John Prine is one of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters, but his good-natured, ethnic humor seems outdated now. This type of humor (remember Polish jokes?) was very common when I was growing up in the sixties and seventies.
P.S. Chris, I love your book! It's a fun read and a valuable reference.
I was upset that Sufjan Stevens got snubbed from NYT's "Living American Songwriters" list (although he shows up on many of their sample ballots), so I went to fill in a gap in my listening by checking out Seven Swans. More stripped back than Illinois or Age of Adz, but not quite as singer-songwriter as Carrie & Lowell, it's probably a B-list Sufjan album but still pretty good
Interesting that I wasn't thinking about him. Also, I know they only shared a few ballots, but I was surprised about which songwriters were consistently on those ballots but not on the list. I wonder how much the Times put their finger on the scale
As a Prince nut, just want to point out that both albums you cite here have two of my favorite deep cuts: "A Million Days" off Musicology, and "Mountains" off Parade
(technically, "Mountains" was a single, but no one seems to remember it)
"Mountains" is so good. I totally don't remember hearing it as a single in '86 though, even though my pop station was all-in on all things Prince-related in the mid-'80s--they played the heck out of "Take Me with U" and "Jungle "Love", which had similar mid-20s peaks on the Hot 100 as "Mountains" did, as well as "Hot Thing", which didn't even make the top 40. They even played album cuts from "Purple Rain" and "Around the World in a Day." I don't remember hearing "Mountains" even once.
Why Do Birds Sing? was my introduction to Violent Femmes. And while I did eventually go back and listen to the debut--and think that one is clearly a better album in an objective sense--Why Do Birds Sing definitely gets a lot more listens from me.
Also agree that those are two of the weakest Springsteen records. Still great, in their own way, but limited. The full band live version of Youngstown is a monster track, though.
John Prine is one of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters, but his good-natured, ethnic humor seems outdated now. This type of humor (remember Polish jokes?) was very common when I was growing up in the sixties and seventies.
P.S. Chris, I love your book! It's a fun read and a valuable reference.
Thank you!
I was upset that Sufjan Stevens got snubbed from NYT's "Living American Songwriters" list (although he shows up on many of their sample ballots), so I went to fill in a gap in my listening by checking out Seven Swans. More stripped back than Illinois or Age of Adz, but not quite as singer-songwriter as Carrie & Lowell, it's probably a B-list Sufjan album but still pretty good
Interesting that I wasn't thinking about him. Also, I know they only shared a few ballots, but I was surprised about which songwriters were consistently on those ballots but not on the list. I wonder how much the Times put their finger on the scale
Eric Leeds, Prince's long-term saxophonist, described Parade as "Sign O' The Times Part 1" to me. So, a pretty decent recommendation!
As a Prince nut, just want to point out that both albums you cite here have two of my favorite deep cuts: "A Million Days" off Musicology, and "Mountains" off Parade
(technically, "Mountains" was a single, but no one seems to remember it)
I’ll have to check mountains out
"Mountains" is so good. I totally don't remember hearing it as a single in '86 though, even though my pop station was all-in on all things Prince-related in the mid-'80s--they played the heck out of "Take Me with U" and "Jungle "Love", which had similar mid-20s peaks on the Hot 100 as "Mountains" did, as well as "Hot Thing", which didn't even make the top 40. They even played album cuts from "Purple Rain" and "Around the World in a Day." I don't remember hearing "Mountains" even once.
I don’t remember hearing it on the radio, but I def remember seeing that video a couple times on MTV
Why Do Birds Sing? was my introduction to Violent Femmes. And while I did eventually go back and listen to the debut--and think that one is clearly a better album in an objective sense--Why Do Birds Sing definitely gets a lot more listens from me.
Also agree that those are two of the weakest Springsteen records. Still great, in their own way, but limited. The full band live version of Youngstown is a monster track, though.