I am, for reasons unknown to me, in the middle of an Elvis Costello jag, where I listen to only him, on a sort of endless rotation.Obviously lots of different kinds of styles and such going on with him, sometimes in the same song. But it got me thinking: What are his best albums? And/or songs?Beyond Belief has long been my favorite, but Brilliant Mistake is fast climbing. I dunno, what else? Man O
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Posts by goodyk
Elvis is everywhere
Indisputable evidence
I'm reading a book by John Sellers, "Perfect from Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life":http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Now-Indie-Rock-Saved/dp/0743277082, which is amusing and kind of fun in that makes-you-want-to-listen-to-music way.But there's something in the early going that really intrigued me. Sellers to his surprise discovers his obsession with Guided By Voices (eh, OK, never fully got it, w
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Singing Sgt. Pepper's praises
It was 20 years ago today .... You know, when I signed on to write about the 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper, I tried really hard to avoid starting the story with any version of that lyric.Evidently I failed. I did, however, try to put a twist on it. You can read the results "here":http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/ae/articles/0603sgtpepper0603.html . (You can also click "here":http://www.a
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Top 500 songs: sea change
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.What gives? War? National unease? State of affairs?Something more shocking. I was listening to the local classic-rock radio station (one of them; their name is legion, but good luck getting anybody to play the new Wilco) and it's doing something that I always enjoy: counting down the top 500 songs for Memorial Day week
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Sgt. Beck?
I was recently working on a story about the 40th anniversary or Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. No contrarian take here -- I am not going to be the person who challenges its position as the Greatest Album Ever (the reasons include both the professional and the personal), even if a relatively large number of Beatlemaniacs don't even think it's the best Beatles album (they'll usually go wi...
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Wilco: worth it. Is Rhapsody?
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I like the new Wilco a lot. No big surprise. I like the band a lot, so why wouldn't I like their new release? Jeff Tweedy seems to have perfected the slow burn that explodes into angry guitars -- a sound I'm inordinately fond of.So, high marks for Sky Blue Sky.I heard it first, as usual, on Rhapsody.com, of which I am a huge fan. Love it. For $9.99 a month, you can hear just about anything by anyb
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Mixing it up
Talk about pressure: ever made a mix tape (mix CD, I guess) for a group? A group that knows a ton about music?A friend of mine got a bunch of music fans together in a kind of club. Once a month the members make a mix CD. You end up hearing a lot of really good music that you wouldn't otherwise know about (or maybe forgot about), you get all inspired, you download songs, etc. Sounds great, right? A
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Kaiser Chiefs rocks, but...
Listened to Yours Truly Angry Mob on Rhapsody last night, while doing some other work, so I can't say I gave it the world's most careful listen. But I liked it -- liked the guitars, all that.Then I discovered, to my horror, two things: 1) The thing came out last month and I hadn't realized it and, worse, after a few songs I sort of stopped paying attention.Now, granted, I was doing other stuff, an
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Sparklehorse: best of?
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So for whatever reason, maybe because the show was so good, I've been incessently playing Sparklehorse since returning from South X Southwest. Heavy rotation, as they used to say on FM radio.Which leads me to a question: what's the best Sparklehorse song? Or top 5? (Or 10?) For that matter, what's the best Sparklehorse album? I'd probably go with Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, though Good Mor
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Locating MOG account...