( continues...) records that creates a new sonic and emotional world to live in, a world that no one, even the Chills, ever returned to explore more fully. But there’s enough here for a lifetime of exploration. - Brian Doherty

For me, anything unique is a kind of masterpiece that raises it above general criticism with a hearty "This is what I wanted to do, now piss off." The Psychomodo falls into the glam-era summer camp—the theatre of the "crack'd actors." It was more of a one-man show, but Steve Harley doesn't seem to care if we follow him or not, a bit like music hall for the hard of hearing. - Jim O'Rourke

Though more infamous than famous (he’s an ex-con, Mormon, masked, Outlaw Country, ventriloquist, porno-music, bigamist, biker poet) D.A.C. actually made some great recordings. With this album Coe made a mark on Country (as songwriter and performer), and produced an album so strong it can stand up with the all-time classics in the genre. - Jake Austen

This album reads like a mismatched-partners buddy picture with a whisper of tragedy—One ended up in a monastery. The other went to death row!—and it’s conspicuously non-represented on the self-compiled The Essential Leonard Cohen (though I bet it'd figure strongly on its sequel, The Entirely Superfluous Leonard Cohen). And yet the combination of Cohen's weary poetics and Phil Spector's sonic bombast achieves a kind of decadent grandeur, the sound of a coffee-house discotheque somewhere in Weimar-Republican America, with the sleaziest lyrics Laughin' Lenny ever wrote plopped in the middle of a self-parodic Sargasso Sea of sound. - William Ham

“For Seeking Heat” sends us on a nineties soundtrack ride through a seventies road movie. There’s this great, dark, dual-exhaust roar of guitar velocity that never lets up, with Adam Franklin languorously telling us gnomic stories of sleeplessness, sex, violence, fashion and that horrible burning smell off in the distance. - Ron Garmon

This is one of the scariest albums ever made. Pere Ubu had made scary albums before, including at least two of the best records of the seventies, The Modern Dance and Dub Housing, but those were before. Those were before the seesawing fortunes of the band, before the religious conversion of lead singer David Thomas, before the political darkness occurring nationally in 1979-1980. - Rick Moody

Coming on the heels of his high-profile masterwork, Superfly, Curtis Mayfield's next album was bound to receive muted applause upon its release. Yet in many ways it is an equal achievement. A song cycle about a Vietnam veteran's return to a changed America, Back to the World is Mayfield exploding with realized ambition and prodigious talent. - George Pelecanos

Lewis Furey had played violin on Leonard Cohen’s New Skin for the Old Ceremony, but asserted his own rough-edged, pansexual identity on this eponymous debut with the help of Cohen’s producer John Lissauer. The result, roundly ignored at the time save by French audiences, was idiosyncratic cabaret music, very much out-of-step with the glam agenda of the period. Furey peopled his songs with characters culled from his hometown’s sleaziest neighborhood. - Richard Henderson

The dual MCs make the usual threats of lyrical domination via imagery swiped liberally from Star Wars, superhero comics, Dungeons and Dragons and other mythologies. King Lou and Capital Q assure the listener that they are hard, but deliver their boasts as if they are holding back to prevent injury. - Kris Kendall

Phases is full of little quirks that sound odd at first, but once you're on his wavelength seem ineffably, definitively right. As with Thelonious Monk, when listening to Willie Nelson one is amazed at how right and wrong it all is simultaneously. "Ugly beauty" as Monk put it. This is Willie at his ugliest beautiful.- Joe Boucher Being too charismatic, too good, too "rock," and too literate would all compound to impair the Only Ones as they ultimately faded behind the boring pub-pop and tardy, single-minded punk that highway-robbed the era. The (continued...)

