Spoon, Wilco, Clash, Rush, all of you ... You will be missed.

The Mong
Music Group Commentary
October 2008

B.B. KING – “Singin’ the Blues” = 4 STARS
An old favorite from the stacks of wax at my grandma’s house. She was a Rocker.

COLDPLAY – “Viva la Vida” = 3 STARS
Although Coldplay is Radiohead for pussies, I have to admit, I’ve always liked them. Probably because they are more interested in writing catchy numbers than being pioneers. These songs are mostly passable with a few standouts by comparison but nothing here measures up to the guilty pleasures of their earlier work.

PINK FLOYD – “A Saucerful Of Secrets” = 1 STAR
Progressive Rock dabblings of mediocre musicians with the added self-indulgence of an Acid Rock core that fails to devine the future relevance of a post-Syd Barrett Pink Floyd. Weak.

TV ON THE RADIO – “Dear Science” = 2 STARS
Post-Neo-whatever music only visual artists could create. (Give me Iceland’s Gus Gus instead.) It’s not terrible but it really does sound like TV on the radio: advertising background music meets cop drama score meets tragically hip soundtrack noise.

G’HITS – DRAMARAMA
Another G’Hits history lesson that was like a mediocre vacation: A band I’ve heard of but have never heard that, like Memphis, was interesting enough to visit but now I know for sure that there’s no reason for me to ever go back...not voluntarily.

TOPIC
Pick your favorite 10 years of music, which need not be consecutive but can only be split-up in two parts.

As if anyone couldn’t predict my selections:

1967-1971: The best period of the Beatles, John Lennon, the Who, the Kinks, Neil Young, and Black Sabbath, and this five year stretch gets me some great Stones and some excellent early Elton John, too. In addition to my personal favorites, easily some of the greatest music ever recorded falls into this five-year window. Later EJ, the Clash, Modern Lovers, Big Star, Cars, Police, Rush and good U2 will probably be most missed, else wise.

1991-1995: Gets me all the best releases from Pavement, Nirvana, Beastie Boys, Dinosaur Jr., Matthew Sweet, Liz Phair, Archers of Loaf, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Sebadoh, and Helmet, as well as some great early Green Day, Poster Children, New Radiant Storm King, Shellac, Weezer, Beck, G. Love and Special Sauce, Built to Spill, Blonde Redhead, the Grifters, Papas Fritas, Walt Mink and even Radiohead’s “The Bends.” On top of that, I get only the best three albums by Guided by Voices ever! It kills me to miss Sonic Youth’s “Daydream Nation” and “Goo,” Green Day’s “American Idiot,” as well as the best of Spoon, Wilco, Superdrag, the Gravel Pit, and Nada Surf, too. And woe is me for the bands entirely missed like the Hives, the Thermals, Queens of the Stone Age, Okkervil River, the Pernice Brothers, the White Stripes, the Black Keys, and Trans Am, but sacrifices must be made, apparently.