Friday Music Corner — Better Late Than Later
August 24, 2007 by Run Up The Score!
It seems there’s some new New Pornographers floating around! [Hype Machine]
Look! Twenty-three songs in honor of Lindsay Lohan! [MFR]
Good Lord, is Jenny Lewis a cute one. [Rock Sellout]
Two more of my favorite albums:
Green Day — American Idiot
What can really be said about it? A tight, well-crafted set of political and social rock/punk — I hesitate to call it true “punk rock”. Certainly their best work in a long time, and it’ll be just as good in 10-15 years.
mp3:
Green Day — Holiday
Green Day — Give Me Novacaine
Grateful Dead — American Beauty
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People hate the Dead for all sorts of reasons. Interminable jam sessions. Patchouli. Still, American Beauty eventually became a sort of greatest hits album. “Ripple”, “Brokedown Palace”, “Truckin’”, “Friend Of The Devil”, and “Sugar Magnolia” are all instantly recognizable, with “Operator” and my personal favorite, “Box Of Rain” not far behind. There’s nothing particularly special about the arrangements or lyrics — it’s just a great, summery, back porch sort of album.
Grateful Dead — Friend Of The Devil (live)
Grateful Dead — Ripple
And as long as we’re doing the “American” theme:
I don’t hate the Dead; they just weren’t, and still aren’t, my cup of tea. Never got ‘em, never will(and I’m a member of the hippie/psychedelic generation, too. Go figure..). Green Day, on the other hand; I can handle. I’m not a huge fan, but I don’t change the station when one of their songs comes on the radio, either.
“American Beauty” didn’t make my list at first, but I looked at it and realized there’s really only one or two songs on the album that couldn’t be considered classics for the band, so…
As for the Green Day album, it deserves a better write-up, but it’s been a long day. It’s one of the records that was needed at the exact moment it came out.
Caught the New Pornographers at Pitchfork this year. Wow.
Speaking of the NP’s, one really great album that I might not get a chance to include is A.C. Newman’s “The Slow Wonder”. It’s very, very good.