I’ve got a floor-to-ceiling shelf for our CDs. The left half is mostly filled with the non-mainstream, bought-at-the-Mucky-Duck CDs, while the right half is mostly filled with the music you might hear on the radio, much of which was bought by Tiffany and I before we met each other. I’ve been ripping CDs approximately one playlist at a time, and with the current playlist, I’ve basically finished off the left side of the shelf and have moved on to the right side. That will explain the difference in obscurity and eclecticism among the artists.
Without further ado, here are ten of the first songs I heard from that new playlist:
1. Don’t Let It Get You Down – Fine Young Cannibals A Tiffany CD. Is it embarrassing for me to admit that I’ve kinda liked all the songs I’ve heard from this disc so far? Help me out here, the dividing line between 80s Music That’s Cheesy In A Good Way and 80s Music That’s Cheesy In A Bad Way isn’t always clear to me.
2. Susie Q – Creedence Clearwater Revival Two songs in a row by artists whose names are also TLAs. That’s got to mean something.
3. Car Wash – Rose Royce Don’t blame me for this one. It’s from a CD of 70s music that my sister-in-law put together to help celebrate my dad’s 70th birthday.
4. And So It Goes – Billy Joel This one you can blame me for. I like Billy Joel. Sue me.
5. The Partisan – Leonard Cohen From a 1975 “Best of Leonard Cohen” CD that doesn’t include any Leonard Cohen songs I’d ever heard of before. I think he has more “best of” collections than regular albums.
6. Layla – Eric Clapton The song and the CD that started the whole “unplugged” craze of the 1990s. Which, on balance, was a good thing.
7. Sister Fatima – Don McLean Admit it. You know one, maybe two Don McLean songs. Me, too.
8. Reva’s House – Los Lobos I mentioned before that then-headbanger San Antonio station KXZL (now classic rocker KZEP) had a playlist that was broad enough to include Robert Cray, which helped make me a fan of his music. They did the same for me with Los Lobos, by spinning a few cuts from “How Will The Wolf Survive?” back in my formative days. In retrospect, I’d put KXZL’s playlist up with KACC’s today, and that of the late, lamented 101 WNEW’s from its glory days of the 70s and 80s. My CD collection says I owe them a lot.
9. For You – Tracy Chapman Admit it. You know one, maybe two Tracy Chapman songs, too. In each case, I’m learning that the rest of the CD is pretty good as well.
10. Land of Canaan – The Indigo Girls I mentioned before that my old Rice crowd circa 1990 was into Michelle Shocked. They were also into the Indigo Girls. Make of that what you will.
I figure I have maybe two more playlists worth of unripped CDs, after which I’ll make some new playlists that combine stuff from the existing ones. I never did a Random Ten list from my first playlist, which was most of the stuff that I wanted to be the debut stuff on my iPod. So, like it or not, there’ll be more of this silliness on future Fridays.
Speaking of your previous music loving life in San Antonio, did you see the press release on the virtual studio that KRTU is setting up? http://www.trinity.edu/departments/public_relations/news_releases/070417krtusecond.htm
I’ll be interested to see how that turns out. It was always a pretty solid jazz station but apparently the station is pretty popular with jazz fans around the country who listen via the web.
And I’m with you on Billy Joel.