I don't know how to "write" that long wailing note at the start of Rhapsody In Blue but if I could, that would be the subject of this post.

I need to add Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue to the list of Jer's Super-Favs. This piece of music, all 17 minutes of it, drives me to fits of real pleasure whenever I hear it. And listening to it on the way home from work on Monday night, after a very long, long, long day, I could hardly believe how completely it relaxed me; All the kinks came out of the joints. My neck loosened up. My body felt light. I felt really, really great.

That demands a spot on the list of Super-Favs, without debate.

Confession.

I may or may not been seen snapping my fingers to Wake Me Up Before You Go Go on the George and Friends CD.

I say maybe not because I often catch myself doing this, during the 80's Collection or otherwise before that upsetting image of George Michael in the big white t-shirt with the white, white, supernaturally-white teeth comes to mind and I panic. And realize what I'm doing. And I stop.

It's pretty embarrassing.

Should You Wonder...

My car was sidelined this week with an impotent windshield wiper. (When the windshield wipers stop working, it translates to an astonishing $500 and 3-days in the garage...incredible but true!)

And so goes the progress of my Blitzeroo (I'm still hanging on Genesis.) I should be back at it tomorrow albeit with another abbreviated week as I'm only tripping into the office two days this week.

Now don't tell anybody...

Of all the songs to do it, Illegal Alien puts a big fat grin on my lid every time. There's something about that poppy beat and the absolutely dopey lyrics that jams me straight back to 1984. It's also a wonderful song to christen the first day back to work after a lengthy vacation.

More than any other Genesis song, this is the song that I associate almost entirely with the music video - in fact, I don't really remember hearing this song on the radio. I definitely didn't own the album or single. But the confession is this: it took me almost 15 years to realize that Phil Collins was the one fronting the band in the video. As far as I believed, Phil Collins was a solo artist (Against All Odds) and the lead singer of Genesis was a short Mexican man with a big handle-bar mustache. Later in life, it became one of those giant head-slappers!

And it's in honour of this distant memory that we post the first image to the Ol' Blitzeroo...

On and on and on and on and on...

Or what we'll call Jer's Super-Favs Part II.

I suppose that I should mention Foo Fighters' Aurora, which I didn't really consider for the list of Super-Favs until just this week. But it should be there. It's a song that always gets there.

Jumping Way Way Forward ---> P

I don't have much to say about Ella Fitzgerald so I'm going to post a random thought. Something which won't be relevent until I hit Prince sometime late in the year (or early '06), but which I may forget to post at that time.

Here it is: I've never understood what he exactly means by P Control. I understand that it's a person and of course, we know that "P" is for Pussy. But what the hell is the philosophy that I'm supposed to take away with me at the end of this song?

Let's discuss sometime.

Beatles Still Livin' Large.

It's worth a follow up post to let you know that I absolutely loved that Filter CD and was soaked in disappointment when it ended. (Though I'm positive that it ended at just the right point and at just the right length...leaving them wanting more, as they say.)

Now, since we've already bandied about Beatles comparisons with Crowded House, I thought I should let you know that the last Filter track (Miss Blue) was everything I was looking for when I went listening for Beatles influences in Crowded House. This track was, in almost every way for me, a lost Beatles outtake - and from such a totally unexpected source. The harmonies were there. The dribbling (and exotic) percussion seemed to roll over itself again and again. The whole package was wrapped in that slow, measured, lots-of-gas-and-lots-of-time-to-get-there pace. It's a really, really good song, but as an album closer, it was divine. I listened to it twice. It's even forced me to re-think how I plan to compile the Blitzeroo highlights (they were originally going to be chronological of course) to ensure that this track finds its rightful place at the conclusion of a collection.

And then, almost as if they overheard the Beatles homage, along came the follow-up Finn Brothers appearance. An appearance, by the way, which can stand head and shoulders with a Crowded House album any day of the week. It was a really fine listen.

So it was that I was on a real tear this afternoon. It was one of those spots where the Blitzeroo sprang back to life like Raph after he's got through the late-night crankies and found his second wind...

Faith No More or Less.

Can we take a moment to jimmy-jam about disc 5? I'm talking now about Hold It Right There, Freaks which is the sort of odds and ends collection of your Faith No More run. Emphasis on the odds.

It did occur to me somewhere in the middle of disc 4 (that's King For a Day Plus) that none of the truly freakish Faith No More tunes that I remembered from the Flash days had shown up yet. Except for Easy, of course. It was at this point that I started getting tired of the rawk and clammering for some oompa-loompa tunes or something else left of centre. Spanish Eyes and the rarities that followed were perfect. I still enjoy said oompa-loompa tune considerably.

But then things went off the tracks as Faith No More went live. This must be where a Blitz becomes a terribly personal thing because I simply couldn't find it in me to enjoy the thin-production of a bunch of live tunes I didn't recognize. I realize these tracks may be your FNM dessert; a clutch of real gems to find and put to disc. [Lord knows I have a few questionable Prince boots to come and I think you may be in store for a similar dose of (uninvited) Tom Waits rarities in 2009.] But for me, listening to the last half of Hold It Right There, Freaks was akin to spending time alone with someone else's group of friends. A lot of jokes I don't understand. A lot of short-hand language that means nothing to the outsider. And that AM-quality reception just made it harder and harder to engage.

And then things got stranger. As if the live performances weren't elusive enough, those last few tracks were simply bizarre. I think I heard some live covers of the Star Wars soundtrack and a Loverboy cover. But who can be sure. I felt for a minute like I was picking up radio from another planet. You'll have to give me some background on that planet one day...

So when all is said and done (and I *did* enjoy Faith No More, please understand) it may surprise you to know that the best part of the Faith No More streak was the astonishing introduction of Filter, the band that followed and a group that I know absolutely nothing about. I love the Whale-ish power chords. I'm very much looking forward to continuing that CD when I get in the car tomorrow AM.

In the Absense of a Recent Blog...

...I thought an update was in order.

I'm certainly not ignoring the blog. In fact, the truth is that I've had very little time to blitz in the last few weeks as 1) I was in Saskatoon for a few days and coupled with the holiday long weekend, that translated into almost a full week without the blitz and, 2) the commute has been shrinking in this summer-time traffice. Still I'm spending enough time on the roads to get through a few CDs a week, which is a fair pace.

I'm in the midst of a Faith No More dance party right now and am enjoying it quite a bit. Sadly though, I don't really have any thoughts on to share with you. I have no track listings for one thing so the entire experience is sort of bleeding together. And as much as I like the band, I haven't heard anything yet worth shouting about. (One track did show up which I think I recognized from an old Flash movie - highly probably, I know - but I can't be sure which one it was.)

But I'll shout if something exciting happens. That's all you get this morning.

Don't Read This Post.

There's just no easy way to navigate a CD called Don't Play Track One during a blitz. As you must know.

And that first track was an absolute killer. In part because I had the CD player turned nice and loud for DMX. When track one hit, I had the presence of mind to wonder if my car had just been hit by a train or a lightning bolt or a tornado. It was quite literally an explosion that rattled the car. And everyone inside.

So it is that: You gotta warn a brother.

At any rate, I just wanted you to be aware that the eponymous track one was a marginally worse experience than the last track of Sgt. Abbey. But only marginally. It was a screwball upset in the 60th minute of an Iron Man match.

DMX Never Played At The Opry

I spoke too soon.

If the transition from Discover Classical Music to the Dixie Chicks was abrupt, then the flip from Shania Twain (last track on Dixie 2 & Other Chicks) to DMX was abrupt blasted with Gamma rays. Really. There's no smooth way maneuver to take you from Top 40 country-pop to hardcore rap.

By the way, it's fun to mention that www.allmusic.com describes DMX as a sort of Hip-Hop Johnny Cash, what with the balancing act between extreme violence and spirituality. All I have to say on the issue is that Johnny Cash always knew where his bitches were at.

Dixie Barbarians.

You wouldn't know to look at it, but I think that the transition between Discover Classical Music (which ends on Carl Orff's pillaging and burning Carmina Burana) to your Dixie Chicks collection has been the most abrupt maneuver so far. Carmina Burana always reminds me of Conan The Barbarian, as that's most clearly the source of Basil Poledouris' film score. Dixie Chicks on the other hand are, well, Nashville's answer to the Bangles.

So it is in one quick step that we arrive at cow-tipping from Conan.

