CYNDI LAUPER - Best of - TIME AFTER TIME. DAY 16

CYNDI LAUPER - Best of - TIME AFTER TIME

Let’s just take a minute to appreciate the greatness that is Cyndi Lauper. This is a ‘best of’ and unlike most ‘best of’ compilations this actually comes up with the goods every time the little track counter ticks over. The woman is a fucking goddess. It makes you appreciate her even more when you try to sing along and about 1.5 songs in, your voice-box is screaming at you to ‘stop this madness’. My brain recalls Cyndi Lauper in conjunction with what white trash families consider serious sports entertainment - The Wrestling! I can’t remember if it was WWE, WWF or whatever but Cyndi Lauper had wrestlers in the video for girls just wanna have fun and I actually believed until about 10 minutes ago that Captain Lou Albano was actually her Dad in real life.

The good times don’t stop at the wrestling either...we really hit a pinnacle for 80’s cross promotion with ‘Goonies R Good Enough’..from the Goonies soundtrack. Its at this stage we need to rise again and surrender to the greatness that is The Goonies. The most awesome movie ever made. Apparently Steven Spielberg made Lauper the musical director for the movie and the subsequent video for ‘Good Enough’ was the first ever 2 part music video. The song features in scenes from the movie and in one scene the music video for the song plays in the background.  

There are no low points on this album which makes it even more baffling that I haven't listened to it in four years. There’s even a lovely reggae remix of girls Just wanna have fun! I’m pretty sure got this record off a neighbour who soon became a frenemy. One of those people that did psych in high school and used it as a platform for their unjustified attempts at personality analysis and superiority. Rather unfortunate. I think she was still a Virgin at 30...which wouldn't really matter except she was desperate to not be a virgin from the age of 15...at least she had this rockin album. Cant win them all! 

I also remember the day my best friend told me She bop was about female masturbation..I never listen to the words or pay attention to the meaning so imagine my surprise! The light and shade in the song are brilliant  and Lauper’s vocal is killer. 

KYLIE MINOGUE - IMPOSSIBLE PRINCESS. DAY 15

KYLIE MINOGUE - IMPOSSIBLE PRINCESS

In the previous 14 posts I’ve mentioned that I often went to things alone because none of my 2 friends had money/wanted to join me. Kylie’s ‘Impossible Princess’ tour was one of those times! It was during this album that Kylie’s credibility had a resurgence and I stopped getting hassled about how she’d been caught lip synching (incidentally until about 2 years ago I was sure the term was ‘lip singing’) when her backing tape was chewed up in concert. The whole ‘stock Aitken and waterman’ thing was forgotten and Kylie fans could walk proud, safe from the wrath of normal folk everywhere. 

Some kind of Bliss is a killer track proud with the influence of Manic Street Preachers James Bradfield. This album was Minogue’s first attempt and just regurgitating more of the same pop standards and luck fell upon her considering the calibre of artists she had to work with. Bliss is the best song on the album and makes you feel like it’s a perfect day where time could stand still. I used to listen to it in my bright yellow car on the way home from a demanding shift at the cake shop. Never underestimate how exhausting it can be to serve greedy, sugar addicted, rude bastards on a Sunday. 

Another single ‘Did it again’ reminds me of that mecca of below average sweets. I hated the song from first listen..I hated the video..ugh..I don’t know exactly why, but I did. I also hated my job but I was paid to be there so one deals...anyway the cake decorator absolutely LOVED Did it again. During the 25 times per shift that it came on radio, she’d turn it up and dance all the while waving a gigantic spatula covered with whipped (GAG) cream. This became my motivation for despising/being confused/revolted by her. She had the name of a European man, was on heavy side of heavy, left work early on warm days to head to a nudist beach and her boyfriend had recently got out of jail. It’s not like she was a bad person, I just hated the freaking song. 

GLEE- OH YES...IT’S GLEE - Volume 1. DAY 14

GLEE- OH YES...IT’S GLEE - Volume 1

I thought I’d mark my 2 week anniversary with a good wholesome sing along...well at least track one is. My short attention span has me normally skipping just about everything unless I’m out of the room or just pressing repeat on the Glee clubs heart warming rendition of Journey’s ‘Don’t stop believing’. 

