Weekend Listomania (Special Tom Waits For No One Edition)

Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental trampoline tart Fah Lo Suee and I are off to lovely Wasilla, Alaska to join former Governor Sarah Palin [R-Blood Libeled] in a crash course in the Kabbalah. We've been assured that when the weekend is over the ex-Gov will be able to breathe life into a clay golem, thus enabling her to smite her liberal Nazi detractors.

That being the case, and given that things will doubtless be a little subdued around here till our return, here's a fun little project to help us all wile away the intervening hours:

Group, Song or Album You Used to Like But Which, Given the Passage of Time, You Now Consider Unlistenably Dated!!!

No arbitrary rules, you're welcome very much, and it occurs to me I may have flogged something like this one in the past, Without looking it up, however, I suspect at least some of my nominees must have changed since, so what the hell.

And my totally top of my head Top Five is:

5. Paul Simon -- Graceland



Maybe it's simple over-exposure or maybe it's that damned gated drum sound. In any case, an admittedly great album that seemed like it would be timeless when it emerged in 1986 now comes off as...a really annoying artifact of the 80s, kinda like the Thompson Twins except with (much) better songs.

4. Hüsker Dü -- Zen Arcade



There's a couple of great tracks on this -- the above being one of them -- and as a result I overlooked the album's appalling low-fi punk-rock production for far too long. Sorry guys, it was an annoying affectation then, and it was even more annoying on your subsequent major label albums, which also sounded like muddy amateurish crap.

3. Poco



I loved Richie Furay in Buffalo Springfield, and "You Better Think Twice" remains a pretty cool song. But in retrospect the doofus "Isn't everything great?" optimism of most of Poco's output strikes me as beyond irksome.

2. Pearl Jam -- Jeremy



I have no problem with these guys in general, although what could be said of Michael McDonald -- that you can hear the beard when he sings -- could also be said of Eddy Vedder, and he usually doesn't even have one. In any case, at this point you would need a heart of stone to sit through the 90s grunge angst of "Jeremy" without laughing.

And the Numero Uno time wounds all heels act or artifact simply has to be...

1. The Mamas and the Papas



Okay, "Safe in My Garden" is a great song and production, but most of the rest of their hits just sound insufferably smug to me now. And frankly, if I ever hear "Creque Alley" again I swear to god I'm gonna take a hostage.

Alrighty then -- what would your choices be?