The Brief and The Sweaty

It's too hot in this house to sit in one place for longer than 10 minutes. So you're getting just a quick and dirty update on the D's...

Ladies, Ladies...Ballers, Ballers...

Oh how, oh how did Destiny's Child assume the mantle of super-girl-group of the first years of this century? Because on the basis of The Writing's On The Wall, they weren't due for this kind of success at all. Really, I can't exaggerate how bored and disinterested I was listening to this CD. I was constantly flipping to the traffic updates on CFRB and taking my sweet ass time getting back to the listening. [And if listening to radio commercials trumps the Ol' Blitzeroo experience, we have a problem.]

So I ask. En Vogue. TLC. Destiny's Child. What exactly is the difference? Timing, I suppose.

In fact, knowing that The Writing's On The Wall followed TLC's FanMail by only a few months, it's remarkable to me that this CD got any spotlight at all. It seems to be exactly the same CD. An empty copy of a CD that I never much cared for in the first place.

As you can imagine, I was thrilled to see the EnSalTLC CD show up in the box of upcoming CDs...

Die Rock N' Roll

I had much more fun with Die Springer than I would have thought possible. It wasn't a high point of the Ol' Blitzeroo or anything, but it was a solid, fun, good time. The tunes were excellent and the CD flew by as smooth as anything I've listened to so far. Truth is, I enjoyed the all-German tracks (90% of the album) much more than that one English straggler at the end. This is a great rock band that doesn't need to compromise.

But listening to and loving this CD, it got me to thinking about non-English speaking bands and North American audiences. Clearly, based on what we hear about monstrous European Tours, Japanese Tours and Worldwide Tours, most BIG North American artists have dedicated non-English followings and can sell out stadiums in foreign countries. And from a Western-centric point of view, I would imagine that it's not unusual for the radio in these countries to be flipping and flopping between American music and National music. Does U2 get radio-play in Japan? It would seem so.

So the question is, apart from the neo-Latino movement of a few years ago (and I'm going to include Los Lobos in this group of artists even though they predate Ricky Martin by 2 decades,) does non-English music play in English markets? Can you think of any BIG European groups who didn't compromise and record an English-language version of their biggest hit just to crack Billboard? Anyone who could pump out hits without the liner notes including translated lyrics? (Nena's 99 Luftballons comes to mind, but she did do the English cover of that; between you and me, I've always preferred the original though.) Specifically European and Asian music? Could a group like Die Springer ever find a following on this continent?

[By the way, I know the answer to this question already - but I'm serious about trying to name non-English speaking supergroups... I'll give you a head start: Falco. Now Go!!!]

"Wait, Slow Down...He's Trying To Say Something...?"

Incidentally, I slept late on Friday morning and didn't hit the QEW until a little after 7. It would have been a great morning for the Blitzeroo crossover as I was rounding the end of Digital Additions at the time. The music gods would have really smalled on me for passing your car, rolling down the window, slowing down and playing Put 'Em On The Glass.

I almost called your cellphone to line it up, but I think that might've been cheating...

I was never much of a Def Leppard fan, but...

...let's admit that there's no easy way to sneak around Make Love Like a Man. Call it what you will, but you know that it's a losing debate.

So it is that once I had the image of Joe Elliott in tight ripped shorts and a tight wife-beater belting gay anthems, it was a tough image to shake. The rest of the album became a remarkably frank Mutt Lange-Pride Parade experience. White Lightning indeed.

Spoken in my best Obi-Wan: "Then I'm so sorry."

Jer's Super-Favs Part I.

I should have been keeping track of this from the beginning, I suppose.

Just a heads up when a bestest favorite song - I mean a true desert-island, top-10 sort of number pops up in the Blitzeroo.

Deee-Lite - Try Me On, I'm Very You

With special props for one of my all-time bestest favorite drum fills also.

Miles to Minneapolis

It's pretty clear after listening to Miles Davis' Live Around the World just why he and Prince got on so well in the last few years of his life. They both liked to splash around in the same funk swimming pool.

The bigger mystery then is just who was doing all the borrowing (or let's call it homage?) Both were (and are) regarded as originals and innovators and both were self-proclaimed fans of the other. So with covers of Cyndi Lauper and Michael Jackson showing up in this set, it's clear that Miles was already well aware of Prince by the time this concert was recorded. I wonder how much he was channelling Prince then? Or maybe the question is how much was Prince channelling Miles during the same period and the contemporary live shows that I've heard.

In case you're wondering, I loved the CD. And not for the reason above, but because the vibe/groove that happens throughout the show is really intoxicating. I was on an errand-day on Saturday when I let the CD play through - stopping in Oakville for a haircut, etc. With the summer sun and the leisurely afternoon pace, I was really able to dig into Davis' music and it surprised me a lot. It made me really sleepy in parts and hopped up in others. Which I suppose means that it's working...

Here's a question. (And it's hypothetical. We've already covered your reluctance to talk music in official terms. This is more of an out-there kind of dialogue.) Just what exactly is the difference between Jazz (see: Miles Davis) and simply Jammin' (see: Prince bootlegs.) The reason I ask is that Live Around the World most reminded me of Prince's ultimate boot: Small Club. The latter is a live performance that I cherish and that I am always always able to get absorbed into. Listening to Live Around the World, you could almost convince that they were recorded on the same night. Or at the very least, by the same band. And if Miles is the ultimate jazz artist, what's stopping Prince from occasionally dropping into the Jazz bunk? (Hell, if Harry Connick Jr can be there with She, it's the Wild Wild West.)

Oh, and in the interest of balance, I'd also love to get the answer from a true Jazz snob. I'm sure equating jammin' by a pop artist with true jazz could get a few noses bent out of shape...

At any rate, it occurred to me while listening to Miles Davis that capital-J Jazz is in fact one of only two genres of music that I've never been able to call home. (Reggae is the other, by the way.) I love swing, we've established that. But true jazz - the likes of which you'd read about in books or in a Ken Burns documentary - has always eluded me. Miles Davis. John Coltrane. Charlie Parker. Sonny Rollins. Thelonious Monk. These are a few of the great instrumental jazz players of the 20th Century and they mean almost nothing to me. I've never been able to find my place in this style of music, much as I've tried (and I love most jazz vocalists by the way.) So whether or not I'll ever own a Miles Davis CD, I don't know. If anything, listening to this brief sample has inspired me to dig into his catalogue a tiny bit deeper. But I've been down this road before and I usually lose interest. [Please remind me of this the next time that I tell someone there's no music that I can't enjoy.]

By the way, the transition between Miles and Deee-Lite was one of the most effortless steps yet. The opening trumpet of the Deee-Lite collection might've come right from Miles' concert.

The Home Stretch.

Maybe it's a little early to start calling in the outfielders, but I just finished The Cure and will be starting Miles Davis on Friday when I get back from my Universal trip.

In other words: Welcome to D.

The way I see it - and maybe your Blitz collection is a different animal - but I always start to fly once I've broken through the A-B-C's. From now until M (which is the next seemingly-uncrossable ocean of content), the CDs and artists run quickly into each other.

Stand back.

Rock 'n Roll 'n Lipstick??

Please share with me the source for your Cure collection title. I'm a Cure fan and am at a loss to decifer GNATTEE.

The Cure couldn't have come at a better time. You know how sometimes there are artists who you just crave in the midst of a Blitz - artists who could almost (but not quite) break a Blitz for you? That's what The Cure has been for me in the last few weeks. I've been passing through a very retro-Jer phase lately where I've been hankering huge for a lot of old high-school CDs. The Cure's been at the top of the list. See also: The Smiths and/or Morrissey. I don't know why. I'm just coming into that cycle right now. Maybe I'll grow my hair.

At any rate, hitting The Cure, even only one CD, was timed perfectly. With the sun coming down and some classic Cure tunes coming on, I was really feeling this Blitz tonight.

An observation: it was just now, for the first time, that I realized that Close To Me is, in a lot of ways that I don't care to try and articulate, the sister song to Prince's Kiss. Listen to them together some day (when you finish the Blitzeroo in 2010) and tell me if you don't agree. They don't share the falsetto. Close To Me has that very prominent bass and the handclaps that are missing from Kiss. But still, I was struck listening to Close To Me tonight that they must've been teleported from the same dimension...

Neil Reflects...

