I was going to simply reply to Michelle's great rant post about stupid music lists, but I decided that it would be way too long, and too boring to leave over there. She puts it best:

Just once I would love to see a smug critic put something totally mainstream on his list amidst all the earnest, self-aware bands. Like, right in between Songs Written on a Bleak Afternoon in Prague and This Album Title is Really an Obscure Reference to a 13th Century Philosopher, there would be the latest offering from Papa Roach, with the explanation that it makes the critic feel like a pre pubescent boy just discovering his dick, and he likes that.

Then she lists off some albums, and why she likes them, and yeah some are scary (Oasis? Ugg! :-p) So, read on and check out some of my most important albums ever (and why they are important to me)


Ramones: Mania - 1988

This was one of, if not the greatest, years of my life. Halfway through High School, and my greatest worry was tearing my Achilles Tendon again, because damn that hurt and it kept me off my skateboard for waaayyy too long. Skating was my thing. You know how they say every one has one thing they excel in? Ask any of my friends, skating was mine. What goes hand in hand with sk8rs? Punk music of course! This album made me realize that the crap I was thinking was good punk was actually only mere drops in the bucket. DI, DRI, Suicidal Tendencies, Circle Jerks, the list goes on. None of them could touch the Godfathers of Punk. Until the Dead Milkmen's Beelzebubba came out, this was the most listened to tape I owned (which instantly forced me to spend years hunting down every damn Ramones album, bootleg, etc. I could find). Music and skating with my friends, that summer there was nothing better and nothing I wanted more to do - until halfway through that summer that is, when I got my first girlfriend...


Dead Milkmen: Beelzebbuba - 1990

This album stands out in my memory as being the most listened to recording I have ever owned. There was so much in this album, including one of my all time favorite songs ever (Stuart). The thing is, you really cannot describe the 'Milkmen in a way that that would make someone who never heard of them could understand what they sound like. The irreverent humor, going from ironic to borderline psychotic, was almost overlooked thanks to the overpoweringly and brilliantly goofy vocal presentation. It's on the same level as They Might Be Giants - Flood (released in '90 as well, and another of my favorites albums). This Dead Milkmen album always reminds me of some of the best fun I've had: The year I graduated High School, I got my first car, my first job, my first real love, lost my virginity, my first bad hangover my first - wait a second... a lot of those are closely related to each other... hmmm ...


Michael Jackson: Thriller - 1982

This was the very first "real" album I ever owned (actually it was on cassette - and leave me alone, I was 10!). My Grandfather bought it for me one day, after much pleading, with my newly accquired allowance, one day in early '83. He let it play during dinner for the first couple of weeks (both grandparents listening closely to see if it was 'ok' for me to listen to). I collected stickers when I was 10, and I stuck a cool glitter star on the side label of the jacket cover (so you could see it when it was in a rack, etc.) - To a 10 year old, that is quite an award to give anything you see. I still own that tape (and about a thousand others that I managed to scrounge up since), and every time I see it in the drawer I see that blue star, and think of my Grandfather buying that album with/for me. I miss him...


Phantom of the Opera - soundtrack

I don't own it, and I haven't heard it since that night, but it is a damned important one! You see, I was going out with this girl about 8 or 9 years ago. She was known as "The Pole ****er" in the clubs because of her, well frankly the way she molested poles and rails and men while she danced. Especially to Type-O Negative. That band literally turned her on - made her more horny than anyone I have ever met in my life, man or woman (and I had some pretty horny friends in those days). We hooked up at a Type-O at the Roxy in Huntington (RIP), although we knew each other in passing from a few clubs. I took her to meet Pete Steele at a club in Queens one night (knew the DJ), and then the fun started. We were hanging out in her room (the basement) listening to stuff. She was about to put in Type-O, and said she's never had sex to them so this should be fun. I was game for that (well duh!). Suddenly she decides that she wants to "warm up" first and sticks in the strip tease go-to band, Motley Crue, to do a little dance for me (remembering the nickname if you will). That goes well, but she want to slow things down a little. She asks if I've ever seen Phantom of the Opera (which she loves), and when I said no see decides I must hear the soundtrack. So on it goes, and off we go - to her water bed. The album repeated for the rest of the night. To put it simply: BEST. SEX. EVER. Many, many hours, and 36 of her orgasms later, the sun came up and I headed home. I think back to that night every now and then and 2 things always pop right up:

Where the hell did all that studly energy disappear to? and What the hell would that have been like if we actually made it to the Type-O? We didn't last together too long, but the sex was just frighteningly good all the time. We never did get to the Type-O though. Sometimes, I think that may be a good thing...

(sometimes I'm dumb)


Latex Generation: 360°

Yeah, ok it's my little brother's band - so what? My brother and I had a pretty screwed up childhood, and were raised by my grandparents. When he was first born, I was 4 years old and we we're extremely close. The we drifted far apart for a while, soon after moving in with my grandparents, and we had that sorta typical brother relationship; where I being the older one had to make fun of or put down anything he liked. Then he got his first guitar. He'd wake me up on the friggin weekends with that horrible noise. The only thing worse was that singing - no human can make that sound and live. Then something happened. He started getting good. Damn good, especially live. Every chance I got, I was there to watch him play. He put out a couple of 7" 's (one turned out to be released by a friend of mine that we both knew but didn't know each other knew), and then his teenage years kicked-in full swing. He was at war with my grandparents, while I was completely distant from them. They refused to let Joe go play at CBGB's because they didn't want him in Manhattan at his age (at night, on a weekend). He went anyway, and soon after we were kicked out of the house. They never supported me with anything, and usually favored Joe; Except for his music - they insisted he could not make a living out of it, while I was always supporting him. Heck, I was proud of him. Well, the night he brought over the record deal, they finally showed a little acceptance - though it wasn't until he came up with this CD (which was the number 1 selling album world-wide on his label after a while) that they thought he was serious. He put out a second CD, which did even better than the first (I even got DJ Andre to play it on WLIR a couple times), and I pimped him everywhere. Walking billboard - that was me. But it was when that first CD came out, during that time in his life when he was just figuring out how to really play that guitar (and boy can he play - his guitar trumps my skating), that I realized something. I used to think my brother was a lot smarter than me, but I was wrong. He not a lot smarter, he just so damned talented that it makes me feel like a bumbling idiot when I think about it. This was the time when Joe went from just being my little brother, to being someone I admired.

Joe's music career came to a pause after he fell in love while touring down south. He went and got married, and then gave me the family we never had. I got him a job with me while and went back to school so he could get a 'real' job. They bought the house Joe and I grew up in. He's getting back into his music, and if you want to listen to his old or new stuff he's got them all available for downloading at his site: 8x7 (free even!) Now he's moving down to South Carolina (into an amazing house), and the bastard is taking my niece and nephew down with them. I miss them already...

So yeah, there's some albums and the dumb reasons they are important to me. Only, I don't think they are dumb reasons...