Your Five Favorite Anything

[C Dubya 04 0]

Rock guitar riffs:

 

I'm defining "riff" as the guitar part that dominates the majority of the verse/chorus parts of a song. No solos, bridges, or breakdowns included.

 

"Rebel Rebel"

"Daytripper"

"The Bends"

"The Wind Cries Mary"

"Mississippi Queen"

 

I have next to no use for my last entry aside from that guitar line, but boy is it good simple fun.

 

No Layla?

[Hank Kingsley 0]

Penultimates, neat!

 

1. Rhett Miller - The Believer - "Question"

2. The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street - "Shine a Light"

3. David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust - "Suffragette City"

4. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - "Poor Places"

5. The Arcade Fire - Funeral - "Rebellion (Lies)"

 

This isn't definitive, mostly just off the top of my head.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

Penultimates:

 

1. Sonic Youth - "Hyperstation" (Daydream Nation)

2. The Stooges - "Fun House" (Fun House)

3. Radiohead - "Morning Bell" (Kid A)

4. Tom Waits - Bacarolle (Alice)

5. Neil Young - "Motion Pictures" (On the Beach)

[The Ill One 0]

Songs listened to more than once tonight-

 

Black Dog- Led Zeppelin

Backstreets- Bruce Springsteen

My Back Pages- The Tribute Show Version

Touch Me- The Doors

Artificial Life- Operation Ivy (yeah, seems out of place)

[Red Baron 0]

Top Five REM songs

 

5.) What's The Frequency Kenneth?

4.) Everybody Hurts

3.) Daysleeper

2.) Orange Crush

1.) Drive

[godthedog 0]

top 5 exotic instrument names:

 

1. didgeridoo

2. zither

3. glockenspiel

4. mellotron

5. triangle

[Hank Kingsley 0]

The Stones:

 

1. Tumbling Dice

2. Gimme Shelter

3. Miss You

4. Let's Spend the Night Together

5. Sweet Virginia

 

#5 could probably be any number of songs from Exile. I finally "got" that album after owning it for a year and a half.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

1. Street Fighting Man

2. Sway

3. Gimme Shelter

4. Rocks Off

5. Shine a Light

[Coffin Surfer 0]

At the moment for the Stones:

 

1. Paint It Black

2. Sway

3. Under My Thumb

4. Get Off My Cloud

5. Can You Hear Me Knocking?

 

Though not top 20 material for them, I really enjoy "Let Me Down Slow" and "Sweet NeoCon" of their last album.

 

And for Bowie:

 

1. Ziggy Stardust

2. Changes

3. Life On Mars

4. Moonage Daydream

5. Starman

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Five Favorite Double Albums That, in Spite of the Greater Storage Capacity of the Compact Disc, are Still Double Albums:

 

Todd Rundgren - Something/Anything?

Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life

Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

Prince - Sign o' the Times

Wilco - Being There

 

The inclusion of Wilco is a slight bit of cheating; its combined 77 minute running time can easily fit on a single disc today, but was required to be split into two discs upon its release in 1996, due to the at-the-time limit of 74 minutes. It works better this way, giving BT that classic rock (not "classic rock") feel.

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

Two compact discs when you don't need them is so wasteful and pretentious. Nellie McKay especially: Get Away From Me was barely over an hour.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I generally agree, but Wilco gets a pass because it couldn't be helped. That it works aesthetically is gravy.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

In related news, I continue to be the only Wilco fan here who thinks Being There is their best album. Not that I think they peaked early—Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is a close second and Summerteeth is a respectable third, but BT is tops. Good wheat-to-chaff ratio on that one, too, with "Kingpin"—which, somewhat frustratingly, has become a concert staple and one of the few songs they ever play off Being There these days—being the only dud.

[snuffbox 0]

Five favorite shows I've seen as of this afternoon.

 

5.The Dead @ Bonnaroo '04

4.Neil Young & Crazyhorse/Greendale Tour @ Milwaukee Theatre '04

3.Saul Williams spoken word @ St Olaf college '07

2.The Roots @ Summerfest/Milwaukee '04

1.Radiohead @ Bonnaroo '06

[Si82 0]

Five Favourite Songs of the Moment:

 

1. "Our Velocity" - Maximo Park

2. "North American Scum" - LCD Soundsystem

3. "Save Myself" - Willy Mason

4. "Survivalism" - Nine Inch Nails

5. "Standing In the Way of Control" - The Gossip

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

5 Favorite Thrash/Thrash Metal Songs at the Moment:

 

5. Despotic Robot - "Thrashmaticians"

4. Uhwarria - "Tick Attack"

3. Slayer - "Post Mortem"

2. Send More Paramedics - "Zombie vs. Shark"

1. Municipal Waste - "Unleash the Bastards"

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

In related news, I continue to be the only Wilco fan here who thinks Being There is their best album. Not that I think they peaked early—Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is a close second and Summerteeth is a respectable third, but BT is tops. Good wheat-to-chaff ratio on that one, too, with "Kingpin"—which, somewhat frustratingly, has become a concert staple and one of the few songs they ever play off Being There these days—being the only dud.