I was thrilled by the audio commentary for Crowded House's Afterglow. Because clearly that's what it was. To have the writer/musician drop in at the end of the album and give 10-15 minutes explanation for the record along with a play-by-play on each song was a rare treat. I wish more artists would do it. Jesus, can you imagine Prince or Tom Jones or some other such artist sitting down to nibble on the album in detail. Even if we couldn't take them at their word? The mind boggles.

The only thing I might have enjoyed more would be if the "interview" had preceded the record itself, as a sort of introduction. As it was I had to go back to disc one and replay a couple of the tracks with Neil's added insight. Most particularly Lester, which is a sweet little song after you know the back story (I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't listen closely enough to the lyrics the first time through to know that he was singing about his dog.)

Crowded Ringo v.2

OK, never mind.

I still don't hear a resounding Beatles influence in Crowded House, but I have rolled across a couple of obvious Beatles-redux tunes.

Not The Girl You Think You
I Love You Dawn

Very John. Very Paul. Very George. Just a little Ringo.

Crowded Ringo.

Here's a topic I'd like to open to the floor.

You've mentioned a couple of times (and most recently in a Crapberries comment below) that Crowded House has always been a Beatles imposter band for you, and that you don't mind that at all. Problem is I've tried, and I simply can't hear it.

Help a brother out. What songs are you thinking about? What sounds/instruments/harmonies are making that connection for you? There's no question that the singing style is sometimes reminiscent of some McCartney songs, but aside from that (and I had to really concentrate to make that association), I hear nothing.

[By the way, I should add that Crowded House's eponymous album came and went splendidly. I really enjoyed digging into some of the album tracks that I'm not familiar with. Was it Hole In The River with that delightful "circus" like riff - 'd make a fine Cherry Blossom sample, I tell you.]

Sheryl Crow, Into The Box You Go...

A quick bit on Sheryl Crow, because you asked.

There are some artists that simply help drive home the cause to time-capsule my CD collection. Sheryl Crow, it would seem, is in the camp. Solidly. For a couple of albums that I used to enjoy, if not quite love (and I'm talking about Tuesday Night and Sheryl Crow here; never much cared for Globe Sessions,) revisiting them today was neither fresh nor nostalgic. Instead, the experience fell somewhere between. And between fresh and nostalgic, there is only flat. Bland. Dull. Predictable. Overplayed. Vanilla. Meh.

I'm not sure what Sheryl Crow will sound like 10 years from now. Listening to her today was like keeping the radio on a Top-40 station that was running commercial free. My mind drifted about until each CD was over and I realized that I was onto a new disc. Sadly, I have my suspicions that listening to her years from now won't be much different. In the meantime, I'm anxious to put her in a drawer. I'm certain that I won't miss the CDs.

One last piece of business: it might amuse you to know that Sheryl Crow (the record, not the artist) reminds me an awful lot of the backseat of the white Cavalier. I must have picked up this CD a few weeks before we made the first voyage to LA, because I clearly remember listening to it in your car, and using it to bait Raph. He either hated or loved the first single (If It Makes You Happy) and we played it for him more than a few times. But to amuse or torment him, I can't remember...

Have You Ever Seen The Rain?

Timing is everything. The music gods see to that.

Gruelling traffic on the 401 tonight. But with the windows down, a warm spring/summer breeze and your CCR CD, I didn't mind so much. In fact, I just about enjoyed it.

Few bands have a sound as confidant and precise as CCR. Those stripped down guitar lines are immediately recognizable and always great fun.

If I can offer a single suggestion, because your CCR collection is almost-perfect, it would be in respect to a missing track. Long As I Can See the Light is a wonderful, wonderful song and sadly missing from the compilation. It's a great closer, and I was sort of hoping that it would pop up. I was a little disappointed that it didn't.

Just something to consider.

Oh, just to be a clear…

The last three posts seem so disappointed, angry and cynical that I felt like I should step up and explain: I am still loving this Ol’ Blitzeroo tremendously. And I find the C’s to be a hard go in my own collection also. I don’t know why.

I really am still having a blast…

Revenge of the Crap-berries?

Is there a wrestling term for a face who turns heel and then turns face again? I’m talking about a 360 degree character turn? It happens all the time; there must be an expression for it.

If so, that describes me and the Cranberries. As you may or may not remember, I used to have a couple of Cranberries CDs in University. I enjoyed them for a short time and then suddenly and without any warning couldn’t stand them at all. And it’s not like I simply lost interest. I actually abhorred them. I could not sell those CDs fast enough, and I doubt that I held onto any of the songs on tape (apart from those that show up in the 90’s Collection.)

So it is that I started the run of three Cranberries CD (that’s 140 minutes, fool!) with more than a little bit of anxiety. No, anxiety is the wrong word. Reluctance is better. Apart from a casual interest in seeing if I still hated them as much as I remembered, I didn’t want to drop them in the changer at all. But this is the way of the Ol’ Blitzeroo…and of course, I did.

The first two CDs went as expected. I was literally using the track details on the back cover of the CD case as a way to calculate the remaining playing time. I didn’t enjoy revisiting the albums in any way, though I want you to know that I tried very hard. By the way, while it hasn’t happened much in this Blitzeroo, my answer to this sort of problem is to play the music loud and try to let it absorb me. The first two Cranberries CDs were like trying to be absorbed by a brick wall. Mostly headaches ensued.

Which leads me to a hypothetical question. Again and again, it came to me as I was listening that the Cranberries sound an awful lot like early Sinead O’Connor, who I happen to love. In fact, The Lion and the Cobra is one of my favorite records of all time. Top five for sure. So why is it that I can love Sinead’s sound so much and be so annoyed by the Cranberries? Especially when the sound is sooo similar? Can you think of any other examples of this? Another one that comes to mind quickly is Lenny Kravitz – an artist that sounds an awful lot like Prince rocking out but to me, just isn’t. I just can’t get excited about Lenny Kravitz but give me Prince on a guitar any day.

Back to the point.

It was only a few tracks into To The Faithful Departed that I started to hit the bottom. In fact, it was Salvation that did it. I was almost – almost – ready to simply tune out the CD or worse, turn it down (something which I’m pleased to say that I’ve never done in this Blitzeroo.) But I didn’t and the music gods must’ve smiled on that. Because between the triple shot of War Child, Forever Yellow Skies and The Rebels, I suddenly and to the delight of the fans turned babyface. The crowd got behind me and I suddenly found the groove. In what must be the Blitzeroo equivalent of giving a kid in a wheelchair at ringside a high five, I actually backed up and listened to these three songs again. And at least War Child will show up on my Ol’ Blitzeroo compilation!

Worse, I can’t explain it. The songs aren’t that much better or different than anything on the rest of the album; I may even regret dropping a Cranberries song into the Blitzeroo collection. However suddenly in the minutes of listening to these songs I was aware of the brilliant summer weather. I was also coming home into a long weekend, and was on my way to see Episode III for the second time in two days. How could I not be open for anything?

I don’t think this marks a permanent change of view for the Crap-berries, but it was a stunning reversal that I wanted to share. And one of a million welcome surprises in the Ol’ Blitzeroo.

Document Indeed.

For a moment – just a moment there – I forgot what I was listening to, and Counting Crows began to sound very much like an REM CD.

Never much cared for REM either.

What Happened to Harry?

Harry Connick Jr. and I fell out after high school. I can’t say why. In the late days of high school (and early University), he was the cat’s pajamas, playing exactly to the kind of sound that I was looking for. These were the days that I was discovering and doing back-flips for anything that sounded remotely Sinatra. Swing was the thing, and Harry Connick Jr. was the only one trying to update the sound (note: in this example of updating, I really mean doing nothing new at all.) Sure, it was always clear that he wasn’t really in Sinatra’s league but he made a damn fine show of it all the same. And he was cranking out new music, which gave him a significant leg up. I pretty much wore out his early albums and was convinced that I was onto a sound that was reserved for me alone.

Then I went away to school and sorted of drifted off the path. I got really into funk and soul. And by no small irony, this seems to be the direction that Connick followed too.

[This is where the blog gets really bloody, so forgive me. And Patty, I know you have some affection for these CDs so please avert your eyes if you’re reading. Nothing good follows...]

Harry Connick Jr’s departure from swing might be the lowest point that I’ve reached in this or any other blitz. In fact, if I wasn’t certain that the horror would end, I might have had to pull the cord on the Ol’ Blitzeroo. She …was simply terrible. Beyond terrible. I’m going on a hunt for words now: Embarrassing. Ridiculous. Self-important. Ill-thought. Career-killing. Vomitous (In my excitement, I made that last one up.) I can’t even begin to list the things that bothered me about the record. But I will say that the Bob George poetry and funky 90’s instrumentals would be near the top of that list.

