Musical Years In A Metaphorical Hat

(Adapted from Facebook group posts) Barenaked Ladies - Self-titled Demo (aka The Yellow Tape I'm more of a Barenaked Ladies fan than most people I know irl in that I've heard more than 2 songs, but I wouldn't count myself as a major fan. By 1991 they had a few short demos to their name, and "the yellow tape" was the last one before moving on to proper albums. Though it's not live, this feels like what it would be like to see them in an open mic setting - acoustic and kinda tinny but the songs are well-developed and performed with energy. The only arguable low point is a questionable Public Enemy cover, and it was 1991, so the "band of white guys doing hip hop covers - WaCkY!" thing was still relatively novel I guess.  The Tragically Hip - Road Apples / Rush - Roll The Bones  I think it's partly just because I listened to both in a row, but I see odd similarities between Road Apples and Roll The Bones - I guess it's funky bass + alter...

Nirvana – Nevermind (American alternative rock/grunge, major label debut) Barenaked Ladies – Barenaked Ladies (aka "the yellow tape") (Canadian alternative rock/comedy rock, their last self-released demo tape before their proper debut Gordon) The Tragically Hip – Road Apples (Canadian alternative rock) Rush – Roll The Bones (Canadian progressive rock) Ned’s Atomic Dustbin – God Fodder (English alternative rock/grebo, debut album) The Wonder Stuff – Never Loved Elvis (English alternative rock/grebo) A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory (American hip-hop) Metallica – Metallica (aka "the black album") (American heavy metal)  Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger (American alternative metal/grunge) Cypress Hill – Cypress Hill (American hip hop, debut) Enya – Shepherd Moons (Irish Celtic new age) Chapterhouse – Whirlpool (British shoe gaze/dream pop, debut) Pixies – Trompe Le Monde (American alternative rock, their last full album to feature original bassist/vocal...

Van Halen – 1984 (American heavy metal/hard rock) Prince – Purple Rain (American pop/rock/r and b, soundtrack to the film of the same name) Meat Puppets – Meat Puppets II (American cowpunk) Metallica – Ride The Lightning (American heavy metal) Weird Al Yankovic – In 3D (American comedy music) Spinal Tap – This Is Spinal Tap (American comedy rock/ heavy metal, soundtrack to the mockumentary of the same name) Neil – Neil’s Heavy Concept Album (English comedy rock/psychedelic rock, performed by actor Nigel Planer in-character as Neil, his character from comedy series The Young Ones) The Cure – The Top (English post-punk/gothic rock) Skinny Puppy – Remission (Canadian electro-industrial, 12 inch EP later expanded to album length in 1985) Cocteau Twins – Treasure (Scottish dream pop) Dead Can Dance – Dead Can Dance (Australian post-punk/gothic rock, debut album) Ray Lynch – Deep Breakfast (American electronic music/new age) The Fall – The Wonderful And Frighteni...

“Weird Al” Yankovic – In 3D You might have noticed that any time a Weird Al album was released in a year I cover, I try to listen to it. This is both for the fun of it and because his albums tend to be time capsules of whatever was going on musically and culturally at the time. Non-musical trends of the mid-80s that are skewered here include late-night infomercials (“Mr. Popeil”), Rocky sequels (“Theme From Rocky XIII (The Rye or the Kaiser”), supermarket tabloids (“The Midnight Star”) and violent slasher horror films (“Nature Trail To Hell”). Neither the best nor the worst Weird Al I’ve heard, this is mainly notable for having his first mainstream hit (“Eat It”), and establishing a formula for future Weird Al albums: Parodies that closely follow the arrangements of the original songs, one polka medley (“Polkas On 45”), and one epic-length song to end the album (At about 6 minutes, closing track “Nature Trail To Hell” was the longest song he’d ever released at the time). Th...

Elvis Costello And The Attractions – Armed Forces (British new wave) Joe Jackson – Look Sharp! (British new wave, debut album) Joe Jackson – I’m The Man (British new wave) The Clash – London Calling (English punk rock) The Buzzcocks – Singles Going Steady (English punk rock, compilation of singles and b-sides released between 1977 and 1979) The Roches – The Roches (American contemporary folk, debut album) Sparks – No 1 In Heaven (American new wave/disco) The Cure – Three Imaginary Boys (English post-punk, debut album) Devo – Duty Now For The Future (American new wave) The B-52s – The B-52s (American new wave, debut album) Van Halen – Van Halen II (American hard rock/heavy metal) Fleetwood Mac – Tusk (English-American avant-pop rock) David Bowie – Lodger (English art-rock) Pink Floyd – The Wall (English progressive rock, concept album) Black Flag – Nervous Breakdown (American hardcore punk, debut EP) The Raincoats – The Raincoats (English post-punk/exp...

Someone asked me if I was reviewing things instead of just listening and publishing lists, and this is an experiment in how I might start doing that: I listen to too many albums to do in-depth (or even brief) reviews of them all, but I could do brief themed write-ups. This post is specifically about Boston-based groups - future themes within the 1979 category could include disco (and/or non-disco groups like ELO and Kiss attempting to cross over), punk (The Damned, The Clash, Ramones, The Germs), rock opera (Pink Floyd's The Wall vs. Frank Zappa's Joe's Garage could be fun), and live albums (Ramones' It's Alive and  Neil Young and Crazy Horse's Rust Never Sleeps ). The Cars – Candy O Classic rock stations and Greatest Hits albums largely seem to favor the self-titled debut over anything else; This has a few standards (“Let’s Go”, “It’s All I Can Do”, sometimes the title track), but seems to be more of a “fan favorite” album. I attribute this to th...

The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (English psychedelic pop) The Beatles – Magical Mystery Tour (English psychedelic pop, six songs from the television movie of the same name and five singles also released in 1967) Vanilla Fudge – Vanilla Fudge (psychedelic rock, debut album consisting entirely of cover songs) Jefferson Airplane – Surrealistic Pillow (American psychedelic rock/folk rock) The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced (English-American psychedelic rock/ hard rock) Love – Forever Changes (American baroque pop/psychedelic rock) Pink Floyd – The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (English psychedelic rock, debut album) The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground & Nico (American art-rock, debut) The Doors – The Doors (American psychedelic rock, debut album) The Doors – Strange Days (American psychedelic rock) The Who – The Who Sell Out (English rock) The Beach Boys – Smiley Smile (American art-pop) Frank Zappa- Lumpy Gravy (A...