Let's Visit the 90s (Briefly)

I'm headed to the fair environs of Portland/Salem tomorrow (where stuff like this happens), but this post has nothing to do with that.

Why the 1990s, you ask? I have no idea; most of this music isn't even from the 1990s; I swear, the only 1990s thing that has happened to me lately is a certain presidential election and the growing probability that a certain party's presidential candidate (Barack the Vote!) will be taking office, with a mandate even. Other than that, I got nothin'.

Still, there is something grunge and/or Jtown and/or West Hall about this playlist. Firstly, the Foo Fighters' The Colour and the Shape album pretty much defined my freshman year of college (sexual frustration and existential angst I think would be apt descriptors for both); secondly, the backward-glancing lyrics, hooks, song titles, and even cover song choices of Dr. Dog(the most excellent band you've never yet heard of, in which case you have, in which case I apologize). Thirdly, the Beatles rock reminds me of dorm days with Cebs, circa 1998...plus, to keep harping on the Dr. Dog excellence, this is the stuff that Dr. Dog is most compared to, George Harrison/John Lennon Beatles' riffology.

Anyways, perhaps the 1990s are calling us, folks. Do you remember those days, of fiscal pragmatism at home and abroad? I mean, you were only 18. The best you were doing for eating out was comedy night at the campus dining center; if Jeff Buckley told you to drink "Lilac Wine" afterwards, you would do it. You were head over heals for one certain girl/boy who lived just one dorm over, and you made out with one certain girl at a one certain party, when you were both drunk, but they were never quite the same girl. There was the puke post.

Even if it is only in listening to The Raconteurs' and The Raveonettes' punky teenage play that you can remember it, even if it is only left to us by Loudon Wainwright's childlike glee, the 1990s are there for us. A Democrat in the White House. Apple pie, baseball, the poetry of Jill Osier. What more can we ask for?

So, again, Barack the Vote! Listen to this music while you do so! Go Rays!

Man, I way too drunk right now...damn dorm room bourbon nights...

Let's Visit the 1990s (Briefly)
1. Sleep Walk, Santo & Johnny
2. My Doorbell, The White Stripes
3. Everlong, Foo Fighters
4. A Long Time Ago, Dr. Dog
5. Don't Let Me Down, The Beatles
6. Find the River, Dr. Dog
7. Monty Got a Raw Deal, R.E.M.
8. The Swimming Song, Loudon Wainwright
9. Coconut Skins, Damien Rice
10. When Your Mind's Made Up, Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
11. The Hill, Marketa Irglova
12. Lilac Wine, Jeff Buckley
13. Paranoia in B-flat Major, The Avett Brothers
14. If I Was Young, The Raveonettes
15. The Old Days, Dr. Dog
16. Old Enough, The Raconteurs
17. From a Motel 6, Yo La Tengo
18. On the Radio, Regina Spector

Notes:
A note on that top photo: it's from prom, I can't remember which one, and was damaged in a dorm room bourbon accident, I believe...also, Shouts to Noel Wien Library, Suzanne, Alisha, and Amy for pretty much everything that is on this mix. I thank you all...Santo & Johnny: a 50s beginning to a 90s mix...Jack White has a strange knack for catchy and upbeat songwriting when he wants to pop it up a little...seriously, check out Dr. Dog, every track you can get your hands on. I haven't heard a bad one yet, and "A Long Time Ago" is the catchiest rock song I've heard since perhaps Weezer's Blue Album...Quick story about this Beatles track: I got it off the Beatles 1967-1970 (Disc 2), which is one of the blue discs of the blue/red double-cd greatest hits package of theirs that is quite widespread. Anyways, I had been missing that that disc (having 3 of the 4) until last night, when Alisha gave it to me. It was the only disc of the four that she had!...excellent (certainly better than me) music blog/emporium Stereogum put together a "tribute" album to R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People. You can download the whole thing at their site, and I put the Dr. Dog version of "Find the River" here. It also made me revisit the original album...loving all of these songs a lot: Louden sounds like Townes Van Zandt to me here, I'm slightly in love with Marketa Irglova now (but not enough to get the little marks over the vowels, apparently)...some classic Buckley, and The Avett Brothers, who are at the heart of one of this librarian's favorite genres, Alt-Country...I kind of hate the Raveonettes, yet I have two full albums of their stuff. On each album there is exactly *one* song that I like...this Yo La Tengo sounds to me like the single point where there sound overlaps exactly with The Pixies...Regina Spector, because I really like Russian chicks.