She was such a nightmare for me, that I was genuinely concerned about tainting my impression of the rest of Connick’s catalogue. In other words, now that I’d seen the dark side, I was no longer sure I could ever enjoy anything else – even the stuff that I loved in the past. The finger snapping was gone for me. Kind of like the way food poisoning will turn you off a food forever.

Mercifully She didn’t last long enough to kill me. And the record that followed (To See You) was fine, albeit filtered through some growing contempt for Harry Connick Jr. (if it wasn’t forced to follow She, I suspect I would’ve liked it.)

But there’s good news too. Before we count out Harry Connick Jr., I want you to know that I did get back into the swing through Come By Me. In fact, by the time I got to Charade (track 3, I believe – but I’m too lazy to check), I was almost ready to forgive him for She. And now that I’ve poured my pain into writing this post, I think I am ready to forgive him. Come By Me was just such a marvelous return to form. All sins were erased.

In the end, I think it must’ve been the music gods guiding me off the Harry Connick Jr path in the early 90’s, sparing me the grief of picking up She when it was current. [Funny, as I was listening to it, all I could imagine was a crew-cut and cocky Connick performing the songs alongside Michael Wolff on the Arsenio Hall show; and if that doesn’t explain the vibe and distaste I got from the record, nothing will.] But what struck me as most interesting listening to this run of (select) Connick CD’s was the meticulous symmetry of the experience. Let’s review because it's fun:

20
(Mostly) solo piano and low-key vocals; a little dull but nice background music

When Harry Met Sally
We Are In Love
Fun, big, brassy, toe-tapping swing; great standards and inspired interpretations

She
Purgatory; hell; broken bones; bloody noses

To See You
Low key trio music; nice but a little long

Come By Me
Songs I Heard
Fun, big, brassy, silly, toe-tapping swing; more standards and inspired interpretations

30
(Mostly) solo piano and low-key vocals; again, a little dull but nice background music nonetheless

For my money, I’ll stick to the fun, big, brassy, toe-tapping swing. Sorry Harry. I need you to wear this label and lie down in the box. I’m not interested in the experiments. I’m not interested in your growth as an artist. I’m not even that interested in your traditional jazz records even if they lend credibility to your position in the Jazz bunk at HMV.

I just want the horn blasts and the big beats. Please.

[By the way, on the subject of horn blasts and big beats, you might really enjoy Blue Light Red Light which is one of my favorite Harry Connick Jr records. It followed We Are In Love and was even more confident. And maybe more fun.]

When Harry's Evil Imposter Met Sally...

A quick note on Harry Connick Jr. I'll be delving a little deeper into his run of swing-funk-swing-swing in the next few days, but in the meantime I wanted to get something down before I lose it.
On the subject of Come By Me and Extras, can I assume that this was intended to be a wholly Harry experience? Because I wanted to give you a heads up that track 5 - the conspicuously titled The Way You Look Tonight - is perfomed by Harry's Evil Imposter aka Michael Bublé aka Sinatra: Generation 3.

Just so you're aware.

Also, while on the subject of the CD, it was by far the most pop and spark-riddled CD-R to appear in the Blitzeroo so far. All of this has the calming effect of seeming like an old long-play album, but there were a couple of abrupt track changes that kept me on my toes. Of course if you blitzed it first time around, you already know this.

Two Bits of Business on the Canadian Male Voice.

First.

Did you get this collection of Leonard Cohen tracks from me? I ask because I never knew and would probably not have guessed that you were a Leonard Cohen fan. No deep analysis there, I just didn't think you were a fan. And if this is in fact some cross-fertilization, then you'll have to agree that these touch points seem very funny - sort of like mini-cross overs in the Ol' Blitzeroo landscape. Lord knows you'll have a Crowded House collection to look forward to.

Second.

Sometimes the best part of blitzing is digging into a piece of a song that you've never heard or noticed before. For me, it was Famous Blue Raincoat, a track that I've heard zillions of times. It was on this pass-through, for the first time, that I really became aware of the breathing on the track. Starting the song as soon as I pulled out of the parking lot at work, I became aware of someone - a woman, actually - breathing behind me. For a good half second it really startled me, until I realized that it was simply the background singer (Jennifer Warnes?) on the song, taking air between the "do-dum dum's."

Amazing thing to discover.

Best Blitzeroo Fake-Out To Date?

That Cinema Classics CD that followed the church hymns.

When the funkified, 70's-filtered cover of Also Sprach Zarathustra started up, I actually believed I had put the wrong CD in the changer. I wracked my brain for at least the first 60 seconds of the track wondering just what I could've mis-filed. Surely this wasn't the opening track of the Tom Cochrane CD to follow, or the Leonard Cohen CD past that? I concluded that you probably left the wrong disc in the case and I was too clumsy to notice.

Then I recognized the tune for what it was.

How odd that the second track (and that's where I left it at this morning) seems to be a straight-up cover of Beethoven's 9th. And that the CD packaging itself doesn't indicate in any way that you'll be listening to crazy roller-boogie covers of the Classical works. I thought the ('68) in the title might've been the tip-off, but that date must refer the date of the movie - but this is clearly not the version used in the film.

Headline: Man Killed By Amazing Grace.

Here's something you didn't know about me. And how could you?

Church music - I mean honest-to-goodness religious hymns - put me to sleep like an infant on a washing machine. There's something about the pitch of the organ and the sound of the choir that make me drift off this plain and into another place. It was the bane of my Sunday mornings when my parents took me to church and at 10:31, as the choir filed in, I went into a thick meditative trance. My ears popped. Something rolled my eyes back and I was out of my body. It mucked up my Sundays. And it still happens at most weddings.

It goes without saying that this isn't the best experience on the highway. So when the 31 Classic Hymns turned out to be exactly that, I was a little concerned. Thankfully there was enough orchestra action that I could just about fool my brain into thinking that I was listening to a soundtrack. But that organ made me neeeervous.

The good news is that this CD was the dark horse - completely unexpected and really spectacular. I was expecting some dry Gregorian stuff (and was a little worried that the 31 tracks were the selling feature!) and instead, got some really involving and really amazing music. Great CD. Total surprise.

Christmas in May.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was probably the only one on the 401 listening to Christmas carols in this morning's rush hour. And that's how the music gods must have wanted it.

Listening to Christmas music outside of December is wrong in more ways than I have time to list. But the best comparison that comes to mind is that it's like drinking a litre of Coke with breakfast. You can do it. There's no law against it. But you know it just doesn't and won't ever feel right.

Honer Boners and etc.

The sad thing? I think a few stray thoughts have probably fallen through the cracks during my accidental and spontaneous trip to blog silence. And no, I'm not about to back-track a month and try to piece together all the thoughts I might've had. That's just the sort of thing that's been delaying me getting back to this in the first place.

But it would be irresponsible not to touch on Cherry Blossom. And a little disappointing too, I'm sure. So randomly:

- What exactly is a "honer boner" then? Throughout the unplugged tracks, I could've sworn it was a harmonica, until the chords starting getting a little more sophisticated (I clearly tackled the theme to Gremlins at one point?) I can't - for the the life of me - imagine what this instrument looked like. Please help.

- High point of the Cherry Blossom sessions came in the most unexpected stretch (as high points usually do.) During the blue screen segment with Andy on guitar, I was assaulted with a sudden (and impossibly black) spring thunder-storm. It sprang from nowhere and smacked the car with hailstones, all while Andy's outrageous arpeggio's were starting to take me deep inside my skull. It was the sort of storm one imagines will precipitate the end of the world. Yet the whole time, Andy's guitar playing was divine. And transporting. I don't remember this session at all (though it sounds like I was there...)

- Surprised the piano didn't show up more. I didn't remember that we ever used it (I'm wrong) but sometime during the first CD, I was trying to remember if you'd had a piano in your basement or if it was my imagination. Then there it was. Sounded nice.

- I need the story here. The tracks with Raph's random sampling ("They're called fingers, but they don't fing.") really messed me up and were probably the least enjoyable part of the Cherry experience. Especially the backwards stuff (it's safe to say I never want to hear Raph putting on the Mexican accent in reverse again, until such time as I forget that it's there and stumble into it like a fool.) How did this all happen? And why, oh why, did it happen on at least 3 of the CDs?