I remember exactly why I bought this album. I was on teaching rounds on one of the shittiest schools to ever exist. In fact, if I related half the stories I have about that school you would recoil from the screen, refusing to believe that they could be true. I volunteered to help supervise the schools scrappy, uninterested group of musicians to a local singing event with about 10 other schools from the area. The band accompanying the conference of singers was pulled from a school close by, but unlike the rest, this school is one of the premiere exclusive, cost more in tuition per year than your house, kind of schools. For those kids, the local singing get together of underprivileged schools must have been on par with a guided night tour around the streets of Johannesburg.  After yelling at my kids about 30 times and giving up about 20, I disowned the little shit heads and moved to a wall where I could disguise my lethargy against the soothing cold bricks holding me up. Just when I was losing the battle to keep my eyes open, the angelic and enthusiastic voices of 60 eight year olds jolted my out of the darkness. They had choreographed dance moves, co-ordinated t-shirts and they reeked of optimism. ‘Poor deluded kids’ I thought, but after the first chorus was done they had me. How painfully cute. I was inspired to go back to my brats and sit next to them, singing loud enough to embarrass the crap out of those little feckers. I threw in some jazz hands and tried to start a group sway as they tried in vain to sink lower in their chairs away from me. I have those little kids, Journey and the Glee club to thank. 

The other thing about Glee is it takes my ears 15 mins to adjust to the high pitched screechiness of the singing voices. Now, I don’t have a problem with the screechiness but they are more than ‘musical theatre’ screechy. Musicals are my first forbidden love. When other kids were listening to Poison, I was singing along to the Les Miserables soundtrack. I appreciate Glee’s cheese laden humour and unashamed geekiness but 1 hour is trying on the ear canals and his album is 17 songs long. 

SUPERGRASS - IN IT FOR THE MONEY. DAY 13

SUPERGRASS - IN IT FOR THE MONEY

Supergrass reminds me of shag pile carpet and musty smells, because that’s what my old lounge-room was like. This was long before we discovered that Supergrass drummer Danny Goffey married Pearl Lowe who had a daughter called Daisy by Gavin Rossdale and nobody worked it out until Gwen Stefani saw said daughter in a fashion show and remarked that she looked a lot like her husband, good old Gav. A few DNA swabs later and Gwen Stefani is the worlds hottest step mother. 

Supergrass hit their stride post the peak of feuding britpop bands of oasis/blur but before the brit rock reconnaissance started by the arctic monkeys. They are fuzzier and grittier than the standard polished british fare of the same time This album is good..although I usually skipped half the tracks. It uses that warped noise machine thing that uses waves and hands to make ghostly sounds. I saw Supergrass at one of the many Big Day Out’s I attended with people I didn’t really know or like or want to go to a music festival with. Until a few years ago I was repeatedly in those situations. Supergrass were great but some punters took the name too literally and maybe got some supergrass of their own on...I can’t stand that shit when I’m out. I avoid the dirty barefoot UDL drinking grubbies who instead of watching any bands, prefer to sit in circles on the ground in the busiest of thoroughfares staring down anyone who happens to walk by. 

You know those albums where you’d be hard pressed to know any of the words when the CD isn't playing and even when it is its you can just make out the chorus..In it for the money is one of those for me.

BEST TRACKS: 

Richard III

Sun Hits the Sky 

Tonight

THE PANICS - CRUEL GAURDS. DAY 12

THE PANICS - CRUEL GAURDS

I like to organise things in my brain. I stereotype, categorise and group random and not so random things together as a means of mental filing. It makes it easier for me to love, hate and judge people this way. The Panics is one of those bands that were categorised because their name sounded like another band so I assumed they were alike. I still don’t really know if I’m justified in making this assumption but my brain mixes The Panics up with The Shins. 

I like The Shins. They remind me of Zach Braff and Zach Braff is funny and hot (please note: this is hot according to me. For some bewildering reason my idea of hot is not widely accepted) and he appears in decent stuff like Scrubs and Garden State. That movie he did with Rachel Bilson though was supremely shithouse and did lower his stocks for a while but he’s bounced back. The Shins are whimsical and their harmonies are killer. The Panics are not the Shins. But that is not a bad thing. 

I recall buying this album on the strength of one song ‘Get us home’ and since its the first song on the CD there’s a fair chance I never got past track one for a while. Once I get stuck on a song - that’s it. The Panics too have their Shin-like whimsical harmonies, stripped back percussion and orchestral layering but its the horns and their sound that transcends seasons that make this album. Another element to my mental stereotyping is my habit of assigning a season to bands and specific albums and while The Panic start off in autumn/winter, they could easily slip into dusky summer or even spring. I blame radio for this confusion. There’s been a few times in the car or at a friends when I’ve heard Cruel Gaurds out of season and felt ok with it. The only other thing I can say about this record is that while the singers voice is distinctive and gravelly by the time track 10 rolls around I’m irritated by it. I didn’t realise this until the ‘no skipping’ rule of this blog was applied. 

