11 Songs for the Working Man

It's been awhile since my last post. I have been touring the California countryside only shortly thereafter to be entranced in Fantasy Football bliss. Drafting fantasy football teams is about as close to actual professional sports that most of us will ever come. Sure it's more pathetic than playing on a local flag football team but somehow it's immensely more rewarding. On a flag football field when you make a great play, it's only a momentary thrill. But in fantasy football, when LT goes for 5 touchdowns and he happens to be your starting RB, you feel like the entire country just watched your player. Even the announcers seem to be rooting for you in your extremely unimportant internet game. I kid you not, last year commentators spent more time talking about fantasy stats than actual game stats. There's a revolution coming. Mark my words but in a few years, we won't even need the real players.

Happy Labor Day!

Here are 11 Songs For the Working Man:

1. Working Class Hero - John Lennon
2. Workin' Man Blues - Merle Haggard
3. Living On A Prayer - Bon Jovi
4. The Working Man - CCR
5. Working Man - Rush
6. Work, Work, Work - The Rakes
7. Work is a Four-Letter Word - The Smiths
8. Jah Work - Ben Harper
9. Mr. President - Randy Newman
10. Workin' Late - Lone Justice
11. John Henry - Woody Guthrie

The 11 Best Rilo Kiley Songs

I wanted to do a list of the best actors turned rock stars...but my choices were limited. Besides Rilo Kiley singer Jenny Lewis, the pickings are slim and none-to-good. There's Phantom Planet. But they're not good, they're just not terrible. Johnny Depp was in the band P (although they were actually pretty terrible). Bruce Willis, the Bacon Brothers, and Theo Huxtable have all journeyed into the world of decadence...all with mild success. I guess, I could list all the Nickelodeon stars that have dominated the pop charts (Raven, Duff) but again I'd be better off selling my ass for quarters on Hollywood Blvd. (been there done that) So I've opted to go very by the book. Tuesday sees the release of the new Rilo Kiley - Under The Blacklights.

Here are the 11 Best Rilo Kiley Songs:

1. More Adventurous (More Adventurous)
2. With Arms Outstretched (The Execution of All Things)
3. Portions For Foxes (More Adventurous)
4. Love and War (11/11/46) - (More Adventurous)
5. August (Take-Offs and Landings)
6. The Execution of All things (The Execution of All Things)
7. The Good That Won't Come Out (The Execution of All Things)
8. Accidntel Deth (More Adventurous)
9. My Slumbering Heart (The Execution of All Things)
10. Wires and Waves (Take-Offs and Landings)
11. Hail To Whatever You've Found In the Sunlight That Surrounds You (The Execution of All Things)

The 11 Best Songs By The Anniversary

One of the worst things that can ever happen to you in life is discovering a band on the verge of breaking up. Discovering bands at other times does have its measure of suckage. For example: if you follow a band from the beginning, it's hard to let go when they break up but at least you had a considerable amount of time to get to know them and enjoy them. Also, if you discovered a band after their break-up, there isn't the same sorrow because you knew they were broken up to begin with.

The Anniversary is one of those bands that kills me. I discovered them only shortly after they released their epic "Your Majesty" possibly one of the greatest albums of the emo age. Yes, yes, I'm aware that "great emo" is an oxymoron but there were highlights before the Fall Out Boys and Panicing Discoballers!!?!?! All I remember is listening to YM and thinking to myself, this band is going to have one of the greatest careers and I've discovered them early on!! The next thing I know, they broke up. I was pissed. I actually ran over a homeless man in my car in protest (he's fine now). The break-up was three years ago. Since then, 3/5 of the band reformed as The Only Children. They just released their second album this Spring. It's not the Anniversary, but it's not a bad substitute. In fact, it's one of my most listened to albums of the year. Take that, Chris Cornell!

This week, one of the MIA members (Adrianne Verhoeven) returns to music in the band Art in Manila. It's on Saddle Creek and the band features Orenda Fink...so I mean, come on, how bad could it really be? While we are getting used to a world without an Anniversary reunion on the horizon, all we are left to do is look back...

1. All Things Ordinary (Designing a Nervous Breakdown)
2. Peace, Pain and Regret (Your Majesty)
3. Husam Husam (Your Majesty)
4. Without Panasos (Designing a Nervous Breakdown)
5. Perfectly (Designing a Nervous Breakdown)
6. O' Lady Butterfly (Superdrag Split)
7. The Death of the King (Your Majesty)
8. Follow The Sun (Your Majesty)
9. The D In Detroit (Designing a Nervous Breakdown)
10. The Siren Sings (Your Majesty)
11. I Believe the End of the Reign of Terror is Soon Near (Vagrant Comp)

Buy The Only Children's fantastically underrated new release here.

Buy Manila on Fire here.

THE UNKNOWN: Ryan Adams - Hate Is Heaven

Barry Bonds was a home run hitter long before the famous 73-HR season. He had hit 40+ five times prior to that, including a 46 season early in his career. He also consistently led the league in walks (which always lowers the numbers).

