51. Thee Speaking Canaries - Life-Like Homes - Scat, 1998

Why I Bought It: Even though I enjoy Don Caballero’s albums—Don Caballero II and What Burns Never Returns in particular—I’d never checked out Damon Che’s other group, Thee Speaking Canaries. Maybe I’d taken a thousand drummer jokes to heart, maybe I was concerned that Damon Che’s rather antagonistic stage demeanor (an understatement to say the least) wouldn’t translate well to his frontman role in this group, maybe those Van Halen comparisons (and covers!) scared me off, but no matter how many times I saw Songs for the Terrestrially Challenged in CD bins, I passed it up.

After seeing one of their LPs at RRRecords in Lowell, I told my friend Scott about it and he attested to Thee Speaking Canaries’ greatness. Shortly thereafter, he swung by Amoeba in San Francisco and picked up Songs for the Terrestrially Challenged and Life-Like Homes for me and mailed them out as a birthday gift. I don’t want to think of what I’d do with such close proximity to the heralded Amoeba—I’ve only been to San Francisco once and didn’t make it to the store—but I’d like to believe that I’d share the privilege as well as Scott does. More likely, I’d run up a ton of credit card debt and have to quit cold turkey.

Verdict: Given his propensity for dramatics—nailing down his drum kit, performing in his boxers, kicking out band members—it’s difficult to enjoy Damon Che’s music without appreciating the utmost gall with which he approaches it, and Life-Like Homes is no exception to this rule. Putting just three songs on a rock record requires some stones, especially when it requires splitting up the twenty-seven minutes of “The Last Side of Town” over side A and B. Proving that dealing with his gall isn’t unrewarded, the split even makes sense, with the song’s math-rock explorations and drifting noise segments coming on side A before blasting back to melodic, overdriven rock with part two on side B. It’s a bit of a shock to hear Damon Che yell “Woo!” before launching into a Van Halen–esque guitar solo on part two, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work.

It’s tempting to focus on how Che can switch between being a technically accomplished, powerhouse drummer in Don Caballero and a guitar-shredding frontman with surprisingly melodic vocals in Thee Speaking Canaries, to emphasize that he can pull off both roles, but that approach loses sight of what Life-Like Homes has to offer beyond Che’s signature gall. Between the enthusiastic arena/math hybrid of “The Last Side of Town (Completion),” the noisy bluster on the title track, and the mid-tempo melodies of “Song for Fucking Damon,” these songs hold up to multiple listens. (I already know this because I initially listened to side B first.) The combination of arena rock panache and math-rock precision is particularly compelling, making me wish that more ’90s math-oriented groups showed an extroverted side.

As much as I enjoy Life-Like Homes, I might have been better off ignoring Thee Speaking Canaries’ existence from a collector’s perspective. Che pressed both lo- and hi-fi versions of Songs for the Terrestrially Challenged (the former on Mind Cure, the latter on Scat), released the 1996 Opponents EP in an edition of 400 numbered copies (one is on eBay for $89 right now), and issued two versions of Get Out Alive, their 2004 album, a vinyl pressing of 39 minutes and a CD pressing of 76 minutes (which contains two songs from Life-Like Homes). Have I mentioned their long out-of-print 1992 debut The Joy of Wine? 500 copies are out there, somewhere. Good luck tracking all of this down.

52. Camper Van Beethoven - Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart - Virgin, 1988

Why I Bought It: I knew of Camper Van Beethoven through David Lowery’s post-CVB group Cracker, whose bitter mid-1990s buzz bin hits “Low,” “Euro-Trash Girl” (I hate even thinking of that song), and “I Hate My Generation” were staples of 120 Minutes. Nothing had pushed me toward hearing them, however, until Floodwatchmusic listed II & III as his favorite record of 1986. Although I haven’t come across an LP copy of that record (update: yes, I have), I picked up their self-titled LP from Looney Tunes in Boston and then grabbed Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart from either RRRecords or Mystery Train last fall.

Verdict: Even though this album marked the beginning of Camper Van Beethoven’s stay on Virgin, I was nevertheless surprised by the polish of Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart, in both production values and performances. There are some hot guitar licks on this record! Once I accepted the major label sheen, I realized that the general aesthetic isn’t too far off from another eclectically styled 1980s group, the Mekons, especially given the fiddle. It’ll be interesting to see how much their self-titled LP differs from this album; even with their edges smoothed over, there’s still a good amount of spontaneity in a few of these songs, although none of that spontaneity could be misconstrued as ramshackle charm. (Terror Twilight it ain’t, thankfully.) It’s too bad the LP didn’t come with a lyrics sheet, since I recall hearing some choice lines in great tracks like “She Divines Water” and “Life Is Grand,” but the album as a whole was solid enough to merit another listen in the near future.

53. The Darling Buds - Shame on You - Native, 1989

Why I Bought It: I tend to pull things out of dollar bins that look like records I might be interested in, even if I’m completely unfamiliar with the band name. The Darling Buds’ Shame on You is a prime example of this tendency; I even have one of the twelve-inch singles that’s represented on this singles compilation thanks to a similar purchase. The colorful, ultra-saturated cover isn’t too far off from My Bloody Valentine’s album-art aesthetic, which makes sense given its release in the late 1980s, but there’s a more specific pop/shoegaze reference that came up once I put the needle down.

Verdict: The British Velocity Girl. The Darling Buds came first, of course, being inspired by the C86 cassette and scene, just like Velocity Girl (who took their name from Primal Scream’s contribution to the cassette), so the comparison is admittedly backwards, but from the opening strains of the title track I could think of no other point of reference. I remember buying Velocity Girl’s Simpatico from a cheap bin in high school and being overwhelmed by the chipper vocals and perky melodies. (I’m just not a power-pop fanatic.) I never got around to giving their debut, Copacetic, a chance, but I imagine it’s got fuzzier guitars and less defined hooks. As for the Darling Buds, they’re essentially a hybrid of C86-styled pop and the Go-Go’s. When the songs lean toward the former, like “That’s the Reason,” I can stomach it, but when they sound closer to latter, like “Valentine” and too many other songs, I begin to rethink my cover art policy for dollar bins.

54. Volcano Suns - All-Night Lotus Party - Homestead, 1986

Why I Bought It: Along with a previously discussed Bullet Lavolta LP, I found two Volcano Suns LPs at a Champaign record sale a few years back. I wasn’t hugely into Mission of Burma at the time, but I probably knew that their drummer, Peter Prescott, had been a member of Volcano Suns following his initial stay in Burma. No excuse for waiting this long to listen to either of the records (I also have The Bright Orange Years on my shelf), but with their recent reissues on Merge, I’ve read a considerable amount about these records in the past few months. Plus, I see Prescott whenever I stop into the Cambridge location of Looney Tunes.

Verdict: Thanks to the recent surge of reviews, I had a fairly good idea of what to expect from All-Night Lotus Party: a more straightforward, less atmospheric version of Burma’s art-punk. Considering that I have to be in a certain mood to enjoy most of Burma’s catalog (with the exception of the early singles and most of The Obliterati, which is heavier on the pop hooks), a more approachable version of the group’s sound shouldn’t be viewed as a slight. All-Night Lotus Party is filled with abrasive, hard-edged art-punk—material that could (and probably did) inspire countless early 1990s Touch and Go groups—but a number of the songs lack memorable hooks amidst their steamrolling verses and shouted choruses. According to Pitchfork, The Bright Orange Years has more of these hooks, so I should give that album a spin and see how it compares, but “Engines” and “Village Idiot” stuck out on my first spin of All-Night Lotus Party. The album doesn’t lack energy or aggression, however, especially the album’s final salvo, “Bonus Hidden Mystery Track,” which one-ups any number of contemporary hardcore bands.

55. Funkadelic - One Nation Under a Groove - Warner, 1978

Why I Bought It: My introduction to George Clinton was the Animal House redux PCU, which I inevitably got sucked into whenever it came on HBO during high school. (Part of a larger trend of me getting sucked into mediocre-to-awful movies, but I digress.) The film’s huge party scene comes courtesy of George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, who were directed to Jeremy Piven’s party-to-end-all-parties by Jon Favreau’s stoned assistance. Favreau doesn’t realize exactly whom he’s helped until partway into their truncated set (damn those deans!), at which point he freaks out and goes wild. A clichéd scene, but I give the filmmakers some credit: Imagine if it had been G. Love and Special Sauce or some other mid-90s party band.

I found this worn copy of One Nation Under a Groove in a dollar bin, missing its original bonus EP (the Heavy Maggot Disk) and coming with enough surface scratches to make me think twice, but I knew that I needed to buy it in case of any future party emergencies. You can’t count on encountering Clinton’s broken down tour bus whenever you’re throwing the biggest party in campus history.

(Or when you’re enjoying a nice Sunday afternoon with the AC on.)

Verdict: Funkadelic’s One Nation Under a Groove is a great instance of fulfilled expectations. Nothing threw me for a loop on the record, but I still found myself getting into the vast majority of the songs, enough to research other good Parliament and/or Funkadelic albums and add them to my eventual want list. Only the lower energy “Groovallegiance” left me wanting, but the title track, “Into You,” “Cholly (Funk Getting Ready to Roll!!),” and “Who Says a Funk Bank Can’t Play Rock?!” could have gone on much, much longer without any complaint. As I feared, the record’s in pretty bad shape, but the raunchy cartoon liner notes are in fine condition. I'll gladly buy a second copy of this album.

46. Herbie Hancock – “Autodrive” b/w “Chameleon” - CBS, 1983

Why I Bought It: I’m primarily familiar with Herbie Hancock’s early 1970s albums Head Hunters and Thrust, which are eminently regarded, highly enjoyable jazz fusion albums with completely amazing album covers. This 12-inch single features one song from Hancock’s 1983 electro-jazz album Future Shock and a remix of “Chameleon” from Head Hunters, bridging the gap between these two eras. I’m wary of the concept of electro-jazz, especially given my discussion of dated 1980s production techniques in my last post about the Art of Noise, but it’s entirely possible that Hancock could avoid those stumbles.

Verdict: Herbie Hancock is not kidding with this electro-jazz concept. Between the sampled shouts, the constant laser gun blasts, and the tinny electronic drum kit, he’s loaded “Autodrive” with enough 1980s production clichés to make Wang Chung jealous. Sure, a grand piano makes an appearance to remind listeners of Hancock’s roots, but I can understand why “Rockit” from Future Shock was an MTV success; this song sounds like early 1980s MTV new wave. Hancock clearly has fun with these tropes, so even though the individual sounds have aged poorly, the song still has a playful, light air that almost encourages such aging. As for the flip side, I’ll have to consult the Head Hunters version to confirm this suspicion, but the remix of “Chameleon” doesn’t seem drastically different. The comparative subtlety of this track works well, since adding sampled shouts to bring an older piece up to date would have been comical instead of inspired, but it’s ultimately unlikely to steer me away from Head Hunters and toward Future Shock.