- Speaking of repetition, for a Blitz that repeats almost never, listening to all 18-minutes of Drop the Ham three times in less than 48-hours is a tall order. I won't say I didn't enjoy it, because I did - but I didn't want to hear it that third time. No, sir.

- Raw Cherry. Explain please. I thought I had it figured out (ie. in the short bits that were clearly meant to capture the original drum samples, etc.) but then here comes another full-version of Drop the Ham. The whole damn thing. What's the general theme of this CD?

Crap.

Is it really closing in on a month since my last post??

Damn, chico - you really should've said something.

Brickman Finally Rolls.

The Blitzbreaker popped up at last, on the way home tonight.

Would you believe that I thought Jim Brickman was a country artist? I was expecting a little fancy CMT action and got some Deep Thoughts soundscapes instead. What's more, the cat on the cover doesn't look anything like the dude I was thinking about. It begs the question: who the hell was I thinking of?? And would he have been so quick to wander from his jewel case? Wish I could think of the name but all I'm coming up with is Jim Brickman. Hm.

At any rate, I have only this to say of Jim Brickman. I'm sure that the soft and sentimental piano ballads make good listening on a quiet walk or a peaceful afternoon by the lake; however, in 401 rush hour, they provide no assistance whatsoever. Stop-and-go traffic is a funny environment for listening to music - the tunes can't be too fast (which frustrates because I can't drive to pace) or too slow (which only points out how slow you're moving and leaves you frozen in a 401 traffic-bubble, seemingly forever.)

Jim Brickman did the latter, I'm sorry to say. Even so, this is the sort of music that plays better in the early morning, when I'm just coming around to the morning and the sun is rising over the highway. Yeah, that should go down just fine.

Bowie in a Box.

Finished Bowie a couple of days, but still thought I should share. A little background reading on David Bowie's discography (which is one of things that I do when I'm blitzing yours, mine or anybody's collection) turned up a peculiar and strangely off-putting factoid.

Did you know that prior to being a singer, David Bowie trained to be a mime?

The Laughing Gnome seems even more birthday party than ever before.

This other thing.

By the way, just a quick observation but I've always thought of Under Pressure as a Queen tune that just happens to feature David Bowie. Hearing it show up on a Bowie CD, it occurred to me that you might also think of it as a David Bowie song with backing by Queen.

It'll hurt your brain if you think about it too long.

Lift Off.

I think we all listen for the same thing: that song and that perfect moment of lift off that happens in just one tune in a thousand. The song that builds and builds until the wheels take off and you're flying. You forget where you are and what you're doing. It's that song that lives a couple of inches off the ground.

I can think of a few of them. Sinead O'Connor's Troy gets me there every time. Prince's The Beautiful Ones drives off the road at the halfway point and goes to another place entirely. Where The Streets Have No Name always seems to me to be the one U2 song that couldn't possibly have come from just 4 guys and a recording studio. Sister Morphine. Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want (which does it in an astonishingly short song.) Tom Waits' On The Nickel. Joni Mitchell's River. All of them.

I want to add another song to that list then. Heroes. No surprise, I guess but here's a song that gets there and makes it look easy. I'm stealing from someone else's observation at this point (and I wish I could credit or link you to the person who wrote this, but I can't remember) but they had this to say: Heroes is a song that, for probably less than a minute and close to the conclusion, becomes one of the biggest songs ever created. You know the part that I mean. There's a turning point in the song where it up-shifts from being a great David Bowie tune to being an epic life-or-death arena-rattling number. Everything is moving and everything is clicking. Listening to it, I always know that it's coming and I listen carefully. Still, I can never put my finger on just where it happens.

Those are the songs that I listen for.

[On a sidenote, Under Pressure just about gets there also. Pretty freakin' close.]

Opera In One Ear.

With the warm weather coming on, the days of the brakelight/CD-pause phenomenon are pretty much at a close. So it is that my CD changer, spiteful rocking bastard that he is, has developed a new way to pee on the Blitzeroo. And I know you're familiar with this experience from at least one of your old cars...

We've got an intermittent right speaker, crackling in and out, sometimes playing full volume and sometimes none at all. This has happened before (during a run of that Furious Chick Belinda Carlisle in the Speeding Blitz) and it fixed itself. I'm hoping it does so again.

In the meantime, there's something so crazy-wonderful about a loud, strong opera note (I'm on Andrea Bocelli by the way) jamming a misbehaving speaker back in line. Imagine it - a note so forceful that it shifts from mono to stereo as you're listening to it. If we ever get back to Cherry Blossom, we need to use that technique in a song. Raph'd be all over it...

Check your calendar but it would seem that March is Blue Rodeo month!

Or so it seems to me. Between the LA trip, the week-long vacation, the short week last week and the Easter holiday, I can swear to you that I've been listening to Blue Rodeo for just about the full month.

Much as I love the Blue Rodeo and as much as a few key songs did tie into some sunny weather (Blue Rodeo works best as a spring-time band, I think) - I was anxious and delighted when the changer finally flipped over to something new.

Credentials? Yes, please.

Who, I mean who, is Rufus Blaq exactly? And is this CD for real?

Kind of an interesting chaser to 80 tracks of Big Band goodness.

Coffee Table Rock Candy.

Such sweet business is the Big Band Era. I'm almost finished the first disc of the set and am overjoyed with the places it's taking me. I'm sure you know already how much I love this sort of music, Sinatra-phile that I am, but this collection introduces an awful lot of new tunes. New performers. It's a totally submersive rock 'n roll prequel experience that is making the afternoon and morning commute something to look forward to.

I'd really love to get some track info for the collection if you have it please. And whatever back story you care to share about where or when this compilation came from. Was this something you owned at one time or something built from scratch? Either way, it's a delicious mix.

And yet equally frustrasting. It seems that for every song I recognize and can name, there's another song that I recognize and can't quite put my finger on. Track 4 was agonizing because I'm certain I have a German cover version of it, love it, but can't nail down the name of the song. It's gonna be one of those forehead slappers.

Sweet Baby Jesus, there's nothing better than going to bed, and looking forward to the CDs waiting in the morning. This is why we blitz!

Sandra Bullock. Just Driving Straight and Fast.

A new wrinkle. In the deep, deep cold of February it turns out that signalling to turn now causes my CD changer to go on short and temporary pause. Just for the first 10-15 minutes of the drive and just in extreme winter cold, but there you have it. Add that to the weird brake-light issue.

Annoying, but not as annoying as the early morning driver who doesn't signal his lane changes.

And also.

I had no idea that John Williams and Beethoven were friends. Where did they meet?

Ah, the CD Changer wasn't broken after all.

Another 16-17 minutes of that loop waiting for the ride home. And maybe, just maybe, the longest, slowest fade out I've ever heard. So long and slow in fact, that I had to be sure I wasn't going deaf.

This is me applauding you for making my commute pure misery.

Longer Than the Top of Toronto (at least)

Of course you must have known it was coming up and laughed to yourself. Your little secret. Your little knife in my back.

I'm talking about the final track of Sgt. Abbey and that infernal, delightful, revelatory, ludicrious repeating loop that (to-date) has already passed 35-minutes in length. To be precise, A Day In the Life (proper) ended as I was passing Sherway Gardens. In the time that it took me to run north on the 427, east on the 401 and pull into the Universal parking lot, I listened to nothing but that hidden track. Nothing but. Through rush hour traffic. Through terrible snow conditions on the highways. Everything.

A curious thing. I can't even begin to remember or piece together the last 45-minutes of my life in any chronological sense. That loop-de-loop has completely broken the primary processing centre of my brain. But here's some of what happened and at least a portion of what went through my mind as I listened to it turn over and over and over and over. In no particular order.

- somewhere around the 2-3 minute mark, I think I started to get really into it.

- I flipped and flopped between excitement and genuine dread throughout the track. The loop was so hypnotic and intoxicating that I wasn't sure how I'd feel when it actually and finally stopped. I was a little worried about that. No, I was more than a little worried. I absolutely wasn't ready for it to stop. And then, of course I just couldn't wait for it to stop. These feelings fought it out for most of the drive. I also had real anxiety over how the track would end; Would it be abrupt? Would it fade out? Or would it sooner or later just stop looping and follow through to its conclusion like a bird that broke out of a cage. (This last option probably would've been too much to bear and I would have driven off the road like a crazy person.)