LOU REED - TRANSFORMER. DAY 11

LOU REED - TRANSFORMER

I wont lie and pretend I miraculously discovered the greatness of Lou Reed on my own. Like most things I got into early, Lou Reed was uncovered by teenage detective work through the pages of Rolling Stone. When I borrowed a copy form the library (yep, CDs from the library) I recognised the songs but didn't know who sang them.  Like anything that happened before your time, usually the timeline of events means nothing in the discovery. Like, you read WW2 started and Hitler dies 5 mins later, it didn't happen like that, but that’s how your brain learns the information. The same could be said for music History. The Velvet Underground could have been at their peak when Transformer was released and because they were both accessible simultaneously it didn't matter that it wasn't factually true...am I making ANY sense at all? 

Well, to dispute the very point I just made - I actually did have respect for the difference between Lou Reed in VU and Lou Reed solo. It obviously sounds different but there’s a subtleness in Transformer that mirrors the growth in Reed. New York City is the overriding flavour here. At 15 when you listen to this and you’ve never been anywhere, you can almost feel hip and relevant and on the cusp of something great..New York style. 

I owe my love of Lou Reed to REM who always mentioned the Velvet Underground in interviews and since I obsessively read those interviews it was a good staring off point to learn more and give me something new to read. 

When I was 15 I saw Lou Reed at a short lived music festival that was never held again called ‘Alternative Nation’. I mean, with a cutting edge name like that I’m surprised it didn't take over the world. Being the good Catholic school kid that I was I couldn't dye my hair any more outrageously than the magic silver white engineered purple so my best friend and I added the extra oomph of green yellow and blue with food dye. Unfortunately that master plan went awry when it poured with rain for a good six hours straight and we were left with watered down rainbow streaks across our foreheads. As chaotic as it was, that festival had one of the best line ups ever: 

NIN

Faith No More

Ween

Violent Femmes

L7

Live 

Cosmic Psycho’s

The Tea Party

Primus 

Bodycount 

Lou Reed deserved more than an ungrateful bunch of drenched turds chanting for Faith No more and NIN...but he was composed, unrelenting and epic. Just like Transformer. 

SUFJAN STEVENS - THE AVALANCHE. DAY 10

SUFJAN STEVENS - THE AVALANCHE

Ouch. This album hurts and I haven’t even listened to it yet. I bought it at ‘The Grove’ in West Hollywood a few years ago. I was going through a stage where I’d listened to nothing but Snow Patrol for the 3 months preceding and there’s this line in one of their songs: 

‘put Sufjan Stevens on, and we’ll play your favourite song’ 

So I started to wonder who Sufjan Stevens was, and if I was into him would it solidify the potential future relationship I was about to have with Snow Patrol’s lead singer when we met by chance in a bar on a day when I was looking particularly hot. This was the only sufjan album they had at the music store and it was cheap so I bought it and didn't listen to it for the next 4 years. Till now. 

Music reminds you instantly of things that make you happy or you’d rather forget and this album does the latter. I was on a trip with my brother that was THE WORST HOLIDAY EVER. He stiffed me on money, refused to pay me back, lied to me and that was at the start of a 3 week trip. I would have left and done my own thing but I didn't have the money to leave. In the end was putting $3 dinners on my credit card and living off vending machine food. I was saving my last $30 of cash to pay for the trip back to the airport and away from that hell. 

What made it worse is, at the time I was drinking those frappuccino’s from Starbucks and little did I know they were turning me into a bloated marshmallow man. This was pre soy option and pre veganism. So, depressed and broke I locked all reminders of the hellish trip away from sight, wincing whenever I caught a glimpse of this record. 

Busy day today so I listened in the car and felt like a massive loser when I realised Sufjan Stevens did the song from ‘Little Miss Sunshine’. This album is leftover tracks from those recording sessions and there’s three versions of ‘Chicago’ to listen to on repeat if you’re feeling whimsical. 

If you like Zach Braff and anything he’s done then you’ll like Sufjan. If you like folk music then you’ll like Sufjan. If you like Nickleback however, then you will need to go a long hard look at yourself. 

Now that this CD is out of quarantine I’ll be listening more often. Chicago reminds me of the time my car horn got stuck on and I had to drive home waving back or throwing my hands in the air at pedestrians who thought I was honking at them. It also has this feeling of summer and highways and freedom. Like the first few days of summer vacation when anything is possible. 

The ULTIMATE 90's COLLECTION - DAY 9

The ULTIMATE 90's COLLECTION

There’s a myriad of compilation albums in my collection because let’s face it..they’re good value! In a track listing of 15 on a various artists album you’re sure to get at least 5-8 tracks you love.  If though, the compilation is from the 90’s or 80’s you get a higher ratio of good stuff - according to me that is.

