1. "Letter Never Sent" by R.E.M...It's hard to describe how much I loved these guys. They were everything a lonely awkward teenager could ask for: they were a revelation and totally different from everything else, and discovering them was like finding a secret room in a house full of dithering idiots. Remember, Duran Duran was big back then, and every song on the radio in Upstate New York was either Rush or the Scorpions, and losers like the Fixx passed for New Wave.
There is a school of thought that the '80's were the worst decade in pop music, and if that is true, then '83 was the worst year of the worst decade. That was the year that Murmur came out, and it won Album of the Year in Rolling Stone and I had never fucking heard of it. That sort of let me know that there were worlds out there that didn't get played on Top-40 radio and that they were worth searching out. I actually bought Reckoning first for some reason, and listened to it at least a million times, and, if pot is the gateway drug that leads to the harder stuff, then R.E.M. was my pot, because in short time all my Yes and Supertramp albums sat unplayed while more and more obscure stuff filled my playlist. But R.E.M. was there first, and, like I said, it's hard to describe how much I loved these guys.
2. "Silence Kit" by Pavement...Total proof that that the actual words have very little to do with the feeling conveyed. This is such a slippery subject that I've avoided it several different times, but why is Exile on Main Street so good when you can't understand the words? Does knowing the lyrics to "Tumbling Dice" mean that you enjoy the song more than when you just sort of mumbled along? Why was Murmer the Album of the Year when no one could understand anything Stipe said? In Pavement's case you can understand the individual words, but they don't make any literal sense. So what's up? What makes those songs so evocative, and so much better than Blink 182? I think it's the way the words and meanings collide and bounce off each other that make it more satisfying than listening to some idiot sing "I love you."
3. "A Stroll" by Tom Verlaine
There is a school of thought that the '80's were the worst decade in pop music, and if that is true, then '83 was the worst year of the worst decade. That was the year that Murmur came out, and it won Album of the Year in Rolling Stone and I had never fucking heard of it. That sort of let me know that there were worlds out there that didn't get played on Top-40 radio and that they were worth searching out. I actually bought Reckoning first for some reason, and listened to it at least a million times, and, if pot is the gateway drug that leads to the harder stuff, then R.E.M. was my pot, because in short time all my Yes and Supertramp albums sat unplayed while more and more obscure stuff filled my playlist. But R.E.M. was there first, and, like I said, it's hard to describe how much I loved these guys.
2. "Silence Kit" by Pavement...Total proof that that the actual words have very little to do with the feeling conveyed. This is such a slippery subject that I've avoided it several different times, but why is Exile on Main Street so good when you can't understand the words? Does knowing the lyrics to "Tumbling Dice" mean that you enjoy the song more than when you just sort of mumbled along? Why was Murmer the Album of the Year when no one could understand anything Stipe said? In Pavement's case you can understand the individual words, but they don't make any literal sense. So what's up? What makes those songs so evocative, and so much better than Blink 182? I think it's the way the words and meanings collide and bounce off each other that make it more satisfying than listening to some idiot sing "I love you."
3. "A Stroll" by Tom Verlaine
