20 singles, but an extra 140, plus 3500 words about them!

Walkman Volcano: Blindfold Test #30 Kalesijski Zvuci come into your town and help you polka down. Three mid-level ’70s/’80s rock stars I’ve never given a moment of thought to (four if the yacht-rock band counts); tw…

25 songs, 1955-1994: After Dinner, Babu Band, Oscar Brown Jr., Butterball, Cravats, David Essex, Ferko String Band, Folk Devils, Growl, Dan Hartman, Kalesijski Zvuci, Kursaal Flyers, Kenny Loggins, Otto Luening, Pablo Cruise, Plan 9, Pretty Tony, Stack Waddy, Tragic Mulatto, Very Things, 012, more!

Walkman Volcano: Blindfold Test #30 Kalesijski Zvuci come into your town and help you polka down. Three mid-level ’70s/’80s rock stars I’ve never given a moment of thought to (four if the yacht-rock band counts); tw…

25 songs, 1955-1994: After Dinner, Babu Band, Oscar Brown Jr., Butterball, Cravats, David Essex, Ferko String Band, Folk Devils, Growl, Dan Hartman, Kalesijski Zvuci, Kursaal Flyers, Kenny Loggins, Otto Luening, Pablo Cruise, Plan 9, Pretty Tony, Stack Waddy, Tragic Mulatto, Very Things, 012, more!

A Load of Records Off My Back “I’ve given up trying to sell CDs. I’m just gonna hold onto them for about a decade, until the big CD Revival heats up, and then sell the whole collection at once.” — …

Wrote and/or revived 2800+ words about selling my record and CD collection yesterday. A link's in the top comment. The end of an era for sure. If so inclined, feel free to pour one out.

A Load of Records Off My Back “I’ve given up trying to sell CDs. I’m just gonna hold onto them for about a decade, until the big CD Revival heats up, and then sell the whole collection at once.” — …

Wrote and/or revived 2800+ words about selling my record and CD collection yesterday. A link's in the top comment. The end of an era for sure. If so inclined, feel free to pour one out.

PAZZ & JOP PRODUCT REPORT

YEAH: Maruja: Tír na nÓg (Music for Nations UK) 5; The Hemphill Stringtet: Plays Music Of Julius Hemphill (Out of Your Head) 5; Ambrose Akinmusire: Honey From A Winter Stone (Nonesuch) 5; Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts (Nonesuch) 5...

Still don't buy it! Which I guess makes me a butt-rock purist, even though I didn't like the term much in the first place. (Old Man Yells At Butt.)

Really? Wow. Maybe the butts have changed over the past 15 (actually 16 -- my math was off) years! But this is the first I ever remember hearing it to refer to post-grunge bands (who almost never have nearly enough butt in their music, to my ears.)

Or as somebody else on that thread pointed out, you "can't spell butt rock without BTO."

Me 15 years ago: "Okay, I get it. Growing up in Michigan in the '70s, we just called this stuff 'rock.' (But if kids want to put a 'butt' in it now, fine with me.)"

James Brandon Lewis Quartet: Abstraction Is Deliverance (Intakt Switzerland) 3; Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner: The Music of Anthony Braxton (Pi) 3.

Marshall Allen's Ghost Horizons: Live In Philadelphia (Otherly Love/Ars Nova Workshop) 5; Tim Berne/Gregg Belisle-Chi/Tom Rainey: Yikes Too (Screwgun/Out of Your Head) 5; Salin: Rammana (Salin Canada) 5; Hedvig Mollestad Trio: Bees In The Bonnet (Rune Grammofon Norway) 3...