Music

Playlist: Songs About… Rivers

~ Kenneth Corsini ~ 3 Comments

*Photo of the Chicago River taken by your intrepid blogger (I’m not a nature guy, this is as close as I get to water/nature)

“One can learn much from a river.”

“He saw that the water continually flowed and flowed and yet it was always there; it was always the same and yet every moment it was new.”

– Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

Every now and then, in this insane, upside down world we find ourselves in, I just need some kind of mental break. Sure, rock n roll music is my usual refuge but lately I find myself reading a lot of my old books that I painstakingly collected over the years. There’s no escapism quite like a book. And occasionally you’ll get the added bonus of picking up some wisdom when you read. I figured I might as well read as many books as I can before they all get banned. It’s dark times when reading feels…well, subversive. I considered reading Orwell’s 1984, but that feels too much like watching the news. I pulled out Herman Hesse’s 1922 novel Siddhartha this weekend. If things get any crazier I may reach for his 1927 book Steppenwolf, but let’s hope things don’t get that far gone.

It’d been a while since I first read Siddhartha. I think I bought it when I was living in Ft. Smith, Arkansas and fighting despair and depression daily. The story of the spiritual quest the book tells always appeals to me and reveals something new every time I re-read it. I remember drinking with my friend Pringle whose cousin/nephew/some relative who kept saying, “The image of the river man, that’s beautiful,” over and over again. Despite that idiot’s mad ramblings, it’s hard to argue against the thought that the river in Siddhartha is a beautiful image. To me, it’s always represented the journey of life or the passing of time. The river looks the same but is continually different. It really speaks to the unity of all things. And in these divided times, that’s a message that felt, I don’t know, soothing? Nothing like sitting next to the river, listening intently to it.

Pretty soon, because my brain is hardwired to my music collection, I started thinking about all the songs about rivers. The Mississippi River here in the States has been the inspiration for countless songs, from the old blues guys to the current day. Rivers are the veins of any country. Most civilizations start on the coast and spread out, following the rivers, as the song goes. I myself live in a river town, although I fear we’ve never done enough with our riverfront. I found myself thinking about Springsteen’s “The River,” which led me to quietly intoning “Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river” from Creedence. I started pulling songs together and pretty soon I had a playlist. Much like our Playlist: Songs About Trains, I realized I’ve always loved songs about rivers. I always feel peaceful sitting next to a lake or on the beach at the ocean’s edge, but there’s something more menacing about the power of the river’s current. Maybe the danger is the draw? I mean, just think about Jeff Buckley and how he drowned in a river…

Here’s my collection of songs about rivers. Its not meant to be exhaustive, so if you have a favorite river song, please put it in the comments and if it fits I’ll add it to the Spotify list. As usual, I’m all over the place stylistically and tempo-wise. If you don’t like a song, skip it. Play this list straight through or randomly. Season to taste. It starts off rushing like white water, but then settles into a groove… My goal, as always, is to put a song you haven’t heard in a while back in your ear or turn you onto a song you might not have heard before. There are hits, there are obscurities. If I’m doing my job you may be inspired to put together your own playlist…Here are my selections, followed below by my comments about each track:

  • Talking Heads, “Take Me To The River” – I could have/should have gone with Al Green’s original, but this track has always been the definitive version for me. From More Songs About Buildings And Food. 
  • The Alarm, “Sold Me Down The River” – I saw these guys play in a bar when I was in college. Underrated little rock band.
  • Bob Dylan, “Watching The River Flow” – If Siddhartha was a bluesy rock song, it’d be this one.
  • Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Proud Mary” – Dylan once told John Fogerty if he didn’t start doing his CCR songs live again, people would think this song was a Tina Turner song… her and Ike’s version is pretty good, though.
  • Led Zeppelin, “Traveling Riverside Blues” – A spectacular cover of a Robert Johnson song. “She’s got a mortgage on my body, got a lien on my soul…” Indeed.
  • Neil Young & Crazy Horse, “Down By The River” – Our narrator takes his love down to the river with ill intent.
  • Allman Brothers Band, “Woman Across The River” – From Hittin’ The Note, the only Allman’s studio album without Dickey Betts on it. Even so, this album was killer.
  • Pete Townshend, “The Sea Refuses No River” – Do I know what Pete is talking about? No. But I’ve always dug the line, “The sea refuses no river, Remember that when the beggar buys a round.” All things are connected and perhaps we should approach life with more humility.
  • Bruce Springsteen, “Rain In The River” – From one of the unreleased albums in the brilliant box, Tracks 2. 
  • Patti Smith, “Pissing In A River” – Another fabulous track from Patti Smith. She’s an American Treasure.
  • Dire Straits, “Down To The Waterline” – A young woman reminisces about a former lover, perhaps a lost love, and their old trysts down by the river… “She can still hear him whisper, let’s go down to the waterline…” Spectacular guitar on this track form Mark Knopfler.
  • Sting, “All This Time” – A rumination about life, religion and death, all happening while the river flows… “Men go crazy in congregations, they only get better one by one…”
  • Grateful Dead, “Black Muddy River” – Great track from the Dead. Gregg Allman also did a cover on his last album.
  • Willie Nelson, “Whiskey River” – Is there a more B&V appropriate track on this list?
  • Van Halen, “Big River” – From the oft overlooked last album Van Halen did with Roth. I always liked this one… helluva guitar solo from Eddie Van Halen.
  • Iron Maiden, “When The River Runs Deep” – What’s a B&V playlist without some choice metal?
  • Scorpions, “Life’s Like A River” – I had to go back to In Trance for this power-ballad like tune. What can I say, it fits.
  • Bush, “Blood River” – Bush’s last three albums from The Kingdom to The Art Of Survival to this year’s I Beat Loneliness have all been part of a late period creative resurgence
  • Stone Temple Pilots, “Where The River Goes” – I should include more STP on my playlists. Was happy to include this one.
  • P.J. Harvey, “Down By The Water” – I’m not a huge P.J. fan, but I always liked this one. I’m not completely sure what happened down by the water, but it doesn’t sound like it was good.
  • Bruce Hornsby and The Range, “Across The River” – This one takes me way back…
  • Robbie Robertson, “Somewhere Down The Crazy River” – A man finds himself wandering along the river headed to a bar where he meets a woman who says, “Hang the rich…” I think I’ve lived this one.
  • Johnny Cash, “Big River” – The Man In Black has almost as many river songs as train songs. Well, at least it feels like it.
  • Randy Newman, “Burn On” – Only Randy Newman could turn the Cuyahoga River catching on fire in the 70s into a song.
  • Bruce Springsteen, “Meeting Across The River” – Amateur gangsters planning a big score… if only they can get a ride.
  • Ike & Tina Turner, “River Deep – Mountain High” – The aforementioned Ike and Tina Turner on a classic.
  • Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, “Red River” – Latter day blues rock from Petty. From the very strong Hypnotic Eye. 
  • Joni Mitchell, “River” – Beautiful song about a woman in a warm climate missing the cold and ice of winter at Xmas… and longing for the ability to skate away on a frozen river while she laments a lost love.
  • David Crosby, “River Rise (feat. Michael McDonald)” – David Crosby from his final solo album, For Free. Joined by the Admiral of Yacht Rock, Michael McDonald.
  • Paul Simon, “Cool, Cool River” – From the great album The Rhythm Of The Saints. 
  • Kenny Wayne Shepherd, “Blue On Black” – “Blue on black, tears on a river…”
  • Liam Gallagher, “The River” – From the great Why Me? Why Not? 
  • Alice In Chains, “Dam That River” – I still shake my head over the tragic loss of Layne Staley.
  • Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Green River” – Great chooglin’ music.
  • The Decemberists, “Down By The Water” – The Rock Chick turned me on to this great tune. “Down by the water, down by the ol’ main drag…”
  • Stevie Nicks, “Love Is Like A River” – I’ll include any Stevie Nicks I can to any playlist!
  • Bruce Springsteen, “The River” – Oh man, the good stuff here.
  • Mudcrutch, “Crystal River” – Tom Petty’s first group and later side project weighing in with a track that’s over 9 minutes long but will keep you enthralled the whole time.
  • U2, “North And South Of The River” – Deep track from U2 that I’ve always been fond of.
  • The Rolling Stones, “Following The River” – From the expanded version of Exile On Main Street. 
  • Aerosmith, “Cry Me A River” – Many acts have covered this song, but I’ve always been fond of Aerosmith’s version. I used Joe Cocker’s version for my Playlist: Songs About Crying.
  • Simple Minds, “She’s A River” – I’m not a huge fan of Simple Minds, but they sound like mid-period U2 here…
  • Eric Clapton & J.J. Cale, “Ride The River” – A collaboration that feels like should have happened much earlier.
  • Steve Miller Band, “Wide River” – This song has that wonderful, classic Steve Miller Band 70s vibe and yet it came out in ’93.
  • Mad Season, “River Of Deceit” – Layne Staley collaborating with Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready. McCready said he wanted to show Staley it was possible to work sober. This song was so huge in my head I thought it was the name of the band.
  • Mark Knopfler, “One Deep River” – Don’t sleep on Knopfler’s solo stuff. This is a gentle ballad.
  • John Fogerty, “Swamp River Days” – Fogerty from one of my favorites from him, Blue Moon Swamp. 
  • Gregg Allman, “Floating Bridge” – Gregg telling us the story of a man who fell in the river and hung onto a branch for dear life. A fine cover of a Sleepy John Estes tune.
  • The Jeff Beck Group, “Ol’ Man River” – Rod doing a Paul Robeson cover with Jeff Beck‘s dive bomb guitar swooping through. An uncredited Keith Moon on the drums.
  • Eric Clapton, “River Runs Deep” – I think this one was written by the aforementioned J.J. Cale.
  • Steve Winwood, “There’s A River” – I bought this album in high school. Always loved this one.
  • John Fogerty, “River Is Waiting” – Great guitar riff that reminds me of a gentle river rushing by…
  • Paul Simon, “Peace Like A River” – I’ve always loved Simon’s solo debut.
  • Fats Domino, “Going To The River” – Fats Domino should be on every playlist, everywhere.
  • Linda Ronstadt, “Many Rivers To Cross” – The old Jimmy Cliff tune but done so beautifully here I had to go with this version.
  • David & David, “River’s Gonna Rise” – From an album I thought only I dug until I met the Rock Chick.
  • Dire Straits, “Ride Across The River” – From the mega-hit Brothers In Arms. 
  • The Doobie Brothers, “Black Water” – An absolute classic, sung by Patrick Simmons.
  • R.E.M., “Find The River” – Another mellow track but this one is absolutely stunning in it’s beauty.
  • Billy Joel, “River Of Dreams” – I was never a big fan of this track, but after I put this playlist together this is the song that stuck in my head.
  • Van Morrison, “You Don’t Pull No Punches, But You Don’t Push The River” – One of those wonderful epic Van tunes. This may be my favorite track on here.
  • Styx, “Boat On The River” – Any more if I hear Styx, it’s got to be a Tommy Shaw song to keep my interest.
  • J.J. Cale, “River Boat Song” – On this list I’ve got J.J. collaborating with Clapton, Clapton doing one of his songs and now I gotta include him doing a song on his own.
  • The Doors, “Yes, The River Knows” – Fabulous middle period Doors.
  • Bruce Springsteen, “The Big Muddy” – “Waist deep in the big muddy, You start out standing but end up crawlin’…” Sounds about right.
  • John Mellencamp, “To The River” – Rootsy, mid period Mellencamp.
  • Joe Walsh, “Rivers (Of The Hidden Funk)” – A bit of a reach here, but I’m going to see Joe in November at a benefit for Veterans. I had to include it.
  • Bruce Springsteen, “Trouble River” – Rocking song from 18 Tracks. 
  • Bob Dylan, “High Water (For Charley Patton)” – Great, bluesy, late period Dylan. And it even includes a Kansas City reference.
  • Paul Simon, “The Riverbank” – From the wonderful Stranger To Stranger. 
  • The Byrds, “Ballad Of Easy Rider” – I was late to the Byrds bandwagon but this is yet another winner from them.
  • Lowell George, “Find A River” – Lowell’s only solo album outside of Little Feat. Another guy we lost too soon.
  • The Band, “The River Hymn” – From the oft maligned Cahoots. I should have included it on my list of albums only I like…
  • Johnny Cash, “Banks Of The Ohio” – Johnny back at the river’s edge with ill intent toward his woman. I tell you ladies, don’t go walking down by the river with Johnny… you won’t come back.
  • Van Morrison, “Every Time I See A River” – From the great, late period LP Keep Me Singing. 
  • Alison Krauss, “Down To The River To Pray” – I’m not a religious man but why not end on this wonderful prayer. What a voice!