- I know for certain, and it was pretty early on, that I lost track of when the loop started, how it started, how it might end and whether it ever would. Without any melodrama whatsoever, I actually began to have that disorienting sensation of remembering nothing before the loop. The loop was everything. The loop was the only thing in the world and it was the only thing that ever had been. It was the only thing there would ever be. You could see how a person might go insane.

- Doubt, real honest doubt, hit me that this loop was your doing after all. It occurred to me how funny (in a not ha-ha way) it would be if the loop was entirely the fault of my CD player. It is 6-years old after all, and has seen more than 210K of road. It would be a perfect skip, but not impossible. And after the track passed the 30-minute mark, I felt real skepticism that you would have spent this much time looping the track. After all, this is your CD, not mine. And why you'd want to inflict this kind of mental chicken-wing on yourself with every blitz - well, that just seemed like real self-loathing. Why? Why?

- This is the truth, no exaggeration. I actually began to worry about my life and my health. The track never totally turned into white noise and it began to drastically change my breathing. I felt frantic and out of control for large chunks of the drive. All of this, amid rush hour traffic. I began to wonder if this was the thing that would actually precipitate a dreadful accident on the highway (and I had at least one close call.) My brain was entirely co-opted by the loop and I needed at least some small part to maintain the direction of the car.

- As is the manner of these kinds of loops, the sound byte itself turned and twisted and changed so many times in the half hour that I honestly don't know what I was listening to. It started as a song bit, I think, and maybe the singer was singing/speaking something semi-coherent at one point. But then it turned over and over, and I couldn't remember where the phrase started. And then it wasn't words at all, but gibberish. Consonant sounds actually popped out of the sequence, maintained dominance for a while, and then disappeared entirely. I had a clear idea of what was being said for a period, and then suddenly couldn't hear it again no matter how hard I concentrated. There was a spell there where it turned into something really dirty.

So here's the kicker. Sgt. Abbey is the last CD in the changer. And the track hasn't even ended yet. There might be 2-minutes left. There might be 15-minutes left. I'm inclined to circle the block at Victoria Park until it ends just so I can drop the new CDs into the trunk. (In any other situation, I'd just change them now and re-listen to the song I hadn't quite finished. Not this time, boyo.)

Thanks for making Monday morning interesting.

number9number9number9number9number9...

I don't know what it says about the day to come when you spend the drive in to work listening to Revolution #9. I don't know what damage it might have done. I don't know what time bombs have now been laid.

The worse thing about it is that I feel like I was completely assaulted by the song, especially having listened to it in that semi-conscious, barely-past-dreaming, morning-state that happens at 6 am. The doors were open and the filters were down. They were getting Jer without defenses.

So just what have those boys done to my hard-coded programming??

More on That There Do-Wop Band

I don't need Beatles covers.

Isn't it funny that some bands, certain artists just feel wrong singing someone else's material? I can appreciate the covers that show up on those early Beatles records - the raw rock spirit and the way the band sounds on its way to shaping its own voice. It's easy to see them ripping up a bar in Germany, shredding through the Chuck Berry tunes. I do appreciate those songs. However I don't really need them on the records.

On the flip side, I can appreciate Elvis singing anything by anyone. And since he wasn't a songwriter, that's all he really did, right? Sing other people's songs? I would love to have a copy of Elvis singing just about every song in the world.

So why the distinction do you think? And where's the line?

I read an on-line review of that new (well, new-ish) Sinead records (She Who Dwells, etc etc.) where the reviewer basically crapped on the whole CD because it was nothing but Sinead doing covers. This writer wanted original Sinead material and wasn't interested in hearing her tackle folk tunes or pop tunes by other artists. Yet it doesn't bother me at all - she's got a unique voice and I like to hear it applied to unusual material.

Then there's Prince m'boy, another artist who frankly never never ever needs to perform other people's tunes. I'm simply not interested. Everything he's ever done (written by someone else) is just boring and pedestrian to me. I can appreciate that he loves 70's soul and 90's Joan Osbourne tunes, but I don't need to hear him prove it. It takes the shine of Emancipation for me that there's so much covered material. Even A Case of You, possibly his best cover, is wasted on me. Wasted.

What'chyoo think about that?

You Have to Admit It's Getting Better, Better All the Time.

These are the runs you wait for in a blitz of any kind. CDs in the changer today:

Rubber Soul
Revolver
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Magical Mystery Tour
White Album (Discs I & II)

How does it get better than that?

The thing that sticks out the most for me now (as it does everytime I hit the early-B's in these blitzs) is that the Beatles must benefit from the blitz as much (if not more) than anyone else. There is no better band to demonstrate the great power of a concentrated blitz, starting with the I Saw Her Standing There and riding it out to Get Back. The Pastmasters CDs are always a nice footnote, but by the time you get to those, the story is over. Beginning to end: there's such a great plot that unfolds.

Couple of things to add.

First, perhaps the best timed song of the blitz so far was She's Leaving Home which was waiting for me in the car on last night's drive home. I don't know why. Nothing thematic there, just a really beautiful, prozaic, transcendent song waiting at the end of a long, ragged, exhausting and draining work day. One of those fateful gifts from the Music Gods. When it started, I actually felt a chill run down my back as the weight of work melted away. Wonderful, wonderful sensation. I wish everyone could know what it felt like.

Second, I think that Fool On the Hill must be one of, if not my favourite Beatles tune. Is that a weird choice? Obviously, the most played and most universally-revered tunes are sensational, but I have a special spot for Fool On the Hill. No baggage there. I just love the simple melody and the unforgettable lyrics. Those whoa-whoa-whoa's get me there every time..

I woke up hearing Blue Jay Way in my mind this morning.

Barenaked in the Morning.

I dunno. The Barenaked Ladies experience was a little more cynical and moody than I was expecting. Between songs like Hello City and Never Is Enough, the band actually seemed kind of snarky and snooty at points. It kind of put me in a funk. Not that I'm mistaking BNL with NIN, of course.

So here's the question. Ed Robertson or Steven Page?

I have to confess that if the band was led solely by Ed at this point I would probably be a fan. It's the Steven Page songs that still and will forever remind me of Scott Dempster.

But there you have it.

Rage Against the Soundgarden

You were right. Audioslave was far more Soundgarden than Rage Against the Machine. Which is a pity, because I was really in the mood for a little RATM during the morning drive. And I've never really had much love for Soundgarden.

Oh well.

Hm, oh crap.

I knew I was relying on your Word document too much.

Amid the ballyhoo of trying to figure out whether to blitz the Barenaked Ladies or the Bachelors first, I completely skipped over Audioslave. Oh, I'm catching up now - following the Retards that fall between A and B. But my point is that the actual order is now shot to hell.

Lesson learned? Spine and alphebetize the CDs when you get them. This will serve me all the better when your tally falls apart after Goo Goo Dolls...

Tangled Up in the Retards.

I'm afraid it's true. For every up, there's a down, and for every Alice In Chains, there's a Fiona Apple.

Tonight (and much of Friday) it was about slogging through the Retards. I'm sorry to report that it was not always super-fun. Maybe it was that awkward break that comes from Friday night to Monday morning which always disrupts the flow of the blitz (I do most of my blitzing during the week, when I do the bulk of my driving. On the weekend, it's all about the White Saturn and the Teddy Bear Picnic.) Or maybe it was the schitzo alphabetical nature of the Retards themselves.

At any rate, it wasn't until the Funky Retards (and you must copyright that title, by the way) that I actually become...Christ, can I use the word...bored? And in a CD that grabs the word funky to describe itself? Specifically, it was somewhere between Cypress Hill and en Vogue when I realized (or worse, felt) that the music was tiring me out. It was something I'd heard a million times. It was played out. I was over-saturated. I considered flipping on the talk radio.

[Tangent. By the way, this is the very reason that I've proposed the radical 10-15 year time capsule on 90% of my music collection. Like batteries, these tunes are in bad need of a recharge and I'm concerned that my playing and playing and overplaying them in the last 10-20 years has burned them out entirely for me. Boredom is not a word I want to bring into my music collection, but there you have it. It's already there. It's my hope that by burying and re-discovering most of my favourite music in a decade's spell will come with old memories and new flavours that I missed or can't enjoy this time around. The Retard CDs summed the importance of that experience for me, but damn quick, Skippy!]

