alienating guitar tunings and horribly morbid lyrics.

Speaking of, I keep meaning to download the Jandek covers off buffistarawk to bring to this.

Any news on the 33 and 1/3 pitches?

Nothing until the end of January.

Address is winging its way along the interpipe even now.

Speaking of, I keep meaning to download the Jandek covers off buffistarawk to bring to this.

I don't get the connection...

The 33 & 1/3 pitches and influential albums of the past 30 years led me to this interview with Chuck D and Hank Shocklee. Remember the VH1 Classic Albums documentaries where they'd interview the bands & producers & engineers (the Electric Ladyland one with Eddie Kramer and the one on the Band's second album were particularly good -- the Jew's harp sounding thing on "Up On Cripple Creek"? Garth Hudson's keyboard)? If I could pick one album for that series it would be It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back without a doubt. I hope that's one of the successful pitches, too, but I want to see and hear Chuck and Hank and Terminator X and Bill Stephney unpacking "Rebel Without a Pause" and Louder Than a Bomb" and everything else on that masterpiece. "We started with this James beat, and then put this on top of it. Then Vernon added some guitar. Then we added this and this and this and this and some of that and then a bit of this. Then Chuck and Flav did their parts. Then we added a bit more of this." It's pretty clear from the interview that that ain't gonna happen. The album might have made it under the copyright crackdown wire, and it may be grandfathered past the restrictions, but it's unlikely that they'd decide to kick the sleeping royalty dogs by naming every sample on that unbelievably dense recording. (Of course Chuck is kinda cranky so you never know.)

Edited for formatting.

For the Thirty Years of Influence question, with the caveat that I've been living in the past for years so know dick all about what's influenced the last ten or fifteen years worth of music, I'll throw out in no particular order:

1. Big Star, Radio City. Yeah, I know 1974 is more than thirty years ago, but barely. And this album is son of "only 1000 people bought it, but every one of them started a band.
2. Talking Heads, Remain in Light. This is slightly arbitrary as it's really an Eno pick more than a Talking Heads pick. I almost picked Another Green World. Coulda been one of his Bowie collaborations. Or another Heads production. Or The Joshua Tree. Eno's sonic fingerprints are all over.
3. Chic, Risque. Another slightly arbitrary pick. The Rodgers/Edwards production team was hugely influential, as was 'Nard's monster bass line for "Good Times," so I'll go with this album.
4. Prince, 1999. Picked because it was the real commercial breakthrough. I think he was already quite influential among musicians and producers (Janet Jackson might have had a career w/o Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis but it sure wouldn't have been the same one) but this really set him up for the takeover. Took a while to realize since Thriller was such a monster, but when the smoke cleared the decade blonged to the purple one, not the gloved one.
5. Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. Chuck and Flav are great, but this is really the Bomb Squad's triumph. Too bad they lost the fight in "Caught, Can I Get a Witness". Check out Greg Tate's review in Flyboy in the Buttermilk if you can find a copy. Mine is in storage, & I don't know when I'll be back at work, otherwise I'd put it up at Buffistarawk.
6. Something by LaFace productions. You pick: Babyface, Boyz II Men, Toni Braxton, TLC. Smokey Robinson, part deux.
7. Nirvana, Nevermind. I don't know from indie cred, but it is a great album -- a bit frontloaded IMHO, but I blame that on CDs & the loss of album sides and programming -- and, once again, the commercial breakthrough matters. It's a popular artform and selling ten million copies matters, especially when the bulk of sales comes in a big explosion. (The Eagles' Greatest Hits may or may not have surpassed Thriller's sales, but there's NO comparison between the impact of the two.) It changed the pop equation in the early and mid nineties.
8. Garth Brooks. I don't know the name of any of his albums or any of his songs, but I remember when I worked for a music conference & we had a bunch of the trades lying around the house, and for big chunks of 1994 and 1995 he had multiple albums in the top 10, sometimes in the top 5. It was pretty mindblowing. I also remember looking at the top 5, which was something like Garth, Van Hagar, Ace of Base, Snoop, and Mariah Carey, and thinking, "Everyone of these is multi-platinum, huge hits, but could the audiences be any more fragmented? How much of Garth's audience was familiar with Van Halen or Snoop Dogg? How many Van Halen fans had heard "Loser" or "The Sign," the big Ace of Base hit? Was there ANYONE who owned Mariah's and Garth's CD?" Which is why I was harping on the importance of Nevermind's moment in the sun. Even if I'm kinda contrary and averse to crowds, metaphorical as well as literal, I see and understand the value of a pop moment.

And so ends my long-winded, only slightly better than ill-informed spiel.

ETA the part that got lost.

I don't get the connection...

It's a show where scenes are based off the music brought by the audience. The freakier and more obscure tends to be the best-- it's like an incredibly detailed suggestion.

Took a while to realize since Thriller was such a monster, but when the smoke cleared the decade blonged to the purple one, not the gloved one.

A year or so ago, VH-1 had the Top 100 Rock Artists, and I was really pleased to see MJ get stuck around 70 or so, and Prince get ranked somewhere in the teens. Definitely showed that they knew at least something about rock influences and quality.

Definitely showed that they knew at least something about rock influences and quality.

I wasn't trying to bust on Michael. God knows he has enough problems, many caused by himself, without me piling on. Thriller came by its success honestly: it's a terrific album. Not sure anything "deserves" to become the biggest hit ever but as well it as another. I don't know if it was possible to be in high school when it topped the charts and not think it was overplayed, but the last few times I heard "Beat It" I was shocked at how good it was. "Billie Jean" never lost its appeal. I could live happily w/o seeing the title track's video again -- but it would be more shocking in retrospect if it hadn't been overblown. Hard to blame a guy for hubris and delusions of grandeur when his previous album sold eight million copies and his current one passed the eight million mark before it was close to breaking a sweat, much less getting winded. Just as it was hard to see clearly through the unprecedented success of Thriller I think it can be hard to see (and more important to hear) through the long, long, long and ineffably freaky public meltdown. Did he have as much to give as an artist as Prince? IMO, no, but between the J5 hits ("I Want You Back" can stand up to any single of the rock and roll era), Off the Wall, Thriller, and some of his late 80s work (what was the animated video -- "Leave Me Alone"? -- that was done like some Talking Heads video -- "And She Was"? -- or vice versa? Not to be vague or anything. Anyway, it was pretty great.) you're talking a monster talent with a huge impact. As long as I don't have to look at any post-1980s picture of him ever again everything will be alright.

A lovely review of Kim's Neutral Milk Hotel Book.

Sorry if this has been posted before, but here's an album of Queen / 50 Cent mashups that I'm liking so far: [link]

eta: If you're curious, I suggest starting with "Under Pressure All the Time" or "21 Flash Questions."

eta²: IOUnrelatedMusic, I just bought Laura Veirs's album Year of Meteors, which I am also loving. And thanks to Hec/Kim, I also got that Neutral Milk Hotel album....