We start off with C&C Music Factory - SWEAT. This is probably one of the greatest songs ever and you know what? Most learned people agree. Look at how many times SWEAT is used in movies or TV, most recently on 30 Rock, when Liz Lemon distracts a ruthless audience and defends Jack Donaghy’s professional reputation by disrobing to her own acapella version of the song at a business conference. Perhaps the best use was in the Simpsons when Homer goes to the steel works where all the hot gay men work. CC Music Factory screams...HOT GAY MEN with a hetero/mainstream crossover that means we can all have fun together!

You only have to hear the first 20 seconds and instant familiarity!  There I am back again at school. 

‘Sweat’ reminds me of being 12. It came out when I was in my first year of high school and on a particularly warm summer afternoon a promotional team for a local nightclub called ‘The Attic’ rocked up in a baby pink cadillac convertible to hand out passes at the school bus stop. It was like a scene out of whatever movie could be born out of Zoolander and Grease mating and producing a love-child. The girls wore all white outfits of bra top and sparkly flared pants. The guys had white denim jeans and white singlets on. If you are familiar with the Australian band Euphoria and the TV show associated with it E-Street then conjure up those collective images. If you’re thinking it sounds rather ambitious for a rural town then you’re right. Its precisely the first and last time I ever saw anything like this in G-Town. Three grandma’s probably complained to the local council the next day and the progressive, high energy and highly sexualised marketing campaign of The Attic was promptly nipped in the proverbial bud. 

Here I was a chubby uniformed kid thinking - hey, I want to buy in to whatever this crazy fun house of all white wearing fun is. The promo staff of the Attic were so ahead of their time, they had white parties before P Diddy was doing that shiz in The Hamptons. You couldn’t help but get swept away by the hot girls with spiral curls jumping out of the back seat to give you flyers. They didn’t even need to use the car door - how cool is that? Even though I was overlooked for the 17 yo standing next to me I was still pretty happy with that afternoon’s events. ‘This is what high school is all about’ I thought to myself. ‘There’s plenty more crazy times where that came from’. Sadly, there wasn’t. 

BEST TRACKS 

Hot Chilli Woman - Noiseworks

Reminds me of a school talent quest, hundreds of sweaty in kids sitting on the wooden floor of the scout hall in full catholic school uniform - so that means skirts and ties and smelly woolen jumpers - watching a random display of ‘school talent’. I giggled internally everytime I saw the dude who sang in the playground. 

Barbie Girl - Aqua

What I find weird is this is listed as sung by ‘Savannah’. Barbie Girl was super annoying at the time, but its now tolerable in small doses for the purpose of comical reminiscence. 

THE FRATELLIS - HERE WE STAND. DAY 8

THE FRATELLIS - HERE WE STAND

This was a Christmas present from my Dad two years ago. I don’t think I ever listened to it. I have the Fratellis first album - Costello Music - and I skipped tracks just to listen to ‘Chelsea Dagger’ 

At first listen I detect a strong Arctic Monkey’s likeness. British music is similar in a good way. When you’re Australian a familiarity with the mother country can’t be denied...in pretty much the same way I prefer the BBC to US TV, I like British music. 

In my view ‘The Fratellis’ solidified the head start their Bristishness gave them by naming themselves after the bad guys in my favourite movie - The Goonies. 

Listening to this album...wow..it either really sounds like the ‘Arctic Monkey's’...or for the past few years I’ve been hearing ‘The Fratellis’ on the radio and mistaking them for the ‘Arctic Monkeys’

Either way, it’s a shame I never listened to this till now..it’s pretty good cleaning the house music. 

GRANT LEE BUFFALO - MIGHTY JOE MOON. DAY 7

GRANT LEE BUFFALO - MIGHTY JOE MOON

What’s the appropriate aural version of saying for ‘sight for sore eyes’? Whatever it is, it applies to Mighty Joe Moon. As I pressed play there was an audible sigh of relief for the familiarity the first few chords of ‘Lone Star Song’ provides. 

Grant Lee Buffalo is layered with haunting guitars and organ but its comforting rather than mournful...soothing in that Mellon Collie and the Infinite sadness kind of way before that album existed. Can a reference be a reference if it didn't even exist yet? 

Grant Lee Buffalo supported REM on the Monster world tour in 95. Listening to this album conjures up strong memories of half standing half sitting punters, distracted by their conversations and nursing beers in the warm summery wind of the Myer Music Bowl. I was 15 and my tickets were my Christmas present. Being the ultimate in teenage cool I was there with my Mum who said many times afterwards that she feared being crushed by a sea of Doc Martins or accidentally stoned by the second hand smoke wafting over the crowd. I was supposed to go with this girl Sarah, but being the flaky, unreliable bimbo she was, she flaked out. This experience would set the tone for the next few years until at Uni I met my most reliable best friend who came to just about anything with me...even Savage Garden...twice. For those in between years and even after, I would skip the bullshit of others and go on my own...or with my Dad. Like I said, I’m as cool as they get. 