In an interesting comparison, Hall-of-Famer, Tony Gwynn, gained the exact same amount of weight as Barry did at the exact age as Barry and had an upsurge in his his hitting also. Prior to 1997, Gwynn has only had two 10+ home run seasons. But starting in 1997, he went three seasons in a row, hitting 10+ in all three seasons. Does that mean Gwynn was on steroids too...or possibly when hitters age, the natural weight that's gained gives the ability to hit with more power?

And, since it was mostly pitchers taking steroids, that would mean that many pitches would be faster, allowing a good home run hitter greater ability to launch the ball out of the park.

And how would you explain Roger Maris, who normally hit 20 HRs a year, who all of a sudden hit 39 one year, then 61 the next...which is almost exactly the same thing Bonds did who went from 49 one year to 73 the next...

(note: Maris only hit over 30 hr 3times in his entire career. and only once over 40...which was the 61 season.)

Here is the 2nd of 4 Ryan Adams B-Side Albums: Hate Is Heaven

1. Halloween
2. Closer When She Goes
3. Funeral Marching
4. Twice As Bad As Love
5. Hypnotixed
6. Hey Parker, It's Christmas
7. Caterwaul
8. Choked Up
9. Ah, Life
10. Song For Keith
11. Fuck The Universe
12. Nervous Breakdown
13. Poor Country Girl

The 11 Best Album Releases for August 2007

Usually August tends to be a dumping ground for labels to crap out all their minor releases before hitting the major buying season in September. At first glance, this August looks no different. But once you peel back the releases by American Idol rejects and , you'll find this August may actually have a lot to offer.

1. Kayne West - Graduation - If his young folks cover is any indication of what we're going to expect for Senior West, this release is not only the most anticipated of the month but one of the most anticipated of the year. (21st)
2. Pink Floyd - Pipers At The Gates of Dawn (3CD) - The Floyd gets the royal treatment on this 2CD/1 DVD package, remastered and including an entire album of B-Sides. (28th)
3. Rilo Kiley - Under The Blacklights - The first single has mixed reactions. But after the amazing reception of last year's solo album by lead singer Jenny Lewis...there's a lot at stake on this release.(21st)
4. Cake - B-Sides and Rarieties - Cake may do covers better than they do original songs. Just listen to their cover of Barry White's Never Gonna Give You Up. This release is 90% covers. It has to be good.(14th)
5. The New Pornographers - Challengers - Their first release came in with a whisper. Their second release was a critical smash. Their third release was highly anticipated but failed to reach expectations. With their fourth release bring them back to stardom...or will it basically enforce that each member stick to their day jobs. (21st)
6. Talib Kweli - Ear Drum - Hip-Hop is dying. Common's album is the first bright spot in a dormant year. With Kayne and Kweli in August, the times they are a changin'. (21st)
7. Earlimart - Mentor Tormentor - Grandaddy's protege has outlasted its mentor. How will their Central Valley drugged out lo-fi stand-up after a 4-year hiatus? We're all excited to find out! (21st)
8. Art in Manila - Set The Woods on Fire - Adrianne Verhoeven (of The Anniversary) teams with Azure Ray singer (Orenda Fink) for a side project of epic proportions.(7th)
9. Junior Senior - Hey Hey My My Yo Yo - The gayest ( and I mean that in the nicest way) dancing duo returns to prove that the campiness of their first release was no fluke.(14th)
10. Blaqk Audio - CexCells - Davey Havoc of AFI falls in love with a synthesizer and has sex with it...records the sex, and is now releasing it for you to hear.(14th)
11. Northern State - Can I Keep This Pen? - Their last album was flatter than Paris Hilton's....personality. But Adrock is behind the boards on this one. If anything, it has to be better than the new Beastie Boys. (28th)

Other releases of note: Okkervil River - Stage Names(7th), Architechure in Helsinki - Place Like This(21st), M.I.A. - Kala(21st), Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass(28th), Ben Harper - Lifelines(28th), The Liars - Liars(28th), VHS or Beta - Bring On The Comets(28th).

THE UNKNOWN: Garbage - Another Woman's Treasure - part 2

Right now the world is talking about 3 things:The Simpsons movie - woohoo!, Lindsay Lohan's fun-filled Monday night (who gets drunk on a Monday night?), and the Presidential debate on Youtube. As cool as it seems like having the general public asking the Presidents questions...it's still the general public. These are the people who helped the movie "Wild Hogs" earn 200 million at the box office. Are these really the people you want to ask questions of the next person to run the White House and the most powerful job in the known universe? Do you really think they understand the delicate situation in Darfur or just think it was a funny name on a John Lennon tribute album? That's not a trick question by the way. If you really want to include the general public into the Presidential process, then maybe you should consider something novel like...letting everyone vote for the next President. I can't remember the last time we were able to do that.

Garbage is one of those bands who puts out almost as many B-sides as they do album tracks. At last count they had 47 album tracks and 39 B-sides. That's not a bad competition. I've broken up the B-sides into two albums: Another Woman's Treasure (tracks culled from Garbage and Version 2.0) and Fusion (tracks culled from Beautiful Garbage and Bleed Like Me).

Another Woman's Treasure

All broken links should be fixed...sorry about that!!