47. Unwound - New Plastic Ideas - Kill Rock Stars, 1994

Why I Bought It: I first encountered Unwound’s brand of Sonic Youth–informed punk rock with either “Dragnalus” on the soundtrack to Half-Cocked or their 1996 LP Repetition, but I’ve primarily stuck with Repetition and the relative bookends of their output (barring their self-titled debut), 1993’s abrasive Fake Train and their 2001 swansong double album Leaves Turn Inside You. Unwound’s signature aggressive detachment, honed to a cool perfection on “Corpse Pose,” pulls me in and keeps me at bay. With few exceptions—the lovely “Lady Elect,” the aching “October All Over”—my relationship with Unwound is one of respect, not affection. But including their 1998 LP Challenge for a Civilized Society in a round of iPod Chicanery underscored their almost clinical level of effectiveness when they’re on, which in the case of Challenge is about fifty percent, which opened me up to grabbing one of their other albums.

Verdict: New Plastic Ideas strikes a welcome balance between the unhinged Fake Train and the machine-like efficiency of Repetition. Although the album lacks the polish of Repetition and the explorative nerve of Leaves Turn Inside You, there’s a refreshing consistency to these nine songs their later records sacrificed in the favor of ruthless experimentation. The restrained aggression of the lengthy instrumental “Abstraktions,” the mock-yearning of “Envelope,” and the dynamic peaks of “Arboretum” stand out, but each of the songs merits a mention. I need to listen to Leaves Turn Inside You again, but it’s entirely possible that New Plastic Ideals vaulted to the position of my favorite Unwound release with one listen.

48. Mekons - So Good It Hurts - Cooking Vinyl, 1988

Why I Bought It: When I purchased So Good It Hurts a year ago I only had vague notions of the Mekons’ alt-country, informed primarily by Touch & Go Records catalogs. After checking out the esteemed Fear & Whiskey and Mekons Rock ‘n’ Roll in my continuing efforts to expand my base of 1980s independent rock, it’s time to stop putting off listening to this album.

Verdict: My decision to hold off on listening to So Good It Hurts until I’d heard more typical Mekons records looks smart in retrospect. So Good It Hurts starts off auspiciously with the reggae-inflected “I’m Not Here (1967)” and incorporates more reggae, Cajun, and Celtic influences than expected. While it’s still a relatively solid album, such quasi-imperialist exploration deemphasizes the songwriting, leaving a few of the tracks to survive on egalitarian slogans. The title-citing “Fantastic Voyage” and the Sally Timms– sung “Dora” and “Heart of Stone” are the primary highlights, with the latter song sounding like a revitalized standard. So Good It Hurts could be a grower, but for now I’d like to focus on the Mekons’ alt-country efforts.

49. Count Basie - Basie Land - Verve, 1963

Why I Bought It: It’s a jazz record from the early 1960s released by Verve, I figured my wife, whose jazz preferences usually run closer to Oscar Peterson and Milt Jackson, would enjoy it, and it cost me all of $1.05. Naturally, I choose to listen to it when my wife is out of town.

Verdict: As someone who’s primarily delved into bop and fusion, Count Basie’s enthusiastic brand of swing jazz is a significant change of pace. The title track opens the LP with a big band–¬level of energy and “a cookin’ solo by tenorman Frank Foster,” but I prefer the slower pacing of the three tracks that follow it. “Instant Blues” is an apt title for the final song on side A. Most of side B returns to the pace of “Basie Land.” Basie Land is a nice diversion, but I doubt that big band/swing jazz is likely to gain a formidable presence in my record collection.

50. Gang of Four - Songs of the Free - Warner, 1982

Why I Bought It: When I finally bought Gang of Four’s classic Entertainment! I also picked up their next two albums, Solid Gold and Songs of the Free, not anticipating that their debut would refuse to budge from my turntable. From “Ether” to “Anthrax,” Entertainment!’s combination of minimal, razor-wire guitar phrases, funk- and dub-inspired bass lines, and Jon King’s remarkably catchy Marxist critique of British culture qualifies it with Wire’s Chairs Missing and Mission of Burma’s Vs. for my favorite post-punk LPs. (Entertainment! also dismantled my appreciation for recent groups like Q and Not U and Bloc Party that completely ape its dance-punk edicts.) As a cohesive distillation of their aims and sound, Entertainment! almost discourages a follow-up. Although a great record on its own accord, Solid Gold understandably can’t match its predecessor, suffering from an overly monochromatic palette. “What We All Want,” “Cheeseburger,” and “Outside the Trains Don’t Run on Time” are near equals of classics like “Return the Gift” and “5.45,” but the album lacks sustained brilliance. The prospect of Gang of Four’s slow descent into dance-punk with the emphasis heavy on the dance on Songs of the Free and Hard concerns me, but I’ve let the blurred screen capture on the cover of their third LP stare at me long enough.

Verdict: With original bassist Dave Allen departing for Shriekback, Gang of Four loses some of its rhythmic ingenuity. Replacement Sara Lee is capable, but lacks the signature touches that Allen brought to the first two LPs. Her background vocals are a bigger concern—their presence on “Call Me Up” and the single “I Love a Man in Uniform” may increase the group’s commercial appeal, but take away from the bite of King’s vocals and start the LP on a weak note. Thankfully, “We Live as We Dream, Alone,” “It’s Not Enough,” and “Life! It’s a Shame” close side A with a better combination of this new appeal and their old edge and “I Will Be a Good Boy” and “The History of the World” follow suit on side B. Yet the final two songs, “Muscle for Brains” and the near ballad “Of the Instant,” can’t keep up. (Typing out all of the album’s song titles is an amusing primer for their black-humored Marxism.)

Gang of Four’s nadir arrived with Hard—an album I won’t allow myself to purchase, even as my morbid curiosity grows—when drummer Hugo Burnham left and was replaced by a drum machine. Yet Songs of the Free sows the seeds for Hard’s treason. “I Love a Man in Uniform” is too sarcastic to be a pure sell-out single—“The girls they love to see you shoot”—but its pre-banning success encouraged the group to follow that blueprint, not the reenergized post-punk of “We Live as We Dream, Alone.” Songs of the Free takes one important step forward by losing the dry production of Solid Gold, but takes two steps backwards with its pop tropes and weaker bass lines.

41. The Art of Noise - (Who’s Afraid of?) The Art of Noise! - Island, 1984

Why I Bought It: I came across the Art of Noise’s first two full-lengths in the dollar bin and, barring any particular knowledge of their catalog, opted to buy both of them rather than purchase only the lesser album. Typically I can pull enough information from the album sleeves to determine which album to grab, but the Art of Noise tries their damnedest to dodge specifics. My only prior knowledge about the band was that Anne Dudley collaborated with Killing Joke singer Jaz Coleman on the 1990 world music album Songs from the Victorious City, but despite my Killing Joke fandom, I do not own that release.

Verdict: With one prominent exception, (Who’s Afraid of?) The Art of Noise! suffers from the technological stamp of its era. Whereas early hip-hop can overcome reliance on rudimentary sampler techniques on the strength of the rapping, central placement of samplers and sequencers only highlights the Art of Noise’s compositional and melodic limitations. Not that AON is alone in this quandary—early Pop Will Eat Itself sounds just as dated, for example—but songs like “Beat Box (Diversion One)” and “Close (to the Edit)” depend on their production techniques sounding innovative to qualify as avant-garde experimentation. (At the very least, they do not feature Max Headroom.) “Close (to the Edit)” features an infuriatingly familiar sample that kept just out of memory until consulting Wikipedia; its stabbing sample was pulled from Yes’s “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” which AON member Trevor Horn produced. Anne Dudley’s fragmented vocals were later sampled for the Prodigy’s “Firestarter,” furthering this bizarre lineage. The samples featured on the other songs are harder to identify, but sound just as worn out twenty-four years later.

“Moments of Love” is the prominent exception to this rule. Presaging the late night grooves of DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing, the ten-minute highlight of the album tones down the jittery samples and trite melodies and focuses on supplementing its solid beat with tasteful keyboards and piano samples. Whereas a future generation of electronic artists could conceivably be inspired by songs like “Beat Box (Diversion One)” and “Close (to the Edit)” without actually sounding like them, the comparative restraint of “Moments of Love” allows it to act as both a structural guide and a sonic template for its progeny. The overall constitution of (Who’s Afraid of?) The Art of Noise! hardly encourages me to fast-track In Visible Silence in the RCR queue, but “Moments of Love” justify the two dollar expenditure on the albums.

42. Various Artists - Magic Eye Singles: Blue - Magic Eye, 1996

Why I Bought It: I have one other entry in the Magic Eye singles series, the aptly titled Gold (the titles are based on the vinyl color of the first pressing), which features Sonora Pine violinist Samara Lubelski, Team Xiaoping (Soo Young Park and William Shin of Seam), and Yesteryear. I bought that one a long, long time ago and can’t remember a damn thing about any of the tracks. This volume features the Sonora Pine, Zeke Fiddler, New Radiant Storm King, and Nord Express, so I grabbed it to hear the Sonora Pine song and to be able to say that I own something by New Radiant Storm King. The first single, which sadly I do not have, includes an exclusive June of 44 song named “1000 Paper Cranes.”

An added bonus, this single includes a photocopied postcard from David Berman of the Silver Jews. Responding to Magic Eye’s inquiry of his band’s availability for the series, Berman writes, “Thanks for asking but I think we’re monogamous with Drag City. Sure, we look at other labels on the street, every guy does, but we don’t sleep around. Good luck getting started.”

Verdict: Magic Eye states that their goal for the series was to “present unreleased songs that are different from those a band usually creates.” I read this tagline after listening to the Sonora Pine’s contribution, which features only Tara Jane O’Neil and Sean Meadows on guitar and the NYFD on sirens. This short bit of formless guitar squalor sounds nothing like either of the Sonora Pine’s albums, so they succeeded with the approach even if they failed to create an enjoyable song. The remaining three tracks are low-key attempts at stripped-down indie rock, with New Radiant Storm King taking an acoustic approach that saps their music of its energy. In a split-single context, I usually expect to gain a sense of what a band actually sounds like, so these four subpar tracks hardly justify subverting that proven approach.

43. Flying Nuns – “Disco Dancing Queen” b/w “Carousel of Freaks” - Summerville, 1992

Why I Bought It: In a surprising coincidence, I listened to the Flying Nuns’ Pilot EP on my way up to Mystery Train Records in Gloucester today only to discover one of their early singles in a bin of mid-1990s indie rock seven-inches. I’d even thought about how little I’d listened to “Carousel of Freaks” (120 Minutes where are you?) since it falls on the less-played side B of the excellent Pilot EP, Flying Nuns’ only Matador release (they were dropped after the infusion of support from Capitol Records), and voila, it’s the flipside of this single. I’d never seen another non-Pilot release from the Flying Nuns before, although I should track down their 1998 self-titled EP and their 2002 full-length Everything’s Impossible Now These Days given my fondness for their catchy and meaty post-punk.

Verdict: These two songs feature a poppier side of Flying Nuns, with higher register vocals and less force from the rhythm section. “Disco Dancing Queen” has a predictable lightness given its title and the Galaxie 500-citing “Carousel of Freaks” fits with this mood better than the urgent “Submarine” or “Frank” would have. Now I just need to track down their later releases.

