Playlist : August 29th - September 3rd, 2010

Now that the decade themes are out of my system, apart from a still beating passion for 1970s rock, I've gone back to your regularly scheduled programming of something old and something new.

• Jay-Z - The Blueprint : I've always associated The Ruler's Back from this LP with Ben Cousins "Charges don't stick to dude, he's Teflon. I'm too sexy for jail like I'm Right Said Fred I'm not guilty now give me back my bread." Given this is Ben's week, here's Jay Z. Plus, I hear Jay-Z is supporting U2 and may be coming to little old Perth.

• Best Coast - Crazy For You : Read a few things about these guys in Rolling Stone and Spin. They seem to be everywhere at the moment. The album sounds like summer holiday tunes with a hangover. Just perfect for chilly Perth mornings.
  

• Arcade Fire - The Suburbs : All I know of Arcade Fire is their decent album, Funeral. Everyone everywhere seems to be raving about their new cut. I thought I'd like to see what all the fuss is about.

• The Weepies - Say I Am You : The Weepies fourth record Be My Thrill is due out at the end of August aka Now. In preparation and because I didn't pre-order it, I am giving Say I Am You a spin.

• Ted Nugent - Great Gonzos - The Best of Ted Nugent : I know next to nothing about Ted Nugent. Except that while digging around for 70s albums, I came across a few tracks that made me smile. This is balls and all cheesy rock from the decade that gave us mission brown and lime green. Check out the cover art for an obvious giveaway of what you're in for.
  

• Cowboy Junkies - Renmin Park : I'm a big Cowboy Junkies fan, and this is their new one. It is a little more electronic sounding in parts than I'm used to from the Junkies; and my first listen didn't take my fancy. But I do like this band, which is why I'm willing to give it a fair second listen. You should always afford bands a second listen when they've done some excellent work in the past. Governments too...

• Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III : I'm still not over my 1970s music kick, even as I continue my 50s culture obsession. Led Zep I was on a list a little while ago and II has never been a big favourite for me, so III comes next. Besides... Zeppelin Rules! \m/

• Ozi Batla - Wild Colonial - Another album I probably haven't given enough of a chance. Not that I disliked this the first time, but that was the only listen so far. Time to take it for another turn. If nothing else, Batla has taught me that a good word for Aussie rappers/heads that sounds like Hip Hop's worst N word, is Digga.

• Digable Planets - Blowout Comb : I'm not sure it's been that long since I heard this album, but I have been meaning to hear it in it's entirety. Quite a few songs end up on high rated playlists, but it feels a long time since heard it all. Brooklyn smooth Jazz Hop beats all.

• Bruce Springsteen - The River : My renewed interest in vinyl has meant I've been listening to albums I own on record. One of them is The Boss' double LP The River that sounds impressive on wax. I wanted to listen to the CD for contrast. Nothing would beat the gate-fold artwork and lyrics printed on the record sleeve though.There's a scene in Jerry McGuire where Jerry, drinking, slips on Drive All Night and now it's all I can think of when I hear it.
  

• Eli Paperboy Reed – Come And Get It : Blue eyed soul might sound like a total misnomer, but I have read some good reviews of this album (again from RS and Spin). A quick scan through and it sounds like classic Motown or Stax remixed with a white session singer. Which isn’t entirely terrible, but still not a patch on the original. Except these are original songs, they just don’t sound like it.

Well, that's it. Until next week, be excellent to each other and all that good stuff. As I noted to @geoff9cow after he recently quoted Dr King about hate, "Life's too short to be pissed off all the time." And Edwrad Furlong said that, so it must be true.

Don't get hung up man, stay cool.

Playlist : August 23rd - 27th, 2010 : The Noughties

We're almost home kids. It's the 00s and here we are with the final themed playlist. Next time I'll be back to randomly throwing together albums I haven't listened to in a while, albums I always listen to and whatever I've managed to discover the week before.

My 00s list seems to contain a lot less critical acclaim than previous lists, but maybe that's the decade...

• Counting Crows - This Desert Life : Where the early 90s had seen August and Everything After on high rotation for me, the long wait for Recovering the Satellites had made sure I still got excited about a Crows release. They've fallen out of favor with my ears through no fault of their own, but these early tunes still make sense. I especially enjoy the poetry of Mrs Potters Lullaby and the ruckus of hidden track Kid Things.

