The Beths – Roundabout
I almost forgot that I’m going to see The Beths this week. How is it already December tomorrow?
Even though I took the week of Thanksgiving off from work, I was busy doing family stuff and I feel kind of spent. It’s going to be a mad dash to Christmas. One of these years I really ought to try and do some holiday prep way early, like in October.
Anyway, thanks for reading through NaBloPoMo 2026. Go see a show. Try not to doomscroll. Get some fresh air. See you around!
Pearl Jam – Even Flow
There were a lot of contenders for this last spot but in the end, I’m giving it to Pearl Jam.
I debated picking one of the shoegaze bands I was really into in the early 90s, or maybe some Madchester band. Then there was my beloved Poi, nothing like any of those. For a while I had In Rainbows by Radiohead but I felt that was too big of a chronological gap.
I love how raw Eddie Vedder is on this album. A friend gave me his copy of Ten on cassette and I would listen to it on my Walkman. I had a lot of pent up anger and I would listen to this while out walking or while using the rowing machine.
Also, Eddie Vedder was smoking hot. That hair, those eyes, his arms, sigh. But the music was also hot, simmering at a low boil. This album was my gateway to the harder stuff, which to be clear, is still not that hard but let’s remember where we started here.
New Order – Temptation
These last ones are the hardest to nail down. The Replacements were a favorite but I don’t think they represent something new in forming my musical tastes. Likewise dozens of other bands that I listened to all the time and loved, but they are pretty much from the same school.
New Order is more electronic than jangle, more dance club than dive bar. One of my sister’s friends from high school was a big New Order fan and anyone who watched a John Hughes movie knew a couple of their songs. .
Substance was big with the college radio station guys and it has the angtsy hits I love. There was still some darkness, not surprisingly, but there was no denying that beat. Growing up in the era of disco meant that I had been hearing dance music for a long time, but it wasn’t music I wanted to dance to. New Order made it possible to retain your indie street cred while also dabbling in the dance scene.
Billy Bragg – A New England
I was introduced to Billy Bragg’s music by a girl who lived across the hall from me my junior year of college. She had his album Back to Basics. I loved his witty lyrics and was charmed by his accent.
Usually when I’m posting a Billy Bragg song it has something to do with politics. But I first fell for Billy because of his songs about unrequited love. He just pierces my heart with his tales of missed chances and failed opportunities.
Seeing as how it’s Thanksgiving, I would like to say that I’m thankful for Billy Bragg. He is funny, smart, courageous, talented, really just everything you want a man to be. Thanks for writing songs that make me smile through the tears and thanks for writing songs that get my fist up in the air in solidarity.
Gang of Four – I Love a Man in a Uniform
While I do remember hearing this song on the radio in New York before we moved up to Maine, I didn’t know who the band was. It was only once I was at college and diving into the bands who influenced the bands I loved, that I learned about Gang of Four.
I’d read that when R.E.M. were just getting started they had opened for Gang of Four. Then there was the movie, Urgh! A Music War, which was a glimpse into bands we’d heard of but had no idea what they looked or sounded like.
But it wasn’t until my best friend got hold of Songs of the Free and taped it for me that the lightbulb went on. This was the band that did I Love a Man in a Uniform!
Gang of Four were my introduction to post-punk. Their sound and the fact that they were so political, at a time when I was becoming more aware politically, vaulted them into place as one of my favorites. I liked that you really could learn something from listening to their lyrics, but I also loved Andy Gill’s guitar playing and that these songs grooved.
Back in April I went to see Gang of Four on their Last Goodbye tour. I originally got a ticket for the Boston show since that was the closest place they were playing. A few months after I had my ticket, they added a show closer to me so I snagged a ticket. Fun fact, on the first Gang of Four tour of the U.S., Pylon opened up. At the show I went to, they projected some images on the screen behind the band, including the one below which is an old flyer where you can see Pylon listed. Small world.
Pylon – Volume
It should come as no surprise that I spent an inordinate amount of my time in college, following leads and going down rabbit holes in the pursuit of knowing as much as possible about anything R.E.M. related. One of those leads was Pylon.
First, there was the cover of Crazy that appeared on the B-side of the Driver 8 single. It appeared again on Dead Letter Office. I was obsessed with this song. Still am. If there were more songs like that, I needed to know them.
Then there was the movie, Athens, GA: Inside/Out. I took the train into Philadelphia and saw it at the Theater of the Living Arts, back when it was still a movie theater. I think I might have gone twice. I saw it one more time at the Waverly Theater in New York when the semester was over and I stayed with my sister at her NYU dorm for a couple days. I didn’t take notes but I had all of the bands featured in the film burned into my brain.
I am pretty sure I bought Gyrate first. To me, it lived up to the hype. It sounded totally different and I found Vanessa’s way of singing, sometimes screaming, emphasizing the wrong syllables, totally infectious.
I was amazed that these songs were created by the people I’d seen in the movie. Michael Lachowski and Vanessa Briscoe Hay looked like the most ordinary people, not people you’d expect to be praised by R.E.M. and the B-52’s as being the best live show they’d ever seen.
I also found a copy of Chomp some months later. Hearing the original version of Crazy was like discovering the song all over again. I really can’t tell you how much that song meant to me at that time in my life. Seeing Pylon live, during their reunion in 1989, at City Gardens in Trenton, NJ felt like everything had come full circle.
