Facebook "These are a few of my favorite things" music post

As an eternally frustrated ex-college DJ, I'm always looking for opportunities to get music out there. Not a comprehensive list, although I did do 30. The order is utterly random.

1)Johnny Cash At San Quentin: An obvious choice, but a good one. Prefer this to Folsom because of "A Boy Named Sue;" a distant cousin of mine did an oral interpretation of this song at a family reunion in Ireland about ten years ago;

2)Sam Phillips Martinis and Bikinis: Anything Ms. Phillips does is worth a listen, even the Christian music she later disowned. This one's a slew of well-crafted Beatlesque pop songs dealing with how difficult straddling the line between the spiritual and temporal can be;

3)R.E.M. Life's Rich Pageant: Sentimental choice from the fall of '86. Hard to go wrong with any R.E.M. album, of course; "Accelerate" is also worth a listen, despite being the most recent one;

4)John Prine John Prine: Prine fell into the Marshall Crenshaw trap with this one by making a debut album so impossibly good that he could never top it. No one has ever drawn such richly developed characters in so few phrases;

5)The Pogues If I Should Fall From Grace With God: How do you pick one Pogues album? Simple. Pick the one featuring the duet with Kirsty MacColl, and then mourn the injustice that took her voice from the world;

6)Various Artists Troubadours of British Folk: Volume 1, Unearthing the Tradition: Speaking of Kirsty MacColl, this album features her father Ewan singing his song "Dirty Old Town." Rhino did a good job with this largely acoustic album, featuring most of the major early lights: Donegan, Carthy, Jansch, Briggs, Collins. Plus, if you ever wondered who yelled "Judas!" at Dylan during "The Royal Albert Hall Concert," there's a good chance that person listened to some of this music;

7)The Stooges Raw Power: "Menacing" is a word you don't see in too many music reviews outside of Rock. If you want to hear menace in its purest form, listen to this;

8)Martin Carthy Shearwater: A compelling album from one of the greatest British Folk artists, his return to acoustic guitar after a two album flirtation with electricity as part of Steeleye Span. Carthy believes in it and he knows how to do it.

9)The Hold Steady Boys and Girls in America: the album that restored my faith in rock;

10)The John Coltrane Quartet Africa/Brass: I'm not a jazz guy; the reason I latched onto this is because I read the Byrds were listening to it as they wrote "Eight Miles High." There's no linear link between the two that I can hear, and I never did hear the classical Indian influence on the album, but it is strangely compelling;

11)Various Artists Alan Lomax: Popular Songbook: Field recordings of many songs that would later become rock standards: "Midnight Special," Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad," "Rock Island Line," "Sloop John B." and others;

12)The Beatles Revolver: Almost certainly the best album I've ever heard;

13)Fairport Convention Liege and Lief: And if it ain't "Revolver" it is this;

14)Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Murder Ballads; Hard to top Nick Cave's voice, especially when he's intoning a certain twelve letter word;

15)U2 War; The album I memorized in high school. Growing up without consistent access to a good radio station or MTV, I would save up my money, scan album reviews in magazines and newspapers and buy anything I could find that a reviewer said came from the same influences as "War";

16)Iris DeMent Infamous Angel; She truly has her own voice, and she writes songs worthy of it;

17)The Who Live at Leeds: The most ferocious live album ever recorded, featuring some of rock's best musicians at the height of their powers;

18)Original Cast Album, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More, With Feeling: Combines two of my favorite things, show tunes and TV. Plus it gives one a good intro to Joss Whedon: the character to whom the prettiest ballad is sung has just utterly betrayed the singer;

19)The Chemical Brothers Dig Your Own Hole; Accessible, compelling electronic DJ music. Plus, any recycling of "Tomorrow Never Knows" is always valued;

20)Anne Briggs A Collection: A compilation, but hey, she only has recorded thirty-odd songs to date. I still occasionally listen to her A Capella version of "She Moves Through the Fair" on continuous repeat. It sounds like she just restarts the song, over and over again. If that's what Heaven is like and I make the list, I won't complain;

21)Drive-By Truckers The Dirty South: Again, hard to pick just one DBT album. I go with this because Jason Isbell is still in the band at this point, and he does have the best singing voice DBT ever had. Great stories, good guitar, and that sense of Southern Gothic menace that no one does better;

22)Various Artists White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s: If you get a chance, read the book to which this is a companion, Joe Boyd's memoir of his early career. I'm only aware of one person, Al Kooper, who worked with a wider variety of musicians. But the album works even without the book.

23)Lucinda Williams, Lucinda Williams: PopMatters recently cheated in a review of Williams' last album, saying it was her best album since "You know the one." Readers would either instinctively think Car Wheels on a Gravel Road or this one. I go with the latter; having ears, I like Car Wheels, but Williams indulges her "write a song where a friend of mine dies" muse a bit too much on it. Really, who has a longer life expectancy: a friend of Lucinda's or a Spinal Tap drummer?;

24)Neil Young and Crazy Horse Weld: Neil touring in support of a strong album (Ragged Glory) with opening acts strong enough to push him (Social Distortion and Sonic Youth), and in the middle of the Persian Gulf War. Not much more you could ask for. Plus this is one of the few shows I actually saw;

25)Patty Griffin 1000 Kisses; with the '00s ending, I've been trying to think of the best albums of the decade, and so far nothing beats this one. A virtuoso singer who chooses restraint over self-aggrandizing vocal acrobatics except when the song demands it. Plus, a hell of a songwriter;

26)Talking Heads Remain in Light; I don't know enough about African music to judge how original this album. All I know is that, if I need music to help me focus and move quickly, on foot or behind the wheel, I'm popping in "The Great Curve";

27)Nick Drake Pink Moon: Musical heroin for depressives;

28)The Decemberists Picaresque: Colin Meloy gets mucho props for his literary songwriting skills, which are very evident here. But he is a very evocative vocalist as well, and really, he has to be to pull off his songs. Plus, Jenny Conlee is probably the Garth Hudson of her generation;

29)Sarah McLachlan Fumbling Towards Ecstasy: It took me several years to figure out that "Possession" was essentially written from the perspective of someone who stalked McLachlan, which I think says all I need to say about the power of this album;

30)Richard and Linda Thompson I Want to See the Bright Lights: I've read that Richard Thompson denies that his songs reveal a bleak worldview, saying that he always leaves room for redemption at the end. Maybe so, and certainly "Night Comes In" is as ecstatic a song as one is likely to find. But that was after he converted to Sufism. On this album, one gets the closing tandem of "The End of the Rainbow," which makes Roger Waters' later work sound like the 1910 Fruit Gum Company, and "The Great Valerio," which stomps on the possibility of romantic love as a salve. On a lighter note, the reissue features the most blistering live version of "The Calvary Cross" available right now.

OK, that's it. As always, thanks for your attention.