48. Moving Pictures by Rush

 48. Moving Pictures by Rush

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auLBLk4ibAk&list=OLAK5uy_mqiUUrmZRm1dwrX78OHxpnLU3bnDaRhSQ

Side 1 of Moving Pictures is about as awesome as one side of a rock album can be. Side 2, not so much. But then, how could anyone follow "Tom Sawyer" followed by "Red Barchetta" followed by "YYZ" followed by "Limelight?" I know all the lyrics to all four of these songs, except for "YYZ," because it has no lyrics, and thus was qualified to be nominated for a Grammy for best rock instrumental performance. In fact, the group was nominated in this category 7 times! But it only won that award a mere 0 times. That's right--0 times! "YYZ" was Rush's first Grammy nomination, and it lost to "Behind My Camel" by The Police. Now, I like The Police and I like "Behind My Camel." But there is simply NO WAY it is a better rock instrumental song than "YYZ." If you listen to both of the songs at the same time, you'll see what I'm talking about. "Behind My Camel" just fades into the background. 

YYZ

Behind My Camel

During my junior year of high school, Randy and I used to listen to this album while laying in our beds. We mostly listened to Side 1 and skipped Side 2. But every now and then, Randy would flip it over, and we'd listen to "The Camera Eye," "Witch Hunt," and "Vital Signs." I also remember looking at the album cover. The front features a group of movers in red onesies carrying art up the steps of a stone-faced building (perhaps a museum?) while a group of onlookers look on and weep at their beauty, eh?!

The back cover features a film crew filming the folks on the front cover. 

This makes Moving Pictures one of the rare rock albums to ever pull off a triple entendre for the album title. Also, because of YYZ, it's one of the few rock albums to ever feature a Grammy nominated instrumental song with a rhythm based on any combination of Morse Code letters. ABBA did manage to get a hit with the song "S.O.S." but the rhythm of the actual Morse Code letters was not included in the song. 

As documented in my entry for number 89 of my Top 200 songs, "Red Barchetta" is my favorite song on this album because...no wait...I changed my mind. It's because the title of the song it reminds me of cheese. I changed my mind because my wife says I eat too much cheese, so I guess I must like it. So at either a subconscious or conscious level (or both), I can't help but want the cheese-related song to be my favorite. 

And now I'm thinking that the reason I like the Billy Joel song "Captain Jack" is because it might remind me of "Pepper Jack." Normally, I'm more of a Cheddar or Provalone or Jarlsberg or Muenster or Gouda or Havarti guy. Ah, but Pepper Jack will get me by tonight. Just a little slice, and I'll be smiling.

So, yeah. Cheese is good. But so is this album. And to be fair, the second side of the album has a good representation of their whole progressive rock thing with the nearly 11-minute long song "The Camera Eye." It would be the last time they featured a long song like this on their albums.

In my graduate school years, Julie purchased Vapor Trail when she went to a Rush concert with her brother. And I thought that album was good. But it just didn't have the emotional connection that this album has because I associate it with happy memories of hanging out with Randy in the basement. 

And cheese. 

49. Wild Planet by The B-52s

 49. Wild Planet by The B-52s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcXMq_DvP6M&list=OLAK5uy_kR1JLYLeMeGaAw7UGi169_0Ml8ZPUa9ZI

Because Cuts Like a Knife and Bat Out of Hell are two albums that bring up such fond memories of my friendship with Scapell, I hesitate to say too much about the albums for fear that any new information I dredge up might taint those memories. 

Actually, that's not completely true. I can share that Bryan Adams was the first famous live musician/band I saw in concert. He opened for Journey during the concert at the Mini-Dome during my junior year of high school. Besides playing all of his hits from Cuts Like a Knife, I remember that Bryan made a big deal of getting the crowd to yell "F--- You!" as loud as possible. And for some reason, that doesn't seem like that particular instance of mass public cursing would taint my memories of cruising the streets of Arimo with Scapell in Old Blue.

But it would be EXTREMELY easy to take the fond memories of hearing Bat Out of Hell in Scapell's basement and taint them with disturbing images and stupid stories of Meat Loaf's ridiculous behavior both behind and in front of the camera. So in my effort to maintain at least a few pure memories of time spent in Scapell's basement,  I try to ignore Meat Loaf as much as possible. 