• Paul Kelly - Ways & Means : Ever since an old friend slipped me a Bali copy of Under The Sun, I have appreciated Paul Kelly; Australia's greatest songwriter. Ways & Means was released in 2004, around about the time I first started relief teaching at Atwell PS with my wife. The following year (I think) Paul Kelly toured the album and did a free gig on the South Perth foreshore that my wife and I attended. Not only was it my introduction to the Sensitive New Age Cow Persons (a great band if you ever get a chance), it was the last concert I went to with my wife since our first child was born in 2006. Needless to say, the tunes and the memories are dear.

• Hilltop Hoods - The Calling : As uncool as it is amongst even some cynical devotees of Australian Hip Hop, I can't say enough good things about the Hoods. At a time when I had abandoned my deeply ingrained old school culture for grunge and then folk, it was Hilltop Hoods who made the music that brought me back. It was thanks to them that I dug out my old cassettes and LPs and went buying everything on CD again - albums like Paid In Full and Fear Of A Black Planet that I couldn't live without. It's the guys from Adelaide who restored my faith in Rap and old style positive lyrics with funk and soul breaks. They led me to Pegz and The Herd and Bias B and the other 'skip hop' artists who I'm glad I found. If you check my last.fm stats, The Calling is most likely my most played album. If not, it will be Hard Road.

• Radiohead - In Rainbows : I chose this album not because I listened to it a lot (that would be OK Computer), but because it was an important album in the context of the decade. It seems a bit passe now, but when Radiohead dropped In Rainbows and told people to pay whatever they wanted, even nothing, it was a big statement and a radical plan. By all accounts it has worked out for them. If more bands did things that way, I think piracy would decrease. You'll always get cheapskates and non-fans downloading the music for nothing, but more people would pay than not were it made available this way instead of for $30 at some poxy Sanity store, I believe (or at a crappy bitrate from iTunes).

• Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker : Back when I was a devoted Counting Crows fan, I searched high and low for bootlegs and such from the band. One tune they covered live was Come Pick Me up. To hear Adam Duritz tell it, the horror of Come Pick Me Up's tale of dysfunctional love was not that the narrator's girlfriend slept with his friends but that she stole his records. I could relate to that, so I hunted down the original version. What has followed since is album after album by Ryan Adams, The Cardinals, Whiskeytown, Patty Duke Syndrome, Sad Dracula, Caitlin Cary, Neal Casal, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings and a bunch of other Alt Country artists who had nothing to do with the Radams juggernaut. Grizzly, you da man.
  

• Whiskeytown - Pneumonia : I will always be grateful to my mate @sunky for introducing me to Whiskeytown. When I started working with him, I had just discovered Ryan Adams via Heartbreaker and hadn't done my homework yet and so didn't know of Radams' former life. This is probably my most favorite album and it sounds exactly like my 00s.

• Beck - Sea Change : I was late to Sea Change, because Beck lost me for a while. I don't know what album it was, but I was into One Foot In The Grave and Mellow Gold and something after that didn't do it for me. Then I read a review of Sea Change and it sounded good, so I bought it. I really like it. It made me a Beck fan again. Funny aside; I used to hear the chorus in Lost Cause as "Baby, I'm a lost cause" instead of "you're" That one word makes a heap of difference to the whole song. Try it.
  

• Eminem - The Eminem Show : The 2000s belonged to Eminem as far as mainstream rap went. The gigantic success of The Marshall Mathers LP, the hotly anticipated 8 Mile movie coming out and the deeply personal lyrics of #1 hit Cleaning Out My Closet really did make the whole world into Eminem's audience. Back in the mid 00s, Em really put on a show. Then he wen missing and only just reemerged - to what extent is arguable.

• Bruce Springsteen - The Ghost of Tom Joad : Through a nineties obsession with Dylan, I grew to appreciate folk music in many forms. As a fan of Springsteen's starkly sparse and raw Nebraska album, it was only a small step to Tom Joad. The album weaves tales of illegal immigrants, homeless drifters, racist small town rednecks, broken dreams and desperation in modern settings that bring to life the 1930s dustbowl and the titular man of the hour, Steinbeck's famous protagonist.
  

• Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis : Another album introduced to me via @sunky. For me, our friendship has always been heavily steeped in music. From song of the week to catching Radams at metro, we've tended to open up new and old tunes. This album is worth the admission price for Running The World alone, but then you get the brilliance of From Auschwitz to Ipswich thrown in.
  

And that's it. All you need to remember now, if you're Australian and voting this weekend is the all important rule of life and of politics - Keep Left.