Around the time of the REM tour, Grant Lee Buffalo was on high rotation on ‘rage’ with the music video for ‘Mockingbirds’ which became a constant in my dream life. I still dream once a year that I’m in the video in a big bird costume in B&W. It’s likely that I spent too many weekends staying up all night watching music videos. 

Mighty Joe Moon makes me think of the in between seasons like Autumn and Spring for reasons that I don’t understand. Its the kind of album I’d listen to if I was at College somewhere in America and had boy trouble. When I was at Uni though the only Grant Lee Buffolo connection was the pastry chef where I worked part time was obsessed with them. I always found it odd...he had long blond hair, drove an old wagon that broke down constantly and surfed. This equation messed with my head as the internal stereotype machine I use everyday, couldn't put all these pieces together in a way that fit. Do surfers listen to wistful alt-country? Isn't Jack Johnson more their thing? 

STAND OUT TRACKS: 

# All of them: Grant Lee Phillips could sing the instruction booklet to a microwave and it would sound prophetic

HOLE - CELEBRITY SKIN

HOLE - CELEBRITY SKIN

It never ceases to amaze me that you can, not hear a song for years but have total recall of  the lyrics and what to expect next in the track listing. 

Courtney Love along with babes in toyland were solely responsible for impressionable young girls of the 90‘s finding it completely acceptable to wear old tie-dye nighties in public and I was no different. Although I cant specifically remember a time when I wore a satin slip outside of my house, I did own some. 

By the time Celebrity Skin came around though, Courtney Love’s dalliances with plastic surgery and heroin use had paid off and she was thin and barbie doll enough to wear but shards of see through cheesecloth on the cover sleeve of her albums. Her make up too, was suitably evolved and she was in movies with edward norton. 

This album is killer. Its a shame that Courtney has alienated most of the successful song writing partners she ever had, spending more time contributing blogs or tweets to the world requiring an interpreter to understand. Perhaps she needs to activate spellcheck and apologise to Billy Corgan. 

This is one of those albums that I acquired. I love it, but I never bought it. I’m wondering who I pilfered it from and I have no idea. This a record where if purchased at the peak of its popularity would be cause for judgement. Now though, with a few years to digest it, I guess its not such sheep behaviour to have it in your collection. 

I saw Hole at the Big Day Out around this time and the did a cover of paradise city that made me question my Guns N Roses revulsion. I mean, fair enough too. When I was younger, the kids who like Guns N Roses were turds. So sure of their white trashiness, they were almost superior about it. Since my first instinct is to vehemently despise the majority, I hated Guns N Roses. 

There’s not a lots of options left for Courtney Love now...she’s left it to long to come back with a rock/pop album. So maybe she’ll have to record a bunch of stripped back covers to make money or join ‘The View’. One thing that stuck in my mind was her comparing what she makes in one night from a gig compared to a movie role. It was the first time I thought of things that way. At every gig since (and there have been many) I have tried to calculate how much the band is making off the ticket and merchandise sales. I deduct staff and travel and any exchange rate differences. I guess you could say Courtney taught me the economics of music. A valuable lesson. 

STAND OUT TRACKS

#4 Malibu

#2 Awful

#1 Celebrity Skin 

#9 Boys on the Radio - harmonies almost like singing in rounds at school camp

SONG I WANT TO SKIP

#8 Northern Lights - too long and irritating

DANNII MINOGUE - THE HITS. DAY 5

DANNII MINOGUE - THE HITS AND BEYOND

Lets face it - Dannii Minogues will never top the pinnacle of her singing career: performing Sisters are doing it for themselves! On Young Talent Time with her big sister Kylie..but a few of the tracks on this album go close. 

Yes, they’ll always be compared to each other but the Minogue sisters are not apples and apples. Dannii was always edgier, willing to release straight out dance, while Kylie’s danceable tracks are usually that way post remix, by somebody who has a crush on her. 

My affinity with Dannii goes back to Home and Away which I was forced to watch by my grandmother on school breaks. Despite my protests I was always too emotionally invested in the story by the end of my holidays to discontinue watching when I got home. Of course Dannii’s Home and Away stint was pre plastic surgery and being a chubby awkward looking kid I identified with her chubby awkwardness...then all of a sudden she’s marrying the son of an ex prime minister and getting a personal trainer called, wait for it, ‘High Voltage’ - yes that’s a person. It wasn't long before she was impossibly skinny with fake boobs, all of which went on display after she discovers her husband is a mummy’s boy, divorces him and does Playboy. There’s my misspent youth reading New Idea and Woman’s Day rearing its ugly head again. 

