Favorite Albums Desktop Wallpaper

I played around in Photoshop one day to create a dual-monitor wallpaper for my work computer.  It moves somewhat chronologically by decade from left to right.

(Click the image to view full size.)

The albums:

The Beatles - Revolver

Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

Led Zeppelin - I

The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground

The Kinks - The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society

The Zombies - Odessey and Oracle

The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds

The Beatles - Abbey Road

Simon & Garfunkel - Sounds Of Silence

Neil Young - Harvest

Nick Drake - Pink Moon

Led Zeppelin - IV

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

The Beatles - Rubber Soul

David Bowie - The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars

The Who - Who's Next

Led Zeppelin - III

Joni Mitchell - Blue

Neil Young - After The Gold Rush

The Clash - London Calling

Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

The Grateful Dead - American Beauty

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass

Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water

The Who - Quadrophenia

Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

Pixies - Doolittle

R.E.M. - Murmur

The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

Belle & Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister

The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead

Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

Arcade Fire - Funeral

Elliott Smith - XO

Jimmy Eat World - Clarity

Built To Spill - Keep It Like A Secret

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning

Brand New - The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me

The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow

The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound

Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days

The National - Boxer

Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy

Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

"Seussian" Album Review - The Beatles - Revolver

I was recently challenged by a member of a message board that I frequent to write an album review in the style of one Dr. Seuss.  I don't anticipate making this a regular feature (or ever doing one again) as it took me about three lunch breaks to write.  Regardless, I accepted his challenge and present to you the following.

August 5, 1966
Parlophone

 Rating:  10/10

Best of all time? It’s surely sublime.  Let us pander a gander through gibberish and rhyme.

Make sense this shall not, but it’s worth a shot.  It’s at least worth a razzer, pitsnitch or tubsplot.

George opens the album with an amply paced beat, an impressive feat that he would not repeat.  The Taxman tactfully taxes your street.  The Taxman tactfully taxes your heat.  Checking his sheet, his job won’t be complete, until he taxes your seat and at long last, your feet. 

And Eleanor Rigby, aging and feeble, laying rest beneath steeple, pointing out cuptillions of sad lonely people.

Dreary strings subside to rhythmic swings that invite us to all to go floating up streams.  Triple x-labeled jugs, or mind-bending drugs, could have led to the presence of drawckab ratiugs.  If you ask me they all deserve a snug round of hugs.

The next in the show comes off as an ode, to musical things in abodes round the globe.  Fear not though, for just up the road are melodious tones known for getting girls off their toes.

Poetic balladry aside, let’s all take a ride, on a lemony vessel where even hornswaggles abide to reside.

Here’s the thing though, it’s not always neato, when the time finally comes to let Ringo sing-o.

The following entry is a tune for the century, about bleak conversational rudimentary imagery.  The concept here is poignant but elementary.

All of a sudden, the flowers are budding.  The great sun’s rays’ displays are erasing the flooding.

Good day to yours, good day to mine.  Good day to curtain-splitting morning sunshine.  This song should be designed into every alarm clock chime.

The happiness train picks up some steam as the plot zings to a green bird who swings things and sings in one of the catchiest numbers that I’ve ever seen.  Know what I mean?

I now want to tell you, nay, sell you and pay value to the next stretch of three that many give hell to.  For no one should mock or throw away in a box, or feed to a lox tales of generically named docs.

If this does cause forlorn, than perhaps I may warn you of a soulful little romp adorned fully with brass horns.

The fact is we all love Paul, after all.  He sounds good in the mall, he sounds good at the ball, he might even sound good in the famed Albert Hall; assuming no holes through which he could fall. The fact is we all love Paul, after all.

This masterpiece culminates with a spectacular show.  One of chaos, one of fury, one with which minds will blow.  And if you say “no, for this mine won’t be blown,” check back tomorrow ‘cause by then you’ll have known.

Now that we’ve taken some looks and copycatted books, it’s easy to see how the world got so shook.  Only a schnook could possibly overlook the chances the Beatles took in creating these hooks.

The Beatles on Facebook

http://www.thebeatles.com/

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Musical Moments In TV/Film: Freaks And Geeks - Come Sail Away

This scene comes from the pilot episode of Freaks and Geeks.  If you've read any of the entries in this blog at all, you know all about my admiration of this series.  Earlier in this particular episode, Sam was denied by Cindy when he asked her to the dance.  In a moment stemming from the all too popular "charitable cheerleader syndrome," she reluctantly agrees to save him one dance.  At least she's doing her part, right?

