music revival, day 1-2

since i spend hours and hours and hours at work lately, and the radio is just about as good as used toilet paper, i decided it's time to dig out the cds that either:

a. i bought awhile back at garage sales
b. my dad bought for me when he was a member of columbia house
or
c. i borrowed from my dad within the past several years.

i haven't listened to these and picked them out, ostensibly, because i thought i would like them for one reason or another, i decided to do my usual tactic of listening to each one 2-3 times through (depending on my attention level, what else i'm doing, and my tolerance/like/dislike for the album) and then assimilating it into my (borg) collective.

so, here's where i may start my daily/weekly cd reports.

suzanne vega - retrospective

• favorite tracks: pretty much the whole album, in retrospect.
• comments: i never knew much about suzanne vega, but i'm glad i got this album. she's pleasing to the ear.

stone temple pilots - purple

• favorite tracks: vasoline, interstate love song, still remains, pretty penny, big empty, unglued
• comments: i remember when this album came out, i was in washington dc, summer of 1994 with a group of young republicans (hey, what did i know?). anyway we were staying in a dorm (trinity college, maybe) and some of the people i befriended had this and we listened to it. i couldn't remember all the tracks, but vasoline was the big hit at the time. since i didn't have any bad memories of it, i figured i should get it since it was now part of my musical formation and heritage. grunge rock. yeaaaaah.

prince - the hits 2

• favorite tracks: most of the tunes are either enjoyable memories from my past, or newfound grooves to bop along to
• comments: prince is a lot more sexual than i'm interested in listening to most of the time, but when i look past that, the music/beat is quite good. pretty sure that the hits 1 was a more complete album of his hits, though. and some of the tunes on this one, i had never heard of before. songs like 'raspberry beret', 'little red corvette', 'i would die 4 u', 'kiss', and 'purple rain' made the album memorably worth it. new tunes to me that were gems included 'controversy', 'delirious', 'dirty mind', and 'if i was your girlfriend'.

the who - tommy

• favorite tracks: overture, 1921, pinball wizard
• comments: didn't know much about this album going into it, other than it was the rock opera about tommy, the pinball wizard. i spent a good amount of time pouring over the liner notes for this one, trying to learn more about tommy and the who and the opera itself. after listening and reading and following along, i appreciate the album for what it is, though, there aren't a lot of stand out tracks. the whole thing comes together to tell the story of tommy, which has only a fraction to do with pinball.

jason mraz - mr. a-z

• favorite tracks: wordplay, geek in the pink
• comments: let's face it, it was his sophomore slump. i hoped to be wowed like i was with his first album. that did not happen. there are few tracks that reflect his previous work.