44. To Rococo Rot + D - “Smaller Listening” b/w “Numbers in Love” – Soul Static Sound, 2000

Why I Bought It: The graceful melody of “Die Dinge des Lebens” from To Rococo Rot’s 1999 full-length The Amateur View skips through my head every few months, sometimes inspired by its usage as the background for Björk’s “It’s in Our Hands” single. Yet I’ve never picked up any of their other material, despite seeing their collaboration with I-Sound (Music Is a Hungry Ghost) in used CD bins across the country.

Verdict: Whoops. Credit with Soul Static Sound abstract electronic artist D with the direction (or lack thereof) for these two songs, since these whirring, anti-melodic tracks couldn’t sound less like The Amateur View. Typically I’m embarrassed when I can’t tell the proper speed for a single, but these songs gave me no instrumental clues and aren’t interesting enough to merit concern. After flipping between 33 rpm and 45 rpm on both songs, I settled on the former speed since it annoyed me less. “Numbers in Love” is slightly better than “Smaller Listening,” but I can’t imagine pulling this one out of my singles box any time soon.

45. The C. S. Angels - Chasing Shadows - Island, 1986

Why I Bought It: Silkworm’s cover of “Our Secret” led to my purchase of It’s History, a semi-legal reissue box set of the Comsat Angels’ Waiting for a Miracle, Sleep No More, and Fiction. Those three albums should be your starting point for the group, particularly the haunting post-punk of Sleep No More (which I finally tracked down on LP a few months ago), but former Silkworm member Joel R. L. Phelps’ cover of “Lost Continent” on Blackbird made me wonder about the group’s mid ’80s synth-pop phase. Phelps’ utmost sincerity and musical stoicism help his version of “Lost Continent” transcend its potentially cheesy lyrical content (“I’m looking for the same thing as you / The lost continent of love”), but tracking down the original on Audiogalaxy years ago only served to increase my appreciation of the cover. I couldn’t find the rest of Chasing Shadows online and stopped looking years ago after a picture disc for “Will You Stay Tonight” from 1983’s Land tempered my enthusiasm. Finding Chasing Shadows in the understock of Record Exchange in Salem, MA renewed my curiosity, so I snapped it up. After all, I own Killing Joke’s synth-driven albums—even the almost universally loathed Outside the Gate—so taking a chance on Chasing Shadows didn’t seem too preposterous.

Verdict: As it turns out, the Comsat Angels’ would-be sell-out synth-pop album is 1985’s 7 Day Weekend, given the inclusion of “I’m Falling” on the soundtrack to the Val Kilmer popcorn epic Real Genius. Chasing Shadows followed that record with a number of key changes—the group was forced to shorten their name in the United States to the C. S. Angels by a lawsuit from the Communications Satellite Corporation, dropped from Jive Records following a disappointing push to pop stardom with Land and 7 Day Weekend, and snapped up by Island Records at the behest of fan and snappy dresser Robert Palmer.

Yes, that Robert Palmer. He’s the album’s “executive producer” and contributes backing vocals for “You’ll Never Know.” Game over, right?

Not quite. Chasing Shadows lacks urgency and energy, but its dour moodiness does recall the pallor of their early post-punk records. The keyboards are minimal—hell, almost everything is minimal—and Robert Palmer’s guest vocal is barely noticeable. Whereas “Lost Continent” sounded out of place with regard to their earlier work, its teetering optimism is downright necessary on this album. Stephen Fellows seems worn down from the group’s troubles, singing “It’s a slave with a whip and it will beat you / Chasing shadows, running ragged, going round and round” on the title track, “I can’t wait for pennies from above” on “You’ll Never Know,” and “When every word fans the flames / All you can do is pray for rain” on “Pray for Rain.” Most of the eight songs linger past the five-minute mark and this nearly relentless melancholy grows tiresome by album’s end. Without the nervous twitches of early singles like “Independence Day” (although this is the Land version) or “Eye of the Lens” or the abbreviated hooks of their foray into synth-pop to vary the pace, the Comsat Angels get too bogged down in their atmosphere for their own good.

Chasing Shadows may not qualify as a true return to form, but it’s intriguing enough to justify the purchase. “The Thought that Counts,” “Lost Continent,” “Flying Dreams,” and “Pray for Rain” are individually solid blends of post-punk and moody new wave, but the band’s troubles fundamentally altered their constitution. The cover of the US version of Chasing Shadows has the “om” and the “at” in the band name scratched away, which seems apt given the missing elements of their sound.

36. Prefab Sprout - Two Wheels Good - Epic, 1985

Why I Bought It: I saw Two Wheels Good (more widely known by its British name, Steve McQueen) in the dollar bin at Stereo Jack’s Records in Cambridge and vaguely recalled the band name, but I wasn’t buying enough to hit their $10 minimum purchase level for credit cards and only had enough cash to buy the soundtrack to This Is Spinal Tap and Rex’s self-titled debut. When I later learned that it’s a highly acclaimed recipient of a recent 2CD reissue, I made a mental note to venture back over there with a dollar and change in hand to pick it up. (Naturally, I ended up finding the Cocteau Twins’ Blue Bell Knoll and had to charge the purchase.)

Verdict: Due largely to Thomas Dolby’s mid-’80s production values, Two Wheels Good sounds more adult-contemporary pop than anticipated. The songs themselves, particularly closer “When the Angels,” occasionally transcend this sheen, but I found myself losing focus on what singer/songwriter Paddy McAloon is crooning about. Glancing over the lyrics on a Prefab Sprout fan site makes me want to give it another shot, but ironically—given the vinyl fetishism inherent to this project—it also makes me want to hear the acoustic bonus disc from the CD reissue.

37. Roxy Music - Stranded - ATCO, 1974

Why I Bought It: With all apologies to Stranded’s Playboy Playmate cover model Marilyn Cole, Brian Eno’s early solo work acted as my gateway to his previous band’s catalog, not Brian Ferry’s then-girlfriend. I included For Your Pleasure and Roxy Music in the last round of iPod Chicanery and the strength of those LPs prompted me to pick up Stranded at Mystery Train in Gloucester a few months back.

Verdict: Stranded was the first post-Eno Roxy Music LP, but it’s not lacking inspiration. The up-tempo single “Street Life,” the dramatic, multilingual “A Song for Europe,” and the dynamic “Mother of Pearl” are the clear highlights, but side B is consistently great. There’s a bit of drag on side A after “Street Life”—none of the other songs on that side match its energy—but I imagine that my pacing concerns will evaporate with a few more listens. Bryan Ferry’s croon carries a few of these songs, especially “A Song for Europe,” which whets my appetite for his 1985 solo LP Boys and Girls which awaits in the queue.

38. Stars of the Lid - Avec Laudenum - Kranky, 1999

Why I Bought It: After jumping in headfirst with last year’s excellent And Their Refinement of the Decline, I’ve been working my way backwards through Stars of the Lid’s catalog of ambient classical compositions. 2001’s 3LP epic The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid has lingered near my turntable since their astounding performance at the Museum of Fine Arts back in May, but I’ve had my eyes on the vinyl pressing of Avec Laudenum since Record Store Day. The closing of Newbury Comics’ Government Center location prompted a 50% off coupon for vinyl, which I was all too happy to use on Avec Laudenum. (There will soon be a new location in Quincy Market, one that hopefully rivals the Harvard Square and Newbury Street stores in focus and stock.) It will take longer for me to track down SOTL’s earlier LPs, since they’re no longer in print and fetching a premium on eBay, but nothing I’ve heard so far has discouraged me from the pursuit.

Verdict: Avec Laudenum sounds stripped-down in comparison to the two triple LPs that followed it, relying on arcing drones and drifting guitar chords in lieu of strings and brass. Yet this simplicity never seems lacking. Wiltzie and McBride utilize this sonic palette with the utmost subtlety on “Dust Breeding (1.316)+” and “I Will Surround You,” making it nearly impossible to extract particular elements from the flowing warmth of their drone symphonies. In the three-part “The Atomium,” the increasing presence of the guitars signals the concluding swell of the third section and then quickly vanishes, as if the ascent never occurred. When focusing on Stars of the Lid’s reverse artistic progression, it’s tempting to view Avec Laudenum’s soothing minimalism as an appetizer for grander ambience of Tired Sound of Stars of the Lid and And Their Refinement of the Decline. But Avec Laudenum, a five-song LP that comes across as two distinct, ponderous movements, deserves a better fate than to be considered a warm-up lap.

39. Pat Metheny - 80/81 - ECM, 1981

Why I Bought It: Pat Metheny’s involvement in Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint and Ornette Coleman’s Song X prodded me to pick up a dollar copy of 80/81, although I left behind a good percentage of his late 1970s and early 1980s releases. While I can sign off on a Metheny album with prominent involvement from Charlie Haden and Jack DeJohnette, my hesitation over his folk-jazz fusion compositions won’t go away until I actually hear one of his records, not a collaboration with a respected peer. 80/81 doesn’t quite qualify as that record, but at least most of these are his compositions.

Verdict: The first minute of “Two Folk Songs” was rather unnerving, as Metheny’s acoustic guitar drives a mid-tempo folk-jazz hybrid into disturbingly light terrain. As the song progressed, however, Jack DeJohnette pummeled away my doubts. His forceful drumming keeps side A from losing focus and pushes Metheny’s acoustic guitar to the background, at least until Metheny gains enough steam to compete. Sides B and C switch to more traditional, less folk-influenced post-bop, including a version of Ornette Coleman’s “Turnaround” from his 1959 LP Tomorrow Is the Question. Tenor saxophonists Dewey Redman and Mike Brecker steal Metheny’s thunder on the lengthy “Open,” spiraling their dueling leads upward in a cacophonous riot as Metheny’s ascending notes only serve as a distraction. Side D returns to the folk-jazz blend of side A, but DeJohnette isn’t nearly as thunderous on these comparatively laid-back tracks. “Every Day (I Thank You)” and “Goin’ Ahead” give Metheny’s layered guitar tracks center stage, but lack the energy of the previous three sides.

80/81 essentially succeeds in spite of Metheny, since the contributing players give far more spirited performances. It’s not difficult to see his approach for this record—bring in acclaimed jazz musicians, do one LP of folk-jazz fusion to demonstrate his particular take on the genre, do one LP of post-bop to lure in the purists and prove his mettle in a more traditional context. Yet 80/81 doesn’t sell me on Metheny’s own compositions when they’re highlighted in the mix (side D), so an album I largely enjoy ultimately does nothing to encourage me to check out Metheny’s personal discography.

40. Bullet Lavolta - The Gift - Taang!, 1989

Why I Bought It: Future Chavez guitarist and Joy Ride screenwriter Clay Tarver started out in the Boston-based Bullet Lavolta, so I was more than willing to grab their debut LP for a dollar. Grabbing it, sure; listening to it, no. The Gift has been lurking in my record collection since I grabbed it (along with a few Volcano Suns LPs and a few less noteworthy albums) at a record fair in Champaign.

