slow-dog.entry06.12.2003: "music: usa today picks the best"

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I just saw USA Today's Top 40 albums (of all time?). Anyway, no real surprises, no real reaches.

Last night, I was playing poker with some friends and there friends, and we were talking about music. Someone brought up "Train in Vain" by the Clash. I mentioned that I did like the song, but for the longest time, I didn't. I had left it, and then it came back to me.

I point this out, only, because as I read through the USA Today list and came across Paul Simon's Graceland, I said to myself, "I #@%$ing hate that album!" I don't know when that happened. Maybe it's just because it's a staple of music collections (usually smaller than 50 CDs), of people of a certain age--right there on the shelf with Buena Vista Social Club (don't own it) and The Joshua Tree (do own it). I think I've got a dubbed cassette copy of Graceland, but man, could I be less interested in "the former folkie's rich and exotically fanciful collaborations with such African talents as Ladysmith Black Mambazo." No I couldn't. Will there be a "Train in Vain"-ish triumphant return somewhere down the line. Not likely. I #@%$ing hate that album.

09:37 PM PST

Replies: 3 comments

Hey, it's not a top 40 album, but Graceland does have some good tracks on it. Yeah, yeah, I know, you $*(#!ing hate that album. Give it a little time, and maybe the crowd you mentioned will forget it.

Their #30's read like someone twenty years younger did them.

What's up with Downward Spiral over Pretty Hate Machine or Broken? (Wha?) And Blood on the Tracks over Highway 61 Revisited? Achtung Baby over Joshua Tree? Greendale over anything else Neil Young did? They didn't even pick safe right.

Posted by Schnitz @ 12/06/2003 11:00 PM PST

I picked up a 33 cent LP of Graceland at Green Apple a while back, and there's some goodness there. But hey, it was only 33 cents.

At the work XmaZ party they played a bunch of really moldy stuff, like "Sultans of Swing". Pretty embarrassing, really.

Posted by stephane @ 12/12/2003 03:53 AM PST

Any of you listen to the final Johnny Cash album all the way through? A lot of covers, but it is so eerie, because every fricking song is like Johnny is saying, "Yep, I'm going to kick the bucket after this album."

Posted by Bishop @ 12/12/2003 09:31 PM PST