Hopefully in these dark times, if you can’t afford to carve out a moment to sit and quietly listen to the river to take in it’s wisdom, perhaps this rock n roll will help instead. Especially if you pour a nice tumbler to keep you warm on brisk autumnal evenings. If I missed a great river track, drop it in the comments… I’m like Siddhartha, I’m always searching.

Cheers! Take care of each other out there, it’s getting scary.

Playlist: Songs About… Talking

~ Kenneth Corsini ~ 2 Comments

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“For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals
Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination
We learned to talk” – Stephen Hawking with Pink Floyd, “Keep Talking”

When you think about it, it really is a miracle that we can all communicate by talking to each other. And while that may separate us from the animals as Stephen Hawking suggested, my wife’s cat certainly chews her ear off… they have whole conversations, back and forth. They probably understand each other better than my wife and I. The fact that there are so many languages across the planet and yet we can all still communicate remains a miracle in my mind.

I’ll admit that I think the ability to talk to each other is something that has seriously eroded over the last 20 years or so. This isn’t me being “the old man yells at cloud” guy, suggesting it’s all millennial’s fault. I used to pick up the phone and call my old friends to catch up. That’s been replaced by a quick text every now and then. We have this incredible tool that, as Dumbledore said, “can wound or just as quickly heal,” and we don’t use it as much. It’s so easy to read into a text… connotation vs denotation for you English majors out there… The “gift of gab” seems to be a lost art these days. Although if you asked the Rock Chick she’d probably tell you I never shut up. When I met her and her daughter I used to joke that I’d fallen into a tribe of mutes. I guess I’ve always just been of the – why use a sentence when a paragraph is so much fun – school of thought.

Of course I wasn’t always a big talker. I was so shy as a little kid, that if my mom sent my brother and I into the grocery store to purchase something and we couldn’t find it and needed to ask the clerk where it was, I’d have to have my brother talk to clerk. The thought of speaking to someone filled me with trepidation but my brother was fearless. Of course over the years I became overly talkative and my brother became a man of few words. For me, the key to finding my voice was…yes, whiskey. Booze loosened up my tongue, for better or for worse.

Now that we’re into the holiday season – Thanksgiving is under our belts and we’re headed into the big “H”olidays – we’re going to have to talk to that most intimidating of groups… family. I was thinking of all the pitfalls of those discussions when that Pink Floyd track, mentioned above, popped into my head. Maybe we’d have less conflict if we all just started speaking to each other with a little less judgement and intrusiveness. Then I suddenly realized, there are a lot of songs about talking…

As I usually do, I began to compile a list… on my phone, on cocktail napkins, or whatever else I could use to capture a tune. Ironically, this playlist probably has more female vocalists than my usual playlists. Maybe women are better than men at talking, the females in my tribe aside. The songs on this list cover the gamut from a whisper to a scream (or more likely a shout), from talk between lovers – mostly ones that are breaking up – to talking to yourself, from songs begging someone to talk to you and songs begging you to “don’t speak.” As we listen we’ll wade through rumors, lies and a little bit of shouting…but hopefully it’ll be fun! As usual, the songs range from hard rock to folky ballads. I’m just trying to put a song you haven’t heard in a while back in your ear… or better yet turn you onto something you’ve never heard. The list is on the dreaded Spotify, with my pithy comments on each track below.

  1. Pink Floyd, “Keep Talking” – From the David Gilmour led Pink Floyd-era… sage advice… keep talking, it’s what separates us from the animals (see above quote). Well, that and those little paper cocktail napkins that prevent rings on the bar top.
  2. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Universally Speaking” – “Universally speaking, I win in the long run…” Kiedis’ lyrics always sound like he’s hitting on some lady in a dive bar.
  3. Tracy Chapman, “Talkin’ Bout A Revolution” – From her fabulous debut album.
  4. Harry Nilsson, “Everybody’s Talkin'” – From the great movie Midnight Cowboy.
  5. The Band, “We Can Talk” – “Well, we could try to reason, but you might think it treason…”
  6. The Romantics, “Talking In Your Sleep” – Also, naturally, on our Playlist: Songs About Sleeping.
  7. The Isley Brothers, “Shout, Pt. 1 & 2” – Yes, this is the song they used (a cover version) in Animal House…since also covered by everybody from Tom Petty to Billy Joel. I love this version.
  8. Lucinda Williams, “People Talkin'” – Old school country-rock song about people talkin’ smack behind two lover’s backs…
  9. Fleetwood Mac, “Little Lies” – I read a reviewer who said this song is like a recovered drunk asking for a drink… not a bad analogy. But it’s the late Christine McVie on vocals, so I couldn’t resist.
  10. The Tubes, “Talk To Ya Later” – These guys had a handful of hits… Nice way to say “goodbye.”
  11. Zebra, “Tell Me What You Want” – I loved this track when I was in college.
  12. The Beatles, “I Want To Tell You” – Great track about having so much to say to someone, in your head at least, and being tongue tied when they’re standing right in front of you. I think we’ve all been there.
  13. The Cars, “Don’t Tell Me No” – Well, who wants to hear “no” when “yes” can lead to so much fun.
  14. Ray Charles, “Talkin’ About You” – Ray Charles, the genius!
  15. Stevie Nicks, “Talk To Me” – Is it bad to admit that I had a college girlfriend who gave me this album my senior year, for this very song, because apparently I wasn’t “communicative?” Certainly she was mistaken?
  16. Chuck Berry, “I’m Talking About You” – I think the Stones did a cover of this Berry song.
  17. Van Halen, “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” – So few of us were talking about love back in the late 70s.
  18. Kiss, “Shout It Out Loud” – Sometimes you have to shout to be heard. Apparently for Kiss that was when they were partying.
  19. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Tell Me Baby” – “What’s your story?”
  20. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Stories We Could Tell – French TV” – For some reason this song now makes me think of my late friend Tom. “Oh, the stories we could tell…” indeed. From the newly released Long After Dark – Deluxe Edition.
  21. Pretenders, “Talk Of The Town” – Cool song from a cool band.
  22. April Wine, “Tellin’ Me Lies” – So many liars on this playlist… April Wine were big when I was in high school… at least on my local rock radio station.
  23. Lou Reed, “New York Telephone Conversation” – Lou reflecting on a shallow phone conversation…”I was sleeping, gently napping when I heard the phone, Who is on the other end talking? Am I even home?” Who hasn’t woken from a nap a little confused? Knowing Lou, he was probably on some heroin nod…
  24. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “You Tell Me” – The narrator of this song is peeved and ready for some straightforward conversation. God I miss Tom Petty.
  25. Cowboy Junkies, “Speaking Confidentially” – I got to see these guys play in a small venue…sublime.
  26. The Rolling Stones, “Tell Me Straight” – Great Keef song from Hackney Diamonds.
  27. Sonny Boy Williamson II, “Don’t Start Me To Talkin'” – It’s a long story, but there were actually two Sonny Boy Williamsons… This track was inconceivably covered by the Doobie Brothers. I like this original.
  28. The Black Keys, “Tell Me Lies” – This track curls around my head like a smooth, slinky snake. Much like the lies he’s asking for.
  29. Joe Walsh, “I’ll Tell The World About You” – Early Walsh with Barnstorm… great deep track.
  30. Robert Palmer, “From A Whisper To A Scream” – This runs the gamut of speaking…from quiet to loud. The story of an uncaring lover realizing he’s lost her…
  31. Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, “Talk To Me” – Written by Springsteen.
  32. Paul McCartney, “She’s Given Up Talking” – A track I would have thought Paul would reserve for his side project, The Firemen. Eerie but hypnotic, I have always dug this one. The distorted voice grabs me.
  33. 10,000 Maniacs, “Don’t Talk” – I almost went with the Unplugged version, but then I’m partial to the Unplugged series.
  34. Billy Joel, “If I Only Had The Words (To Tell You)” – How many times have we been lost for words? We can all regret things not said as much as things said.
  35. Steve Winwood, “Talking Back To The Night” – I always loved this track. Who amongst us hasn’t done a little “talking back to the night?” I certainly did my time on the dark side…
  36. Greta Van Fleet, “Talk On The Street” – The proverbial “rumor mill” run amuck.
  37. The Yardbirds, “I’m Not Talking” – “I’m not talking and that’s what I have to say…” Jeff Beck on lead guitar.
  38. Big Head Todd & The Monsters, “Please Don’t Tell Her” – Big Head Todd trying to keep people from the verbal equivalent of passing notes in study hall…the caveman version of texting?
  39. Spoon, “Do I Have To Talk You Into It” – Depends on what we’re talking about here?
  40. Elvis Presley, “A Little Less Conversation” – The King asking for “a little more bite and a little less bark.” Oh yes, indeed. I used the original version vs. the remix.
  41. Peter Gabriel, “That Voice Again” – Probably the only song on So that wasn’t a monster hit…I’m exaggerating, but not by much.
  42. Ray Charles, “Tell All The World About You” – Ray returns to the list, not content to tell the world about you, but he’s gonna “tell all the world about you.” The world was listening, Ray.
  43. Crazy Horse, “I Don’t Want To Talk About It” – The original version. This song was later much more successfully covered by Rod Stewart. I love this Danny Whitten version. For someone who doesn’t want to talk about it, the narrator is pretty loquacious.
  44. Faces, “As Long As You Tell Him” – Rod Stewart saying farewell to his gal who has left him for another man. “Be sure you tell him, I was never your fool.” I probably was.
  45. E.L.O., “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” – We’ve all fallen for a sweet talkin’ woman…
  46. Jackson Browne, “The Next Voice You Hear” – No matter how bad it goes, listen to yourself. They say “self-talk” is good for you psychologically.
  47. Elton John, “Talking Old Soldiers” – Poignant portrait of an aging old soldier, “I’d stood at that bar with my friends who’ve passed away and drink three times the beer that I can drink today. Yes, I know what it feels to grow old.” From your lips to God’s ear, Elton.
  48. Missing Persons, “Words” – “What are words for, when nobody listens anymore?” True in the 80s, even more true now.
  49. George Thorogood & The Destroyers, “You Talk Too Much” – Were you to ask the Rock Chick, she would likely suggest this as my theme song. Or at the very least this would be her message song to me.
  50. Love And Rockets, “No New Tale To Tell” – Speaking of the Rock Chick, she turned me on to this great song.
  51. Faces, “Tell Everyone” – More wonderful Faces from Long Player.
  52. Bonnie Raitt, “Something To Talk About” – Oh indeed, let’s do give them something to talk about… I mean if the tongues are already wagging, let’s justify it.
  53. Don Henley, “Talking To The Moon” – I’ve only recently rediscovered Henley’s early solo catalog. This comes from his solo debut album, I Can’t Stand Still, which preceded Building The Perfect Beast. I’ve had way too many conversations with the moon…
  54. Eagles, “I Can’t Tell You Why” – The aforementioned Henley’s former band with Timothy B. Schmit on a beautiful lead vocal. Man, what a voice that guy has. The sad story of what may be the last conversation between two lovers.
  55. Allman Brothers Band, “Wasted Words” – What can I say about a song who’s first line is, “Can you tell me, tell me friend, just exactly where I’ve been?” I’ve been there before…
  56. The Police, “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” – “Poets, priests and politicians, Have words to thank for their positions, Words that scream for your submission…” Don’t blindly listen to anybody.
  57. Paul McCartney & Wings, “No Words” – Paul returns, apparently with no words to say…
  58. The Donnas, “Girl Talk” – I love the Donnas. Great rocker here.
  59. The Go-Go’s, “Our Lips Are Sealed” – Another song about rumors… But the Go-Go’s ain’t talkin’.
  60. The Black Crowes, “She Talks To Angels” – Great song about a junkie… I get a real “I see dead people” vibe from this track these days.
  61. The Rolling Stones, “Fast Talking, Slow Walking” – Great Stones deep track from Tattoo You (Super Deluxe Edition).
  62. ‘Til Tuesday, “Voices Carry” – I got an office job downtown one summer when I was in college (I was usually out working in the heat for my summer job). I have to admit, the lyric “Hush, hush, keep it down now, voices carry” hit a little close to home that summer. God, I hated that job.
  63. No Doubt, “Don’t Speak” – If I had a dollar for every time someone said this to me… Great breakup song. Tough conversations to have.
  64. Steely Dan, “Any Major Dude Will Tell You” – No matter how bad you think things are, any major dude will tell you, “Keep plugging along, it’ll get better.”
  65. Jack White, “Please God, Don’t Tell Anyone” – This song reminds me of a confession of sorts… From the great Entering Heaven Alive.
  66. Howlin’ Wolf, “Who’s Been Talking?” – Howlin’ Wolf has been out catting around, as my mom used to call it, his woman found out and he wants answers about who’s been talking? I wouldn’t cross the Wolf…he was known to carry a razor in his shoe.
  67. The Beatles, “Tell Me Why” – April Wine, mentioned above, covered this song. I think it made my Beatles & Stones cover songs list..
  68. R.E.M., “Talk About The Passion” – I never knew exactly what R.E.M. was talking about, but I certainly dig them.
  69. The Rolling Stones, “Tell Me” – Fabulous early Stones.
  70. Neil Young, “Tell Me Why” – Neil sounding so sad…
  71. Heart, “Tell It Like It Is” – I am known for being so truthful that I verge on bluntness. I just like to, as Heart sings, “Tell it like it is…” This isn’t as hard edged as some of their stuff, but I always kinda liked it.
  72. Tears For Fears, “Shout” – For the Rock Chick, who I would prefer never shouted.
  73. Cheap Trick, “Voices” – Great tune from a solid rock band. What’s not to love?
  74. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, “Last Kind Words Blues” – Why not end it on some last, kind words. Kind words are hard to come by these days. From the great Raising The Roof.