Now, before I get to the saving grace - and the good news is that there was one - I want to take a minute to kick MC Hammer hard in the balls. I have to confess that the MC Hammer triple play of 2 Legit 2 Quit, Can't Touch This and Pray might be the lowest point that a blitz can reach for me. I'm all about the guilty pleasures. Let me re-iterate: I'm aaaaaaaallllll about the guilty pleasures. But I've never tagged those three songs back-to-back before and the cumulative power of their drone was enough to make me consider my options: finish the CD or turn the car into the guard rail. Seriously, I was dying. In the meantime, I had a bit of time to tug at the formulas. Here's what I found:

2 Legit 2 Quit - This song, for me, might be the single, best, most important and most improbable example of why the early-90's are the worst years in pop music. The song has everything bad about 90's pop music. Everything in one single radio-friendly song! It's as though Hammer was scrolling through his catalogue of bad-pop/rap devices and checked the box next to order all. You've got the Rosie-Gaines-ish back up singer howling away a-la C+C Music Factory throughout the song, hollering nothing clear at all. You've got the tough guys (who I imagine are in the tight C+C tank tops also) chanting out the chorus like it's a battle cry before a football game. You've got the orchestral smacks, overused to the point that they become like musical bitch slaps. And you've got repetition. You've got repetition. You've got repetition. Have you ever paid attention to how long this songs goes and goes and goes? (In the spirit of total and 100% disclosure, I do want to let you know that I practiced and perfected my 2 Legit hand signs in the time it took to listen.)

Can't Touch This - The perfect cheese-is-good song in any other context, but sandwiched between these two winners, it's just another jab in the thigh when you've already got a charlie-horse. Here's what made me laugh this time around. When MC Hammer gets to the break-down ("break it down!") the song doesn't, and please correct me if I'm wrong, break it down at all. In fact, I believe this is called a bridge. And to make the experience even more meaningless, Hammer goes back to this device FOUR times before the end of the song. I never realized it happened that many times but you count it out - four (4X) times - break-it-down (aka bridge), return to chorus, break-it-down (aka bridge), return to chorus, break-it-down (aka bridge - this time too lazy to shout out the "break it down!"), return to chorus, break-it-down (aka bridge), fade out. Really. The structure on this bad boy is a marvel of modern music.

Pray - Now here's a song I didn't even bother to include in my 90's collection because I didn't like it, I didn't want it and it never even appealed to me in a funny way. I didn't even know that it sampled When Doves Cry until tonight, and I think Prince should sue. Because by adding the bass line back to When Doves Cry, Hammer has dumbly demonstrated exactly why Prince stripped it out to begin with: it makes the song average (well, maybe that's overstating the case a bit - it's not quite average, but certainly not one of the best songs of all-time!)

So here's the good part. It was Shaq who got me home. Shaq!?! Of all 90's basketball-acting-rapping triple-threats, it was the Shaq-Attack who brought me out of the dumps! It's been a long time since I played call-and-answer with the whole "do you want me to shoot it?" number? And I don't think I've heard him trying to connect with Def Jeff since you owned this CD. It was a great throw-back and a totally great reason why these CDs work after you let them get dusty. I don't know where I was in nineteen-ninety-Shaq, but I went back there tonight.

Hm, by the way.

Quick question about the playing order of your CDs.

I'm working from the Word doc you sent, but just noticed that you've alphabetized the Bachelors CD (Cocktail Music) after Beethoven. Barenaked Ladies is, according to the Word list, your first B. Is this correct? I'm not worried about keeping things completely alphabetical (I'll obsess about that in my own blitz, thanks,) but I am concerned about following your blitz as closely as possible.

Can you recall which CD you spun first? Clearly time is of the essence in your response as I'll be your Yoko Ono by Friday.

Maybe she's so angry because she's so boring?

I would much rather have listened to Tidal No-Frills tonight. As much as revisiting Anthrax's Attack of the Killer B's was a fun throwback to a CD I long since left behind (and missed), Fiona Apple's Tidal Deluxe was one that I didn't need to visit again. Christ, I forgot what a deadening experience this CD was.when I owned it. Time hasn't been kind.

Fiona Apple is part of that small group of over-hyped, over-awarded, critical darlings that I can live without. Y'know the kind? The Grammy all-stars. Talented? Hm, maybe. But dead-dog boring. Uninspired. Passionless. The musical equivalent of a cold fish wrapped in newspaper. I'd put Alicia Keys and Norah Jones in the same rocket ship and blast them all straight into space. Where perhaps they could land on the planet of bland A/C garbage?

Alicia Keys? On behalf of Prince, I've tried. I've really really tried. There's no question that she's a talented girl, but her music is just sort of hollow and (ironically) soul-less. Have fun listening to that CD when it turns up in the Blitzeroo. I'm keeping it on the basis of How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore? The rest of it puts me to sleep.

Norah Jones? I don't even need to hear the whole CD. I know what the package is. I like and still listen to Holly Cole. That's my one-stop for top-40 jazz-pop and at least, Holly Cole throws some spice in the mix. Norah Jones is that white paint you see in government buildings. I read her described somewhere on-line as the ultimate Starbucks soundtrack, which sounds about right. [Crap - you don' have a Norah Jones CD, do you?]

Macy Gray? Yeah, OK. I liked Macy Gray. Overplayed and boring in retrospect, but she's still got some funky album tracks. (I'm thinking of Caligula, which you'll hear if you don't already have this CD.)

Alas, it saddens me that I couldn't get through Tidal Deluxe completely before I got home. That means there's still some tracks waiting for me in the morning. Wish me luck getting out bed...

Still Keeping It In The Family.

One of the delightful things about this Blitzeroo is listening to old titles turn up that I had long since lost or sold. Anthrax's Attack of the Killer B's is one of those. It's probably been at least 7 or 8 years since I've owned this CD.

I forgot how much I loved Chromatic Death.

Sweet Music Gods.

In translating the subject line below, I was messing with a German-English translator and stumbled onto this:

Blitz
english translation = Flash War.

Christ, did you know that? Are we, in fact, at war?

Dieser Blitzkrieg kickt Bälle.

The hardest thing to explain about a Blitz is what makes it so special. After all, most people know their music collections pretty well, and what's the benefit of a bunch of obsessive-compulsive rules to enjoy it further? Then along comes a CD like All The Best From Germany.

Out of context, this collection would be a great novelty and kind of fun. But in the context of a Blitz, and particularly your blitz - it's absolutely the perfect CD at the perfect time. Nestled amid a torrent of hard rock/metal like, this little German number is the best kind of antidote and distraction before plunging into Anthrax. It's the context that makes it so great. And it made the Anthrax better too.

A couple of quick things then:

Track 2 - Heidi - Yodelling over a Boney M beat. Nice.

Track 10 - Rhine Medley - What a fantastic surprise to hear the original German translation of Elvis' Wooden Heart. It took me a little under a minute to figure out why the melody was so familiar, but there you have it... Are you familiar with that tune? If not, grab a listen and marvel at the small, small world of popular tunes.

Track 11 - Carnival Medley - Me, a blistering head-cold, the 401 collectors lanes, soul-sucking rush hour traffic, carnival music. You do the math.

Track 12 - Die Kleine Kneipe - What a great song. A really great and romantic little ditty. I was so in love with the tune that I briefly considered taking a German course just so I could understand and appreciate what he was singing about. Then I changed my mind because that'd be a lot of work and he might simply be singing about Die Booty.

Track 20 - Mein Vater War Ein Wandersmann - Good God, help me place this tune. It's killing me. Was it a Looney Tunes cartoon? What? What??

All The Best From Monday Morning.

There's a story here. You're clearly not German, so perhaps this is something from Patty's heritage? Or perhaps some important childhood recollection for one or you? The souvenir of a vacation I don't know about? Or better yet, just an odd adventure CD that you picked up for $4.99 at 7-11?

At any rate, All The Best From Germany reminds me most of the sort of adventure CD I would have signed out from the Oakville Library in my glory days. Just because it was there and I was there and it didn't hurt anybody to give it a listen. And what an adventure.

What I wasn't expecting was how darn catchy the CD is; sort of the German Nanny's answer to Boney M. The highlight of my short day so-far was pulling up at a traffic light, German drinking tunes a-pumping and watching the guy waiting at the bus stop eyeing my car suspiciously. The Honda was most certainly thumping with an oompa-oompa tuba line.

Quite excellent.

Second Generation Angst.

I'm not a superstitious guy. Even so, switching up to a CD called Car Crash Survivor while navigating the 401 Express lanes with one knee did give me pause. But just a little, and certainly not enough to do anything sensible like pull over. Thankfully the Angry Gods of Irony weren't watching...