Is this the time she decided it was fortuitous to spell her name with an extra 'I'...hrm

I guess all this was the perfect preparation for her next life making solid dance music. ‘All I wanna do’ was really the first dance song I liked that didn't require an underground gay dance party to make it work. The video is killer too...there’s a sparseness in that song that acts to ‘hold the cheese’ and most of Dannii’s songs are like that...good for the gays without being a show-tune. Considering most of my life between the age of 17 and 24 was spent with Gay men - I know what I’m talking about. 

‘Everything I wanted’ is eerie, like you’re on a half empty dance floor at 4am, its raining cold and outside and you realise you don’t know anyone you’re with..or is that just me?...I hate that feeling...that track gets stuck in my head, particularly the bit that sounds like a banshee letting out a mating cry...or is that just me again? 

Its been about five years since I bought this album for running music (most of it has the perfect beat for running) and use as ‘getting ready’ music..I don’t know what I was getting ready for...I think it was mostly used for running and its pretty shit to think that its been so long since Dannii Minogue put out any music. I suppose she’s getting old, just like me. 

BETH ORTON - CENTRAL RESERVATION. DAY 4

BETH ORTON - CENTRAL RESERVATION

Thirteen years ago Beth Orton looked like the kind of chick you’d see at a music festival 10 years ago. Does that make sense? Orton epitomised folksy/nomadic/electronic...where kids who would once only listen to rock or techno met in the middle, got messed up watching the chemical brothers and then came down listening to her...

You cant fake her sound. She’s like an earthy mash up of joni mitchell, carol king and natalie merchant..a kid for the new kind of woodstock - Glastonbury. 

I became rather obsessed with her whole ‘thongs and homemade denim skirt’ look. I tried that a few times but didn’t succeed in carrying it off until 4 years ago...so I guess I missed the boat.  

My album is a copy and I cant remember exactly who gave it to me...although highly likely it was one of the two following freaks: 

Freak #1

A morbidly obese girl with the worlds most acidic tongue who I worked with in the worst of my million jobs. She drove a huge car which she parked as close to work as possible so she wouldn't have to walk and she tortured the dumber staff with her mean spirited jibes so naturally I was drawn to her...at lunch when I would be bolting out of that hideous cubicle filled land of fluorescent lighting, she would remain seated at her desk...eating the roll she bought at the petrol station on the way to work..sometimes I bought her fried rice from the bacteria invested bain marie’s downstairs for something different..anyway she was 5 years older than me and still lived at home...so she had more money for CD’s…

Freak #2

This dude was friends with Freak #1 and worked in another building and without wanting to sound like a conceited arsehole...he was obsessed with me..he would bring things to my work like flowers and teddy’s and stupid love related shit that asian teenagers fill the back windows of their cars with. I had no respect for this dude at all but, he was nice...I think he was my first ‘pity pal’..I couldn't get rid of him and he did whatever I wanted. It creeped me out. Weirdly he thought much of himself...it was as though he had never looked in the mirror as his high self opinion wasn’t warranted...he flicked his hair like he had a twitch and left his hands in his pockets like he was Danny Zucko from Grease. His breathing was heavy..he was a prime candidate for Type 2 Diabetes and heart disease...I pranked him constantly but he was so lamely in love with me that I couldn't really enjoy the thrill of the trick...his dad was a chemist so he tried to buy people and he would always talk about the time he ‘dropped acid’ like he was Hunter S Thompson...I didn't really get why someone who had a seemingly normal family was so unfortunate...he was always buying CD’s..

In Conclusion: 

I recall listening to this on the hour long train ride to work on my discman..yes that’s DISCMAN..I paid $190 and was always disappointed when the ant-jumping feature would fail. Listening to Central Reservation for me is like standing in the desert with a pocket full of money and nowhere to spend it...its warm and full of expectation and the lushness comes not from what’s around you but what you can make of it.. 

CHRIS ISAAK - HEART SHAPED WORLD. Day 3

CHRIS ISAAK - HEART SHAPED WORLD

I got this album at 15. I was just getting into that whole David Lynch thing and Heart Shaped World was popular thanks to the success of Wicked Game which featured in ‘Wild at Heart’. 

The ‘No Skipping’ rule of this historical listening experiment made me realise that I used to skip most of the tracks. For no good reason other than my ADHD style attention span though. More often than not its hard to find an album with no weak spots. The songs are ordered perfectly. The melodies and Isaak’s voice roll their way around your head all day. It’s been recorded like he’s sitting in the same room as you but he doesn't know you’re there. 