These are just the tracks that popped into my head. There are a lot more great “talking” tunes out there. The list started off with 150 songs but I cut it in half to save myself from carpel tunnel syndrome. If you’ve got a favorite that isn’t on here, put it in the comments and I’ll add it to the Spotify playlist. As I’m fond of saying, these playlists are “our” playlists, not so much mine.

There are a lot of tracks on this list about not having the words to say to someone. I really do feel the most regret for things I left unsaid. And that is coming from someone who regrets a lot of things that have come out of my mouth. Talk to each out there over the holidays…but mostly try to speak kindly to each other. If you haven’t talked to an old school chum in quite a while – give em a call. Distant cousin you haven’t talked to since that family reunion 20 years ago, pick up the phone. Once they get over the shock that their phone rings, they’ll be happy to hear from you.

Have a safe and wonderful holiday season. I miss those old school office parties, those were the best part of the season for me before I met the Rock Chick… so many drunk people to talk to, but those records are sealed.

Cheers!

Review: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, ‘Long After Dark (Deluxe Edition)’ – Revisiting The Oft Overlooked Gem…

~ Kenneth Corsini ~ 14 Comments

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I woke up this glorious fall morning thinking, “Man, it’s Friday, it’s beautiful outside, it just might be a perfect day?” Just when I thought today couldn’t get any better, I remembered Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers released Long After Dark (Deluxe Edition) today. The Deluxe Edition boasts 2 CDs, the first has the original album, the second disc is 45 minutes of previously unreleased music from that late 82/early 83 time period. There is also a Blu-ray but I typically don’t comment on those and in this case, I can’t… my physical copy hasn’t arrived yet. But as long time readers know… I’m focused on the tunes here at B&V. And have no fear, focusing on these bonus tracks is all I did today…well, besides some pesky work.

By the time of the release of Long After Dark, Petty & his Heartbreakers were on a white-hot streak. After two solid albums (the self titled debut in 1976 and You’re Gonna Get It in 1978), Petty released his commercial breakthrough in October of 1978 in Damn The Torpedoes. I remember going into my brother’s room and listening to that album and just staring at the picture of the blonde guy on the inner sleeve smokin’ a cigarette. Talk about making smoking look cool, but I digress. I recorded that album to cassette but didn’t buy it until I was in college… thus were my skinflint ways back then. I still don’t know where my brother was getting all this cash for vinyl back then? Petty’s follow up to that album was no less fabulous in 1981 with Hard Promises. Add to that, Stevie Nicks released her duet with Petty, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” which was written by Petty & his “first mate” Mike Campbell, and it was a high time for the Heartbreakers.

Needless to say, anticipation for Long After Dark was running high by late 1982. I’ve commented in these pages before about the curse of anticipation. That intense anticipation has caused many an artist to take a creative or stylistic left turn to avoid the crush of the expectations – Fleetwood Mac on Tusk after Rumours, or Prince on Around The World In A Day after Purple Rain – to name but a few. Petty didn’t really change things up on this album, it was still that jangle Byrds-ian rock n roll we’d all expected. He added some touches of synth, especially on the lead single “You Got Lucky,” but this was a straightforward Heartbreakers’ album to my ears.

One of the major changes the Heartbreakers did make was on bass guitar. Founding member bassist Ron Blair had quit the band, purportedly at the time because of burn out. It was rumored he went back to Florida to open a bathing suit shop. There are worse things than selling bikinis to sun worshiping spring breakers. Ron was replaced with Howie Epstein who not only took up the bass guitar but provided some wonderful harmony vocals. You can hear him all over this record. The rest of the band’s line up remained stable: Petty (guitar/vocals), Campbell (guitar/any other stringed instrument needed), Benmont Tench (incredible keyboards) and the irascible Stan Lynch (drums).

Sadly, back in ’82 Long After Dark was seen as a critical and commercial disappointment. It wasn’t a failure by any stretch of the imagination but it didn’t keep the Heartbreakers stunning momentum going. The common trope about this album is that the band had been on the record-tour-record-tour-rinse-repeat cycle so intensely for 6 years that they were just plumb worn out. The exhaustion from the constant touring led to sub par song writing, blah blah blah. The album was produced by Jimmy Iovine and he guided the band on some questionable choices in terms of what to include and what to leave out. “Keep A Little Soul” was a great song that Iovine talked them out of including that didn’t see the light of day until An American Treasure. One of Petty’s favorites, “Keeping Me Alive” met the same fate and wasn’t released until Petty’s first box set, the excellent Playback.

At the time, in ’82, I actually loved this album. It’s a dark little record chalk full of break up songs. I listened to his album a lot this week in anticipation of the Deluxe Edition, and I think it’s aged incredibly well. Probably better than Southern Accents, but then I’m quite fond of that record too. When this album came out I had graduated from high school and was in the midst of my first, rather disastrous college semester. I loved the first single “You Got Lucky” with it’s futuristic video.

Since I lived in a college town with the absolute worst radio station situation, MTV was how I first heard “You Got Lucky.” “Change Of Heart” was a spectacular rock song, and helped me through some tough times in the early part of 1983. “Between Two Worlds” was sort of a theme song for me that first college semester – I was trapped between my happy youth, where I was on top of the world as a senior, and the horror show it was when I became a freshman, on the bottom of life’s ladder. I was admittedly way too immature for what life was throwing at me, thankfully I had Tom Petty to comfort me. “Finding Out” is just a great, rocking Heartbreakers deep track. “Deliver Me” is another track that I think should have been a single. I love the riff on that song.

“We Stand A Chance” is another great overlooked rock song on this album, complete with what sounds like a talk box. “Straight Into Darkness” features great piano from Tench and was coincidently where my relationship at the time headed. “The Same Old You” has a raw guitar edge that I always liked. “I remember you back in ’72 with your David Bowie hair and your platform shoes…” “One Story Town” became a favorite jam of mine when I was exiled to Ft. Smith for obvious reasons. The only tune I didn’t connect with but have grown to appreciate is “Wasted Life.” It’s a nice goodbye.

I’ve enjoyed listening to the original album all week, but for me in these Deluxe Editions, it’s all about the bonus material. I know “Keep A Little Soul” has been previously released, but it’s exclusion feels like a misstep to me. It’d be nice to hear in the context of the bonus material here but that’s probably a nit.

There are some real gems in this bonus stuff. There’s a version of “Stories We Could Tell” from some French TV broadcast – I don’t hear an audience so maybe this was like the McCartney “live in the studio” stuff on One Hand Clapping that he recently released. Anyway, this track reminds me of my late friend Tom, “And if this all blows up and goes to hell, I can still see us sittin’ on the bed in some motel, listening to the stories we could tell…” Oh, the stories Tom and I could tell…but those records are sealed. The track was originally released in a live version on Pack Up The Plantation, but this version is definitive.

The previously unreleased track “Never Be You” is just a stunningly beautiful song. I can’t believe it’s been in the vaults this long. It’s worth the price of this whole thing. I can’t hear it enough. A version of “Turning Point” with different drums has been released but it’s a great track and I wonder why it wasn’t considered for inclusion. “Don’t Make Me Walk The Line” is a jaunty Heartbreakers rock song. “One On One” is a nice riff rocker. It sounds like earlier era Petty but I really like it too. The set ends with the Heartbreakers covering perhaps the greatest garage rock song ever, the Troggs’ “Wild Thing.” I know many have covered it, Jimi Hendrix, the Runaways, and X to name but a few but it’s great to hear the Heartbreakers, a great garage band themselves, take on the greatest garage rock song ever written.

There are a number of tracks from the French TV show and I’ll just say they’re nice to have but if you have any of Petty’s previously released versions on box sets, they’re not essential. There’s a version of “Keeping Me Alive,” “Straight Into Darkness,” “Between Two Worlds” and “Finding Out” that fall into that category. There’s a longer version of “Heartbreakers Beach Party” that’s a fun novelty. There’s also a different version of “Ways To Be Wicked” recorded in Denver that is interesting.

Overall this is a great look back to an oft overly criticized album. It was a good album back in ’82, despite all the expectations dragging it down, and it’s even better on the ears now. Again, if you don’t have any of Petty’s big box sets the stuff from the French TV show will be new and fascinating to you. I didn’t mean to make it sound meh, it’s just I’ve heard it all before in another form. The other stuff from “Stories We Could Tell,” “Never Be You,” through “Wild Thing” are great additions to the wonderful Petty canon.

The folks down at the Petty archives are really doing some nice work. I’d advise all fans of Petty, especially the ones who might have overlooked this great album to check it out, post haste!! I can see pouring a strong one later and entertaining the Rock Chick with my stunning rendition of “Never Be You.”

Cheers!

“Looks like we finally found the turning point, Oh me, oh my, Looks like it’s time for me to kiss it goodbye, yeah kiss it goodbye…”

Neil Young, ‘Archives Volume III 1976-1987’ – A Box Set As Messy As The Era It Covers

~ Kenneth Corsini ~ 10 Comments

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I think I’ve mentioned already, these box sets are going to kill me. Pete Townshend released his 14 disc live box and one of my perennial favorites the Faces put out a box with all of their BBC live performances on it that stretched over 8 discs. I’ve spent a lot of time listening to these gargantuan sets over the last month or so… but I don’t mean to complain. Who else but your intrepid blogger would immerse himself in this music and report back to you?  Anyway, not to be outdone, Neil Young (also a big favorite down here at B&V) put out a 17 disc box (with 5 Blu-ray discs in it’s “Super-Deluxe” version). While I’ve gone a while between posts, it takes quite a bit of time to listen to 17 discs of Neil Young. It takes a long time to listen to 17 discs of anybody and again, I love Neil Young. Of course, a drinking excursion this weekend in Wichita, Kansas to see my old college roommate Drew didn’t help move things forward much… you haven’t lived until you’re drinking craft beer at a dive bar listening to blue grass in Wichita, Kansas.

I was really looking forward to Archives Vol 3 1976 to 1987 as I absolutely loved Archives Volume 2 (1972 to 1976). Archives 2 covered one of my favorite periods of Neil’s storied career, the vaunted “Ditch Trilogy.” Neil was distraught over the death of a couple of friends and used that despair to create some of his most compelling music. Archives 3 has a much more daunting task. It covers eleven years instead of just four, which explains why this box is 17 discs instead of the last box’s 10 discs. And arguably, the years 1976 to 1987 were tumultuous years for Young. The back end of the 70s saw the Stills-Young Band collaboration with his old buddy Stephen Stills. American Stars N’ Bars was pieced together with an entire side made up of leftover tracks he hadn’t released yet but had recorded years earlier but was still a solid album. There were triumphs like 1978’s Comes A Time, the momentous Rust Never Sleeps (and of course the companion piece, Live Rust) both from 1979, Hawks And Doves in 1980 was also partly pieced together with older, unreleased tracks but still fun and finally Re*Act*or with Crazy Horse in 1981 was uneven but still solid. But in 1982 Neil jumped to Geffen Records and things get, well, dicey.

The era of 1982 to 1987 is perhaps Neil’s roughest era. Trans (1982’s baffling robotic vocal experiment), Everybody’s Rockin’ (1983’s ill advised rockabilly genre exercise), Old Ways (1985’s confusing country album which saw Geffen sue Neil for recording “unrepresentative” albums), and finally 1986’s Landing On Water which landed on my “Most Disappointing Albums” list saw an almost unprecedented commercial slide for Young. What none of us really understood at the time, Neil had a second song, Ben, with cerebral palsy. He was in intensive 15 hour therapy sessions learning how to communicate with his son which is why some of the songs on Re*Act*or had such repetitive lyrics. Rather than say to Geffen, “Hey, David, I need some family time off,” Neil just kept putting out albums every year or so and one has to think maybe his heart wasn’t in it.