Damn the man. That is all.

Playlist : August 16th - 20th : The 1990s

For my 1990s week playlist, I wanted to stick as close as I could to what my personal 90s sounded like. That meant 90s albums I only discovered later (by Notorious B.I.G., Josh Rouse, Digable Planets) had to miss out. It also meant that albums I haven't gotten into for a while made the cut. I'm looking forward to catching up with old friends.

Special mention has to go to Guns & Roses - Use Your Illusion I & II which were giants of 1990/1991. Then, along came a bunch of slack greasy kids from Seattle WA and made them seem archaic overnight.

< axl_god >< BAM >< teen_spirit >< /cock_rock >< grunge >

• VA - Triple J's Hottest 100 Vol. 1 : For me at least, it just wouldn't have been the 90s without JJJ. Mikey Robbins and Helen Razer played me my first taste of grunge in the thunderclap that kicked off the already rumbling Seattle storm; Smells Like Teen Spirit. If you listened to anything else, you were behind the curve for at least 3 months, being that the ABC was a 'taste-maker'.
  

• U2 - Achtung Baby : I originally bought this album on cassette. I'd been huge into Rattle & Hum and U2 were the biggest thing since Elvis at the time. I must have played Achtung a billion times on the Walkman on the bus to and from Uni. Eventually I bought the CD and now even that collects dust for my iPod. Achtung was a narrow winner over Pop for the U2 sound of my 90s. I saw the Pop tour at Burswood Dome, so it was a really close second.
  

• Nirvana - In Utero : While Nevermind had been arguably the biggest Nirvana release, In Utero probably got more airplay from me by the end of the 90s. I remember an interview with Kurt who said that a lot of fans wouldn't like In Utero because it wasn't like Nevermind at all. Being it was released not too long before Kurt's demise, I think a lot of fans held onto it tight while it got a fresh crop of followers with the cult of celebrity death.
  

• Tori Amos - More Pink : I was in awe of Tori Amos in the 90s. I saw her play live at the Perth Concert Hall in 1994. This album was the bonus Australian Tour disc that came with Under The Pink - which meant at one stage I owned two copies of the official release.
  

• Hole - Live Through This : An album that defined a period of time for me and forever and always one of my very favourite albums. That would be why it makes it to so many playlists. I still don't know if Kurt Cobain had a bigger role in this LP than Courtney lets on. Hole never did surpass it's brilliance. And while Celebrity Skin has its merits, it isn't anywhere close to this good.
  

• Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call : If I recall, I actually won this album for free from the SDA Union magazine. The funny thing is, the only other Nick Cave I owned at the time, Let Love In, I'd got for free for subscribing to Rolling Stone. I'm now what you'd call a Nick Cave fan and have since bought some CDs; proving that free music does increase sales.

• Pulp - Different Class : I have a confession. When this album came out, I rushed right out to buy it on the strength of Common People. It was a wise choice. However, it came with a glittering Pulp t-shirt transfer and I proceeded to put it on a black skivvy. This was not a wise choice. I thought it looked alright. Turns out, it didn't. An easy assessment in hindsight. Now let us never speak of it again.
  

• Melissa Etheridge - Your Little Secret : I saw Melissa Etheridge play the Perth Concert Hall in 1996. I've never seen so many lesbians in one place. In the 80s, people told me I was judging her on her voice when I said Melissa was gay. Good on her for her tireless dedication to equal rights. And I'll tell you a secret, that concert and this album proved to me that this girl can really rock out. I've never seen anyone else play guitar on their back for 10 minutes of relentless rhythm. Just sayin'

• The Cranberries - Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? : Not intentionally, but I seem to have chosen artists I got to see play live. REM Monster only narrowly missed out too. I saw The Cranberries play Metro Freo right after Zombie took over the world. But I have fond memories of singing Linger drunk on the streets of Northbridge when only JJJ listeners knew who they were.
  

• J Mascis - Martin & Me : Another high rotation album for me and a big part of the way the 90s sounds in my head. As someone who plays and appreciates acoustic guitars, the things that J could make them do just astounded me. When I first heard the live acoustic version of Quest from the EP of the same name, I renewed my passion for playing for a while.
  

That is my 1990s in a nutshell. There are albums that missed out on this list and some which were there but best forgotten *cough* Bel Biv Devoe *cough* Until the 00s next week folks, don't get hung up - stay cool.

