Friday, March 18, 2011

Weekend Listomania (Special Not Their Finest Hour Audio/Video Edition)

Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental Christine Keeler surrogate Fah Lo Suee and I are off to somewhere where...quite frankly I haven't got a joke, given the gravity of the unfolding situation in Japan.

On the other hand, of course, the upside to what's going on over there is that none of the people in the Tokyo area are going to have to pay their utility bills for a while.

Okay, I'm ashamed of that one. Sorry.

Anyway, that being the case, and because things are going to be mercifully quiet around here for a couple of days, here's a fun little project to help you fill any empty areas in your lives:

Song or Album That You Really Dislike By a Group or Artist You Otherwise Really Like!!!

No arbitrary rules that I can think of, you're welcome very much, and yes, we've probably done something similar at some point. Hey -- you try cranking these things out without repeating yourself occasionally. In any rate, outraged snark never goes out of style.

And my totally top of my head Top Five is:

5. The Rolling Stones -- Voodoo Lounge.



No mp3, for the simple reason that this is the only Stones album on which there's not a single song interesting enough to induce me to listen to it again.

4. Bruce Springsteen -- Outlaw Pete



I still think this works only as a joke, but apparently the faux spaghetti western vibe is meant unironically. I should add that when I saw Springsteen do it live at the Meadowlands, the crowd went absolutely bonkers. Still scratching my head over that, actually.

3. Bob Dylan -- The Boxer



Dylan's so incredibly prolific that it's inevitable there's a lot of dross in his catalog, but this Paul Simon cover -- done as a duet between his early folk and Nashville Skyline crooner voices, and perhaps meant as a goof -- is about as unlistenable as it gets

2. The Hollies -- Blowin' in the Wind



And speaking of Dylan, this is the album that motivated Graham Nash to quit the band. Let's just say I agreed with him. God, that's just hideous.

And the Numero Uno WTF??? music from people who really should have known better just has to be...

1. Marah -- Float Away With the Friday Night Gods




In 1999, Marah put out Kids in Philly, which sounded like Bruce Springsteen fronting The Replacements in a performance of Exile on Main Street, and which completely changed my life. Inexplicably, they followed it up with this utterly generic crappy Brit Pop, which I remember listening to, incredulous, for purposes of review and being somewhere beyond appalled at its generic crappiness. As I wrote at the time about the title track above -- Bruce Springsteen is supposed to be in there somewhere doing something, but if you can hear him through the trendy production murk you're a better person than I am.

Alrighty then -- what would your choices be?