However, I thought that tumultuous era with so many failed albums would make as compelling a box set as Archives 2 had been. Neil uses these box sets to retell and reshape his story. He combines released stuff with unreleased and live recordings to better explain what he was getting at. Or at least redeem periods of his career that his previously released albums/songs might not be able to do. Nobody’s gonna look back at Everybody’s Rockin’ and think, “Yeah, we shouldn’t have panned that album.” I was hoping for a ton of unreleased stuff, maybe if only demo’s or acoustic early versions of songs that sort of got away from Neil in the studio. There’s some of that – and some great live stuff – but not as much as I wanted. Of course, I’ve talked about the poisonous effect of “expectations” before. There were also sequencing decisions that I found frustrating along with the usual, “Why was this included and that not included,” but I’ll expound on that later. Don’t get me wrong, this is still a great box set but man it’s a gutsy one.

Before I delve into the discs, I have to comment on the “Raps” Neil includes. Apparently Neil forgot there’s such a thing as liner notes, so he’s recorded brief segments spread out through this box – something he hadn’t done previously – where he explains some of the background, who he was recording with etc. I found these “Raps” to be utterly unnecessary and frankly annoying. Sigh. Also, in the interest of transparency, I bought the 17-disc edition, and didn’t buy the “Super Deluxe” with the 5 Blu-ray discs. I think that was a tactical error on my part. I think the live stuff on some of those blu-rays would have improved the experience exponentially but hey, even I have a budget and couldn’t stretch for the “Super Deluxe” in this case.

Disc 1 and 2, “Across The Water” re-mines the same shows as the last disc of Archives 2, “Odeon Budokan” which was a shelved live album from 1976. In this case we get a whole disc from London’s Hammersmtih Oden and a whole disc from Budokan. This is great live Neil Young & Crazy Horse, and I can see myself coming back to this, but at the same time I was thinking, why not some live Stills-Young Band? Maybe nobody hit “record” on that short tour… which is a nit in terms of complaining, I know. The first disc opens with the saddest version of “Let It Shine” you’ll ever hear. There are two versions of “Cortez The Killer” that I will never get tired of hearing. The solo’ing here, being Frank Sampedro’s first tour with Crazy Horse is killer. And beyond that first track, Neil sounds like he’s having fun.

Disc 3, “Hitchhiking Judy” was a bit confounding. I bought Hitchhiker years ago, knowing I’d probably be buying it again in a future box. I didn’t buy the live/acoustic Songs For Judy as again, I figured it’ll be in Archives 3. Instead of including both in their entirety, Neil provides a few tracks from each. And there is no Chrome Dreams here which I also expected (although those tracks were recorded earlier). He also included the tracks he recorded with the Band on their Last Waltz live album and again, why?

Disc 4, “Snapshot In Time” features Neil working through new material in a demo/rehearsal setting with Linda Ronstadt and his then girlfriend Nicolette Larson inventing harmony vocals on the spot. Cool, but will I ever return to this? Disc 5, “Windward Passage” revisits his period with the Ducks, which was also previously released. The Ducks were a pickup band from Santa Cruz and they played great country-rock. I do like the version of “Sail Away” here, but found most of it “meh.”

Disc 6 “Oceanside Countryside” is chock full of unreleased versions of mostly acoustic, some country-rock songs. Nicolette is back to provide harmony vocals on three tracks. This disc is one of the gems of the box for me. We’ve all heard these songs before, but not these versions. Neil plays tunes until he finds the right version. Disc 7, “Union Hall” is a live performance featuring some songs from Comes A Time. it’s a pretty raw/bootleg quality recording. Neil’s voice is way in the back, hard to hear. It’s loose and interesting but not essential either.

Disc 8 & 9, “Boarding House Part 1 & 2,” is another gem. It’s a live acoustic performance from 1978 in San Francisco. I wish I had the blu-ray for this one. The only problem, as disc 2 of the riveting performance begins he drops a studio version of him and Devo playing “Hey Hey My My (Into The Black)” that totally throws off the listening experience. It’s jarring. Put it at the end of the performance not smack in the middle. Beside that complaint this set is worth the price of admission in this box.

Disc 10, “Sedan Delivery” is all previously released stuff from Rust Never Sleeps and LIve Rust save for a great little tune, “Bright Sunny Day.” It’s great and covers one of Neil’s best albums, if you don’t already own it all. Disc 11, “Coastline” covers the country stuff recorded for Hawks & Doves, so its previously released as well, but if you don’t have that album, nice to have. We also get a lot of tracks from Re*Act*or and I have to say, those tracks are better than I remembered them to be but who doesn’t love “Surfer Joe and Moe The Sleaze”? I also especially liked hearing “Opera Star” again.

Disc 12 “Trans/Johnny’s Island” highlights the sequencing issues I spoke of earlier. The first half is 6 tracks from Trans. Nobody needs that many songs from Trans. Then, after an infuriating “Rap,” Neil takes us to the unreleased album Johnny’s Island which was a highlight for me. I don’t have much bootleg Neil and I know the album was bootlegged, so it was new to me. The tracks on Johnny’s are acoustic based, with touches of synth that remind me of, yes, that Jimmy Buffett vibe.

Disc 13, “Evolution” is a bit of a mess. It starts with some alt versions of tracks from Old Ways, shifts into Everybody’s Rockin’ for a confounding SIX tracks of rockabilly, and then goes to four tracks that are all synth and drum machines. This disc can give you whiplash but stay until the end for the definitive version of “Razor Love,” a song not released for a number of years in a completely different version.

Disc 14, “Touch The Night” is largely live stuff and includes tracks that would appear on Landing On Water amongst others. They turn “Touch The Night” into a “Cortez The Killer” style jam and it’s awesome. Disc 15, Grey Riders” is a country thing that I actually really enjoyed. I will probably come back to this disc as much as some of the other live stuff like “Boarding House 1 & 2.” It’s Neil with the International Harvesters and I have sadly ignored this part of his career. Disc 16 “Road Of Plenty” is full of Landing On Water tracks and I have to admit, I kind of liked those songs all these years later. It ends with a few songs that would end up in some form on Life with Crazy Horse. I’m a little bummed there wasn’t more from Life on this box.

Finally, Disc 17 “Summer Songs” is another one of the gems of this set. It’s a bunch of acoustic demos – albeit highly produced demos – that Neil describes as sketches. There’s a few songs he’d put on the CSNY album American Dream, including an acoustic version of the title track, and a few that wouldn’t see life for another couple of years on Freedom. It was a great way to end this enormous amount of music.

Yes, there are things missing here. I’d have liked to hear more Life, or better yet I wish he’d included audio of the 1986 tour with Crazy Horse (documented on one of the blu-ray discs), or maybe all of Songs For Judy but with a box this big, what do you leave in, what do you leave out? He didn’t make the decisions I would have, but they are his decisions to make. I really like this box, despite my harsh criticisms, but you really have to pick and choose the material. Every disc has something to like and equally, something you might skip.

This is the kind of box set you really need to stream and perhaps build your own sequence/playlist out of the highlights. It’s too much for one sitting, hell, it’s too much for 8 sittings, but it was worth wading through. This is an unflinching look at a period that saw some of Neil Young’s best and yes, some of his worst. Put in context it makes me like a lot of it better (Re*Act*or, Landing On Water) but some I just can’t get into (Trans, Everybody’s Rockin’) but it makes for a fascinating listen.

As they say at any large buffet, sample what you like, skip the jello. Enjoy this one, it takes a while.

Cheers!

LP Lookback: Don Henley’s Masterpiece ‘Building The Perfect Beast’ Turns 40

~ Kenneth Corsini ~ 9 Comments

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“Meanwhile, have another beer, What would we do without all these jerks anyway? Besides, all our friends are here…” – Don Henley, “Sunset Grill”

As usual, I was surprised to see that Don Henley’s masterpiece second solo album, Building The Perfect Beast will turn 40 years old next month in November. The first single from the album, the iconic “Boys Of Summer,” came out 40 years ago this month, October 26, 1984. I bought this album shortly after it came out and still own that vinyl. It was my first Henley solo purchase and oddly this is my first post about Don Henley on B&V which is long overdue. Oh man, I can remember sitting alone in my room in college on a fine fall evening and listening to “Boys Of Summer” while sipping whiskey (alas, probably with Coca-Cola or 7-Up in it…youth really is wasted on the young) and pretending to be Bogart in Casablanca. Alas, I was like most people, by the time you reach college you understand the heartbreak and the longing to go back in time that Henley captures so perfectly on that song. The video was huge. I remember when it won an award Henley said the director “made the south of California look like the south of France”… indeed.

It has been amazing to me this year to look back on all the great albums that came out in 1984. It may not have been 1971, but as I compiled this year’s 1984 Playlist, I realized it was a helluva year. We had landmark albums from Springsteen (Born In The U.S.A.), Van Halen (1984), Prince (Purple Rain), and The Cars (Heartbeat City) that I’ve already touched on. I’ve been meaning to post about Henley’s Building The Perfect Beast as well, but this album just always reminds me of fall. Maybe it was the line, “Nobody on the road, nobody on the beach, I feel it in the air, the summer’s out of reach…” Now that the calendar has officially jumped to autumn, it’s time to talk about this great album on it’s 40th anniversary.

The late 70s and early 80s were a transitional time. For those of us too young to have jumped on the bandwagon of all those great 70s bands, we were able to catch the wave of all the guys going solo when those bands broke up. Zeppelin had broken up – although I got in on the In Through The Out Door release) and we’d all jumped on the Robert Plant solo train. The Who saw both Daltrey and Townshend going solo prior to their first breakup. Fleetwood Mac didn’t break up but Stevie Nicks had already been very successful in her solo career with Lindsey Buckingham being less successful in his. The guys in Pink Floyd – Roger Waters and David Gilmour – were releasing solo albums (although much to Waters’ chagrin, Pink Floyd did reunite without him). Jagger slipped out his solo debut somewhere in there. Sabbath had seen both Ozzy go solo and then Dio follow suit.

The Eagles were also a part of that transition. They broke up after The Long Run (released in 1979) and Eagles Live (1980) that documented that final tour (well, final at the time). My buddy Brewster, much as he’d done for Springsteen’s tour behind The River, snuck off with West Coast Bob for the Eagles’ The Long Run show. I had to wait until the tour for Hell Freezes Over to see them, but I digress. Bygones. Since I was too young to be purchasing each of the prior Eagles’ albums – I only earned so much mowing lawns – I had purchased, like most people, that blue, single-disc Eagles’ Greatest Hits album. I just about wore that thing out because unlike The Dude in the movie The Big Lebowski, I dug the Eagles. The Rock Chick, however, does not. Although, having professed my love of the Eagles, I didn’t rush out and buy Glenn Frey’s first solo album or Henley’s first album I Can’t Stand Still. I’d heard and liked “Johnny Can’t Read,” and especially “Dirty Laundry” from that debut but that didn’t send me to the record store. I think I still harbored the belief that they’d get back together. I was right, they did get back together, it only took 15 years longer than I’d anticipated.

For Building The Perfect Beast, Henley collaborated again with guitarist Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar as he’d done on his solo debut. Danny had been a part of the legendary L.A. session band The Section. He’d worked with James Taylor, Carole King, Warren Zevon and Jackson Browne to name but a few. Eventually I think he worked with Neil Young as well. When I listened to I Can’t Stand Still I could still hear that Eagle-esque sound from Henley. There was some dabbling in synth and pop song construction but for the most part, if you listen to that album, you’d come out saying, “Yeah, that’s a guy from the Eagles.” Kortchmar and Henley came dashing into the new decade of the 80s full bore on Building. There are more synths here. While I’ll fully admit the sound and production on this album is very dated – you’d be hard pressed not to immediately guess it was an 80s record – the songs have aged extremely well. It helped that Henley collaborated with several members of Tom Petty’s band including Mike Campbell, Ben Tench, and Stan Lynch. Campbell co-wrote “Boys Of Summer.”

The album, almost like those old Rod Stewart albums in the early 70s was divided into two almost distinct halves. The first side of the album was all about love and the loss there of. The second side was more political in nature, but in a mostly subtle way. Henley had already dipped his toe into the “socially conscious” pond with songs like “Dirty Laundry” about the media and “Johnny Can’t Read” about the education system. It was like side one of Building was “New Kid In Town” meets “Tequila Sunrise” and side two was “The Last Resort” meets “Out On The Border,” but with synths and drum machines.

