#228: Arrested Development - 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life Of... (1992)

Zack: I’m going to go out on a limb and say that not many of the hip-hop albums released in 1992 had a 1:43 track mostly comprised of a flute and birds chirping. Which is a shame because Dr. Dre’s The Chronic or Ice Cube’s The Predator really could have used exactly that. It’s exactly that sort of tranquility that made Arrested Development stick out in a sea of gangstas. They are reminiscent of A Tribe Called Quest (Low End Theory, their biggest album, came out the year before), although most of their beats aren’t quite as funky. They do a few different things, but most rely on heavy bass lines as opposed to the typically drum-heavy West Coast stuff of the era. Lyrically, they’re inventive and just sort of positive in a way that really matches with the beats. Overall, I thought the album started out kind of slow, but by the time Raining Revolutions hits, the album turns into a seminal hip-hop classic.

Favorite Tracks: Give a Man a Fish; Dawn of the Dreads; Tennessee

Emily: Needless to say, hearing the name Arrested Development automatically makes me think of the great and ridiculous sitcom of Fox and Netflix, not the hip-hop band of the same name. I love the show and its antics, but I know next-to-nothing about early-'90s Afrocentric alternative rap. I was a bit disappointed that Arrested Development's debut album didn't feature a George Michael wood block solo or Tobias' Fantastic 4 musical medly or anything that could spark a Bluth chicken dance, but that didn't prevent me from enjoying it. The album has a laid-back feel from unique instrumentation and samples (like the flutes and birds Zack mentioned) that's perfect for summer listening. Unlike other rap of the era, it's peaceful instead of angry, rhythmic instead of staccato, and just positive and fun. While some of their more experimental choices fall flat, overall Arrested Development's debut is a unique spin on hip-hop from a time when almost everyone was doing the same gangsta thing. And you can always add your own chicken dance.

Favorite Tracks: Raining Revolution; Fishin' 4 Religion; Natural

#227: King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King (1969)

Emily: Prog tends to go a few ways of me. Its influence can add a rambling, experimental quality to pop or rock music. However, when that quality becomes the main focus of an album it can become too long and overwrought, perhaps requiring the listener to take part in the drugs that were taken to make the music happen. King Crimson's debut, though theoretically a wholly prog rock album, doesn't fall into that trap. Its five tracks, ranging from 6 to 12 minutes in length, keep listeners' attention by playing with sound and style. Jazz influences add an element of improvisation with a slight rock edge peeking through in the vocals and instrumentation. The result is unique and surprisingly modern - though released in 1969, it could be from the '80s or even this decade. King Crimson's influence on prog rock and rock in general can't be ignored, and this debut is worth a listen to find out why.
Favorite Tracks: 21st Century Schizoid Man; The Court of the Crimson King; Moonchild

Zack: I didn’t know much about King Crimson prior to today other than what I’d read on a few “Best Prog-Rock Band Lists” (don’t ask) and the sample on Kanye’s POWER. But those two things were enough to get me excited. This album, overall, was sort of backward in the best possible ways. The concluding track – The Court of the Crimson King – sounds a hell of a lot like an opener. And the first two tracks may start out relying predominantly on traditional rock instruments, but halfway through they let other instruments – horns in 21^st Century Schizoid Man, a flute in I Talk to the Wing – drive the songs instead of accentuating. Everything seemed to be constructed in a counterintuitive manner, and I loved that about it. The album seemed to lag a bit in the middle, but the beginning and end were cool, enjoyable and just downright infectious.

Favorite Tracks: 21^st Century Schizoid Man; The Court of the Crimson King; I Talk to the Wind

#226: Paul Simon - Graceland (1986)

Emily: Paul Simon's musical style can best be described as "troubadour." He learns stories of people, places, emotions, and events, and retells them in song. He did it with Garfunkel by keeping the music minimalistic so the listener could focus on the story in the lyrics. Here, in his mid-'80s solo career, he takes a slightly different path. Inspired by apartheid-era South African township music, Simon broadens the scope of both his lyrics and his music. He draws from African pop music and instrumental styles and incorporates them with American pop and rock, creating a unique sound that tells a global story.
Favorite Tracks: Graceland; You Can Call Me Al; Crazy Love, Vol. II

Zack: This album featured not only Paul “I’m involved in 6 albums on this list” Simon, but a bunch of people who make appearances in the world genre of the 1001 Albums You Must Listen to Before Your Time on This Earth Ends. Because of that, I could see it being a great intro for someone who wants to get into sub-Saharan music but doesn’t just want to jump right in with some Fela Kuti. Considering it sold only like a billion copies, it clearly must be pretty accessible to Western audiences. But, for me, it was kind of underwhelming. I think a large part of that is that we play the lead single – You Can Call Me Al – at work so I’ve heard it enough times to like the song and then develop a burning hatred of it. Not even Chevy Chase could redeem this song in my ears. I probably need to listen to the album again to digest the lyrical complexities that Paul Simon is known for, but after a first listen I was kind of unimpressed.