( continues...) complexity, the romanticizing of bad love and bad drugs, the drummer from Spooky Tooth... like most of the entries in this book, the artist didn't make enough sense. - Andrew Earles

Since you’ve tried everything else, why not a fierce, impeccable pop concept album about jism pressure? - Ron Garmon

Flan could win an award for the most human suffering and disgusting atrocities ever in an album of gorgeous pop. - Kevin Carhart

This strange little disc first crept into my life back in the fall of 1997. Like some Dramamine-soaked response to Johnny Cash’s American Recordings, its stark, bleak tales of back-road behavior and questionable after-dinner practices left me dumbstruck.- Gary Pig Gold

These recordings remind me of not only being a big goof but also not caring what anyone thinks—simply shouting and remembering odd mottoes, onomatopoeia, and non-sequiturs. I am unabashed and ecstatic when I say that this album is now among my favorite records ever (up to this point, at least). - David Cotner

The best tunes on Spice, however, are the ones penned by Sinatra Jr. himself, particularly the stunning track that opens Side 2. "Black Night" is a haunting, evocative song that encapsulates a lifetime of disappointment and yearning. Riddle's arrangement for this song, described as "evil" by Frank Jr. in his liner notes, starts with one simple guitar and builds slowly until it coalesces into an absolutely heart-rending orchestral blast. This track is pure dynamite.- Greg Turkington

I'm tired of hearing about Pet Sounds; jump to this album—this is one of the few perfect pop albums I've ever heard. I adore the way the songs are constructed out of traded lines between instruments, a huge wall of sound built out of crisscrossing salvos that land in a monstrous pop explosion. This is true theatre of the absurd, a Gilbert and Sullivan production by the inmates of the asylum of Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade. How can you not love that? - Jim O'Rourke

Okay, I admit I just wanted to test Gus' new code.

Sweeeeeet.

This is true theatre of the absurd, a Gilbert and Sullivan production by the inmates of the asylum of Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade.

What's this?

Aww, Mr. Broom. I assumed Decemberists plans had gone forward. That sucks.

A little bit. Lots of beer helped. Like it does.

What's this?

Intriguing isn't it?

Propaganda by Sparks. We also cover their album Indiscreet in the book. One of our few twofers.

Jim O'Rourke is a well known musician, btw.

Jim O'Rourke is a well known musician, btw.

Jim O'Rourke is wonderful. He's one of those musicians that I assumed only a few people knew about, at first, but then realized he's beloved by many.

Especially the song "Memory Lane."

Yep, his album Insignificance is truly among the baddest of ass. Plus he went and joined Sonic Youth afterwards. And mixed the last two Wilco records.

Didn't get to see the Decemberists.

Sorry to hear it Mr. Broom. (You must live right downtown to be two blocks away from Jackpots. Yay Lawrence.) It was a good show but soooo short. They played for about 70 min. and it was mucho packed near the stage. The only thing I would feel bad about missing was the encore - a very well-received Smiths cover of "Ask."

Hey folks of the music thread. Squees all around to Hec for good book reviews, Rio for impending wedded bliss, Alicia for being cool and happy when meeting Bono and all other good things that have happened to all you good people.

Squee for me as well - I actually got to meet a Buffista at Winfield. After much note leaving I got to meet, hug and take a pic with Katefate. Yay! She trekked all the way back to my campsite and I was not there but we had both mentioned trying to hook up at a certain show that night and with 5,000 people in the general area where we said we might be I thought it was going to be impossible to find her, but a semi-Buffy freak friend of mine who was with me walked right past her, noticed her Buffistas shirt (from the first F2F I believe) and there was subsequent "Omygod are you Kate?! Omygod are you Tina?" Fun.

Other fun music notes: The Pixies show I saw last month in Columbia rocked well beyond my wildest expectations. So glad I bought tickets when I did. I was thiiiis close to Kim Deal for like three hours!!

I have no access to CD-burning equipment at the moment so I have not sent my Buffista exchange replacement mix off yet. As soon as I can, I promise that I will.

I have had several odd job changes since last posting. I am currently waiting for the offices of this magazineto finish being built so I can start my job there as their lifestyle editor and general writer of stuff. Yes, it is a motocross magazine and no, up until about two months ago I didn't know anything about motocross. But hey - I get paid to write definitely about music and even maybe about comics (I'm still trying to convince them that comics are "cool.") Sweet. In the meantime it is odd-job city for me. Currently that means working at a government call center and answering angry senior citizens' questions about Medicare. Not so sweet.

I am still lurking but just wanted to say hey. Hey.