As a young romantic boy, side one pulled me in immediately. When I heard Mike Campbell’s guitar figure on that song it grabbed me by the collar The lyrics portray a yearning that only an Eagle could conjure. Those guys had that whole jaded but longing thing down like on “After The Thrill Is Gone.” The “I’m broken hearted but I still hope she’ll come back” thing. “Not Enough Love In The World” is a devastating song in my ears. It’s a perfect farewell song. “I’m not easy to live with – I know that it’s true, you’re no picnic either, babe, and that’s one of the things I love about you” could be my mantra to this day. My favorite deep track is probably the Kortchmar penned track “You’re Not Drinking Enough.” “You still want to hold her, you must not be drinking enough.” That song is so on brand for B&V. “Man On A Mission” is a great little country rocker of a tune. “You Can’t Make Love” is another rumination on love gone wrong and I soaked all of it up.

Side 2 on the album is where we get the more political bent from Henley. My vinyl copy didn’t have the “bonus track” that was only on the cassette, “A Month Of Sundays” about the farm crisis in America. It’s a great, piano driven track that I’ve always loved. It was one of the first MP3’s I purchased. “All She Wants To Do Is Dance,” which made my Wallflowers Playlist, was more than a frustrated lover’s tune, it was about instability in places around the world. “They said, “Don’t come back here Yankee,” but if I ever do, I’ll bring more money…” One of my other favorite songs on the album is “Sunset Grill.” Of course, I lived on Sunset Avenue at the time… The song about urban decay and rummies hanging around in a bar always makes me smile. One of my roommates and I used to always jokingly say, after bagging on a social situation, “Besides, all our friends are here.” “Building The Perfect Beast” is probably the only swing and a miss on this record for me… “Driving With Your Eyes Closed” does make the point that “women are the only works of art.” So true…

The album ends on one of the most hopeful notes I’ve ever heard on any album with “Land Of The Living.” After all the heartbreak of side 1, and the fraught political landscape laid out on side 2, we have this gorgeous ballad/midtempo thing extolling the hope of a new love. “And I was slipping away, you came and pulled me through, I wanna stay in the land of the living with you.” Despite all the bad stuff that may happen, you can point to that song and know that good things will always come around again. I know they did for me, literally weeks later. We all go through some dark times, but please, stay here in the land of the living with us, it’ll all pass.

This is simply one of the greatest albums of 1984, and of the 80s in general. I loved his follow up The End Of The Innocence, which he took forever to record, but this one is my Henley pick. Maybe that’s just for sentimental reasons. He’s such a fabulous lyricist. There are quotable lines on almost every song on this album.  I still find myself sitting up on fine fall evenings with some whiskey (no soda in it, thank God) and listening to the songs on this record but feeling a whole lot different than I did 40 years ago. Hopefully you do too!

Gonna be a crazy fall. Take care of each other out there. Cheers!

Review: HBO Documentary ‘Stax: Soulsville USA’ – Spectacular Viewing, “Getting It All Together”

~ Kenneth Corsini ~ 15 Comments

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This past weekend I finally got around to watching the superb HBO Documentary, Stax: Soulsville USA. It’s been out since – I think – late May but with travel and work I just now got around to watching all four episodes. And admittedly, I’m on a strange binge watch odyssey of every season of Bravo’s Top Chef for reasons even I am not sure of…it may have something to do with Padma Lakshmi…but I digress. While I will readily admit that I am too young to remember Stax Records – they started before I was born and closed when I was in early, early grade school – their impact is such that even I’ve heard about Stax.

The Stax label always carried a certain cool cache for me. Stax wasn’t only a record label, they were a sound. While the Stax label specialized in soul and R&B they are still, for me, a cornerstone of rock n roll. The roster of artists on that label are some of the greatest of all time. Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and Isaac Hayes (before he was the Chef on South Park) are just a few of the artists who recorded on Stax. The house band in the early days were the incomparable Booker T & the MG’s: Booker Jones (keyboards), Al Jackson (drums), Steve Cropper (guitar) and Duck Dunn (bass). The Stax horn section was second to none. They were the standard for Southern soul music. While they remained a small, Memphis-based label their impact and influence on music was way more far reaching.

The first episode follows James Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton who formed Stax (the combination of their last names) in the late 50s. They found a cheap, old theater to rent but it was on the Black side of Memphis. They began trying to cut country songs but soon, influenced by the local neighborhood and Estelle’s relationships with the kids in her record store, pivoted to gospel and soul. This was in an era of heavy segregation in the South and yet Stax was this oasis of racial harmony, Black and white people who’d come together to make spectacular music. Memphis was rife with racial disharmony, MLK was a big presence in town organizing and that backdrop is covered in full.

Stax first star was Carla Thomas, who also performed with her dad, Rufus. Pretty soon they realized the house band they had was pretty kick ass and released Booker T & the MGs big hit, “Green Onions.” Eventually Otis Redding wandered in from Atlanta. As they searched for bigger labels to partner with they eventually they settled on a deal with Atlantic who sent Sam & Dave down to record at Stax. They ended up with several hits including “Soul Man.” Eventually they hired former DJ Al Bell as the promotions guy but he eventually became part and then full owner. Al was getting the music onto Black radio but couldn’t crack white radio in the U.S. When they realized that they were popular in Europe courtesy of Pirate Radio, they organized a tour of Stax artists in the UK… a young Rod Stewart happened to see Otis Redding perform and it changed his life…

Episode 2 centers on first, the tragic loss of Otis Redding and most of his backing band, the Bar-Kays. Then, MLK is assassinated in Memphis, at the Lorraine Motel where many of the Stax artists had stayed. It rocked the whole company. Then, Jerry Wexler (ultimate bad guy) moved in and took advantage of James Stewart and basically cleared out his entire catalog by swindling Stewart on their contract. It was truly a low point for Stax.

Epsiode 3 brings us to Al Bell’s energized comeback for Stax. In house producer Isaac Hayes decided to step out from the producers chair and into the studio for his own records. First, Presenting Isaac Hayes and then, his masterwork, Hot Buttered Soul. I’ve always loved Isaac Hayes. Stax’s resurrection was complete with Isaac won not only a Grammy but an Oscar for “Shaft.” But alas, Stax signed a contract with CBS Records and Clive Davis and history was to repeat itself in terms of big labels…

Episode 4 we see Stax pushing out to the West Coast and putting on the big music festival (which was filmed for a documentary which reminded me of Questlove’s Summer Of Soul ), Wattstax which was at the time the largest non-Civil Rights gathering of Black Americans in the U.S. It was to commemorate the anniversary of the Watts Riots. What a day that festival must have been!! Eventually CBS sacked Clive and the new execs completely changed the terms of the agreement they had with Stax. They cut off royalties and eventually drove Stax into the ground. What a damn shame.

I will say, I went from knowing Stax as a label and basically a “sound” to knowing much much more about the Stax Records story and the brilliant people behind it by watching this documentary series. I only wish they would have hung on but such is the treacherous nature of the music business. I liked this documentary so much I recommended it to my hair stylist who is also a drummer. This was just great viewing. The music they play is alone worth watching but the story and the people involved make for a fascinating ride.

Any label that brought us the incomparable Otis Redding should be celebrated… period.

I urge all you rock n rollers to check this one out. It’s “a bad mother…” “Shut your mouth,” “I’m just talkin’ about” Stax. Cheers!

LP Lookback: Billy Joel’s ‘Turnstiles’ Released May of 1976 Turns 48 This Month, We Celebrate The Classic LP

~ Kenneth Corsini ~ 4 Comments

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“You know those lights were bright on Broadway… That was so many years ago,” Billy Joel, “Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)”

I’m not big on social media although it would probably help B&V if I was more active. Truth be told I only joined a few platforms so I could keep up with the rock n roll artists and bands that I like. You apparently don’t exist if you’re not on social media and despite what my family would say, I’m not a caveman, so I’m out there. It was on social media this week that I saw an interview with Billy Joel about his classic fourth album, Turnstiles, where Joel talked about the album turning 48 this May. Oddly, ever since I’d posted about Joel’s first new song in decades “Turn The Lights Back On” earlier this year, I’ve been thinking about Turnstiles.

I didn’t really get into Billy Joel until my roommate Drew turned me onto him when I was in college. I was more of a Springsteen guy. Although my parents actually owned Piano Man on vinyl and they owned precious few albums. My brother was a fan and owned Glass Houses and I remember going into his room in high school to listen to that album and thinking it was a damn good record. Later, Drew turned me onto several of those great 1970s era Joel albums like The Stranger and 52nd Street. I don’t know what kept me away from Billy Joel until college… maybe it was the piano. I always thought you needed a guitar to be rock n roll, much like the Rock Chick insists the Hammond B3 organ doesn’t belong in rock n roll…I’m working on that. Clearly I was wrong way back when. 

One of the first albums that Drew turned me onto was Joel’s fabulous fourth album Turnstiles. Although at the time I think we all thought that was his third album. Billy’s first album, Cold Spring Harbor, was largely forgotten and out of print only to be re-released in ’83. It had been mastered incorrectly at the wrong speed and sank like a stone upon it’s release despite boasting the song “She’s Got A Way.” That was in 1971 and to get out of his record label Billy moved to L.A. and started playing piano in a cocktail lounge under the name Billy Martin which ended up being the inspiration for quite a song… 

It wasn’t until 1973’s aforementioned Piano Man that the world would hear from Billy Joel again. Of course, the title track was a hit. There was a lot of pressure for a follow up and Joel released Streetlife Serenade in 1974. While I always considered that album a bit “under-baked,” I always liked “Los Angelenos” and “The Entertainer.” Both of those albums were recorded in Los Angeles and Joel was backed on the albums by studio musicians instead of his touring band. Billy grew up on Long Island and is a New Yorker to the core. When Gerald Ford refused to use Federal funds to bail out a bankrupt New York City, Billy in L.A., saw the famous headline from 1975, “Ford To City: Drop Dead.” At that point Joel decided, it’s time to go home to NY.

Moving from Los Angeles to New York wasn’t the only change for Joel. He demanded to use his backing band instead of studio musicians for his next album. Actually he originally attempted the songs in Colorado backed by a few guys from Elton John’s backing band (Nigel Olsson, drums; Dee Murray, bass) but he wasn’t happy with the results. But back in New York, Joel took over production and let his band play – Russell Javors, Howie Emerson (guitars); Doug Stegmeyer (bass); and most importantly Liberty DeVito (drummer, extraordinaire). As Joel mentioned Turnstiles is a celebration of getting out of L.A., which Joel disliked, and returning to NY. When he said that in the interview I watched, I rushed to my turntable and listened through that lens and realized this album borders on a concept album it’s so focused on that theme.

I’ve always wondered why Turnstiles wasn’t Billy Joel’s big breakthrough album. I actually started considering this and was thinking it was his third album when I posted my Artists Who’s Third Album Was The Charm. Then I remembered Cold Spring Harbor. Anyway, this album has some of Billy Joel’s most iconic songs. “New York State Of Mind” is the heart of the whole, “I’m  home,” theme of this thing. Billy once said whenever he performs with Springsteen that it’s the song Bruce wants to perform. Another favorite of mine – which I think used to be Joel’s opener at concerts – is “Prelude/Angry Young Man.” I defy you to listen to that piano pounding intro and not stand up and scream, “Fuck yeah!” My absolute favorite track on the album is “Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)” (whose title has lost it’s “futuristic” vibe in 2024), an apocalyptic vision of the “future” where New York is evacuated. I’ll admit the definitive version is probably on Joel’s great live LP, Songs From The Attic.

Beyond those iconic tracks are a bunch of great deep tracks. “Say Goodbye To Hollywood” was covered by legend Ronnie Spector backed by the E Street Band. Seriously, check that version of the song out too. “Summer, Highland Falls,” is lyrically one of Joel’s best songs. I’ve always been fond of the line from that song, “They say that these are not the best of times, But they’re the only times I’ve ever known.” And there’s the song, “All You Wanna Do Is Dance,” about the struggles all young men have… that one made my Playlist: Songs About Dancing For Wallflowers, Like Me. “I’ve Loved These Days,” is actually another, more sarcastic farewell to L.A. Billy clearly did not love those L.A. days. “James” about more buttoned down, traditional white collar friend who played his life safe, is the only track that I’m not utterly fond of, but it’s not bad.

Turnstiles had all the ingredients for a breakthrough record? What went wrong? Yes, naturally… I have a theory. I think Billy Joel blew it in terms of the running order of the songs. He buries “New York State Of Mind” at the end of side 1 (talking vinyl). He buries “Prelude/Angry Young Man” and “Miami 2017” in the middle of side 2? I get it, to stay true to the theme he felt he had to start with “Say Goodbye To Hollywood,” but I would have opened with “Prelude/Angry Young Man” and then segued into “Miami 2017.” That would have been an opening punch. At the very least, move “I’ve Loved These Days” to the end – bookending the album with sarcastic goodbyes to L.A. – and move “James down behind the aforementioned “Prelude/Angry” and “Miami” to begin side 2. Those few adjustments would have completely changed the trajectory of this album, in my opinion.