However, there is one album that reminds me of Scapell that I can comment on in detail because my memory is of him not particularly liking the album. This memory is from when I played Wild Planet on the tape recorder while we all painted the Fink's house yellow for a scout service project, which was a big deal because up until that day, I believe the Fink house had always been pink. Why anyone would want to paint their house a color that rhymes with their last name is beyond me. But then again, there isn't a color that rhymes with "Olson," so I may just not understand how strong of a temptation that might be.

What I remember of that service project is that since we knew it would be boring to paint a house for two hours straight, I'd brought a pile of tapes that I'd recently received after joining the Columbia Records and Tape Club. We listened to some of them, and Sheldon liked a few. But when I pressed play on Wild Planet, he expressed what I can only characterize "instant revulsion." I think I managed to get "Private Idaho" and "Quiche Lorainne" played before Scapell carried out a full-on rebellion against my DJ-ing of the paintfest. And so the Eject button got pressed on Wild Planet before he ever got to hear "Party Out of Bounds," "Dirty Back Road," "Runnin' Around," and "Devil In My Car"--four songs that by their titles would seem to qualify as Scapell-approved music.

The reason I ordered Wild Planet as part of that initial penny's worth of music from CR&TC was that one day while I was hanging out with Chris at the Watkin's house, Barry happened to mention that he liked the song "Quiche Lorraine." I think that was in part because both the Nielsen and the Watkins families had miniature poodles for indoor pets, and since Quiche was a poodle about two inches tall...well, you can't get much more miniature of a poodle than that. Anyway, when I saw that Wild Planet was one the 13 tapes I could get for just one measly cent, I ordered it up. 

Of course, being an Idaho farm boy, "Private Idaho" was my favorite song from the tape, followed by "Quiche Lorraine." But the rest of the songs have a pretty steady level of quality, and I like them all equally as much. With the exception of "53 Miles West of Venus"--which is mainly an instrumental in which the girls just sing a chorus of "53 Miles West of Venus" repeatedly through the whole song--all of them have and interesting mix of guitar, drums, and synthesizer with quirky lyrics half-shouted by Fred Schneider. 

On a side note, for some reason, ever since hearing Wild Planet, I've thought that it would be fun to hear Fred sing a collection of Primary songs--especially "Give Said the Little Stream." Can't you just hear him sing/shout, "Give. Said. The LIT-tle STREAM. Give-oh-give. GIVE-oh-GIVE!"

I'm not sure why I associate his album with Scapell like I do. I suppose that maybe after being hit in the nuts so many times by balls thrown by Scapell, I might have derived some sort of twisted pleasure out of having done the equivalent of a nut-punch to Scapell's ears. All I know is that the older I get, the more precious my memories become of the time I spent in Arimo with my friends. And since Scapell's house was the site of the majority of hijinks we had together--like the Chopstick Spaghetti Dinner Date--any music that reminds me of time spent with Scapell just seems to be extra worthy of being included in my Top 60 album list.

(SNIPE WAVE!)

50. Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf

50. Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7ES7ueI7p0&list=PL248ar1sMUaBcgwctosA7BA1Yhvh99f5k

Hey, do you want to remember the glory days of playing ping-pong and hanging out in Sheldon's basement? Then all you need is one of these!

Nuff said!

51. Cuts Like a Knife by Bryan Adams

 51. Cuts Like a Knife by Bryan Adams

Hey, do you want to remember the glory days of riding around Arimo in Old Blue with Sheldon? Then all you need is one of these!

Nuff said!

Unfortunately, due to record deals and copyright laws and all that stuff, Bryan doesn't have the full playlist from Cuts Like a Knife. But he does have a mix of some music videos and live performances, and I'll piece together most of the album playlist from them below. There are a couple of songs that only have bootleg videos out there, so if the links don't work or there isn't a link, it's because they either don't exist or they got taken off by the YouTube police.