Verdict: Whereas Chavez’s riff-driven indie rock had hints of traditional hard rock but never succumbed to the genre’s vices, Bullet Lavolta are neck deep in hard rock bluster. Whether it’s because this material hasn’t aged well, it lacks the visceral jolt of the live setting, or my taste for throttling hard rock doesn’t meet the dosage, The Gift simply doesn’t hit squarely. Tarver and Ken Chambers attempt to find the midpoint between the breakneck pace of 1980s hardcore and the righteous shredding of early Van Halen on tracks like “X Fire,” “Sneer,” “The Gift,” and “Trapdoor,” but never sound as inspired as their source material. Vocalist Yukki Gipe wails and sneers on most tracks, but on “Birth of Death” tries to appropriate the guttural incantations of death metal with curious results, not exactly the intended effect. A reviewer on Amazon writes that if Bullet Lavolta existed in 1994 instead of 1989, they would have been a huge act in the midst of the alternative revolution, but I’ll take that prompt a different way. If Bullet Lavolta existed in 1994 instead of 1989, the weaker tendencies in their sound—the hard rock bluster, in short—would have been antithetical to the times and they likely would have been a more appealing band. Thankfully, Chavez’s mid 1990s existence saves me from worrying too much about Clay Tarver’s squandered potential.

31. Slayer - Reign in Blood - Def Jam, 1986

Why I Bought It: Finding a copy of Reign in Blood with the shrink wrap intact (originally $8.29 at Good Vibrations; I paid less) forced me to finally confront one of metal’s classics. I say confront because I turned away from metal videos when they came on MTV during my sheltered youth in the 1980s. Being fond of Phil Collins-era Genesis and Men at Work made even hair metal sound like the product of Jordan, Minnesota. By the time any of my close friends got into metal it was high school and the band was Metallica, so the impact was doubly limited. I’d already gotten into indie rock and hearing James Hetfield’s thin wail on Kill ’em All in Chris Williams’ Chevy Cavalier was more likely to make me laugh than to turn me to the dark side.

Verdict: Slayer does not fuck around. The first line of the record is “Auschwitz, the meaning of pain.” The music is equally unrelenting, a brutal combination of heavy riffs, lightning-fast solos, pummeling bass drums, and Tom Araya’s remarkably clear vocals—no guttural emanations here. If you’re going to sing about topics that will offend Tipper Gore, why not have her understand what you’re singing about, right? The band’s secret weapon is the half-speed breakdown, which makes the forthcoming solos in “Necrophobic” seem even faster. These ten songs are remarkably lean, infusing the technical precision of speed metal with the economy of American hardcore.

The lyrical content is extreme to say the least—“Angel of Death” is about concentration camps and Nazi physician Josef Mengele—meaning that I’m unlikely to ever memorize the lyrics to “Raining Blood” and shout along in the car. Yet it’s hard not to think of Silkworm’s “There’s a Party in Warsaw Tonight,” a decidedly un-metal song in which Andy Cohen sneers “There will be peace / On mounds of teeth / I’m no fool I’m gonna slave all the people to me.” While Slayer’s Reign in Blood may be one of the few pure metal records in my collection (I can’t in good conscience count Isis and Nadja LPs, since those initially appealed to me for their non-metal [read: post-rock] characteristics), it’s not comprised of completely unfamiliar elements, a point that should finally overturn any lingering hesitance towards approaching the genre.

32. Dis- / Panel Donor - Split Single - Lombardi, 1995

Why I Bought It: While the past few years of canon-exploring has diminished its place in my active listening pile, mid-’90s Midwestern indie rock still holds prime real estate in my tastes. Hum was my gateway drug to Castor, Love Cup, Shiner, Zoom, Dis-, and a handful of other key groups that utilized the heavy guitars of grunge in tricky, non-grunge fashions. Dis- transitioned nicely from the distorted weight of their early records (The Small Fry Sessions 1 & 2 and M 386.D57 1994, with its library catalog–inspired title that screws up my record collection spreadsheet, are worth grabbing if you ever see them) to the solid combination of dark humor and math-rock on their 1996 swan song The Historically Troubled Third Album. While I was able to track down Dis-’s CDs and single in Champaign since they were released on Poster Children’s 12 Inch Records imprint, Panel Donor eluded my grasp until late in my Midwestern stay, at which point finding their self-titled debut seemed more exciting as a trophy of my tastes than an actual album to obsess over. I’ve finally listened to most of it in the current incarnation of iPod Chicanery and it’s been a comfort food in the midst of a considerable amount of unfamiliar cuisine.

All of this leads me to how I actually found the Dis- / Panel Donor split single. I finally made it up to Mystery Train in Gloucester, MA on Memorial Day and I was astonished to find a good amount of Midwestern indie rock vinyl during my mad dash through their inventory. In addition to this single, I grabbed Table’s first seven-inch (a math-rock trio whose bassist Warren Fischer [whose hilarious entry on Wikipedia deserves a mention] now resides in the electro-clash outfit Fischerspooner), a Boys Life / Giants Chair split single, Boys Life’s first LP, and Panel Donor’s Surprise Bath LP among some other non-Midwestern sundries. Upon seeing that Sonic Bubblegum, the label for that Panel Donor album and Dis-’s Historically Troubled CD, was based in Brighton, MA, I realized a possible origin for these seemingly displaced records. I’ll have to return to Mystery Train with more time and money on hand and fully scour both vinyl and CD bins for similar Midwestern oddities.

Verdict: Dis- contributes an early version of “Suddenly Everyone Is a Smoker,” the first song of theirs I heard after its inclusion on a My Pal God / Actionboy / Ohio Gold sampler CD featuring C-Clamp, Hurl, and Dianogah among others. It’s fairly similar to the version on The Historically Troubled Third Album, pushing the drums and distorted guitar up in Steve Albini’s mix. Dis- records featured a rotating cast of drummers (Matt Morgan, Peter Pollack, Chris Cosgrove respectively), so seeing Chris Manfrin credited for this performance wasn’t too much of a surprise. Manfrin also appears on Seam’s final two records and Dis- offshoot Sixto’s self-titled disc, and currently in the post-Silkworm group Bottomless Pit.

Panel Donor’s “L.T. Weightman” features former Zoom guitarist Jeremy Sidener, who joined up after that self-titled debut I mentioned earlier. After a shouted, aggressive verse, the guitars and distorted bass move through some downbeat, melodic passages before returning full force for a powerful ending. It’s easy to remember why I love this stuff. When I either get a USB turntable or a stereo input for my laptop, I’ll rip this single for your listening pleasure, but until then, keep digging through those dusty seven-inch bins.

33. Hüsker Dü - Warehouse: Songs and Stories - Warner, 1987

Why I Bought It: Considering my fondness for most of Sugar’s catalog and selections from Bob Mould’s solo work, checking out Hüsker Dü was long overdue. After finally listening to Zen Arcade and New Day Rising, I nearly bought the former on Record Store Day, but figured I’d have plenty of shots to grab that record since SST vinyl has been plentiful at Newbury Comics. Finding a used copy of Warehouse at Record Exchange in Salem, MA, resulted in a slight impulse buy. Should Warehouse be the first Hüsker Dü LP in my collection? I doubt it. But coming from the pop end of the Bob Mould spectrum suggests that Hüsker Dü’s finale might appeal more to me than the group’s die-hard fans.

Verdict: Warehouse is a double LP, but the reminders of Zen Arcade don’t extend to this album’s concept or diversity. The routine of switching between Bob Mould songs and Grant Hart songs can’t keep Warehouse from dragging. Virtually all of the record’s twenty tracks are competent entries into 1980s college rock; some hint at their past shredding, some slow down to let Mould’s guitar jangle ring out, but it’s hard to consider those songs curveballs. Well, I was surprised by the cheesy leads on Hart’s “Too Much Spice”; perhaps Mould included them out of spite.

While I’m disappointed by the whole of the record, the highlights redeem the purchase. I typically prefer Mould’s compositions to Hart’s, but the latter’s “You Can Live at Home” closes out the record on a high note. “I can be fine, I can be free / I can be beautiful without you torturing me / Walk, walk away, keep on walking away / Go / You can live at home now / You can live at home now” is a scathing way to conclude their final record and the extended exit is accompanied by Mould’s most inspired guitar squall. Mould’s “These Important Years,” “Ice Cold Ice,” and “Could You Be the One?” nearly match “You Can Live at Home” with their strong melodies and forward propulsion. If the album was cut down to a single LP, I’d sing its praises and lament how long it took for me to track down a great entry into Bob Mould’s history of melodic guitar rock. But unfortunately Mould and Hart (I’m leaving Greg Norton and his awesome mustache out of this one) chose bulk over quality control.

34. Panel Donor - Surprise Bath - Sonic Bubblegum, 1997

Why I Bought It: As I previously mentioned, finding a horde of Midwestern indie rock at Mystery Train Records in Gloucester, MA, was too good to pass up. I was fortunate to see the back of this LP, since the front doesn’t include the band name and I was unaware that this album (or 1996’s Lobedom and Global) even existed. I should clearly pay more attention to Built on a Weak Spot for his thorough posts on Panel Donor and other Midwestern favorites—his mp3s are still up if you’d like to sample any of Panel Donor’s three albums. On a side note, the album cover looks like a manipulation of a still frame of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle. Weird.

Verdict: The addition of Zoom guitarist Jeremy Sidener helps Panel Donor sound, well, more like Zoom, which isn’t a bad thing in my book. Nothing here rocks quite as hard as their song from the split single with Dis-; instead, the best songs linger in mid-tempos, exchanging woozy guitar riffs and melancholic vocals with the aplomb of the best low-key Polvo and Zoom songs. “Surprise Bath” and “Kid Throws in for Pillowing” pull this trick off marvelously, making their dynamic shifts seem almost invisible. Surprise Bath lacks some of the vocal hooks that push Zoom and Castor above many of their Midwestern brethren, but there’s a depth to this record that begs for more listens.

35. Nick Lowe - Pure Pop for Now People - Columbia, 1978

Why I Bought It: Friend and occasional collaborator Mark T. R. Donohue / Western Homes mentioned seeing a Nick Lowe concert in a recent LiveJournal post, explaining that Lowe is “one of the chief inspirations of all my ambitions as a songwriter… if Western Homes music is Christianity, then Nick Lowe is the father, Elvis Costello is the son, and Alex Chilton is the Holy Spirit.” While I’ll never equal his fondness for Elvis Costello (believe me, few can), I’m more than willing to check out Lowe based on Mark’s recommendation. This record was originally called Jesus of Cool in the UK and featured a different album cover; the title change is understandable, but why they removed the photo of Lowe with a dual-necked bass/guitar is beyond me.

Verdict: Situating Lowe between Elvis Costello and Big Star makes a considerable amount of sense—aside from the scathing “Music for Money,” he sticks closer to power pop than the edgy new wave found on Costello’s early records, perhaps separating his own music from his role as the in-house producer for Stiff Records’ early punk and new wave records. Lowe instead chooses to reference ’50s rock, ’60s pop, and ’70s disco in his power pop/pub rock crossovers. Since Lowe had already issued an EP called Bowi in response to the 1977 release of Low, “(I Love the Sound of) Breaking Glass” is a likely reference to that album’s “Breaking Glass,” stealing a bit of its Berlin shiver for a righteously melodic single. “No Reason” and the tongue-in-cheek (Bay City) “Rollers Show” also stand out as inspired examples of Lowe’s songwriting, but the tidy running time of Pure Pop for Now People doesn’t allow for any filler. He may show a bit of discomfort in the various rock guises featured on the cover, but the biggest strength of Pure Pop is Lowe’s ability to incorporate those guises with subtlety and wit instead of making the album sound like a mix tape of his tastes.

26. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Dazzle Ships - Virgin, 1983

Why I Bought It: Pure whim. I knew OMD played synth-pop but couldn’t remember if I’d actually heard any of it (in retrospect I’m familiar with “If You Leave” from the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, but that song would be more likely to discourage me from checking out their other work), so my main reason for buying Dazzle Ships is Factory Records’ house designer Peter Saville’s name on the inner liner. The sleeve is vaguely similar to New Order’s Power, Corruption & Lies in its use of die-cut circles, but the slanting blocks of color remind me more of the cover for Wire’s 154. As an added bonus, there is a record inside the sleeve.

Verdict: In his All Music Guide review of Dazzle Ships, Ned Raggett calls the album “a Kid A of its time that never received a comparative level of contemporary attention and appreciation.” I did not see this one coming, so excuse the Radiohead aside to follow. While my fondness for Radiohead pales in comparison with that of the vast majority of critics and many of my peers—I tend to respect rather than enjoy their work—I understand what they tried to accomplish with Kid A. By appropriating the songwriting techniques of electronic artists, Radiohead aimed to write new forms of rock songs from the ground up, thereby avoiding the tired genre conventions of their peers. While those songs differ both structurally and sonically from their guitar-rock past (and present), the group’s unrelenting thematic emphasis on alienation in the modern condition brings continuity to their catalog (at the sake of greater emotional resonance in my view, but I’ll leave that alone for now). The album succeeds as both a statement record and a courageous step out into the abyss for a popular act, so I hardly take comparisons to its aims lightly.

Hearing Dazzle Ships for the first time with those expectations in mind was a curious experience, since I’m not familiar enough with their previous work to sense a huge shift in approach. There are three types of songs on this album: sound experiments, traditional synth-pop, and attempts to splice elements from the former into the latter. I’ll deal with the sound experiments first, since those are the most explicit attempts to push OMD’s aesthetic forward. “Radio Prague” is a sampled fanfare and an effective introduction for “Genetic Engineering,” but it’s not memorable in its own regard. “Dazzle Ships (Parts II, III & IV)” veers from industrial lurching to gothic bursts, but ultimately exists more of a moody bookend or a jarring introduction for “The Romance of the Telescope” than an actual song. “Time Zones” layers recorded time announcements from various languages, but for what purpose? These songs add atmosphere to the record, but so did the radio clips on Kraftwerk’s Radio-Active, so it’s hardly a novel approach for the genre.

“Genetic Engineering” does an excellent job of internalizing the found sound—more specifically, found technological sound—of “Radio Prague” for a more traditional synth-pop song, something neither “ABC Auto-Industry” nor “This Is Helena” can quite accomplish. Those songs try to replace OMD’s typically dramatic vocals with robotic recitations, reminding Raggett of “Fitter Happier” from OK Computer, but neither song finds the proper balance between organic emotion and technological precision. The beginning of “Radio Waves” suggests another sound experiment, but its upbeat chorus and hand claps completely reverse these expectations.

Andy McCluskey’s vocals tend to pull me out of the album’s more traditional songs, particularly the wildly emotive “International,” tampering with the atmosphere created by the more experimental tracks Yet “Of All the Things We’ve Made” closes the album on a high note, accompanying its reserved, reticent vocals with a muted guitar jangle and echoing piano notes. Whereas much of Dazzle Ships relies on surface-oriented advances to amaze the listener, the subtlety of “Of All the Things We’ve Made” suggests that it’s not the aesthetic surroundings of OMD’s music that needed tweaking, but some of their most fundamental components. Dazzle Ships certainly tries hard to invigorate their synth-pop approach with an experimental edge, but too often I hear the constituent parts instead of a wholly synthesized product of these urges. Raggett’s comparison may be somewhat accurate in terms of intent, but it’s a disservice to OMD when it comes to the final product.

27. Meat Puppets - Out My Way EP - SST, 1986

Why I Bought It: I remember taping their 1990s buzz bin entry “Backwater” from the radio for the bus ride to school, but something tells me that I would’ve been put off at the time by the cow punk of their earlier SST albums. After seeing a few Meat Puppets LPs on Pitchfork’s Best of the ’80s list, I decided to finally check them out, picking up used copies of Meat Puppets, Up on the Sun, and Out My Way.

Verdict: Out My Way is a solid stopgap EP, but not an essential release like its predecessor Up on the Sun. Side A has three fleshed-out rock songs with scaled-down country influences and amped-up fretwork, making some sense out of Mark Prindle’s consistent comparison of the Meat Puppets to ZZ Top. Side B, however, doesn’t fare quite as well. After the par-for-the-course “Not Swimming Ground,” “Mountain Line” is saved only by an intriguing instrumental outro and the high-energy cover of “Good Golly Miss Molly” couldn’t end fast enough. It’s worth grabbing for a few bucks, but none of the melodies have stuck in my head like the title track to Up on the Sun.

As an added bonus, Out My Way came with a 1986 SST catalog. Ever since Touch & Go sold me on Slint with “So far ahead of their time they’re standing behind you,” I’ve held a special affinity for record label and mail order catalogs. Unfortunately, SST avoids both band comparisons and witty descriptions, opting instead for song titles, release year, and underground standing as their go-to hooks. I am rather impressed by the presence of a custom Black Flag skateboard—$40 for the deck only, $100 fully equipped.

28. Pat Metheny / Ornette Coleman - Song X -Geffen, 1986

Why I Bought It: While distantly removed from Song X’s release in 1986, Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come and This Is Our Music are two of my favorite jazz records, so I’m willing to check out most LPs adorned with Coleman’s name. As for Pat Metheny, I enjoy his performance on Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, but I haven’t yet listened to any of his original performances, something that this project will reconcile with the double LP 80/81.

Verdict: I expected Song X to sound considerably more alien, given its oblique title, release in the mid-1980s, and prominent involvement from Pat Metheny, but those expectations were clearly way, way off the mark. While the collaboration between free-jazz pioneer Coleman and crossover guitarist Metheny may have been intended to bring Coleman into mainstream 1980s music, the actual content avoids making any radical departures. The other contributors—Charlie Haden on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums, and Denardo Coleman on drums/percussion—help ground the proceedings in the vein of The Shape of Jazz to Come and Free Jazz. Metheny takes a backseat role to Coleman, who takes most of the songwriting credits and resides in the prime real estate of the mix. That isn’t to say that its release in the mid ’80s doesn’t color the sound, since Denardo Coleman’s electronic drum treatments and Metheny’s guitar synths do make appearances, but it’s remarkable how little those elements stick out as dated.

I do wonder how a true 50/50 collaboration might have worked out, since Metheny is clearly deferring to one of his inspirations. “Song X Duo” brings some space to the Coleman/Metheny dynamic and possesses a rare moment of a warmly ringing guitar chord. Whether this moment is merely an improvised resolve or a tantalizing suggestion of what might have been is debatable, but Song X shouldn’t be seen as a failed experiment because of Metheny’s deference. It’s a solid album that chooses cohesion over fresh earth, the subtle incorporation of a new player over a war for territory.

29. Faith No More - Introduce Yourself - Slash, 1987

Why I Bought It: While I love Angel Dust and, to a lesser extent, King for a Day… Fool for a Lifetime, non-“Epic” tracks from The Real Thing tend to set off my cheese metal alarm. So aside from “We Care a Lot,” I’ve steadfastly avoided the Chuck Mosely era of Faith No More. Finding an LP of Introduce Yourself for less than five bucks finally convinced me to take a shot at their pre-Patton catalog.

Verdict: Introduce Yourself exceeds my admittedly low expectations by a fairly wide margin. Both sides are frontloaded with their best songs, leaving the clunkers (“Death March,” “Blood,” “Spirit”) to bring up the rear. Side A starts off with four solid tracks—album highlight “Faster Disco,” the melodic “Anne’s Song,” the energetic “Introduce Yourself,” and the rap metal prototype “Chinese Arithmetic”—before losing steam with the aimless banter preceding “Death March.” Similarly, side B is anchored by “We Care a Lot,” “R n’ R,” and “The Crab Song” before fading off. Jim Martin’s chunky riffs and Mike Bordin’s muscular drumming hold the record together, but it’s ultimately Chuck Mosely’s vocals that determine a given song’s worth. When Mosely tries to sing (see aforementioned clunkers), the solid instrumental mix beneath is wasted, but when he alternates between semi-rapped verses and shouted slogan choruses, his inability to carry a tune is irrelevant. Perhaps I should cut Mosely some slack in this situation, since Mike Patton’s stay in Faith No More exhibits a similar dichotomy (nasal whine vs. every other vocal strategy attempted), but even Patton’s nasal crooning doesn’t ruin songs quite like Mosely’s tuneless voice can. Still, with seven worthy songs, Introduce Yourself handily defeated my lingering reservations.

30. XTC - Mummer - Virgin, 1983

Why I Bought It: After J. Robbins compared Burning Airlines’s Mission: Control! to the antsy pop of early XTC, I picked up their singles collection Upsy Daisy Assortment and made little progress beyond “Making Plans for Nigel.” Hearing Drums and Wires and Black Sea—the guitar-centric albums to which Robbins likely referred—helped contextualize the cheery power pop of the singles collection. I would have preferred grabbing the highly praised English Settlement or Skylarking (although the latter has since been rectified), but dropping a dollar on an unheard XTC record in a beat-up sleeve seemed like a smart idea.

Verdict: Mummer lacks much of the exuberance that sold me on the power pop complements to their post-punk edge of Drums and Wires and Black Sea. The near-scat vocals in the Middle Eastern-aping “Beating of Hearts” start the album off with a bang and the energetic, scathing “Funk Pop a Roll” closes Mummer with that endlessly entertaining trick of writing a great pop song about the dangers of pop music (see also: Elvis Costello’s “Radio, Radio,” Pavement’s “Cut Your Hair,” Archers of Loaf’s “The Lowest Part Is Free,” Juno’s Rodeo Programmers”), but aside from the gloriously melodic “Love on a Farmboy’s Wages,” the lack of energy between these bookends is underwhelming. “Ladybird” is certainly pastoral, but I wouldn’t call it memorable. Several of the songs are nearly saved by great moments—the orchestral cacophony concluding “Great Fire,” the subdued melodies in the outro of “In Loving Memory of a Name,” the dark lyrical bent of “Human Alchemy”—but they still lack the internal consistency of XTC’s best tracks. It’s easy to understand why the songwriting on Mummer is muddled—it was the band’s first album after Andy Partridge’s nervous breakdown and consequent retirement from touring, drummer Terry Chambers left midway through the recording session—but I’m dismayed that two of its three best tracks already reside on Upsy Daisy Assortment.

21. Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run - CBS, 1975

Why I Bought It: Whenever I flip through dollar bins, there are almost always records like Born to Run that pop up: critically acclaimed, audience-beloved staples of American culture and classic rock radio. While I’ve never sat down and listened to Born to Run—or any other non-Nebraska Springsteen LP—it’s essentially already part of my musical fabric, so I don’t feel the need to include it in my collection. I usually flip by such records, noting their existence but preferring to grab something less familiar, but occasionally I’ll cave to whatever populist impulses exist deep within my being and pick up one of them.

Verdict: Only three songs were instantly recognizable—“Thunder Road,” Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” and “Born to Run”—but the remaining five are so endowed with the Boss’s signature sound that they could have all been massive radio hits. Each song is essentially a journey between known points, whether it’s the building fire (“Thunder Road”), the heart-tugging climax (“Born to Run”), the quiet eye of the storm (“She’s the One”), or the saxophone-enabled glory of introducing caution to the wind (“Jungleland”). It’s easy to forget that at one time these various points weren’t immediately familiar, that their effect was not a cycle of remembrance but of connection.

Unlike a number of LPs I’ve listened to in the last week, I never strained to appreciate when Springsteen and his band were doing, never questioned whether a given song fit within the whole, never wondered what other people saw in the album. Born to Run is a great record, but I already knew that. But just like I approached it, I don’t feel the sudden need to hear it or Springsteen’s other classic albums again in the near future. I’m certain I’ll listen to them at some point, maybe even building a fondness for Springsteen’s small-town-goes-big storytelling down the line, but right now I’m more concerned with records that may not be certified classics.

22. Depeche Mode - Black Celebration - Sire, 1986

Why I Bought It: “Enjoy the Silence” and “Policy of Truth” may be on Violator (which I pulled, sans-case, from the free bin at Rhino Records in high school), but they’re good enough to merit grabbing a cheap copy of Black Celebration.

Black Celebration, particularly side A, is weighed down by a number of less-than-impressive tracks. When Dave Gahan croons over melodic synth lines on “Black Celebration,” “A Question of Time,” and “Stripped,” it’s hard to argue with the band’s formula. The same cannot be said about “Sometimes” or “A Question of Lust,” which cut back on the synthesizers and end up sounding more like a lecherous version of 1950s pop. Thanks, but no thanks. The stripped-down production of those songs also takes away from the power struggle between the dour nihilism of their gothic tendencies (“Black Celebration” starts “Let’s have a black celebration / Black celebration / Tonight / To celebrate the fact / That we’ve seen the back / Of another black day”; sigh) and their leering sexual proclivities, embodied so well in Gahan’s rich voice. While I like parts of Black Celebration enough to check out their other non-Violator albums if I see cheap copies, I get the feeling that Depeche Mode will always be a singles/highlights band to me.

23. Hz Roundtable - Birdbath EP - Intonated, 1997

Why I Bought It: Either the Parasol catalog or the Reckless database informed me that Hz Roundtable had a connection to Midwestern indie rockers Zoom, so I snapped it up. Zoom/Hz Roundtable singer/guitarist Mark Henning is now in The National Trust, whose soul/funk hybrid reminds far more of Prince than, say, Panel Donor, but I’m willing to bet that Hz Roundtable is closer in spirit to his earlier work.

Verdict: …and I would theoretically collect on that bet. Hz Roundtable’s quirky indie rock seems like a logical offshoot of Zoom, albeit stripped of that band’s urgency and heft. With ten contributors across the six songs, Hz Roundtable is more of a collective than a highly structured band. The resulting combination of relaxed songwriting and stray instrumentation rarely helps Birdbath, however, since the songs have a tendency to drift without strong hooks to buoy them. Henning sings on the even tracks, but his voice lacks the gravity present on Zoom’s Helium Octipede. Similarly, Zoom’s distinctive guitar leads—“Balboa’s Cannon” was a mix tape staple for years—only come up on the closing track, “The Jersey Lily,” which features just Henning and Liz Bustamante. I’m disappointed that this EP doesn’t compare to Zoom’s self-titled debut or Helium Octipede, but at this point I’ve largely given up blind-buying questionable offshoots like this one.

24. Kraftwerk - Autobahn - Vertigo, 1974

Why I Bought It: I downloaded Trans-Europe Express for an earlier iteration of iPod Chicanery and, as typically happens, I wasn’t able to find a cheap copy of that record but instead two of their earlier albums, Autobahn and Radio-Activity, and one post-Express album, The Man-Machine. I blame my late-comer status on Kraftwerk/Neu!/Tangerine Dream on the fact that my high school German textbooks only used Falco and Die Toten Hosen as examples of the country’s music. I wonder if American-penned German textbooks herald Richard Marx and Bryan Adams as the primary delegates of our cultural output.

Verdict: While this listening experience—sitting in my living room and flipping between Stuck on You and The Hunt for Red October on mute—doesn’t quite compare to hearing “Europe Endless” for the first time on an Italian train last summer, Autobahn certainly expands my idea of Kraftwerk’s range. Whereas Trans-Europe Express is defined by its cold, machine-like precision, Autobahn, like its cheery cover, is far less stoic, branching out in several unexpected directions. The title track blends the gleeful (well, as gleeful as German electronic pioneers are going to get) refrain of “Wir fahr’n fahr’n fahr’n auf der Autobahn” with a shifting melodic and rhythmic backing for a 23-minute voyage. “Kometenmelodie 1” and “Mitternacht” pull away from the sunny demeanor of “Autobahn” for some atmospheric wanderings closer to Tangerine Dream’s quiet moments. “Kometenmelodie 2” counters this drama with brighter, more insistent melodies and “Morgenspaziergang” closes the album on a particularly whimsical note. Whereas I appreciate Trans-Europe Express for its singular focus (and appropriateness for the robo-boogie), the range of Autobahn is equally appealing.

25. Cocteau Twins - Tiny Dynamite / Echoes in a Shallow Bay - 4AD, 1985

Why I Bought It: When I first listened to My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless after buying it blind around the age of seventeen, I thought, “This is the most rocking new age music I’ve ever heard!” Considering my record collection at the time consisted of indie rock, alternative rock, and the pop end of industrial, the glistening shoegaze of Loveless seemed overwhelmingly alien. I gradually checked out My Bloody Valentine’s contemporaries (Ride and Slowdive) and followers (M83, early Lassie Foundation, Ulrich Schnauss), but it wasn’t until the second round of iPod Chicanery that I finally heard one of MBV’s biggest influences. Perhaps some of the delay could due to my overall reticence in delving into 1980s indie, a reticence based largely on the presumably dated sonics and the era’s reliance on drum machines, but I have to wonder if the new age comment lingered in my memory banks. The direct lineage of Elizabeth Fraser’s glossolalic yodels to My Bloody Valentine’s blurred syllables almost prescribed a similar reaction the first time I heard Cocteau Twins. “I didn’t know Enya was in a proto-shoegaze dream pop band!”

All of this set-up takes away from my actual feelings on Cocteau Twins, based upon Treasure and Heaven or Las Vegas. Some songs (“Lorelei,” “Heaven or Las Vegas,” “I Wear Your Ring”) congeal the gossamer arrangements and Fraser’s cooing, nearly wordless* vocals with astonishing effect. Yet I rarely listen to more than five Cocteau Twins songs in a row before losing attention and moving on to something else. While I would have preferred finding either Treasure or Heaven or Las Vegas on vinyl, I’m admittedly excited about hearing their other work.

* It’s hard to explain how much amusement I get out of reading Cocteau Twins’ lyrics on SongMeanings and trying to match up the words with Fraser’s voice.

Verdict: According to Wikipedia, these two EPs were originally recorded together to test a new studio arrangement, not for popular consumption. The band decided that the material was good enough for release, so they dropped Tiny Dynamite and Echoes in a Shallow Bay just two weeks apart in November of 1984. Naturally, I get them paired together, so I essentially hear Tiny Dynamite and Echoes in a Shallow Bay as a single-album follow-up to Treasure, precisely what they wanted to avoid. Sorry, Cocteau Twins.

I can understand the band’s hesitance over designating this material as a full-length; while most of the songs are fine enough, few, if any, reach the heights of the finest material on Treasure. “Pink Orange Red” and “Pale Clouded White” are the most memorable tracks, pulling away from the drama of Treasure for a more relaxed style. The instrumental “Ribbed and Veined” seems particularly influential with regard to Slowdive, but going without Fraser’s vocals prevents me from remembering a note of the music. I’ll give the band credit for knowing exactly where this material stands: it’s certainly good enough for background or mood music, but it’s not making any statements about the band’s development. An interesting note: all of the song titles (and lyrics?) deal with Lepidoptera (the order of butterflies and moths), so if Vladimir Nabokov had still been alive in 1984, he probably would have appreciated the nod to his favorite hobby.

16. The Durutti Column with Debi Diamond - The City of Our Lady - Factory, 1987

Why I Bought It: I recognized the band name and saw that it was released on Factory, so I figured it was worth a shot.

Verdict: After I put the record on, I realized that it was a three-song EP and likely ran at 45 rpm, but I let the first song, “Our Lady of the Angels,” play out at 33 rpm anyway. It came off as a moody, almost Joy Division-esque instrumental. Their cover of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” was not nearly as forgiving, since guest vocalist Debi Diamond* sounded like an extra dour Peter Murphy. The flipside of the LP is a lengthy Spanish-tinged instrumental called “Catos con Guartes,” which features intricate acoustic guitar patterns rather than chorus-heavy chords. This EP comes off as a complete hodge-podge with three disparate styles present, but each song—even the cover of “White Rabbit,” which I anticipated grimacing through—has some redeeming value.

* In the process of trying to determine who Debi Diamond’s identity, I learned that she is not the adult film star Debi Diamond but rather the former singer of the Januaries known by the name Debbie Diamond. After solving this mystery, I found out that former Durutti Column guitarist Dave Rowbotham was killed by an axe murderer in 1991. To confuse matters even further, a different Dave Rowbotham has an entry in my beloved HockeyDB as a former member of the Ottawa 67s and the Binghamton Whalers.

17. Portastatic - Slow Note from a Sinking Ship - Merge, 1995

Why I Bought It: I primarily enjoy Superchunk’s Foolish-and-forward discography, so a more low-key affair from Mac McCaughlin would seem to hit the spot. If I were being really sassy, I’d say that I’m a Seam completist. If memory serves, I picked this up as a used LP during one of my trips up to Reckless in Chicago.

Verdict: Slow Note from a Sinking Ship certainly starts off like I expected, with “Your Own Cloud” moving along with only acoustic guitar, Casiotone, and Mac’s signature yelp, but many of the songs are full-fledged indie rock jams. “San Andreas,” “You Can’t Win,” “A Cunning Latch,” and “The Great Escape” may not compete with “Driveway to Driveway,” “Slack Motherfucker,” and “Hyper Enough” in the pantheon of McCaughlin, but they’re solid rockers nonetheless. The best song is “Pastime,” which blends the space of the quieter songs with the pulse of the rockers. Slow Note from a Sinking Ship was a pleasant surprise, sounding less like a bedroom solo record and more like a relaxed take on Superchunk’s mid-period sound.

18. Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - ATCO, 1974

Why I Bought It: I grew up on post-Gabriel Genesis and post-Genesis Peter Gabriel. Yet their 1970s prog-rock efforts always seemed too “out there” for me as a fourth grader, so I stuck to Genesis, Invisible Touch, and Security. I’ve never been particularly embarrassed by my fondness for Genesis’s super-cheese era, even writing a column on it in the Signal Drench days, but I’ve also never made a genuine attempt to check out their early work. After picking up Gabriel’s swansong The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and its 1976 follow-up, A Trick of the Tail, for a slightly higher price than the dubbed cassettes I’d make of my uncle’s Genesis CDs growing up, I’ll finally confront those confusing demons standing in the way of Genesis’s critically acclaimed pop albums. Wait, you mean the prog-rock albums are the good ones?

Verdict: I’ve tried my best to understand the vague story of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway: there’s a half-Puerto Rican hooligan named Rael who’s struggling on the streets of New York who gets sucked into an unfamiliar underworld, cocooned in a subterranean cave/cocoon, encounters his brother John, escapes the cave, visits a consumerist people factory, finds his way back up to bizarre NYC, remembers his first sexual encounter, reaches a room with 32 doors (but only one exit!), makes his way through that room with the help of a blind woman, meets Death, makes his way to a pool with three snake women who die after tasting his blood, he then consumes the bodies of these snake women and turns into a Slipperman (covered with stumps and exterior genitalia), meets a colony of Slippermen including his brother John who have all encountered the same fate, makes a visit to Doktor Dyper who can castrate their problems, has his “tube” stolen by a black raven, chases after this raven, watches both the tube and his brother fall into roaring rapids, decides to mount up the courage to save his brother, dives into the rapids, and realizes that his brother is only part of himself.

Can you believe that Peter Gabriel pulled many of these ideas from his dreams? It’s more of a surprise that lines like “No time for romantic escape / When your fluffy heart is ready for rape. No!” (“Back in N.Y.C.”) and “Erogenous zones I love you / Without you, what would a poor boy do?” (“Counting Out Time”) make relative sense within this context. Recapping the story in the long-winded liner notes also helps, but there are certainly moments that slip away from the immediate storyline.

Despite the lyrical oddities, it’s hard not to be awed by the scope of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, which perhaps signifies achievement as a double LP of progressive rock. It may not maintain my attention throughout—the second LP is littered with aimless instrumental passages—but “Back in N.Y.C.,” “Fly on a Windshield,” “The Carpet Crawlers,” and the title track are sonically diverse high points. Still, I can’t make a judgment on such a sprawling affair after only one listen, especially without being privy to Gabriel’s live theatrics. It’s certainly more serious than Genesis or Abacab, but it’s nowhere near as approachable.

19. Stiff Little Fingers - Go for It - Chrysalis, 1981

Why I Bought It: After thinking about the band name for a minute or two, I remembered the scene in High Fidelity when Dick, the shy record clerk, impresses a chick by talking about Green Day’s two primary influences: The Clash and Stiff Little Fingers. While influencing Green Day is hardly an accomplishment that will sway a dollar bin decision, being associated with The Clash and releasing a record in 1981 will.

Verdict: While Green Day might’ve been influenced by both The Clash and Stiff Little Fingers, they were essentially influenced twice by The Clash, since Stiff Little Fingers’ mix of punk, reggae, and rock owes a considerable debt to Strummer, Jones, and company. While some songs stick out from the fray—“Gate 49” is a sunny escape, “The Only One” rumbles along with dub precision, “Safe as Houses” has solid hooks—most fall in line with London Calling-inspired punk with power pop underpinnings. It’s a bit strange that Gordon Ogilvie, the band’s manager, co-wrote most of the tracks, but he was a consistent participant in their early records. Perhaps I would have been better off with their 1979 debut, Inflammable Material, which was inspired by the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Go for It is certainly competent and largely enjoyable, but I’d prefer more passionate, more immediate material.

20. Tangerine Dream - Cyclone - Virgin, 1978

Why I Bought It: Not sure. I’m familiar with their unfortunate name, but little else about Tangerine Dream. Did I like the album cover and take a chance? Who knows.

Verdict: Apparently Cyclone alienated Tangerine Dream’s fan base by including vocals and lyrics for the first time. I completely understand this reaction, since the vocals on side A distract from what otherwise would be an interesting mix of electronic pulses, keyboards, brass, guitars, and drums. The vague stories and processed shouting of “Bent Cold Sidewalk” and “Rising Runner Missed by Endless Sender” seem like a dedicated push into the progressive rock domain, but the group isn’t capable of maintaining instrumental focus while incorporating vocals. The background music gets considerably less interesting whenever vocals arrive, simplifying the layers in order to give the vocals space. It also doesn’t help that the vocals are so high in the mix, leaving the drums muffled in the distance.

The flip side, however, is an entirely different story. The thankfully instrumental “Madrigal Meridian” extends for more than twenty minutes, the bulk of which is dominated by a Neu!-esque backbone of electronic bass arpeggios and propulsive drumming. The band members take turns playing melodic runs with a wide variety of instruments (the number of instruments credited on this record is astounding), with only a few electronic piano runs sticking out as ineffective. Once the rhythm fades away, the song relaxes with several fake fade-outs of calming brass and synthesized string sections. Certain segments reminded me of the electronic/industrial scores of 1980s action moves (Terminator comes to mind), which makes sense since Tangerine Dream scored half the films released in the decade.

One consistent comment in these entries is that I bought the wrong record for a given artist, but despite the vocal flaws (number one: having them) on side A, I don’t regret picking up Cyclone. “Madrigal Meridian” takes influence from progressive rock but doesn’t try too hard to mimic it, thereby highlighting the band’s most interesting electronic elements.

While I purchased more than five items between two Newbury Comics locations on Record Store Day, I'll focus on the free stuff for this post. I've previously mentioned my fondness for the Wipers LP, but it merits being mentioned again as the representative of the paid-for pile.

11. Wipers - Youth of America - Jackpot, 1981/2007

Why I Bought It: After downloading the Wipers’ first three albums (1980’s Is This Real?, 1981’s Youth of America, and 1983’s Over the Edge) a month ago, Record Store Day justified my purchase of Jackpot/Zeno’s 2007 reissue of Youth of America. The reissue LP may be pricey, ranging from $15 (plus shipping) direct from Greg Sage to $20 at most retailers, but the quality is indisputable. In addition to being remastered and pressed onto a thick slab of black vinyl, Youth of America features the thickest sleeve in my collection, putting the paper-thin sleeve of Colin Newman’s Not To to shame.

Verdict: This marks the first time I’ve heard Youth of America in its proper running order*; the 2001 Wipers Box Set puts side B (“No Fair,” “Youth of America”) before side A (“Taking Too Long,” “Can This Be,” “Pushing the Extreme,” “When It’s Over”). Fixing the track listing addressed a prior criticism of the album—that the shorter songs pale in comparison to their epic counterparts—by presenting the album as an accelerating descent into a fever dream. Sage recalls, “The song [‘Youth of America’] itself is out of a dream I had about the future. A time where people ‘over breed’ themselves to the point that even the most simple thing had become the highest level of competition. The dream had such a sense of realism and intensity to it that I went overboard with the recording to symbolize it.” The title track does the best job of encapsulating this sentiment, but the end of “Pushing the Extreme” performs the crucial transition from the relatively straightforward first three songs to the structurally experimental second half. As Sage intones, “Now it’s one against the other / What’s this price we gotta pay?” over backward cymbals—the first noticeably showy production technique on the album—the atmosphere starts mounting, leading to the cataclysmic ascending guitar riffs of “When It’s Over.” More than three minutes of increasing instrumental tension pass before Sage speaks a word in “When It’s Over,” even letting the backing piano chords take precedence over his raging guitar. At the end of the song, Sage yells “We’ll be laughing / When it’s over,” closing side A on a most foreboding note. This track order makes those first three songs a necessary precursor to the snowballing intensity of what’s to come.

“No Fair” starts off in a half-speed haze, with Sage’s spoken vocals barely making it through the woozy guitar. But once Sage yells, “It’s not fair,” a rare bass solo pushes the song into high gear and the guitar overdubs start swelling. While Sage’s vocals and lyrics are solid throughout the album, Youth of America’s primary appeal is its layered guitar tracks, featuring nimble chord changes, swells of feedback, and memorable leads. All of these styles are on display in the title track’s chaotic, nearly freeform middle section. I’ll certainly gravitate toward the ten-and-a-half-minute epic on a given record, but the sprawling range of “Youth of America” defines the record’s reactionary brilliance. Unrelenting, mesmerizing, and yet still approachable, Youth of America is a terrific slab of wax.

*With regard to the album’s running order, all of the LP pressings have the stated order, the Wipers Box Set has side B before side A, and Sage’s own site has “Taking Too Long,” “When It’s Over,” “Can This Be,” “No Fair,” “Pushing the Extreme,” and “Youth of America” listed.

12. Destroyer/Wye Oak - Record Store Day Promotional Single - Merge, 2008

Why I Bought It: Free in a Record Store Day goodie bag.

Verdict: Both songs are exclusive to the single, which is more than I can say for a lot of the other giveaways I grabbed. I’ve tried and failed to get into both Destroyer and Dan Bejar’s other gig, the New Pornographers, and “Madame Butterflies” won’t change things too much. It reminds me of an unhinged Shins song, opting for a bit of guitar feedback instead of a rhythm section, but Bejar’s slightly faux-British vocal styling gets on my nerve. You can hear this song over at So Much Silence. As for Wye Oak, I’m happy to have an exclusive track, but the skeletal arrangement of “Prodigy” has b-side written all over it. Jenn Wasner’s voice is compelling, especially when it’s multi-tracked later in the song, but I miss the layers of If Children. I can’t argue with free, but I wonder if Wye Oak would have been better served by including “Warning” or “Family Glue” on the single.

13. Kaki King – “Pull Me Out Alive” b/w “Zeitgeist” - Velour, 2008

Why I Bought It: It was a giveaway at Record Store Day.

Verdict: I’ve heard a bit of Kaki King’s early guitar virtuoso recordings, but “Pull Me Out Alive,” taken from her 2008 album Dreaming of Revenge, shares little in common with that material. Alternating between a tense, staccato verse and an open, airy chorus, Kaki King’s voice is capable enough, but the guitars do little underneath. I can understand wanting to transition into an indie rock sound, especially if the Foo Fighters are willing to bring you on tour, but “Pull Me Out Alive” sounds like far, far too many other bands. The flip side is a lengthy instrumental (not a cover of the Smashing Pumpkins’ most recent effort) reminding of lite post-rock bands. Snooze.

14. Eels – “Climbing to the Moon (Jon Brion Mix)” b/w “I Want to Protect You” - Geffen, 2008

Why I Bought It: Giveaway at Record Store Day.