My quibbles about the running order of the album aside, Turnstiles is the first great Billy Joel album. After that album he hit his stride. He didn’t put out a bad album until, really, River Of Dreams. Although admittedly, I’ve never been a fan of that “Uptown Girl,” “Tell Her About It” stuff… but a lot of people liked that record when it came out.

If you haven’t given Billy Joel’s Turnstiles a listen – or if you haven’t given it a spin for a long time – it’s absolutely time to pull this record out – on it’s birthday month no less – and turn it up loud. I’m not even from New York and he’s got me wanting to eat a slice of pizza and put on an “I Heart NY” shirt and tell a stranger to fuck off…which is likely a horrible characterization of a New Yorker. Billy Joel is such a great artists and we need to celebrate artists like him whenever we can. I just love this record…so why not celebrate with a listen today?

Cheers!

Review: Billy Idol Revisits His Landmark LP, 1983’s – ‘Rebel Yell – Expanded Edition’

~ Kenneth Corsini ~ 9 Comments

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Lately, I’ve been rather focused on the year 1984, having just done my playlist based on tracks from that big year in music, but with Billy Idol releasing Rebel Yell – Expanded Edition, I find myself turning back to 1983… which I thought I was done thinking about after last year’s Playlist: 1983. I’ve been looking forward to Rebel Yell – Expanded Edition since Billy released an outtake from those sessions, the Rose Royce cover “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore.” As I thought about Rebel Yell, I couldn’t help but come to the realization we’ve become pretty big Billy Idol fans around here at B&V over the last decade or so… we’ve seen him twice in concert in both Kansas City and Las Vegas and really enjoyed some of his more recent EPs like The Cage.

Of course, it wasn’t always this way – it took me a while to get into Billy Idol. His debut solo album came out the summer of 1982 and frankly, I didn’t discover Billy until I went to college that fall when I started seeing him on MTV. Billy had come out of the punk rock scene having been in Generation X and still looked the part – buzz cut, bleached blond hair, snarling lip, leather clothes. It may come as a surprise but for Midwest kids who grew up in the suburbs, we didn’t get a lot of exposure to punk. The only punk rock I ever heard was when 60 Minutes did a piece on punk in England in the late 70s… my father was so terrified at the prospect of punk “rubbing off” on me and my brother he threw himself on the television like it was a hand grenade… you’d have thought of a nude lady had popped up on the screen. When I got to college in Manhattan, Kansas the radio was abysmal – no rock n roll, just pop and country – and so my only exposure to Idol was on MTV. Rather than listen to the music and realize that “White Wedding,” “Hot In The City,” or “Dancing With Myself” (which wasn’t on the original album) were great rock n roll songs, we were all just hung up on that punk look. The skinny guy punching his fist in the air was too much for our suburban mind to wrap around… He rocked but he just didn’t have the long hair and spandex we were used to like say, David Lee Roth.

However, when his second album came out in 1983, the landmark Rebel Yell, even those put off by his appearance in the videos – and this may be the only case of a video hurting an artist with his rightful fan base – began to come around. I remember hearing the title track in the car, away from the video, and thinking, “Damn, that’s a great song.” I found out shortly after that from our new roommate Walt (name changed to protect the guilty), that Idol’s guitar player was named Steve Stevens – perhaps one of rock’s greatest underrated players. When “Eyes Without A Face” came out as a single, I began singing at inappropriate moments, at the top of my lungs, “Steal a car, go to Las Vegas, Ooh, gigolo pool…” prompting one of my bosses at the time to ask, “Steal a car? Vegas? What the fuck are you on?”

It was indeed our intrepid roommate Walt who finally turned me fully on to Idol. He sat me down and played “Blue Highway,” and something just clicked. I’d been so locked in musical spelunking from the 60s and 70s, I was blocking out music from “now.” I immediately taped Walt’s copy of the album from his cassette to a blank cassette. Years later I picked the album up on CD… and even later, just recently, on vinyl. It is an absolute masterpiece, there is not a bad song on the album.

The anthem of a title track is a heart thumper. The aforementioned “Eyes Without A Face” is the ultimate “not love” song. “Flesh For Fantasy” just shimmered out of the speakers. Idol came with that punk rock attitude, but he combined New Wave synths – and there are a ton of synths on this record – with Steve Stevens hard rock/classic rock guitar and found gold. Even the deep tracks like “Blue Highway” or “Do Not Stand In The Shadows” or “Crank Call” are just fantastic rock songs. The only track that isn’t a complete 10/10 might be “The Dead Next Door,” the atmospheric closer.

This Expanded Edition provides us with a bonus disc that has mostly demo’s of the songs on the album. There’s the aforementioned Rose Royce cover, “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” that’s just dynamite. I guess Madonna covered the song in 1984, which I didn’t know about… clearly I’m not a big Madge fan. There was some question as to why Idol didn’t include his version on Rebel Yell, but when you’ve got nine “cooking” originals, who needs a cover? Of equal interest to me was another outtake, an Idol/Stevens original “Best Way Out Of Here.” It’s another great song… a little funky in parts, but I could have seen it replacing “The Dead Next Door” as a closing track. There’s another track, “Motorbikin’ – Session Take” – which brings to mind the Montrose song “Bad Motor Scooter” – that reads as a “live in the studio” track. I wish they’d spent a little more time developing that little rocker, I kind of liked it.

Alas, most of the rest of the bonus material are demos. I’d have loved a live concert from this era. The demos may be of interest to some folks, and there are some interesting moments, but I doubt folks are going to want to pour over Billy Idol’s creative process the way Dylanologists pour over Dylan’s early versions of songs. The exception might be the two demos of “Flesh For Fantasy.” The demo version here is a fast, sped up track. It only shares the title/chorus with the version we all know and love from the album. Then there’s a version from a “session take” which shows they’d started to go from the faster version to the slinky version and back again… Again, some of the early demo versions have different lyrics, but I was impressed at how many of the demos represent a close-to-final vision for the songs. Idol and Stevens were certainly on a roll!

Regardless of having only a handful of gems on the bonus material – and they are gems – if you’ve never bought Rebel Yell this is a nice way to pick it up. After the two main outtakes – “Love Don’t Live Here” and “Best Way Out” – the rest of this is nice to have, not need to have. But Rebel Yell remains a spectacular album and those two tracks are ones fans will certainly want. The source album is so brilliant, I have to recommend this package – on CD so it’s affordable – to any Billy Idol fan. This album plays so well it’s like a greatest hits record. Turn this one up loud and pump your fist in the air, baby!

Cheers!

Playlist: We Look Back 40 Years To The Epic, Blockbuster Year, Rock N Roll In… 1984

~ Kenneth Corsini ~ 27 Comments

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We’re fond of constructing playlists here at B&V and have been publishing them pretty much since we started this blog. It wasn’t until three years ago that we did our first playlist built from rock n roll tied to a specific year, in that case it was 1971. What a landmark year for music that was! It was so much fun, the next year we did a playlist of rock n roll from 1972. And after that we’ve had this rolling 50 year-lookback playlist we do to kick off every year. It was when I was doing my 1972 and later my 1973 playlist that I realized looking back 40 years to the 80s would be fun too and ended up doing playlists for 1982 and 1983. I guess I need to circle back and do 1981 at some point, since I didn’t do it the year I did 1971, but I digress. We did 1974 to kick off this year and now seems as good a time as any to look back only 40 years to 1984.

Ah, 1984… It wasn’t the dystopian nightmare of George Orwell’s novel but it was a pretty uptight time. I was in college and was surrounded by some of the most uptight young adults in the history of college. Don’t get me wrong, I met a lot of kindred spirits in those days: Drew, RK, Walt, the accountant, and Stormin’ to name a few who I actually still mention in these pages. While 1984 the actual year looked nothing like 1984 the novel, the Reagan administration was doing everything they could to bring it about. It seems we’ve saved the mass surveillance, permanent warfare, “cult of personality” and doublepeak (and alternative facts) for today’s world. I seem to remember the women had extremely tall hair and wore leg warmers. But then again so did a lot of the rock stars. “Greed is good” was a mantra. There was the L.A. Olympics, sadly boycotted by the Russians. I knew a guy who participated in those Olympics… he introduced me to Belinda Carlisle once after a Go-Go’s concert, but I’ve already told that story. Sadly nothing in that meeting happened that could have made a VH1 Behind The Music episode.

Despite all that grim stuff, we still managed to have a really good time. The movies were exceptional that year. The original Ghostbusters remains one of my all-time favorite movies. Beverly Hills Cop was another great comedy with Eddie Murphy, perhaps his best flick. I also dug the latest installment of the Indiana Jones franchise. I seem to remember watching a lot of Miami Vice and Magnum PI on television. I think the 49ers started their NFL dynasty around that time, but I don’t like the 49ers so I don’t know. But the thing that really got us through 1984 was the rock n roll. What a year that was! It was no 1971, but man it was pretty epic.

When I think about the 80s, and ’84 in particular the first thing I think is: synthesizers. In the 70s bands like Rush, Queen and Van Halen eschewed synths as an evil to be avoided. But by the mid-80s it had invaded the sound of every major band: Rush, Queen, Springsteen even used them, famously Van Halen, and a litany of synth-based pop bands. Along with the all conquering synth the second thing I remember about 1984 is the sound of the acoustic guitar virtually disappeared. It was odd. The main thing about 1984 was the large number of blockbuster records we got that year: 1984, Born In The U.S.A., Purple Rain, Heartbeat City, Learning To Crawl. It seems like every rock group who released an album that year released a huge selling album that spawned multiple hit singles. Granted the production values of the time immediately tie these albums to that particular era, but oh well, I still dig the music.

I also remember a proliferation of the types of music we listened to. Alternative rock was being born on college radio. Hip Hop was beginning to get noticed, even amongst the uptight folks I described earlier. Hair Metal had begun to raise it’s highly coiffed head. Synth pop/synth rock bands began to proliferate. Classic rock still existed but it had begun to change. As mentioned the synth popped up on every classic rock artist’s record. Most of those big 70s bands had split up and the 80s saw either the dawn of a solo career (Roger Waters, Steve Perry) or the continuation of a solo career (David Gilmour, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, John Lennon, Paul McCartney). Let’s admit it, MTV and the visual images the acts chose had a huge influence on what we heard and absorbed. I could sit drunk in front of MTV and watch for hours, mindlessly. Now I’m more likely to see a music video on the Weather Channel than on MTV.

I’ll be the first to admit to you, I was not cool enough to actually have been listening to some of these bands – especially the synth pop or the alternative rock bands – in 1984. Some of these bands took years for me to discover. I was too busy listening to music from the 70s to pick up on the then-current music of the 80s. I’m lucky the Rock Chick was a huge fan of a lot of this music and turned me on to much of it. She lead me to the Cult, Psychedelic Furs, and Echo & The Bunnyman. Some times it matters when you hear a song if you’re going to be a fan… sometimes you have to be ready to hear it. I was not ready for a lot of this in 1984… immature ears. Well, if I’m being honest, my immaturity went way beyond my ears but again, I digress.

With all these great albums and songs from 1984 to choose from, I used my usual tactic. I picked only songs from albums that were released in 1984. I chose only 1 song per album (you may like a different song from the album, which is cool). This is a rock n roll blog so I didn’t put much pop on here – there’s no Madonna or Wham!… although admittedly I like “Careless Whisper.” Kenny Loggins had his big hit “Footloose” but I like ’70s Loggins, not ’80s Loggins… and it’s a song about dancing. I don’t dance. I tried to capture the melange of different styles and moods from ’84 which means I can go from Sade to Metallica. You can listen straight through or you can shuffle. If you hear something you don’t like, skip it… if you hear something you like, turn it up. As always, I put these playlists together to remind you of a song you haven’t heard in a long time or better yet, to turn you on to something you’ve never heard before. Hence, all the different styles of music in one playlist. Below, you’ll see my pithy insights on each track… Enjoy!

