Album of the Day 8/6/10
Every day, we count down the 1000 best albums of all time all the way to #1. Friday’s album is #907:
A popular country singer whose cult audience lives on six years after her death, Skeeter Davis first hit the country charts in 1953 as one of the (unrelated) Davis Sisters with I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know. Years ahead of her time, Davis wrote her own material and grew from chirpy, starstruck Nashville ingenue into the prototypical David Lynch girl, best exemplified on the haunting 1964 noir pop smash It’s the End of the World. Nuance was everything for her: even on her most upbeat songs, there’s a restraint, a frequently wounded resignation and a style that’s every bit as sophisticated as Patsy Cline. As with virtually all the country artists from that era, her many albums are riddled with both gems and duds (for one, the label had to get the album out there quick to ride the success of the hit single) – this one, a 1996 compilation, is a particularly well-chosen collection including both I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know and It’s the End of the World along with the proto-Amy Allison The One You Slip Around With, the bouncy Gonna Get Along Without You Now, the lushly noir-tinged Optimistic, and Mine Is a Lonely Life. Easy to download – like all the major label albums on this list, just google “album title” and “torrent” and you’ll find plenty to choose from. It’s streaming at the link above if you want to check it out first (keep your finger on the mute button for the annoying commercials after every three songs).
Album of the Day 8/5/10
Every day, we count down the 1000 best albums of all time all the way to #1. Thursday’s album is #908:
Ween – 12 Golden Country Greats
Making fun of the excesses of country music is even more popular than heavy metal spoofs (we’re waiting for The Rough Guide to Country Music Parody). But nobody’s ever done it funnier than Ween. Their 1996 masterpiece features Gene and Dean backed by a hall of fame cast of 1960s/70s country sidemen : Hargus “Pig” Robbins on piano, Charlie McCoy on a bunch of instruments and even the venerable Jordanaires when necessary, on ten period-perfect C&W songs (the album title is a joke). The lyrics range from sophomoric (Japanese Cowboy) to sick (the gay-baiting, faux-countrypolitan Mr. Richard Smoker: “You’re a chicken choker”) to the sad tale of Fluffy, the badly toilet-trained dog, to arguably the most hilarious kiss-off-song ever written, Piss Up a Rope.
Lucid Culture 