1. #1 Crush
2. Girl Don't Come
3. Soldier Through This
4. Sleep
5. Subhuman
6. The World Is Not Enough
7. Afterglow
8. Deadwood
9. Lick The Pavement
10. Trip My Wire
11. Kick My Ass
12. Can't Seem To Make You Mine
13. Thirteen
14. 13 x Forever
15. Driving Lesson
16. Get Busy With The Fizzy
17. Tornado
18. Alien Sex Fiend
19. Butterfly Collector

Buy Garbage's new greatest hits package...Absolute Garbage with the bonus remix disc...it's fantastic. No really, the remixes are quite fantastic.

The 11 Best Garbage Songs

Every once in awhile, the TV industry does something smart. This season, instead of canceling the failing shows and shoving them up on a shelf somewhere, they took the remaining episodes and aired them at the very end of the TV season...giving fans one last chance to enjoy the show that they were merely tempted with. Both "Studio 60" and "Standoff," two shows that were better than their ratings gave them credit for, were among the shows that were given new life early this summer. Many times, TV producers put good shows in terrible time slots and can't understand why they didn't take off. Jericho aired opposite of American Idol. Of course it's numbers were down. Even though the American Idol fad is still beyond me. Don't people realize it's just a remake of Star Steach? What's next...a Solid Gold remake?

The makers of TV shows need to do a better job of picking shows the audience wants to see. Why not let the summer audiences watch the failed pilots...if one has a positive reaction...then maybe it deserves a 2nd life....or would that be too smart of a thing to do.

Here are the 11 Best Garbage Songs (files were taken from their epic British radio performance in 2002)

1. Only Happy When It Rains (Garbage)
2. I Think I'm Paranoid (Version 2.0)
3. The Trick Is To Keep Breathing (Version 2.0)
4. Vow (Garbage)
5. Medication (Version 2.0)
6. Soldier Through This (B-Side)
7. Bleed Like Me (Bleed Like Me)
8. Cup of Coffee (Beautiful Garbage)
9. Queer (Garbage)
10. Androgyny (Beautiful Garbage)
11. Supervixen (Garbage)

Other live songs from London....

- Tempation Waits
- Special
- Shut Your Mouth

Buy Garbage's new greatest hits package...Absolute Garbage with the bonus remix disc...it's fantastic. No really, the remixes are quite fantastic.

The Music Blog Awards 2007 (MuBA) - WINNERS!!

After months of nominating...months of voting...and a special thanks to our sponsor Emusic...the winners are finally here!

Visit Emusic, where you can get most of these bands for free- just click the certificate!

Here are the results for the 2006 Music Blog Awards. Congrats to everyone who won!

My Daughter's 11 Favorite Songs

Today my daughter turns two. And to celebrate her birthday she gets an entry dedicated to her. Yeah, yeah, get back I'm the father of the year. As an obvious audiophile I've been shoving music down her throat since she was born. She has liked some music that I love (Bob Dylan), she has liked some music that I didn't think she would like in a 100 years (Matisyahu). She dislikes some music I thought she would like (Jack Johnson) and she has disliked music that was God awful to begin with (Hinder...he he he). I expect I only have about one more year to force my musical choices down her throat, so I have a long and hefty year ahead of me full of prog rock, grunge, and Radiohead.

Here are my 2-year-old daughter's favorite songs:

1. The Jackson 5 - ABC
2. Elvis Presley - Too Much Monkey Business
3. The Beatles - Yellow Submarine
4. R.E.M. - The Lion Sleeps Tonight
5. The Terrible Twos - By The Time I Get To 11
6. The Beastie Boys - Brass Monkey
7. Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey
8. Matisyahu - Jerusalem
9. Elvis Presley - Don't Be Cruel
10. The Beatles - Drive My Car
11. Schoolhouse Rock - Lolly, Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here

THE UNKNOWN: Bad Religion - Limited Edition CD

The new Bad Religion CD (New Maps of Hell) is getting terrible reviews. And I have no idea why. Okay, so it's not Stranger Than Fiction or even The Empire Strikes First. But I read someone saying that it's worse than The New America. That's just cold-blooded. I bought the album thinking it was going to suck but at the same time I felt compelled to support the band. But the truth is, I think the album is pretty damn good. It's more of a straight-forward punk rock album in the vein of Generator or The Gray Race. And don't groan when I mention those albums. Have you listened to them lately? I did a BR retrospective before this new album came out. Started with Generator and listened straight through their later catalog. I was surprised how much more I liked The Gray Race and even was mildly rocking through No Substance. New America still sucked...but hey, you can't win them all.

Speaking of No Substance, when the album was released they had a promo, giving out a free B-Side album. They used the very clever title of "Limited Edition CD." After the NS run, the album disappeared from the public...until now...

Bad Religion - Limited Edition CD

1. Universal Cynic
2. Markovian Process
3. News From The Front
4. Leaders And Followers
5. Dream of Unity
6. Tested
7. The Answer (Live)
8. The Dodo
9. Follow The Leader

Get the new Bad Religion Album (New Maps of Hell) her for FREE!!