Verdict: This single takes a song apiece from the Eels’ recent greatest hits compilation, Meet the Eels: Essential Eels Vol. 1 1996–2006, and their recent rarities compilation, Useless Trinkets: B-Sides, Soundtracks, Rarities, and Unreleased 1996–2006. Aside from radio singles and soundtrack entries, I’ve only heard Beautiful Freak, which had their hit single “Novocaine for the Soul” on it. Both of these songs fall in line with my estimation of post-Beautiful Freak Eels; “Climbing to the Moon,” taken from 1998’s downer supreme Electro-Shock Blues, is a low-key, yet not entirely somber song about someone being ready to die (and not in the glorious Andrew W.K. way), while “I Want to Protect You” is a comparatively upbeat love song. Both songs could certainly hit home given the proper circumstances, but merely seemed “nice” on this listen. Considering that those two compilations span three CDs and two DVDs, I’m not exactly chomping at the bit to hear that much Eels, no matter how “nice” they may be.

15. Various Artists - Choice Cuts: 2008 Record Store Day Sampler - Universal, 2008

Why I Bought It: Free in a Record Store Day goodie bag.

Verdict: I initially wrote a detailed track-by-track recap of this compilation, which features a side of modern rock and a side of (alt-)country, but in lieu of retyping all of my hard work (unfortunately eaten by some nasty spyware), I’ll give the highlights.

While the country side of the LP featured some nearly unlistenable entries into pop country, namely One Flew South, Hayes Carll, and The SteelDrivers, it also featured the compilation’s only salvageable tracks. Tift Merritt and Shelby Lynne are both passably low-key female alt-country vocalists whose songs’ comparative subtlety was a blessing. I knew of Whiskeytown, but I hadn’t heard any of their music and didn’t remember than it was Ryan Adams’ formative project. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the best song from a promotional compilation is from a decade-old album newly reissued, but “10 Seconds” pulled off a rocking bit of alt-country. I had to wonder if the inclusion of pop country songs was a ruse—“Well, I don’t think they’ll listen to an album entirely of pop country, but if we throw some songs in along with some alt-country, they’ll have to listen to it!”—but I’m hardly itching to hear any of those songs again.

The flip side showed just how dire rejects from modern rock radio can be. Black Tide and Switches have both opened for the Bravery, hardly an arbiter of critical success, but they’re each somehow worse than that factoid might suggest. PlayRadioPlay! has a simple horrible band name and owes some serious royalties to the Postal Service, but what else should I expect from a kid who got a major label deal as a senior in high school based on MySpace popularity. Ludo is a St. Louis-based pop-punk band whose song reminds vaguely of the Get-Up Kids, but their rock opera tendencies do not wear well. They have a five album deal from Island. Five albums!

The compilation’s low-point is undoubtedly Yoav’s “Club Thing.” If the mix of acoustic guitar, low-key club beats, and falsetto come-ons had the slightest bit of humor, it might be mistaken for a Flight of the Conchords b-side, but don’t let that be mistaken for a compliment. “Club Thing” tries to be both a cautionary tale and a direct route to his audience’s panties, but lines like “He knows he can’t afford / What it pays to enslave her / He’s got a hunger / For the sweetest of favors” only serve to give me the creeps.

6. Minor Threat - Out of Step - Dischord, 1983

Why I Bought It: I needed to know exactly what I’ve been doing wrong. Wait, I needed to know what other people have been doing wrong. No, I needed to learn my lesson, that’s it.

Har har, those Minor Threat guys will sure have a laugh over that paragraph. As I’ve admitted about a thousand times before, I never went through a punk phase in my teens, so I’ve been catching up on most of the seminal acts in the last few years. After all, married guys in their mid twenties comprise hardcore’s key demographic. To further the delay, Fugazi was one of the last key DC bands that I got into, in large part because Jawbox, Shudder to Think, and Girls Against Boys (technically a New York City band, but…) had videos on 120 Minutes and that was how I found out about bands when I was fifteen. If I’d found out about Fugazi first (i.e. if any of my friends had remotely similar taste to mine and could actually introduce me to bands outside of Metallica and the Dead Milkmen), I likely would have used my completist vigor to track down Rites of Spring and Minor Threat instead of New Wet Kojak and Edsel.

Verdict: I’ve heard a few Minor Threat songs before, but mostly I’m familiar with them from Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life. I didn’t put a whole lot of effort into checking them out the first time I read the book, since the didactic lyrical approach wasn’t too tempting. Having just re-read that chapter, however, I found myself far more intrigued by the musical side of the band. I’ve seen enough hardcore bands—mostly at the Prairie House in Bloomington, Illinois—to know a good one, and Minor Threat tempers their furious forward momentum with enough catch-your-breath breakdowns, solid riffs, and spoken/sung sections to counter the blur of shouting over breakneck tempos. While Out of Step only lasts for nine songs, I didn’t find myself losing focus on the music. The true highlights of the LP, however, come when Ian MacKaye brings some much-needed humor into the equation, like ending “Sob Story” with “Boo fucking hoo” or the majority of the scathing “Cashing In” (“Then we’ll make a million when we go on tour”). The title track, however, tries too hard to distance the rest of the band from Ian’s straightedge philosophy: “Listen, this is no set of rules / I’m not tellin’ you what to do.” How ironic it is that I’m less deterred by capitalized lines and finger-pointing at a fill-in-the-blank “you” than by a meager attempt to cushion the blow of such staunch edicts. Thankfully, Azerrard’s book helped me anticipate the lyrical content—both the finger-pointing and finger-retracting—so I was still able to enjoy the music on its own accord.

7. Neil Young - Trans - Geffen, 1982

Why I Bought It: Its reputation as Neil Young’s nadir made the dollar price tag a mere pittance. Neil Young and vocoder? Sign me up!

Verdict: I expected an LP full of Kraftwerk rip-offs, so hearing the tepid, but opening track “Little Thing Called Love” threw me for a loop. Turns out that a third of Trans is comprised of songs I’d consider “stock Neil Young”—“Little Thing Called Love,” Hold on to Your Love,” and “Like an Inca.” They’re inoffensive enough, but I’d rather listen to Zuma or On the Beach. As for the rest of the LP, my perception that fans and critics alike loathe it was a bit off, since many of the Amazon reviews are remarkably positive, Mark Prindle gave it an eight out of ten, and Rolling Stone gave it four stars, citing the struggle between the electronic and traditional songs. Furthermore, the vocoder tracks were inspired by Young’s attempts to talk with his son, who has cerebral palsy. Oh hell. I buy a dollar record expecting to enjoy its pitiful attempt to appropriate a burgeoning musical trend and look what happens: it’s about Neil Young’s suffering child. I’ll remove my empathy from the situation, since it would be far too easy to confuse good intentions with a good product.

The electronic songs on Trans simply aren’t effective. Even when there’s a heavily vocoded line that carries some weight beyond its novelty (“I need you / To let me know that there’s a heartbeat”), the impossibility of understanding its message without the lyric sheet removes its emotional impact. Whereas Kraftwerk emphasizes matching the lyrical content to the cold, repetitive beats (“Trans… Europe… Express…”), Young’s attempt to recreate the sound but remove the connection between form and function falls decidedly flat. Why appropriate sound designed for trance-like European robo-discos if your intent is to connect emotionally with your audience? Having traditional songs to counter the forays into synthesizers and vocoders comes off as a poor attempt to pacify the audience’s demand for more of the same, not as a key to understanding those electronic songs. I would be far more interested in this LP exemplifying this divide within the songs. I can understand Young’s rationale behind every decision on this album, but it simply doesn’t work as a whole. The actual product is conflicted enough to have supporters, but I’m not one of them.

8. Wire - Snakedrill EP - Enigma, 1986

Why I Bought It:The first Wire release that I picked up was The Drill EP as a used CD at one of the Rhino Records locations in the Hudson Valley. This was a critical mistake. An entire CD of remixes? For my first purchase from a seminal band? Remixes of a fairly annoying song? I messed up. It took me far, far too long to check out the group’s early, superior output, perhaps in fear that they’d chant “Dugga dugga dugga” over every song. (They don’t.) As such, I’d put off buying the Snakedrill EP, despite its appearance in the Wire LP section of nearly every record store I’ve frequented in the last two years (along with the “live” album It’s Beginning to and Back Again). I finally caved today, picked up a sealed, cut-out bin copy from In Your Ear on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston for three bucks. Four bucks? No thank you. Three bucks? Well, I suppose.

Verdict: I wonder how I would have responded to Snakedrill if I’d been a big fan of their first three LPs and eagerly anticipating their reunion. It’s a tough call. Wire’s transition into electronic-backed new wave would have made sense in 1986, since even the fiery Killing Joke utilized that aesthetic for Brighter than a Thousand Suns. Yet Snakedrill departs from what makes me love early Wire: their unflinching forward progress. Despite attempts to rationalize their new wave output by explaining their “beat combo” approach, Wire’s mid-to-late 1980s output, regardless of its songwriting quality, is too content to mirror what surrounds it. “A Serious of Snakes,” “Advantage in Height,” and even “Drill” are fine songs for the era (“Up to the Sun” is more Graham Lewis drama, snooze), matching the highlights of The Ideal Copy and A Bell Is a Cup… Until It Is Struck, but they lack the spirit of Chairs Missing and 154. Would I have accepted this logic in 1986 or would I have been happy to hear three good new Wire songs? If my fondness for 2007’s solid-but-unspectacular Read & Burn 03 EP weighs in on the matter, I’d probably just be happy to hear three good new Wire songs.

9. The Incredible Jimmy Smith - Organ Grinder Swing - Verve, 1965

Why I Bought It: First paragraph of the liner notes, penned by Holmes Daddy-O Daylie of WAAF in Chicago: “O.K., since you’re reading these notes, you are either an ‘Old Aware One,’ hip to Jimmy Smith, or a neophyte-come-lately trying to get acquainted; if so, congratulations!” I am a neophyte-come-lately who’ll check out almost any jazz record on Verve when costs me a dollar to do so.

Verdict: Organ Grinder Swing doesn’t have any competition in my collection for organ-led jazz, so it’s hard to contrast it to any other albums. I enjoyed the short, energetic title track and his rendition of “Greensleeves,” but by the end of the album I had a savage headache from the tone of the organ. It’s an interesting sidestep in my crash course in jazz, but I doubt that I’ll go searching for more organ-led jazz in the near future unless it comes highly recommended.

10. Rifle Sport - Voice of Reason - Reflex, 1983

Why I Bought It: I recognized the band name as a former project of current Shellac drummer Todd Trainer, although Jimmy Petroski drums on this particular LP. When I flipped the sleeve over and saw that it was on Reflex Records, Hüsker Dü’s early 1980s label, I figured I was on the right track and snapped it up.

Verdict: Rifle Sport is more indebted to British post-punk than I anticipated, reminding me of a high-speed Gang of Four in spots. Gerard Boissy switches between Andy Gill–informed strafing and straight-ahead riffs, avoiding the razor-wire tone of early of Hüsker Dü. Bassist Pete Flower Conway steals the show, however, letting his busy but effective lines pop up through the mix. While the music is up to the task, the vocals often veer toward tuneless hollering and the lyrics aren’t much to write home about. Voice of Reason is Rifle Sport’s debut album, so this lack of cohesion isn’t surprising, but there are some truly effective moments like “Words of Reason,” “Danger Street,” and “Hollow Men,” which is a reworking/cover of the T. S. Eliot poem. (I eagerly await a doom-metal cover of “The Waste Land.”) According to Trouser Press their later material is better, so I’ll keep a look out for their other LPs.