1. The Only One

2. Take Me Back

3. This Time

4. Straight from the Heart

5. Cuts Like a Knife

6. I'm Ready

7. What's It Gonna Be

8. Don't Leave Me Lonely

9. Let Him Know (It's a live performance, but it ain't Bryan Adams) 

10. The Best Was Yet to Come

52. Poodle Hat by Weird Al Yankovic

52. Poodle Hat by Weird Al Yankovic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YDOZjrVMAY&list=OLAK5uy_ljbAhXzssWBDwG6nZMwr5GFgDp8VE0GDQ

As a 14-year-old farm boy, many a Saturday was spent on a tractor on a Marsh Valley mountainside driving round and round a field, tilling up the soil in preparation for planting or just preventing the weeds from growing. But even though I had to spend the entire day on that tractor seat, I always was excited to do the work, because the tractor had a radio, and out in the fields up on a mountain, I could get the Salt Lake City radio station that played the Dr. Demento Show every Saturday. (My radio at home couldn't pick up the station.) And one of the reasons I loved the Dr. Demento Show was because he would play the Weird Al Yankovic's song " Yoda," and up on that mountain was the only place I could ever hear it, because it never got released on a record until 1985. But when I heard it in 1980--the year The Empire Strikes Back hit the theaters and Yoda over took Kermit as my favorite green muppet--I turned into a Weird Al Yankovic fan. Of course, for the next four years nobody else knew it in my school except for a few close friends. But then Weird Al released " Eat It" as a parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It," and the entire world took notice. I know that the student body of Marsh Valley High School took notice because I used to play "Beat It" at the school dances, wait about five songs, and then play "Eat It." There would always be some jock that would yell out, "You played that one already!" during the opening notes. But then when the weird fart noise started up, they'd all laugh and realize that they'd been pranked. 

That song got Al the 1984 Grammy for Best Comedy Recording. But the Grammys didn't stop there. Since then, he's been nominated 16 times for various albums, songs, and music videos, with five Grammy wins, including Best Comedy Album for Mandatory Fun and, one of my Top 60 favorite albums, Poodle Hat.

Poodle Hat won a Grammy for Best Comedy Album, which I think belies the man's true musical genius. He's not just funny. He's a talented composer, musician (he ROCKS the accordion), and singer. Yes, this album does have five straight-up parodies of hit songs written by other people, but there are seven original songs that hold their own musically against the parodied songs. And that's saying something because one of those parodied songs happens to be "Piano Man" by Billy Joel! And if you're a Ben Folds fan, Ben plays piano on the song "Why Does This Always Happen to Me," which is a style parody of Ben Folds songs. Apparently, the two men are friends, and Al will sometimes play with Ben just for the hell of it.

https://youtu.be/UHIM1leIsnE

The hallmark of Weird Al songs are the clever and funny lyrics, so there are plenty of spit-take-funny lines on this album. But I think the funniest part of the entire album comes from the beginning of "Why Does This Always Happen to Me?"

I was watching my TV one night

When they broke in with a special report

About some devastating earthquake in Peru

There were thirty thousand crushed to death

Even more were buried alive

On the Richter scale it measured 8.2

And I said

"God, please answer me one question"

"Why'd they have to interrupt The Simpsons just for this?"

One of the other things I love about Al's albums is how he will always include one song which will never get air-play on the radio because it's way too long. "Genius in France" is the long song for this album. As you listen to this song, see if you can figure out the different ways that he says that he is "dumb." (I count 35, but I could be wrong.) By the way, the song was written as an homage to Frank Zappa--another musical genius--and Frank's son, Dweezil Zappa, plays guitar on it.

I bought Poodle Hat while going to graduate school at Utah State, and I listened to it repeatedly at work while doing mindless boring work involving HTML code fixes. But it also got lots of play in the pickup truck anytime the family took a trip anywhere. Julie heard it enough times that now anytime I say, "Honey, don't you realize that I'm a genius?" she will say, "Yeah, but only in France." So THAT'S how much I listened to this album--enough times that my WIFE remembers the song lyrics and uses them against me. Consequently, you may want to listen to this album out of ear shot of your wife. But make sure the kids hear it, because loving a Weird Al song is something every kid should do, even if they don't have a radio on their tractor.

53. Synkronized by Jamiroquai

 53. Synkronized by Jamiroquai

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TounIThLmXw&list=PLnjdy1NbfUQIkADjL14lO0QUlO3eM12Z0

We want the funk! Give up the funk!