How is it that someone I now know to be so charismatic and funny, can sound so intense when they’re singing? When I first heard Wicked Game, Chris Isaak was a mysterious heart broken voice belonging to what I assumed was a cowboy who lost their way and ended up in my CD player. I conceived a reality where this guy was singing to his heartbroken self one day when a record company dude just happened to be walking past and convinced him that he needed to get this song out there to the heartbroken masses. 

This album reminds me of a trip I was forced take to Europe as a 16yo. I was nominated as my grandmothers helper/bag carrier/chaperone on her European trip of a lifetime. Which in retrospect is a great experience. At the time though when all you want to do is rock back and forth in the foetal position wearing black..its not ideal. My gran had to ‘ok’ my wardrobe before leaving which was horrendous.  To make up for it I wore Converse All Stars with everything which pissed my gran off in all sorts of satisfying and amusing ways. 

Shorts - All stars

Jeans - All stars

Evening Dresses - All stars

Pajama’s - All stars

So versatile!

I also had to make my hotel room bed before room service came because we couldn't let anyone, particularly not the hotel cleaning lady see just how wrinkled those bed sheets got when somebody actually slept in them. I was the youngest person on our tour bus by about 60 years. 

We arrived in Amsterdam - yes...just the place for a grand-daughter and grandmother to spend some quality time hitting up the red light district (we did a tour and you don’t know odd until you’ve been on a group tour of dope cafe’s and sex clubs with your nanna...trust me). As a loathsome teen I spent most of my holiday locating and then zoning out to MTV in every country. Forget the MTV we know now - this was MTV when they still played music video’s. I couldn't understand much of what anyone was saying but the first video I saw was Wicked Game...featuring Chris Isaak and Helena Christensen rolling around on a beach. If you haven’t seen that video..then see it. Its a pop culture rite of passage...so are converse all stars - don’t try telling my gran that though.

STAND OUT TRACKS: 

#1 Wicked Game 

#3 Blue Spanish Sky 

#4 Heart Shaped World

#7 Blue Hotel 

#8 Dancin

#10 Voodoo

NIRVANA - NEVERMIND. DAY 2

That little dude on the front had no idea he would become the worlds most famous baby for a while there..

NIRVANA - NEVERMIND. DAY 2

NIRVANA - NEVERMIND

I forgot I had this album and I forgot I was so into Nirvana at one stage...which stage? That 14 yo ‘I hate everything’ stage when I used a cricket bat to jam my bedroom door closed and spent most of my spare time in muted darkness. I suspect based on how we all know Kurt Cobain’s life turned out, he kind of felt the same as I did. 

So that’s why Nevermind is like a timepiece, capturing a moment when music changed and then evolved because of Neverminds impact. If you were in 2020 and you asked Doc and Marty to take you to back to a time when music felt alive in that self-hatred, raining all the time kind of way then they would set the DeLorean to arrive in 1991 and maybe you could take a scenic tour through the next few years of Seattle’s influence on music. 

I didn't buy this album until later..maybe because I was 12 when it was released and we didn't even have a CD player until I was almost 13. Times have changed. 

I haven’t listened to Nevermind for years. I had to take a break halfway through my second listen and watch some Ellen for comic relief. Clearly, I’m old and boring now but I’m amazed I used to do my homework listening to this. It demands attention and maybe I’m just more aware of it than I used to be. Smells like Teen Spirit still has lyrics that I sing along to and yet have no idea what I’m saying.  I’m probably singing the weird Al Yankovic version. 

Considering Dave Grohl is still making music, I wonder where Kurt Cobain would be if he didn’t die at his peak...its common knowledge that his suicide note quoted Neil Young: ‘It's better to burn out, than to fade away.’ True - it probably cements your status as icon of the ‘prozac generation’. Plus the Nirvana catalogue has funded Courtney Love’s lifestyle of addiction wrapped inside celebrity until now. Kurt listened to REM’s Automatic for the People before he killed himself. I read he felt that some of Nirvana’s music had limitations and aspired to make his next record more like Automatic; with orchestra and melancholy that lulls you rather than yells at you. Cobain had serious undiagnosed stomach problems, his heroin addiction was in part to numb his stomach pain and since the stomach is the epicenter of your emotions I can understand why.

Every album I have has an accompanying story and here’s Nevermind’s: 

My best friend at school was obsessed with Nirvana, listening to Nevermind non stop on a cassette tape (she didn't have a CD player either)..so anyway one night, rather spooky outside, howling wind and black as ink..no moon. We were listening to the tape and lamenting school the next day when it automatically jumped to the B side and started playing songs from the A side backwards..I swear it! I’m a sissy when it comes to stuff like this so I’m not embarrassed to admit I did my best not to listen...but in between trying to fold the pillow over my head I hear out of nowhere this creepy voice become audible through the noise of backward gushing guitars and my bf’s hears her brothers name along with some other words I can’t remember.I was shit scared but curious and while she continued to listen to it repeatedly...I don’t think I listened to Nevermind for 2 years after.

