Not much happened this weekend. Oh! Except! I bought a bunch of new (to me) music.
On Saturday, I bought Bad Religion’s “New Maps of Hell”. Awesome, just awesome. I’ve listened to it straight through four times already. Greg and the guys are still on top of their game. It helps that the situation hasn’t really changed since the early 80s when they first formed… There’s still a lot of single-mindedness and political hackery and corporate greed and single-mindedness* going around. There’s still so many reasons for people to be angry. And nobody expresses that anger better and more articulately than Bad Religion.
I also bought a compilation of The Band’s best. A two-disk set. I’ve long wanted to hear more than just “The Weight”, their most famous song. And now I’ll set to sample much more. I… uh… haven’t listened to this yet. Just a couple of tracks and not with my full attention. I’ll get to it, I promise.
I also downloaded Stereogum’s tribute to the greatest Radiohead album ever, “OK Computer”. Stereogum, for the unknowing, isn’t a band – it’s a blog. A blog about music. But they decided to honor the 10th anniversary of the release of the mind-blowing “OK Computer” by asking a bunch of artists to cover each song, either a simple cover or doing it as that band would have done that song. I, uh… I haven’t listened to this yet, either. Did I mention how much of a fan of Bad Religion I am?
Then, on Sunday, even though I hadn’t even listened to most of the music I bought on Saturday, I bought even more CDs. How nutso is that? I bought a two-and-a-half-disk compilation of Elton John’s greatest hits, Social Distortion’s first album, not just one but two of Northwest punk grrlz made good Sleater-Kinney albums (“All Hands On The Bad One” and “The Woods”), some local project from a group called “Auditory Sculpture” that features my future wife** Storm Large, and Sage Francis’ newest album, claimed (by those who write the cover copy) to be his most personal album yet.
So far, of those, I’ve heard the two S-K albums. I like them – normally hard-core jangly punk just makes me angry but Carrie Brownstein’s piercing vocals have an equally energizing, but not as negative, effect on me.
And then, today, at work, I found waiting for me Cake’s latest, the “B-Sides and Rarities” CD that marks their first effort after finishing their contract with Sony-BMG. Cake, as always, makes me happy, and several of these tracks are going into my “happy playlist”, particularly their cover of Barry White’s “Never, Never Gonna Give You Up.” Me likey.
* Yes, I repeated myself on purpose.
** Not actually my future wife. Only met her once.