  1. Van Halen, “1984” – Well, where else was I going to start? A keyboard instrumental entitled “1984” from an album entitled 1984 that introduced Eddie Van Halen‘s new fascination with keyboards and kicked off the year 1984. I do consider this to be merely the intro to “Jump,” so you’re getting two Van Halen tracks for the price of one.
  2. Van Halen, “Jump” – Such an iconic song all these years later (same for the video). I guess Eddie figured if he can fuel a Michael Jackson song (“Beat It”) to the top of the charts with one of his guitar solos, he could put out a synth heavy track and do the same for his own band.
  3. Bruce Springsteen, “Born In The U.S.A.” – This title track is my favorite song on the album. I can remember where I was when I first heard this album. The story of an anguished Vietnam vet, back in America trying to pull his life together.
  4. Queen, “Hammer To Fall” – Queen pulling out all the stops on this “balls-to-the-walls” rocker. Great guitar from Brian May. This was a comeback of sorts for the band everywhere in the world except maybe… the U.S.A.
  5. Sammy Hagar, “I Can’t Drive 55” – Sammy expressing the collective American highway angst when the speed limits were only 55 mph. Bill Clinton lifted that restriction during his first administration.
  6. Pretenders, “Middle Of The Road” – Chrissie Hynde singing, “I’m not the cat I used to be, I’ve gotta kid I’m 33, baby,” is what I live for. The Pretenders had been through a lot since their sophomore album… they’d lost two members and Hynde had her first kid. We were just glad they were back.
  7. David Bowie, “Blue Jean” – From the much maligned album, Tonight. I still love this track. I think there were 3 separate videos for this song. I considered “Loving The Alien” from this one too, another exceptional song on a so-so album.
  8. The Cars, “You Might Think” – We just posted about the epic record this song was from, Heartbeat City. I could have chosen almost any song on the album but went with this, the first single.
  9. Prince, “When Doves Cry” – From Prince’s masterpiece, Purple Rain. I considered “Let’s Go Crazy” or “Purple Rain” but there’s something about this song that pulls me in, 40 years later.
  10. Bon Jovi, “Runaway” – From their debut. I’m not a huge Bon Jovi fan, but I love this song. When that falsetto comes in at the end… crank that up and hit the gas pedal.
  11. Whitesnake, “Slide It In” – My all time favorite Whitesnake tune. I was playing this song, while doing “research” for this playlist and the Rock Chick wandered by the door and I heard her say, “Ooooh, that’s a great song.” Indeed.
  12. John Lennon, “Nobody Told Me” – From John’s first posthumous release. It was bittersweet hearing it – I dug the song, but it made me miss John Lennon… still do.
  13. General Public, “Tenderness” – Having just seen Dave Wakeling play this song when the English Beat opened for Adam Ant last month, I had to include it. Great, great song! (Great show too).
  14. Christine McVie, “Got A Hold On Me” – Probably her biggest solo hit. I remember the video, which made fun of making videos which was a thing back in ’84. Sad to think we just lost Christine McVie.
  15. Ratt, “Round And Round” – As I mentioned, Hair Metal had started to rear it’s heavily coiffed head by the mid 80s… This was a worthy example of the genre from Ratt’s debut.
  16. Dio, “The Last In Line” – I love Dio’s work in Rainbow, Sabbath and solo… but this is my all time favorite song of his. The video, where a kid gets in the elevator and it freefalls into Hell…and Ronnie has to descend down from a rooftop in New York to save him. Oh, Hell yes! That’s money.
  17. Scorpions, “Rock You Like A Hurricane” – Love At First Sting was the second Scorpion’s album I bought on vinyl (the first was Animal Magnetism). I’d recorded Blackout on cassette… I love this album. The Scorpions put out Rock Believer a while back and it took me back to those glory days.
  18. Talk Talk, “It’s My Life” – Always liked this song… No Doubt did a great cover version of it.
  19. Thompson Twins, “Hold Me Now” – I know nothing about the Twins of Thompson, but everyone I knew dug this song.
  20. The Smiths, “What Difference Does It Make” – From their debut, seemingly answering the question, “Were they always sad?”
  21. Missing Persons, “Surrender Your Heart” – A track I’d completely forgotten about. I quickly added it to my Valentine’s Playlist, Songs About Hearts.
  22. Wang Chung, “Dance Hall Days” – A track the Rock Chick introduced me. “To Live And Die In L.A.” is still my favorite of theirs, but this is a great song.
  23. April Wine, “This Could Be The Right One” – A dying gasp from April Wine… at least for radio play in K.C.
  24. David Gilmour, “Blue Light” – One of two competing albums from former Pink Floyd members on this list.
  25. Joe Jackson, “You Can’t Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)” – Joe Jackson in full jazzbo mode!
  26. The Go-Gos, “Head Over Heels” – I met Belinda Carlisle on the tour for this album in ’84. I wish I’d known more about how hard she partied before meeting her… that meeting could have gone a lot differently.
  27. INXS, “Original Sin” – I never get tired of hearing INXS.
  28. Run-D.M.C., “It’s Like That” – I’m on record as not being a huge Hip Hop fan, but this song did catch my attention way back when. A dude down the hall was a fan. Great stuff from these O.G.’s of Hip Hop.
  29. The Icicle Works, “Whisper To A Scream” – Another great song it took years for me to discover.
  30. R.E.M., (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville” – Reckoning, their second album, was the first one I bought.
  31. Rush, “Red Sector A” – Grace Under Pressure is probably the last Rush album I absolutely loved. This track, which was inspired by Geddy Lee’s family’s experience during the Holocaust, is stunning.
  32. Lee “Scratch” Perry, “Heads Of Government” – It’s always important to have a reggae legend on your playlist. Here he’s spouting truth to, well, the heads of government.
  33. Roger Waters, “5:06AM (Every Strangers Eyes) – From his odd first solo album which details a man’s midlife crisis through an early morning dream cycle. After complaining about Gilmour and guitarists in general he goes out and recruits Eric Clapton to play on The Pros And Cons of Hitchhiking. My buddy Drew bought the album the day it came out and thus has the original album cover where the hitchhiker in question is naked and not obscured. Good for Drew!
  34. Echo & The Bunnymen, “The Killing Moon” – A great tune I included on my Playlist: Songs About The Moon.
  35. Lou Reed, “I Love You, Suzanne” – From Lou Reed’s most accessible album, New Sensations. Lou just sounds happy on this record.
  36. Steve Perry, “Oh, Sherrie” – It’s hard to explain how much we all loved Steve Perry back in the day. I owned this record on vinyl.
  37. Twisted Sister, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” – A nice rallying cry of a song. I saw Dee Snider live in a city park in Winter Park a few years ago.
  38. Stevie Ray Vaughan, “Cold Shot” – From the epic Couldn’t Stand The Weather. I could have gone with the title track, but I’ve always loved this bluesy, post-breakup tune.
  39. Tina Turner, “What’s Love Got To Do With It” – I’m on record as being a bigger fan of Tina’s earlier rock n roll work, but now that we’ve lost her, I’m all in on this song.
  40. Jefferson Starship, “No Way Out” – Another 60s iconic band with an album out in ’84. I bought this record on the strength of this song about a cheating boyfriend and his forgiving girlfriend.
  41. Bruce Cockburn, “If I Had A Rocket Launcher” – A favorite track of my buddy Arkansas Joel. Oh, if I only did have a rocket launcher…
  42. Hagar, Schon, Aaronson, Shrieve, “Whiter Shade Of Pale” – Sammy Hagar and Journey’s Neil Schon form a supergroup (with Schon’s former Santana bandmate Shrieve on drums) and record a Procol Harum song. I do think Annie Lennox’s cover is better but this isn’t a bad track.
  43. Siouxsie & The Banshees, “Swimming Horses” – I feel like I should have been a bigger Siouxsie fan back in the 80s.
  44. John Waite, “Missing You” – My brother bought this song on a 45 for me. It was a song that used to mean something to me in a galaxy far away. It was nice of him to notice how much I liked the song.
  45. Elton John, “Who Wears These Shoes” – I didn’t remember this song until I pulled up the Breaking Hearts track list. I like this one so much more than say, “Sad Songs” from this album.
  46. Rod Stewart, “Infatuation” – At the time, this was his first collaboration with Jeff Beck, who played guitar on the song, in years… it led to Rod singing on Beck’s next album on “People Get Ready.” I wish these guys could have done something else before Jeff Beck’s demise last year.
  47. Elvis Costello & the Attractions, “Only Flame In Town” – Yet another great song from Costello.
  48. Glenn Frey, “Smuggler’s Blues” – A track that help land Frey a role on Miami Vice as, I believe, a drug smuggler. In terms of ex-Eagles I’ve always been more of a Henley guy – or if I’m being completely honest, more of a Joe Walsh guy – but I like this song.
  49. The Time, “Jungle Love” – I was already a fan of Prince’s when I saw the Purple Rain movie (friends had turned me onto 1999), but I left the theater a fan of the Time.
  50. Sade, “Smooth Operator” – Sadly, in ’84 I was far from being a smooth operator. I’m still not a smooth operator but I love this song. A beautiful woman with a beautiful voice singing a beautiful song.
  51. The Psychedelic Furs, “Heaven” – Another great alt rock song that I didn’t hear until well after ’84. There was so much great music out in the mid 80s that I could have discovered if I’d just paused my intense listening of the Faces and Zeppelin.
  52. Lindsey Buckingham, “Go Insane” – I had a roommate named Walt (name changed to protect the guilty) who loved solo Buckingham. He was ahead of his time. I remember him playing this cassette in the room. I must admit, at the time, I didn’t need to “go insane,” I already was.
  53. Billy Squier, “Rock Me Tonite” – I defy you to find anybody who lived through the 80s who didn’t like Squier.
  54. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Police Helicopter” – I read in Scar Tissue, Anthony Kiedis’ autobiography, that the producer of their debut album labeled this song as “shit.” I’ve always loved it. But then, I used to date women from the sketchy part of town… saw too many police helicopters hovering over the neighborhood… but those records are sealed.
  55. Scandal, “The Warrior” – Scandal opened up for Elton John, the one time I saw him, in 1982. I was never a huge fan, but if Eddie Van Halen considered hiring Patty Smyth to replace Roth, she must have something.
  56. Stevie Wonder, “I Just Called To Say I Love You” – I was told this was the Motown Legend’s biggest hit and that stunned me.
  57. A Flock Of Seagulls, “The More You Live, The More You Love” – Another song I’d completely forgotten about but rediscovered during my “research.”
  58. Hanoi Rocks, “Up Around The Bend” – A Hair Metal band covers a Creedence Clearwater Revival song and scores their biggest hit only to lose their drummer, Razzle – killed by Vince Neil in a drunk driving accident – all in the same year. Is there anything more ’84 Hair Metal than that?
  59. Judas Priest, “Freewheel Burning” – Wonderful, punishing metal.
  60. Metallica, “Ride The Lightning” – The title track from my favorite Metallica album. They are one of the few bands to overcome the sophomore slump and put out an even better second album.
  61. Iron Maiden, “2 Minutes To Midnight” – I forget how melodic Iron Maiden is. This is a great track, even if I don’t have a clue what they’re singing about.
  62. The Cult, “Spiritwalker” – Another debut from a band I love. Dreamtime. And for all of you out there, he’s singing “wind walker” not “weed wacker” towards the end of the song.
  63. Kiss, “Heaven’s On Fire” – I was never a member of the Kiss Army but they always had a handful of decent tunes. Their 80s stuff was pretty paint-by-numbers Hair Metal…melodic but rocking stuff.
  64. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, “Cherry Bomb” – Where Joan goes back to visit the first big hit from her first band, the Runaways, “Cherry Bomb.” It was originally sung by Cherie Currie but I dig Joan’s turn on lead vocal here.
  65. Depeche Mode, “People Are People” – I love Depeche. Last year’s Momento Mori had to grow on me, but it was a great record.
  66. Midnight Oil, “Minutes To Midnight” – A band my buddy Doug always liked.
  67. Ramones, “Howlin’ At The Moon (Sha-La-La) – I didn’t realize the Ramones were still alive and kicking in ’84. I thought they’d gone their separate ways by then.
  68. U2, “The Unforgettable Fire” – I could have gone with “Pride (In The Name Of Love),” the big hit from this album, but I went with the title track. I’ve always loved this slinky song and the cool video. I once won a bet with Arkansas Joel (a huge U2 fan at the time) who was insisting there was no title track from The Unforgettable Fire.
  69. The Replacements, “I Will Dare” – Hats off to any band who had the balls to name an album Let It Be.
  70. Talking Heads, “Psycho Killer – Live” – I typically skip live albums for these playlists, but I’ve come to realize that’s a mistake. Stop Making Sense is one of the greatest live albums of all time so I had to include a song. I consider this the definitive version of “Psycho Killer.”
  71. Julian Lennon, “Too Late For Goodbyes” – I think this is a first that I have song by both father and son on a playlist. I hated the video for this but I dug the song.
  72. Paul McCartney, “No More Lonely Nights” – Great song, with David Gilmour on lead guitar, from an ill-advised movie and soundtrack.
  73. Autograph, “Turn Up The Radio” – I think these guys recorded a local versions of this song for every market. In Kansas City, I recall hearing the singer at some point sing, “KY102” which was the local rock station at the time. Although my memory can sometimes be fuzzy…
  74. Deep Purple, “Perfect Strangers” – As I said recently when writing about Machine Head, it may be their masterpiece, but for those of us of a certain age, Perfect Strangers was “our” Deep Purple album. This is not only one of my favorite Deep Purple songs, it’s one of my favorite songs.
  75. Philip Bailey (with Phil Collins), “Easy Lover” – I tried to veer away from “pop” songs but this great song from Earth Wind & Fire singer Philip Bailey with Phil Collins on drums/vocals was so popular, it was hard to not hear it. I kinda dug it.
  76. Bryan Adams, “One Night Love Affair” – I’m on record as not being a huge Bryan Adams fan, but I’ve always had a soft spot for this one. The story of two people who end up in a one night stand but just might have been looking for something more substantial. Much more interesting than the usual one night stand songs.
  77. Eurythmics, “Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)” – From a soundtrack for a movie adaptation of Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. A novel that perhaps has more relevance today than ever. This song was actually banned and very hard to find for a long time. Big Brother is out there.
  78. The Honeydrippers, “Rockin’ At Midnight” – Robert Plant’s side project where he played old rock songs. “Sea Of Love” was the big hit, but I always dug this one. Jeff Beck plays guitar on this song! I think Elvis did it back in the day.
  79. Don Henley, “Boys Of Summer” – Henley’s masterpiece song, co-written with Heartbreaker Mike Campbell. The video “made southern California look like the south of France.” I always liked the lyric, “I saw a Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac, a little voice inside my head said “Don’t look back, you can never look back.” A lot to love in this song.
  80. The Kinks, “Do It Again” – The Kinks are just always kick ass. I feel like they deserve even more respect than they already get. This is just a great rock song.
  81. Triumph, “Follow Your Heart” – One of the last songs from Triumph that I remember hearing get radio airplay. Such a great Canadian power trio.