KILLER TRACKS: 

#8 Drain You

#5 Lithium - I’m so happy cause today I found my friends - they’re in my head

The most melodic song on Nevermind..best lyrically too...perfection

#2 In Bloom - Nature is a whore

Killer Harmony’s and every element sounds full and all encompassing 

#3 Come as you are - take your time, hurry up

You cant fake a voice like Kurt Cobain’s...he even enunciates with self loathing

BJORK - POST DAY 1

Bjork - POST 

There is absolutely no reason I picked this, it was there and then it was in the CD player. Probably a good record for a Monday..particularly after an introspective and weird weekend, There's layered sweeping sounds on this that seem to lull me to a spiritual higher ground. Track 7. Isobel in particular is comforting, like Bjork was my mum and my best friend all at once. This album takes me back to when I was 16 and it reminds me of my first boyfriends sister, she kind of looked like Bjork in a more rural town Australian kind of way. She used to make her own clothes, wear striped tights with velvet skirts and drew elaborate pictures of elves and faeries..is this all getting a bit too weird?! I remember listening to POST when she first bought it...CD's were never less than $30 in those days so when you bought one as a teenager it was a big deal.  I sat at their huge old wooden dinner table that could easily fit 12 people on it and we listened and talked. it was dusk and outside it was cool but not cold. Even though I went to my boyfriends all the time, I was happy when he wandered off and did his own thing while I hung out with his sister. His sister was so sweet and weird, the kind of weird and sweet you think must be an act...but it was real and since I never had a sister I always adopted other peoples..

Army of Me starts the CD and I know I used it as an anthem for a little while...its empowering when you listen to it on headphones...just you and someone else's voice.

Hyper_ballad is for me the stand out...I loved this song back then and even though I haven't listened to this album in 4 years or something I remember the words and how I felt like this song made sense from her imagination but not to me...but today...it makes sense in a whole new way. when she talks about throwing things from the top of the mountain...and she says ' i go through all this, before you wake up, so i can feel happier, to feel safe again with you...' 

i get that now. I do that. I have rituals that I need to do everyday so I can be ok and not nuts..like I need to get out and run or go to the gym and I need to check inane internet gossip websites to feel ok.

I went to see Bjork that same year..1996...she was supported by two girls on keyboards and she was late on stage. The gig was good but there were these hideous platform shoe wearing trippers in front of me that looked old enough to be my mother (too many nights out on the stilletto's perhaps? they were squint worthy bad looking) who used the considerable mosh/crush as an opportunity to stomp out their aggression like it was some bogan indoor netball game. 

I actually bought this for myself about 5 years ago when I was living in another state, in another life but obviosuly needed to hear the sound of my mum/best friend again..this time though I bought it for $15...

I'd forgotten how good this album was. 

-K-

Here we go.....

It's the 14th of Feb. Valentines day and this day - other than being significant mark on the calendar for love everywhere - is significant to me because it's the first anniversary of buying our house. In the year since I got this house a substantial amount has happened in my life. We only got to move in two months ago and as I have been lugging boxes, unpacking boxes and throwing away crap I should have thrown away years ago  when I found my CD collection. I'm still unpacking my CD's..I have a LOT of CD's and I realised I haven't listened to any of my CD's in nearly 2 years. What happened?! IPODs happened. About the only time I've heard any Cd's has been driving in the car. I don't listen to them all the way through like I used to. Instead I skip to tracks I know are going to keep me happy while driving. 

Lately I've been unimpressed with music...uninspired by life. So I have decided to force myself by way of a personal challenge and keeping me accountable is the commitment to write about it here...everyday. 

There is no order or reason to how I will pick the CD's...it's anyone's guess how this will go. It's been too long with me screwing my face up and shrugging my shoulders at everything I hear. I'm wondering if I will fall in love with music all over again, or just fall in love with my own taste in music all over again. 

Let's see shall we??

A few ground rules before I begin: 

1. One Album only - from my own collection 

2. I cannot skip through tracks I dislike

3. All albums must be from 2010 and earlier...yes..I do have recent albums in my collection that I haven't listened to yet

4. I cant google the lyrics...I have to interpret based on what I hear whether its correct or not

Just 4 ground rules?! I may have to add more at a later date for the sake of legitimacy! But for now, its time or the first day of the rest of my year to begin.