FIve Years...My Brain Hurts A Lot

TV on the Radio "Dear Science"- A band that's new to me. I like how they fuse alt guitar with hip-hop beats... "Crying" is a good example. It's an update on the old American Bandstand's, "it has a good beat and you can dance to it". The most surprising part of this CD to me was that for such down lyrics, the overall feel of this was uplifting and a lot more poppy than I expected (eg: Family Tree) 3 stars.

Coldplay "Viva La Vida" - OK, I'm a hater. It's sounds like Chris Martin goes commercial. Or worse, infomercial. If I wanted this type of music, but with real emotion, I'd listen to "OK Computer". Not a big Brian Eno fan either, so it leaves me cold...and not wanting to play.
1.5 stars.

Pink Floyd "Saucerful of Secrets" - This was released just before my time, that is, the time I started listening to rock rather than pop, so it's a first listen. It was a fun step-back to take...until about 1/2 way through the title track...when it got too acidy for me. After I got by that, I started to appreciate the other tracks, and it became a fun listen again. "See Saw" sounds like something Brian Wilson would have put out at the time, had Capitol Records let him. The whole of this only suffers by comparison to later PF classics... 2 stars.

BB King's first album - I love the blues, I love BB King and with an eye toward musical history, these are the seeds from which the Rolling Stones grew. The non-technical, "1-2-3 roll tape and play" aspect of this is fascinating...it's not "How Blue Can You Get", but how PURE can you play electric blues with horns and percussion, and with the possible exception of Muddy Waters, this is as pure as it gets.
4.5 stars.

Dramarama - Again, first I've heard of them - I guess I've been living in a musical vaccuum since 1985 - and for me, it was the case of a band getting closer to what it set out to do and sounding better the deeper into their career you listen. I liked "Wonderamaland" a lot, but the other earlier stuff was far too anachronistic sounding, then, I gave them props for the Ian Hunter/Mott cover, and they turned a corner with me on the songs from "Vinyl", which I will absolutely add to my i-Pod. Thanks for the turn-on, D'Arcy.

The 10 year challenge was most difficult, but I believe that if you take the year you first got into music - probably an early teen year - as a base year, you have to build a five-year period around it because it is most likely when you were most influenced by new music. Then, the other five year period is all about personal taste, genres, your historical perspective and your favorite artist(s). Turns out for me, it's 10 straight years...

1970-1974 gave us Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main Street from the Stones, Fragile and Close to the Edge from Yes, The first 4 Queen albums, Mott, The Hoople, and All the Young Dudes, the very best of David Bowie, Led Zep 4 and 5, The Raspberries, The first 3 albums from Aerosmith, Randy Newman's "Sail Away" and "Good Old Boys", Most of the great Philly sound singles from the Stylistics, Spinners, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes and the OJ's...the back-end of Motown's peak, some GREAT one-hit wonders, and Sinatra's return to the big stage.
I could listen to all this, and not much more, if need be.

The second period for me was 1965-1969...the best of the Beatles, Beach Boys and, argueably, the Rolling Stones. The heart of the "Motown Era". That's the bedrock of my musical listening. It is the yardstick by which I measure other music. What I'd regretfully miss are the sounds of the bands/artists that inspired them. Rockabilly, Elvis, Little Richard, great older blues, country, jazz and Sinatra's Capitol period. What I wouldn't miss is disco, 80's dance music, electronica, and such. I would miss Ramones, Dictators, Marshall Crenshaw, Matthew Sweet and much of the power pop and punk I've grown to love over the years.