Playlist : August 9th - 13th : The 1980s

After handing last week's list over to the 1970s, it seemed only logical to have an all 1980s week this week. When I was choosing this week's list, what struck me as funny about the 1980s was how there was a stark dichotomy of music style going on. I suppose all decades are that way, but the difference between say , WHAM! and Pixies is insane. I've tried to grab a little bit from both sides.

• Guns N' Roses - Appetite For Destruction : Everybody in my high school had this album; girls and boys. Slash was a guitar hero then too, just nobody made a video game. And of course, Sweet Child O Mine was a massive hit that every kid and his Fender copy wanted to play.

• Pixies - Doolittle : The fuzzy indie pop riffs and catchy melodies of Pixies is a world away from the 1988 best seller George Michael's Faith, or Kylie Minogue's self-titled set. Did anyone guess that the Pixies would go on to influence my generation's Beatles and Stones in Nirvana and Pearl Jam (and indeed much of the Seattle sound).

• Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground : Another band who sounded very little like the era's mainstream bubble gum pop and who have never followed the crowd. Something about the happy tragic tunes and jaunty rhythms of the Violent Femmes really works for me.

• INXS - INXS : This was INXS before the XS made them no good. Arguably Australia's most successful musical export next to AC/DC, INXS were then less the rock stars and more the geeky synth pop hipsters without a sax player.

• AC/DC - Who Made Who : A true bogan classic but not as good as Back In Black - despite what my critics said about my review in my Year 10 school paper! I got a smack in the chops for my troubles, but I was right. It's not a bad album, but its no Back... I put it in here instead because I've not heard it in a while.

• The Smiths - The Smiths : More music from (comparatively) another planet. Despite the mopey Moz lyrics and whiney vocals, I find The Smiths rather good to work to. I couldn't tell you why.

• The Psychedelic Furs - Mirror Moves : I added the Furs to compliment The Smiths and Violent Femmes. Furs have the same intelligent music as they do and the sound is a complimentary style. I reckon if iTunes Genius put them together, I wouldn't mind at all.

• Various Artists - Breakin' : Breakdance, the dance and the movies, was a big part of the 1980s for me. The first Breakin' film I saw with my older cousins at Piccadilly in Perth. There were hundreds of kids around our ages there for a Saturday matinee session. You'd never see so many people at Piccadilly these days - which sucks, because its a magical old place.

• Various Artists - 1984 Shakin' : Another big part of the 1980s was the compilation. There must have been 3 or 4 a year. My now sister-in-law's mother used to buy every single one on vinyl and slip us a cassette copy (my SIL and me) to play in our tape decks. Home taping sure didn't kill music for me - it kept the passion up and showed me new bands til I earned money to buy things. Anti-torrent types should remember what mixtapes and dubs were all about.

• Jimmy Barnes - For The Working Class Man : Barnsey! Another ubiquitous classic for us flannel and DB wearing Kwinanaites. This album was everywhere. From Mandurah to Koongamia, I couldn't have escaped it if I wanted to. And I didn't. Why would I? It's Barnsey!

• Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back : This is truer to my own personal sound of the 1980s. In 1987 I had heard Run DMC and the Beastie Boys and along came these guys, Public Enemy with Yo! Bum Rush the Show. Already sounding dangerous and angry, when they dropped Nation, they were harder than hard militant rap soldiers who had something to say. So you best listen.

• U2 - The Joshua Tree : When Joshua Tree was still quite popular, I remember when Rattle and Hum came out. Along with INXS dropping Kick, I don't think I've seen as clear an illustration of when a band goes from being popular to being monumental. U2 blew the hell up from there on until they lost it somewhere after All That You Can't Leave Behind. Joshua Tree is still awesome.

• Madonna - Madonna: Speaking of blowing up, this is another LP that came before the crucial moment. After this self-titled and solid set of likable pop, Madonna gave us Like A Virgin and you all know the rest. Can I just take this time to suggest Lady Ga Ga find another vault to violate.

• Wham!- Make It Big : If you want the 1980s, you have to take the cheese that goes with it. Two blokes with hair like girls and delusions of soul who wrote some pretty good tunes as it happens. And then filled every Blue Light Disco, classroom party and rollerskating rink with it until 1986 when they split and George Michael went solo. Then his songs took over.

I hope you get a nostalgic giggle from some of the tracks in this list. For the good stuff, I hope it you haven't heard it you will check it out.

Have a mintox week. Push pineapples, grind coffee. Happy birthday for Monday to my clever chops oldest daughter who turns 4.