Well, after a quick collaboration with his buddies, Sam comes to the instant conclusion that this one sacred dance would have to be of the slow variety.  In typical F&G fashion, the music takes a firm grip on the scene and helps steer the plot.  In this case, it's the definitive example of guilty pleasure arena rock, Styx's "Come Sail Away."  Anyone that's ever shamefully held up a lighter to this saccharin-infused moment of cheese rock knows that it starts innocently enough as a piano-laden ballad, perfect for slow dancing.  The rest of the scene speaks for itself.

Review: Frank Turner - England Keep My Bones

June 6, 2011
Xtra Mile Recordings, Epitaph


 Rating:  8.0/10

I keep having dreams of pioneers, and pirate ships; and Bob Dylan.  These folk songs for the modern age are for punks, and folks and journeymen.  Not everyone can be Freddie Mercury, but everyone can raise a glass and sing. 

We are electric pulses in pathways of the sleeping soul of the country.  The path I chose isn’t straight and narrow.  It wanders ‘round like a drunken fellow.  Some days it’s hard for me to follow, but if you’ve got my back I’ll go on.  If you’ve got my back, I’ll go on.

On the worst days, when it feels like life weighs ten thousand tons, I sleep with my passport, one eye on the back door so I can always run.  But love is free, and life is cheap.  As long as I’ve got me a place to sleep, clothes on my back, and some food to eat, I can’t ask for anything more.

Teenage kicks and gramophones, we will hold them in our hearts.  They remind us of things that matter; home, and hearth and history.  And I still believe in the need for guitars, and drums, and desperate poetry.  I still believe that everyone can find a song for every time they've lost and every time they’ve won.

I always keep an open house, and I always do right by my friends.  And when I get to St. Peter’s gate, I’ll tell the people that I’m not the one who needs to make amends.  It doesn’t matter where you come from, it matters where you go.  No one gets remembered in this listless life for things they didn’t do.

And on the day I die, I’ll say ‘at least I fucking tried.’  After all, it was rock ‘n roll.

www.frank-turner.com

Frank Turner on Facebook

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Review: Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver

June 17, 2011
Jagjaguwar, 4AD


  Rating:  8.4/10

Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon has come a long way since the quaint little recording session in a cold and desolate cabin that birthed the wonderful For Emma, Forever Ago.  One of the best records of 2008, For Emma still sees heavy rotation almost exclusively during the winter months.  It just doesn’t feel right at other points throughout the year.  The fact that it lacks a certain versatility of mood shouldn’t detract listeners who have yet to experience its icy bliss though.

Earlier this summer, Vernon and friends burst back onto the scene the somewhat confusingly titled Bon Iver, Bon Iver.  The album art is stunning and reminds me of the inner lining of a sleeping bag that I used frequently as a kid.  If the various side projects that surfaced between Bon Iver releases were any indication, I knew that this one was going to be treading down the path towards the fairly common, often frightening, “new direction.”  I don’t believe that any fans of the first record were expecting a similarly stripped down and rickety sequel.  But I also don’t concede that any of them could have predicted something so gleaming, so smooth around the edges. 

Yes, the production on Bon Iver, Bon Iver is crisp, but it is not annoyingly slick.  Instrumentally vivid and (at times) lush, Vernon simply exposes us to what we already knew was there, the sounds of an artist realizing his vast capabilities.  Moments of pin-drop beauty intertwine seamlessly with countless examples of rhythmic and melodic prowess.  Rusty and creaky guitar strings have been replaced by crystalline tones.  Cinematic passages reminiscent of The National slide by amidst harmonies that are vintage Bon Iver.  The instantly recognizable falsetto still soars, but Vernon ventures into baritone territory here as well.  Varying payments of homage to some of the musical tacticians of the 80’s make their presence felt often. 

The songs themselves hold up extremely well and mold together to form a journey that seems to fly by regardless of time of year or temperament of self.  There might not be anything that measures up individually to the beauty of “Flume” or “Re: Stacks” (“Holocene” comes close), and I do find myself wondering what an “Mtv Unplugged” version of this album would sound like.  Nonetheless, what we have here is a cohesive sampling of the aural paintings taking up wall space in Vernon’s creative psyche.  My not-so-bold prediction:  Bon Iver, Bon Iver will end up scattered across every single best of ’11 list that cyberspace has to offer, including my own.

BonIver.org
Bon Iver on Facebook
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