Blur's Leisure
If you read my journal regularly, you'll know that I often take very unconventional opinions on music. Here's the latest one: Blur's 1991 debut Leisure is one of their best albums. It's fashionable to slag off the record in favor of the two that would follow (and really, few bands measure up to Blur at their mid-90's peak of Modern Life Is Rubbish and Parklife), but the truth is that Leisure is a fine record in its own right. Heady, joyous, psychedelic, it captures some sort of zeitgeist about being young. It's the only Blur record…

I will never forget the first time I heard Gigantic. I was a freshman in high school and a major Nirvana acolyte. Since I had given and bought Kurt Cobain's journal (which I still feel rather dirty about owning; I adore Courtney Love, but it's in very bad taste to release your dead husband's private diaries), I began checking out some of the bands he namechecks throughout. After Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth, I moved on to Pixies, downloading "Gigantic."

SIDE NOTE: This is proof that downloading isn't going to kill the record industry. I illegally…

My second entry on My Bloody Valentine in a row. I'm on a roll. Anyhoo, here's a gentle 16-track intro to MBV. It includes their poppier songs but hints at the noisy avant-garde side as well. Tell me what you think.

Strawberry Wine
Never Say Goodbye
This two tracks are from the sinfully underrated Ecstacy and Wine period. They're perhaps not as earth-shakingly awesome as the material that would follow but it's quite lovely all the same (not to mention, quite an improvement from their Dave Conway days. Eurrghh.)

You Made Me Realise
Slow
Cigarette In Your Bed
These three…

My Bloody Valentine: You Made Me Realise EP
My Bloody Valentine is one of those bands that’s inspired some seriously bloated prose. I’ll not add my own to it, so I’ll just say without any reservations that their two full-length albums, 1988’s Isn’t Anything and 1991’s Loveless are must-owns for anyone who listens to music.
If you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a bit of a fetish for awesome singles and EP’s, and MBV did quite a few of those. While Glider and Tremolo, the two that preceded Loveless, are frequently lauded, You Made Me Realise, which was released…

I am going to go out on a limb and say that Gish by The Smashing Pumpkins is the greatest guitar album of the 90's. There are certainly better overall records but as a musician, I can honestly say that guitar-wise, this album is the shit. Maybe I'm biased by the fact that I'm listening to Side B, the most gorgeous, psychedelic, exquisite group of songs EVER as I write this, but this album is pretty awesome. This album is full of snarling, shrieking leads and astonishing jazz-inflected drumming but Billy Corgan and James Iha rarely let their guitars get…

When discussing the landmarks of rock music in the 90's, the same few albums are usually mentioned. Nevermind, OK Computer, Siamese Dream, Rage Against The Machine, and perhaps Ten are the usual suspects. Of course, all of these albums are wonderful. But what do four of them have in common? With the exception of the Radiohead album, they're all by American artists. Americans, myself included, have got a bad case of cultural imperialism. We tend to think that the only thing that happened in music during the 90's was grunge and that's simply not true.
Blur…

I've been listening to Madonna's Like a Prayer album (probably the only mainstream pop album from the 80's still worth listening to outside of Prince) and I don't know, but for some reason, it's really inspired me. The album is almost shockingly ambitious for 80's pop. Madonna and her army of musicians explore everything from gospel (the title track) and piano dirges ("Promise To Try") to Sgt. Pepper-esque orchestration ("Dear Jessie") and Butthole Surfers tape manipulations ("Act of Contrition"), with straightforward lyrics that address both the sacred and the personal. It's pretty awesome, so my new idea is…

I was in Half-Price Books last night. In addition to a course in Russian and 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' by Robert Pirsig, I bought these three CD's:

My Iron Lung
A fairly rare Radiohead EP released between Pablo Honey andThe Bends, My Iron Lung shows the band moving past the generic grunge-pop of "Creep" to the more experimental and sophisticated style of their later work. This is almost another Radiohead album, with seven wonderful songs sequenced together in a cohesive manner. The last track, a hideously off-key radio performance of "Creep," is a pretty bad…

I've been playing the guitar for nearly three years now, you see. And after all this time, I still haven't gotten anywhere near to the sound I hear in my head, so I've been trying a few new things:

-Giving up on the idea of forming a band right away: I've been trying to form a band for, oh, two yrs now, and no one seems to be interested in pushing the boundaries the way I want to do, or you know, doing anything besides bad emo and metal. So I figure I'll record my own 4-trk demos and find…

My Top Five Artists
1. The Beatles
2. Blur
3. My Bloody Valentine
4. Nirvana
5. The Stone Roses

The Beatles
First song I heard:She Loves You
Song that made me fall in love: Paperback Writer
Current favourite song: Revolution
Favourite album: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Blur
First song I heard:Song 2
Song that made me fall in love:Sing
Current favourite song:Mr. Briggs
Favourite album:Modern Life Is Rubbish

My Bloody Valentine
First song I heard:Only Shallow
Song that made me fall in love:You Made Me Realise
Current favourite song:Honey Power…