Being There and Summerteeth have shitloads of great songs, but I think Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is the best complete artistic statement.

 

While we're talking Wilco, what's your take on Loose Fur? The s/t is a a cool YHF companion piece, and Born Again in the USA is pretty good, especially "Apostolic." All in all, none of it really surpasses the actual band's music, par for the course with side projects, but there's nothing disagreeable here, really.

 

Back on topic, five funniest premises of Frank Zappa songs, independent of actual musical quality:

1) Baby, Take Your Teeth Out

2) The Illinois Enema Bandit

3) Bobby Brown Goes Down

4) Titties and Beer

5) Jewish Princess

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I like the Loose Fur s/t lots and still put it on occasionally. Born Again in the U.S.A. I'm a little less sure of; I liked it okay when it came out, even if it felt insubstantial. Admittedly, I never gave it that fair a shake, so I should reinvestigate it.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

90s albums

 

1. Blur - Parklife

2. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

3. Pulp - Different Class

4. Radiohead - OK Computer

5. Tom Waits - Bone Machine

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

Why doesn't Ben Folds Five get the credit they deserve as one of the great 90s bands? I think they really did a hell of a lot of good stuff in just three albums. Ten times the band Weezer is, and nobody can shut up about them. I like the way they took the irreverence and immediacy of punk, musical precision and artistic merit of post-punk, instrumentation of a jazz combo, with progressions and extended chords and such lifted from funk and soul, and to top it all off, did it all without a guitar. That's a pretty fascinating melange to me. "Punk rock for sissies" indeed.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Ben Folds is an insufferably smug jackass, a trait he barely manages to mask by singing in his boyish voice.

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

Did you have a bad run-in with him?

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

I don't think I've ever actually listened to a Ben Folds album. For some reason I don't feel a great desire to change that.

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

I'm not going to use the tired old standby of the Music Folder, "you're all such elitists except for me, in this specific instance," but I do think you're overlooking some pretty good stuff. The s/t is pretty accessible and enjoyable. And to get back on track, my favorite Ben Folds Five songs:

 

1. Brick

2. Philosophy

3. Evaporated

4. Best Imitation of Myself

5. Where's Summer B?

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I happen to know a lot of Ben Folds fans, so I don't think he's any more or less taken seriously than Weezer. Message boards are not a microcosm of real life.

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

I know a lot of them, too. Every kid who was a band geek in high school seems to be a fan of his work. I was just referring to our little circle. I remember Edwin being pretty dismissive of him/them once, and I know he's gone to bat for Weezer bunches of times.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I could say that Weezer (mostly) lacks Folds' pretentiousness; the latter sounds like he's so full of his own shit even in the more lighthearted, "funny" songs. Rivers Cuomo, even when Weezer could still lay claim to being a good band, knows what it's like to have his head up his ass—see "Only in Dreams" or "Butterfly," though preferably not both—but, save those moments, Weezer circa the first two albums never came off so self-important.*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*I should add here that I am well aware that the bulk of reviews that greeted Pinkerton upon its release felt just the opposite, raking across the coals an album full of ugly self-loathing and a notable lack of sing-a-long melodies. Given the critical revisionism that occured around the dawn of this century, time has been kind to this album, though any accusations of pretension to this day are not without merit. To that, I'd say the songs on Pinkerton avoid the usual "I hate myself and no one loves me" cliches and are a bit more like pulling on that loose bit of hangnail and stripping the skin down the length of your finger.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I just find Ben Folds way too precious and/or musically uninteresting. Most of my exposure consists of hearing his music in the background at friends' houses or in friends' cars, but it's never grabbed me. I'm not sure I've had enough exposure to click on Inc's self-important point, but I definitely got the feeling that he thinks he's a lot funnier than he actually is.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Speaking of Weezer and Pinkerton, drunken dancing and singing along to "The Good Life" is nothing but good times.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Weezer wins because you can't pump your fist to "Brick" when drunk. Pussy-ass Ben Folds.