It's the best concept album I've heard; part of a trilogy of albums that didn't require you to understand what the fuck was going on to enjoy.
The album takes you through the different level of moods, from "SS Mary" to "Don't Believe in Love" to "Anarchy-X" and "My Empty Room."
You can get a feeling for all the songs here with free mp3 excerpts.
I trawled through the box: Lil Louis: "French Kiss" CD single tape of remix of the songs with few words. always thought of as a good spontaneous sex soundtrack - but, um, obviously it's never worked out that way because, I spontaneously forget all about it. It's not spur of the moment to say, "hang on, got a great tape for this here."
Everything in there has memories attached to it. But I wasn't in the frame of mind to dwell - I was rediscovering MY music.
"Universal Mother" by Sinead O' Connor is the next tape. Never a chuckle fest I knew but I bought it in the wake of her "Smack Yer Pope Up" SNL appearance just to see what else was going on in that mind. Because I liked what I saw.
Sincerity and voice is what she's all about. Don't agree with all her politics but her depth and the non-playful layers of meaning get me pretty deep as well. I put this music in mostly knowing it's going to bring me down, but put me in a state of mind to think of things like personal violence. And "Red Football" is her best song: I'm not no red football to be kicked around the garden no no / I'm a red Christmas-tree ball / and I'm fragile / I'm not no animal / Though I am to You / I'm not no crocodile / Like the one in Dublin Zoo / Who lives in a cage the length and breadth of his body with a window which people could look through ... She also has her version of Kurt Cobain's "All Apologies" which comes out as heartfelt, less pop-y, than Nirvana's version.
You really start to know the music you REALLY like when you find a box. You pull out the favorites - the long lost "This is going to be great" music. Manowar "Fighting the World" Devo "Freedom of Choice" , Aerosmith "Get a Grip", Love/Hate "Blackout In a Red Room", Bangles "Different Light" and "Everything", Suzanne Vega "Suzanne Vega" ("The Queen and the Soldier"), Bjork "Debut" (I do have all the other one's on CD, but not this amazing album), Rowan Atkinson "Live in Belfast" (OK, that's comedy), "Metallica "Ride The Lightning" and "...And Justice For All", Nirvana "In Utero", Bob Marley "In the Beginning", Sir Mixalot "Mack Daddy", Pat Benatar "Live from Earth", Madonna "Like a Virgin" and "Like a Prayer" (still with that faded patchouli smell 16 years later), Twisted Sister "Under the Blade and "You Can't Stop Rock N Roll", Annie Soundtrack, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Variations" on a theme from Paganini (with an unacknowledged Julian Lloyd Webber on cello (a purchase which predates all the above, though I bought the vinyl LP of "Devo's Freedom of Choice when it first came out. I can't remember why. ))
Article comments
1 - Tan Hoang
Yeah, mix tapes can bring back lots of old memories. I found some too, and thankfully I put lists of the songs that were on each. I've been meaning to download them, but haven't gotten the chance to.
2 - swingingpuss
I wonder what other goodies you are hoarding in your attic Temple?:)
3 - Tim Jarrett
Digitizing tapes should be easy enough providing you have a line in on your soundcard--there are tons of shareware programs out there to take incoming audio and convert it to various sound formats.
I've been converting my mix tapes to MP3 playlists the hard way--seeking out digital copies of the underlying music. For the ones where I still own the CDs, it's trivial. For the other songs... well, the advent of the iTunes Music Store made some of it easier, but it's still really difficult, especially when the original track was on an LP (e e cumming's six nonlectures, for instance) or on a very tiny label (the first album by the Dog Faced Hermans).
But yeah, it's fun to dig through old tapes. A bit like archaeology.
4 - Cathy Faulkner
Found this on a google search. Nice to know there are tapes of Pearl Jam's KISW visit floating around. it was an amazing night. Eddie and Jeff were in fine form
5 - Temple Stark
Caaaaaaaaaaathy,
Hey you cheered by bit of a bummer day up. It was an amazing night. So damn funny.
I still love me some Pearl Jam.