The worst thing I can say about Alien Ant Farm is that they really suffered by having to follow Allison Chains. In fact, the experience was a little like chasing the Big Ticket with the opening act. Because they're living in the same alt-rock suburb of course, and because after Allison Chains, Alien Ant Farm really sounded like a cover band. The CD didn't suck, but it was a little anti-climactic. Perhaps even a little boring.

Not at all like All The Best from Germany.

Alice.

Making it quick. I'm in a rush.

Can I assume that the sometimes-titled Allison Chains CDs are entirely made up of Alice in Chains? Probably a pretty straightforward assumption, but then it's not right to make any assumptions about your CD collection.

At any rate, here's the magnificent thing. I've never listened to Alice in Chains before. Ever. I couldn't tell you the difference between an Alice in Chains song and an Alice Cooper song (well, save for the fact that I know a few of those.) Thing is Alice in Chains, this totally reputable and (in song circles) adored 90's band is a total adventure-CD for me. Brand-new experience.

Short story.

Love it. Loved it in a hurting kind of way. So much so that I had to back up and relisten to at least a few tracks - particular Dam the River and whatever preceded it. Those songs wrapped together were a bit like a warm blanket, to be honest. And it took me over an hour just to listen to the first 10 tunes. It's gonna be the first collection I'll need to steal stone-cold. Every song. Hope you got track info, me bucko.

Dude Looks Like Liv Tyler

Aerosmith's Permanent Vacation is the first CD to show up with one of your leftover wedding stickies - reminding me that track #9 is a fair Patty request.

Excellent. I hope those yellow tags stay in your CD collection forever.

The Worldwide Shortage of Babies Named Mutt.

Something to think about.

I cruised home tonight listening to Bryan Adams' So Far So Good and the Mutt Lange songs stuck out as clearly as anything I've ever heard from one songwriter. These aren't new songs, of course, but it was only tonight that I realized how easily they could be transformed into Def Leppard or Shania Twain tracks. More specifically the latter.

So the prickly question is this: if the Mutt Lange songs on So Far So Good are all credited as Adams/Lange and the Mutt Lange songs on any given Shania Twain album are all credited as Twain/Lange, and yet all of these songs sound remarkably the same; just what in the hell do Bryan Adams and Shania Twain contribute? Forget about lyrics, because the Adams/Lange songs sound written from the reference book of easy rhymes and love sentiments. We know that it's not the melodies or spunky choruses. So could it be that Lange is just a remarkable pushover when it comes to sharing credit? Is a guitar solo enough to give Bryan Adams songwriting royalties. And are the occasional and spontaneous "yeah"s and "mmm"s enough for Twain to be a co-songwriter?

I don't know. Who can say? I'm not sure that the world of songwriting credit is as regulated and politicked as the world of screenwriting, but clearly something is up.

And who was the better kisser?

Super Pooper

Funny thing about ABBA - I can't imagine I would ever put a CD on outside of a blitz.

The songs always seem so old and tired to me, worn out by some of the crew I knew in University residence or worse still, by the Mama Mia commercials that have plagued the radio for the last 2 years. But in the context of a blitz, the ABBA timing is always quite perfect and the groups always plays so smoothly, Prozaic even. I'd call ABBA Gold a staple.

So nevermind how bland a lot of the music sounds to me now, one song always takes me out of grumpy mode and makes the 7-year old start dancing: Super Trooper. Just love that one.

80 Degree Rawk

...was an absolute blast. Granted it was only the third CD in the Ol' Blitzeroo, but it also carries the distinction of being the first CD to be played twice. Well, most of the way.

First, it was an absolutely manic and off-the-meds experience. I'm sure most mixed collections will seem this way from the outside, but this CD in particular felt a little like a crazy person running through the mall, shouting nonsense and improvising a little dance as they go. Goonies and Ratt and NKOTB and, well...Countdown to Love. I'm not sure what your stream of consciousness was when you built this CD or what connections you were making piling these tracks together. Sure, there's the 80's connection (and the Streets of Fire connection in particular,) but still... I'd love some explanation if you have any. No, scratch that - it's better not to know.

Some tracks in particular warrant a closer examination:

Hold That Snake - Holy crap, is he singing about what I think he's singing about? And is he singing about it like it's that much fun to do? This might be the dirtiest (and happiest) pop tune I've heard since Jack U Off.

Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young - I knew right away, but still had to be certain, that this song came from the same crew as most of the Meatloaf catalogue. My God, so much sappy melodrama and so many over-the-top rock flourishes. It's easiest to imagine everybody involved running around the studio as they're recording, doing those high-Flashdance type kicks. This is probably the biggest guilty pleasure on the CD. Emphasis on the pleasure. Or maybe the guilty. Forget it, it's equal parts both.

Countdown to Love - It bugged me the first time, but more the second time, that he never actually counts down all the way to 1. The last verse pretty much finishes at two. I can understand why, but as a math nerd, it kind of rankled me.

Nowhere Fast - Now this is what I'm talking about. When I saw the 80 in the title of this CD, I expected 80's tunes and more than likely stuff I already knew pretty well. What I didn't expect was music that was new to me and yet soooo familiar sounding. This is the 80's sound that I obsess about. In fact, ugly as it sounds, this is precisely the sort of driving 80's rock tune that I would have devoured in 1987, all the while imagining it was something I wrote and performed (including those random Bonnie Tyler-style drum fills.) Basement lip-synching would've been involved. Ugh, what an awkward confession.

AC Dixie.

Didn't get a whole lot of time to blitz today on account of the weather. Took the train, y'see.

At any rate, one quick thing. You will never, never hear me complain about a CD that starts with rowdy power chords and ends with ol' fashioned bluegrass. .

YTD Lesson #8: Always Give Rock the Right of Way.

Ah, I haven't rocked out like that in a very long time.

On the 401, amid ugly, ugly rush-hour traffic, I cranked the AC/DC to a level that actually left me with a terrible head-ache. Throbbing pain which, to be clear, was the point. The volume was uncomfortable and abusive. There was such shouting and riffing in the car, that I barely noticed how long it took for me to get home.

This is a good start. A very good start.

The first track to really surprise me (so far) came from that thumping dance cover of AC/DC. When the throbbing dance beat started, immediately following Who Made Who? if I remember it right, I thought maybe we'd switched discs. I was pleased to see that we hadn't. And that you'd found a clever way to get around calling this a pure AC/DC CD (which would've alphebatized it after ABBA you must realize, regardless of your alpha-numeric title.)

You must tell me who sings that jazzy, wonderful cover of Highway to Hell by the way (track 17.)

First day's reaction? I'm really happy that you didn't give me track listings. And that most CDs will remain a mystery to me with regards to content. Too many blitzs, for me, are propelled by the impatience to get to the next song or the next CD. It's my ongoing struggle with this exercise to live in the moment and not worry about what I'm listening to next. Listening without track info (or any info for that matter) seems to have solved the problem completely. After all, I'm in no rush to finish the AC/DC CDs for 80 Degree Rawk. I don't know what the hell 80 Degree Rawk is.

By the by, I finished only the first CD and got only halfway through the second today. There's no rush on the part of this blitz. I don't think I'll scarf down 10-12 CDs/week after all.

For Those About to Rock...

So it goes. And it started out really, really, really cold.

Hell's Bells at 6 in the AM, under the blanket of a nut-shrinking -35º windchill. It happens that the Ol' Blitzeroo started with that familiar bell sounding, ran for 90 seconds, and then stopped as the CD player had a winter heart attack and died. [My CD player doesn't last long in frigid weather - strangely enough, if my foot hovers anywhere near the brake, the CD sputters out, then restarts when I return to the gas. If you can explain that, I'd love to hear the reason.]

At any rate, the music came back when the traffic loosened up, and I thunder(struck)ed through the first 8 tracks of your collection. Last thing I heard as I pulled up to work was Are You Ready?

Which, of course, I am.

Indeed.

I started pulling together the list of CDs last night into an Excel file, as you know I'll need to keep track of what I'm listening to in my own obsessive way. Funny enough, I didn't have a clue what I was typing. In a lot of instances, with the titles you've provided me, I can't be sure what's the artist and what's the title, or if the two are even distinct.

There's an awful lot of adventure in this line-up. I like it!

Don't panic.

It's too early. Much too early to start the blitz.

This blog should be relatively quiet until sometime in the New Year. Mid-January perhaps?

Until then.