Synkronized gots all the funks--fast funk, slow funk, disco dance funk, '70s chase scene funk, psychedelic keyboard funk, brassedelic trumpet funk, bassedelic butt-rumbling deep beats funk, Godzilla funk, and...wait for it...didgeridoo funk!

The song most people associate with this album is "Canned Heat," as it was the song in the 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite that Napoleon danced to in front of the student body at Preston High School. And it's now hard to hear that song and not think of Jon Heder dancing in snow boots--kind of like how I can't listen to "Working for the Weekend" and not think of Chris Farley dancing shirtless with a bow tie and white cuffs. After the movie, some of the young kids had to go home and search the interwebs to find out what song it was that Napoleon danced to. But when I saw the film in the theater, I knew exactly what song it was from the very opening notes because I had purchased the 1999 album Synkronized during my second year of grad school at Utah State and had repeatedly listened to it on my headphones as I wrote HTML code at work.

While I can see why "Canned Heat" would be the most popular song off the album--it's got an irresistible deliciously danceable disco vibe--the album is chock-a-block full of other danceable songs. But the goofy thing about this album is that the songs you hear on it all depend on which country you bought it in. The UK version of the album included the bonus track "Deeper Underground," which was featured on the 1998 Godzilla movie. The Japanese version got a bonus track "Getinfunky," which is kind of weird, because you'd think the Japanese audience would want the bonus track from a Godzilla movie instead. And Australian's didn't get a bonus track on the album. They got a whole extra bonus disc! It had "Deeper Underground," "Getinfunky," and, my favorite of all the bonus songs, "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing." Also, there were two versions of the single for "Canned Heat," and one had "Deeper Underground," while the other had "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing,"--all of which means that these songs were written around the same time as the songs on the album, so they weren't new songs added onto an anniversary release of the original album just to boost sales. So I say if you're wondering which version to listen to so that you can say you've listened to the entire album, it's fair dinkum to consider yourself a triple-bonus funker from down under.

54. Random Access Memories by Daft Punk

 54. Random Access Memories by Daft Punk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKSsP2084nU&list=OLAK5uy_nZZjkBu_E4olFSb5Ey-fQ-4a0ZCqJICdQ

In case you missed it last month, Daft Punk broke up. The announcement was made, as so many are these days, via video.

https://youtu.be/DuDX6wNfjqc

While there are many great accomplishments the duo made during their 28 years together, I think their finest album was Random Access Memories, which cleaned up at the 2014 Grammy awards with Best Song, Record of the Year, and Best Pop/Duo Group Performance for "Get Lucky"--the breakout hit from the album. The album itself won for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, Best Dance/Electronica Album, and Album of the Year.

This album was another one that I bought before Julie and I took our anniversary trip to tour all of the lighthouses on the Pacific coastline of Oregon and northern California. I especially remember driving through the redwood forests in California while listening to Random Access Memories. So when I hear the dance tracks on this album, I don't think of disco balls and lighted dance floors. I think of 20-foot wide trees that are as tall as a football field is long. 

Random Access Memories features a lot of songs on which various other artists were featured. But the collaboration that surprised me the most was for the songs "Touch" and "Beyond," which featured lyrics written by Paul Williams. Yes. THAT Paul Williams.

Apparently, Paul had a big impact on the overall theme and sound of the entire album, so I guess it's somewhat fitting that when Daft Punk won the Grammy for Album of the Year, it was Paul who gave the acceptance speech--because Daft Punk don't talk none on the TV.  However, while I do like the lyrics on "Touch" and "Beyond," I don't think they're as good as the lyrics Paul wrote for his most famous song. No, I'm not talking about "Evergreen" which was sung by Barbara Streisand. And I'm not talking about "We've Only Just Begun" which was sung by The Carpenters. Nor am I talking about "Rainbow Connection," which was sung by Kermit the Frog. I'm talking about the lyrics to the theme song for The Love Boat! Now THAT's music that's exciting and new!

And now I suddenly find myself wondering if anyone has done a version of "The Love Boat" theme song with Jack Jones' voice on auto-tune. I'm also wondering how much better The Love Boat show would have been if Bernie Kopell and Fred Grandy had worn helmets with full face masks. But I guess only guests get to wear helmets on The Love Boat.

https://youtu.be/AB7f26dGGzI