I’m not going to lie to you, my first attempt on this playlist had 120 songs. So there are a lot of songs from a lot of albums that I left “on the cutting room floor,” as the saying goes. There’s only so much typing one man can do in one sitting. If there’s an album you’re fond of from 1984 with a great song you think would be a nice addition to this playlist, drop it in the comments and I’ll add it. I like to think of these playlists as “our playlists” not “my playlists.” I will warn you, I do my homework and will have to verify the record is actually from 1984. Other than that rule, I welcome all suggestions. I do hope I bring a song back to your ears that you haven’t heard in a while and it stirs up a fond memory of those halcyon days… or better yet, you discover a song you haven’t heard before and it causes you to do a little musical spelunking and you seek out that album… You never know where you’re going to find a gem!

Enjoy this one, Cheers!

A Music Collector’s Journey: From Vinyl to CDs to MP3’s And Now… Back To Vinyl Or Streaming?

~ Kenneth Corsini ~ 16 Comments

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*Photo of my multiple options to listen to David Bowie’s ‘Aladdin Sane’ taken by your intrepid blogger… and yes, I put my LPs in plastic sleeves… and I forgot to take it off for the photo so it looks like I’m suffocating Bowie with a Dry Cleaning bag…

I don’t know where it came from, this need – or perhaps it’s better described as a compulsion – to “own” music. Perhaps it was the influence of my younger brother – and when do we ever get influenced by a younger brother vs an older brother – who, by the time I started collecting albums at the age of 13 or 14, had already built an extensive collection of albums. He owned mostly Beatles, George Harrison and Doors albums back then. It was the late 70s and he was a 60s DJ. Whenever I walked by his room, vinyl was spinning and music filled the air. I remember, once music captured me in it’s magic siren’s spell, there was no question I was going to start buying records. Maybe it was the influence of radio, once I turned the dial from baseball games on AM to rock n roll on FM. I’d hear a song and long to hear it again and just hated waiting. Maybe I just decided to cut out the middle man – local rock station KY102 in my case – and go directly to my very own turntable. Regardless of why, that decision to buy Some Girls by the Stones all those years ago began a life long love affair with rock n roll for me…

There were other options available in terms of music formats back in the late 70s when I started buying vinyl. Cassettes were big. I actually bought a couple of albums on cassette – which I regretted later – AC/DC’s Highway To Hell and Pete Townshend’s Empty Glass. I thought the cassettes might lend some audio advantage… they didn’t. Of course they could be played in the car and were considerably more portable. Cassettes, for me, were more of a Mix-Tape experience, buying blank cassettes and recording songs in creative sequences sourced from my vinyl LPs…or other people’s vinyl. Borrowing albums and cassettes was a crude, early form of “file sharing,” I suppose? Although even when I started driving my parent’s car, they didn’t have a cassette player in the Oldsmobile. I’d carry my boom box in the back seat.

There were also 8-track tapes still available. My buddy Brewster owned Cheap Trick’s Live At Budokan on 8-track – he’d play it in the car on the way to school – and I’m not sure I ever really knew the running order of that album until years later. 8-tracks were for aliens so I shied away from them. For me, it was all about that vinyl. I wanted that 12.375 inch by 12.375 inch album cover. I wanted to stare at the album art and read the lyrics and liner notes while I cranked my tunes. I was a student in the temple of musical delights. Although admittedly, I had this weird rule where I’d only buy an album if I liked 3 tracks on the record… I’d been burned one too many times by albums with one great song and the rest filler. Looking back, the number 3 seems terribly arbitrary.

By the time I got out of college I had not one, but two record crates full of albums. I’d purchased the record crates at Peaches Records and hammered them together myself…they weren’t terribly sturdy but I had them until I was in my 30s, schlepping them from apartment to apartment. But by the time I paraded across the stage to receive my college diploma the world of music was radically changing. CDs had come along. I remember being in a used record store and they had a portable CD player chained to the counter by the cash register (used record stores were mostly a cash business back then, ahem), and I listened to the clean, pristine sound of whatever they were sampling. My verdict, which I announced loudly to anyone who would listen, was that CDs were a “fad” like 8-tracks and would never gain any traction. This is why you should never listen to me when predicting the future.

By the time I had been exiled to Ft. Smith, Arkansas CDs were everywhere. You could still buy vinyl, but CDs were gaining market share rapidly. To add salt in my vinyl wounds, CDs often had a bonus track or two, much the same way cassettes occasionally did to entice you to make the move to that format. I found a new rock n roll friend in Ft Smith when I met Arkansas Joel. He was a gadget guy and so was all in on CDs. Cleaner sound, no pops and hisses, and portable so you can take them with you in the car – CDs were the wave of the future according to Joel. I finally succumbed to his peer pressure – he really wanted me to buy CDs so he could record them – and purchased a CD player. My first CD was yet again, the Stones, but this time it was Steel Wheels. After that I followed everybody else and shifted my buying focus to CDs which led me to buy The White Album and so many other LPs again.

I actually liked CDs. You still had the album artwork and the lyrics. There was a huge market for used CDs. If I was kind of into a band – maybe I’d heard a song or two I liked – but wasn’t sure about the band or which LP to buy, I’d buy it used on CD. If I didn’t like it, I’d sell it and pick out something else. And record stores started putting listening stations at the end of the CD rows so you could sample a new record prior to buying it. That went a long way to ending my “three songs” rule. I remember buying the Red Hot Chili Peppers LP One Hot Minute, which is a weird starting point on the Peppers, and loving it. I picked up Blood Sugar Sex Magik at a used CD store because I still wasn’t “sure” about them and couldn’t believe I hadn’t gotten into them earlier. Wary still it took me a good half hour of listening to Californication at the end cap listening station in a Barnes & Noble before I took the plunge.

Eventually I met the Rock Chick and I’m embarrassed to admit she got me to start selling off albums. Usually it was the ones I’d repurchased on CD. I succumbed but only around the edges of my collection. In truth I sold records I wasn’t listening to more often than ones I’d repurchased in the different formats. I sold a lot of Greatest Hits albums as I’d collected most of the songs on the albums and CDs I’d purchased.  I regret selling a lot of those but as they say, marriage is a compromise. Between the Rock Chick and I we had a lot of CDs. A lot. I was beginning to worry about storage but I figured as long as we lived in a house with a guest room, I’d have a living space I could cannibalize for music storage… although admittedly I never had that conversation with the Rock Chick and I’m not sure it would have ended in my favor. Not many conversations with the Rock Chick end in my favor now that I really think about it.

Around this time the music industry changed again and Apple invented the iPod. Oh, we all loved the iPod. Luckily I could pull MP3’s off my CDs and put them on my iPod. It was called “ripping” a CD. I even figured out how to download the artwork. The good news about MP3’s was it solved my storage issues. I wasn’t going to have to put up giant CD racks in the guest room and hope the Rock Chick didn’t notice. We built quite a music file over here at B&V. Between the CDs we ripped, and new purchases by me and the Rock Chick our musical universe exploded. Then my daughter got into the game and suddenly I had everything from the Stones and Springsteen to Christmas music (the Rock Chick is indeed Mrs. Claus), and Lil Wayne (my daughter). I never got into that whole Napster file sharing thing but I must admit I dabbled on Limewire. Usually it was only for that rare B-side or live track I couldn’t find anywhere else. I used Limewire the same way I did the listening stations in the CD store, as a way to check out an album. If I liked the songs I’d downloaded, I’d go buy the album. I wanted the artist to get paid for creating this beautiful music. Recently, Apple changed iTunes to an app simply named “Music” and I can no longer plug my old iTouch into the computer and manually manage my music files. I could do it via Bluetooth, but it apparently would load all the music we have onto my iTouch. First, it wouldn’t fit and more importantly I don’t want Xmas music or Lil Wayne, I just want my rock n roll and my playlists. So after 20 years of buying albums on Apple, now I’m at a standstill. I can’t use my phone, it belongs to my corporate masters. I can’t update or change my iTouch… I can’t even buy new LPs and add them to my iTouch which seems like a faulty business model, although admittedly the folks down at Apple seem to know what they’re doing?

As folks who have read our posts containing playlists, I too joined the “streaming revolution.” It seems that’s why Apple ended my ability to update my (old technology) iTouch. I’m on Spotify which was an unfortunate choice. But I typically have used Spotify again, as a sampler. Listen to the record and then buy it if I like it. It’s a useful tool for me. The Rock Chick is all in on Spotify and listens in her car. I just don’t think I can go all in on streaming, it’s just not the same as owning the album. I began to buy used albums again a few years ago. And I have loved getting back into vinyl.  However, the price tags on the new albums are prohibitive. Peter Gabriel’s latest, i/o, came in two mixes. To purchase the CD or download it on my home computer is $20. To purchase both mixes on quadruple LP is $80. Hey man, even I have limits. I’m not a huge audiophile but I do think everything sounds better than streaming. I encourage all music fans to consume music in the fashion they most enjoy and for most folks I guess that’s streaming.

But I must admit I find myself at a crossroads. Pearl Jam’s Dark Matter comes out on April 19th. I love the title track, by the way. If I download the album – because I certainly want Pearl Jam to get paid and I want to own the album, I have all the rest of them – I can listen in my home office but nowhere else. If I buy it on vinyl it’s sure to cost a fortune, but at least I can crank it on my stereo. I can buy it on CD but those don’t really have the cache with the Rock Chick that LPs do… yes, she’s finally become a vinyl-head like me. And I guess this goes back to my first sentence, I have a compulsion to own music. Just having access to an album on Spotify doesn’t scratch the itch for me. I need that album or CD to hold in my hand, or the ability to pull the album up on my iTouch on command. When I started collecting music we all judged each other on our music taste. If you weren’t into rock n roll there was something wrong with you. Hell, if you were into the wrong music or artists we thought there was something wrong with you. Buying albums and sharing my collection with people is central to who I am.

And so I’ve taken this whole journey with music, from albums to CDs, to MP3s, sort of to streaming… and then back to used vinyl. Where I’ll go from here now that my MP3 era is over, remains a mystery. I can’t afford all the new vinyl I want, there are great LPs on the way (Lenny Kravitz, the Black Keys, the Black Crowes, the aforementioned Pearl Jam, Liam Gallagher/John Squire to name a few) and streaming doesn’t do it. I tried to explain this to the Rock Chick the other night over martinis and it might have been the martinis, but I don’t think she understood what I was talking about. I don’t know if others out there are like me, and feel this compulsion to buy records, but if you do, how do you plan to go forward collecting music? CDs, shelling out for vinyl? Or have you embraced this whole streaming thing? I suppose next we’ll all just have a chip in our head where we can call up music my tapping our temples… Count me in I guess?

However you’re getting your music, good for you for continuing to listening to your rock n roll. It’s taken twists and turns but my love affair with rock n roll will continue until they bury me with my copy of Exile On Mainstreet. Keep cranking those tunes folks, it’s a long dark ride… at least we can rock n roll to the finish line.

Cheers!