Comments | fennel: retro listening #61-70

fennel

retro listening #61-70

Mar 28, 2013 12:02

All the albums I owned in high school, relistened-to in roughly the order I got them. We pick up in the middle of my freshman year.
61. They Might Be Giants - Flood ( Read more... )

Comments 7

redheadedmuse March 28 2013, 17:50:33 UTC

For what it's worth, those Tiny Toons videos introduced *me* to TMBG, and to having anything like my own taste in music. Which is why Flood was the first album I owned. I still think that was a great choice, and have always been kind of tickled by the magic of that moment - I was watching Tiny Toons because I was a kid who still liked silly kids' cartoons, and I was right on the cusp of becoming a teenager who liked interesting music and *poof* there was this crossover between the two.

benndragon March 28 2013, 20:34:48 UTC

Maybe "Rock Lobster" was a standard at the nerd camp dances?

If it's the same nerd camp I went to, it was, at least when I was there. (We put it on the first ever "canon" mix CD, which we made in '96.)

dominika_kretek March 28 2013, 21:06:54 UTC

How interesting! TMBG recently posted a link to a word-frequency analysis of their lyrics, and the first thing I looked for was the word "head." When I think about TMBG, I think about death and heads.

fennel March 28 2013, 22:06:24 UTC

I think I had noticed the head thing, but not specifically head injuries. Heads are intimidating or symbolic of importance ("Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head", "Hall of Heads"... and those giant paper heads they used in videos!), is how I thought of them in TMBG's work. But now the fact that they get damaged all the time seems obvious too! I dunno.

mrwaggish March 29 2013, 16:36:01 UTC

I had the TrouserPress record guide pretty early on, which steered me away from Anything. I seem to recall it being incredibly damning (ha ha), something like, "It's hard to imagine who could find this album pleasurable." Aaaand...I was pretty close! "Despite the Damned's proven ability to alternately rock gothic and play nice, there's no audible point to the music; it's hard to imagine who would find this LP pleasurable ( ... )

fennel March 29 2013, 17:36:34 UTC

If you haven't tried listening to the UK tracklist/sequence for Manscape (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manscape), it's definitely worth doing it once. Not starting with two tracks of filler makes the whole thing less demoralizing.

(Though now that there are other full-fledged Wire studio albums I think aren't exciting, it's less uncomfortable to have mixed feelings about Manscape and The First Letter.)

I love Robyn's monologues, but I think they tend to make the songs they're attached to feel flimsy. (See also the "Clint" intro to "One Long Pair of Eyes".)

amadea March 30 2013, 02:51:42 UTC

Hey, I had no idea I wasn't the only person of my generation listening to that B-52's album in high school. Although I was really more into it in junior high. Have you heard Bob Mould's song with the Golden Palominos? It's called "Dying from the Inside Out" but Pete and I just call it "Bob Mould Screaming". We have really different feelings about it.
Pete: I know what I want to listen to right now!
Me: Oh, no, Bob Mould Screaming?