#435: Actually, Pet Shop Boys As much as I love reading about inter-band drama, I love reading about inter-band harmony even more. Cue the Pet Shop Boys, who have never broken up, and are still releasing music together. God bless them. The Pet Shop Boys had their finger on the…

He Doesn’t Deserve An Articulate One Anyway. — Warning: I am a woman and therefore incapable of articulating any thoughts intelligently about the music industry. At least, according to Jann Wenner, founder of Rolling Stone Magazine, who was recently interviewed for the New York Times about his newest book, The Masters. It’s a collection of interviews with who…

#434: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Pavement I reviewed Pavement’s debut album Slanted and Enchanted over 200 entries ago, and I didn’t get it. I said so multiple times. And now that I’ve heard their sophomore effort, which sold significantly better, I don’t know where RS gets off ranking their debut…

#433: Sound of Silver, LCD Soundsystem I’m so excited to get to LCD “Liquid Christmas Display” Soundsystem, the coolest band to ever come out of NYC. And yes, I’m including the Ramones, the Velvet Underground, and the Wu-Tang Clan. I loved LCD Soundsystem at a stupidly young age. Imagine a…

#432: Confessions, Usher Early 2000s rap still stymies me at times — I wasn’t quite ready for rap in fourth grade, and while I’m sure I heard Usher, he seemed so far from the things I was into at the time — Green Day, the Indigo Girls, and of course…

#431: How Will the Wolf Survive?, Los Lobos I was distressed at this album cover, because the wolf looks a lot like my dog. Los Lobos = The Wolves, by the way. They’d been a band for nearly a decade at this point, and had only one album to show…

#430: My Aim Is True, Elvis Costello I knew this was Elvis Costello’s debut before reading anything about it. This album just has debut energy. According to RS, Costello wrote this record over “a big jar of instant coffee and the first Clash album.” …

#429: Reach Out, Four Tops Rolling Stone’s mention that this was the last Motown album written by the songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland didn’t do much other than annoy me at first. Sorry, but the only point of reference I had was another record I reviewed not too long ago, 69…

#428: New Day Rising, Hüsker Dü Just when Beck gives me a grunge crisis of faith, Hüsker Dü rescues it. I’m cool enough to have heard of Hüsker Dü but not so cool that I’ve listened to them. Actually I think I may have heard the title track “New Day…