It doesn’t end there though. I bought the CDs Chain and Hits, then Pylon Live in 2016, and then Box, the four album box set with a fabulous accompanying book. I will be a fan and supporter for as long as I live.
The Smiths – William, It Was Really Nothing
I wasn’t so sure about The Smiths the first time I heard them. Morrissey’s voice wasn’t what I was used to. My best friend had bought the 12″ of How Soon is Now* and after repeated listens, I decided that actually, I need to hear more.
Back down to Plastic Fantastic I went. It’s crazy to think that it has been 40 years since these songs first came out. Hatful of Hollow is a compilation album but at the time I didn’t realize that. No matter, l would end up picking up the other albums over the next year.
The Smiths helped describe my life and gave me endless quotes to trade with my friends. Plus Johnny Marr’s signature sound, what’s not to love?
*I was so sure that it was the How Soon is Now 12″ but according to discogs, the lead track was actually Barbarism Begins at Home.
R.E.M. – Shaking Through
You knew it was coming.
The way I remember it, my brother loaned me his cassette of Murmur over Christmas break my freshman year of college saying, “here, I think you’d really like this.”
So while you could say that this was another case of me just absorbing what my older siblings were listening to, it’s not the same. For one thing, my brother let me take it away to college, so clearly he wasn’t listening to it that much. Plus it was a cassette so when I was listening to it, it was on my Walkman with the headphones on and not a case of just being in the room while it was playing. It was my choice.
To say I listened to it a lot is an understatement. I particularly remember playing it while I was walking from my dorm on campus over to the women’s college a mile away, where I had a job in the dining hall. There’s something about having the music go straight into your ears that feels more intimate, more private. It can only have been a couple of weeks before I decided I needed to have my own copy. Off to Plastic Fantastic, where I then discovered there were more records by R.E.M. At that point there was Chronic Town, Murmur, Reckoning, and Fables. I can’t remember if I left the store that day with both Murmur and Reckoning or if I went back for Reckoning a different day. I just know that by the time spring break rolled around the first week of March, I insisted on taking both of them with me to my best friend’s house where I was going to spend the week. I couldn’t live without them for even a week. In short order I went back to the record store and completed my collection. I was also buying any zine I could find that had any article about R.E.M. Word was a new album would be coming out in the summer and I needed to know everything.
Sometimes I wonder, if we had never moved up to Maine halfway through my high school years, surely I would have heard R.E.M. before I got to college. I probably could even have gone to see them in concert. But we did move up to small town Maine in 1983, just when Murmur came out, and as we were so far removed from everything, it took two years before I knew anything about it. At the same time, having them to myself, in my Walkman, in my dorm room, meant I was free to binge listen as much as I wanted. I spent hours looking at the cover and the inner sleeve, hunting for clues. Could I have done that with my siblings around? The answer is no.
Everything in my life changed once I had this album. It’s like the part of my brain that feels music had a combination lock on it, and all the music I heard before Murmur was the numbers you spin clockwise and counter clockwise, before you finally get to the right number and click! The lock opens.
English Beat – She’s Going
To me, this album is synonymous with summer, parties, drinking and dancing, and every time I hear it, I am transported back to June 1983.
This was also my introduction to ska. I suppose I knew songs like “One Step Beyond” by Madness, or “A Message to You Rudy” by the Specials, both of which might be more true to that genre, but I’ll tell you what the English Beat had that they didn’t, Saxa.
So often a saxophone in popular music is going to just be so cheesy that you roll your eyes. My mind immediately goes to Glenn Frey’s “You Belong to the City” and other Miami Vice-esque songs. But the way Saxa played the saxophone was the element that made these songs soar. Sure, Dave Wakeling’s voice was swoony, and he was easy on the eyes, but the saxophone set these songs apart. I offer as evidence that General Public (which is Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger, the two front men of the Beat) was a shadow of the Beat’s greatness. I don’t mean they were bad, I liked them, bought the album, and I even saw them in concert.
It was spring of my senior year of high school and I think there were six of us crammed into a two-door car, driving up to the University of Maine at Orono. That was pretty far away, close to 2 hours, so I had lots of time to talk with the friend whose lap I had to sit on because there was no other way for us all to fit. I feel like this story is better if you know this friend was a dude with long curly hair and a mustache and very much looked like a metal fan. We both agreed General Public were good, and we were excited to see them, but both hoping they’d play some English Beat songs even if it was a shame that Saxa wouldn’t be there. To our great surprise and delight, about 2/3 of the way into the show, they strike up an English Beat song and then, walking on stage comes Saxa to lend his signature sound to the song. We both looked at each other and shouted, “Saxa!!!”
I would also like to take this opportunity to point out that R.E.M. opened for the English Beat in 1983 and there’s a picture of Peter Buck wearing an English Beat T-shirt while hanging out with Paul Westerberg. Of course I knew the English Beat before I knew anything about R.E.M.
The B-52’s – 52 Girls
I think it was my sister who’s a year older than me that brought this album home. I thought it was great. Fun, danceable, different.
I was in junior high at the time and Rock Lobster was guaranteed to be played during school dances. But 52 Girls was always my favorite song on the album.
I have said it before but I’ll say it again; early B-52’s were fantastic, you should really go watch some old live footage. There are a bunch of black and white videos from 79-80 that are worth checking out.
I’ll also recommend the book Cool Town by Grace Elizabeth Hale. She really explains the importance the B-52’s had in creating the Athens scene.
Noisy Cats 