Favorite Tracks: Graceland; All Around the World or the Myth of Fingerprints; Under African Skies

#225: Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory (2000)

Zack: Along with Sum 41’s seminal All Killer, No Filler, Hybrid Theory was one of the first albums I ever got. I forget if they were birthday or Christmas gifts, but that is where my musical voyage began. So, yeah, there’s a bit of sentimental value here. Realistically, I may have listened to this album more than any other….ever. I was that big of an 11-year-old Linkin Park fan. I don’t think I’d listened to it in like 5 years before today, but you best believe I knew every word. And I think it’s important to know that I first gravitated to them when I heard Crawling (the second single), not In the End (the fourth) like all the other 11-year-old posers. It’s also probably important to mention that I continued listening to Linkin Park up until like my junior year of high school, when I would listen to Minutes to Midnight and play Final Fantasy X, which I’m telling you solely because writing about how dated things are is fun. For fuck’s sake, I had Reanimation, the album where they just remixed all the songs on Hybrid Theory and drifted a bit more towards the rap portion of the rap-rock chimera they professed to be. Ultimately, my point here is to make it clear that I can’t possibly critique it. There’s just too strong a bond. It was hard not to just give every song 5 stars out of sheer echoes of childhood wonder at what I was hearing. Honestly, this is not a great album. It might not even be a good album, and I assume it’s only on this list because…okay I’m not even sure why. Because they sold a lot of copies? Because it’s like a super mainstream form of Rage Against the Machine? I really don’t know. But this is my childhood right here. If you want to listen to something tangentially related to Linkin Park that is actually worth checking out, get The Rising Tied by Fort Minor (Mike Shinoda’s side project). It’s got some crazy Machine Shop beats and a lot of really great guest spots, including Common, Lupe Fiasco, John Legend and Black Thought. Seriosuly. But Hybrid Theory is best left as a memento of a bygone era where people thought that Linkin Park were legitimately cool to listen to.

Favorite Tracks: Crawling; A Place for My Head; In the End

Emily: Linkin Park fans tend to be adolescent or teenage boys full of angst and/or anger. The person I most associate with the band is a kid who was on my bus in middle school and high school who fucking loved them. He went to multiple concerts and tried to get his other friends on the bus to go with him (seemingly to no avail). This kid wasn't particularly angsty or angry, but perhaps he was just suffering from the general state of teendom. Female preteens and teenagers going through the same thing had different musical heroes in the early '00s (hello, Avril Lavigne), so I personally never really got in to Linkin Park beyond their singles (though I do really enjoy Numb and its subsequent mashup with Jay-Z's Encore). Hybrid Theory makes clear why Linkin Park was so successful and revered by music-buying teen boys. It's one of the most accessible albums of the early rap-rock era with its arena guitars, scream-sung lyrics filled with anger and emotion, and interwoven rap verses. While I found it inconsistent, the singles are strong examples of alternative metal and signal Linkin Park's potential - a potential fulfilled through millions of albums sold.

Favorite Tracks: In the End; Crawling; One Step Closer

#224: Lynyrd Skynyrd - (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd) (1973)

Zack: We have a system for picking albums that essentially works with me picking a whole bunch of possible albums and Emily deciding on the final batches. For some reason, she decided to double down on the southern rock subgenre, as we will be listening to The Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East sometime within the next two weeks or so. I’ve already listened to that album like a dozen times, and I’m super excited to talk about what a perfect example of southern/jam rock it is. And I think the comparison with Skynyrd will be interesting. But it brought me to this larger question of where Skynyrd ranks as far as southern rock goes. The almighty Wikipedia begins the list of influential southern rock bands with – in order – Allman Brothers, Skynyrd, and ZZ Top. Now, at their best, ZZ Top are ridiculously cheesy, which is what I thought about a few songs of this album (and what I think about Sweet Home Alabama in general, but that’s a discussion for another day). But when the Allman Brothers are at their best, what could conceivably be a short song gets whipped up into an extended slide guitar jam session, freewheeling around in perfectly synchronized chaos. Sounds a lot like Free Bird, doesn’t it. And that’s what I came away with. This album was inconsistent enough that it flipped between being reminiscent of these other two bastions of southern rock. And I’ll stand by that assessment for every track, except Simple Man. That song, I maintain, is damn near perfect while still being stripped down (at least compared to Free Bird). In Simple Man, I hear a lot of influence for a more modern southern rock-influenced band that I love, My Morning Jacket, especially their earlier works. Simple Man is, for me, more than enough reason to appreciate Skynyrd.

Favorite Tracks: Simple Man; Free Bird; Tuesday’s Gone

Emily: Lynyrd Skynyrd is known for a few things in my mind. One, that half of the band died in a plane crash. Two, that Sweet Home Alabama has become a Southern anthem of sorts. And three, Free Bird has become the universal sign of douchebaggery when yelled for at a concert - especially one that's completely unrelated to the genre (though it was kinda funny when a guy held a Free Bird sign from his balcony hundreds of feet away from a free Switchfoot concert we went to last summer). These don't exactly combine up to fandom in my mind, and after listening to Skynyrd's entire debut I'm still not all that into it. Southern jam rock just isn't my thing - I prefer my songs on the shorter end, minus the oft-repetitive musical interludes. Perhaps I'll like the Allman Brothers better though; we'll find that out in a few days.

Favorite Tracks: Free Bird; Tuesday's Gone; Simple Man

#223: Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (1983)

Emily: Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - the song and title track of this album - is honestly one of my favorite songs of all time. I remember a commercial for some '80s pop compilation CD that used to air when I was a kid that featured a short clip of the song with its classic music video, and I loved it. It played in the car on the '80s-'90s-and-today pop stations my mom would choose and I sang along to every word. Even today I'll still stop on it when I come across it on the radio and sing and dance along in the drivers' seat. Not surprisingly, however, I couldn't identify another Eurythmics song before today. I've noticed that '80s new wave and synth pop tends to work best for one song per album per artist (see: Soft Cell). Sweet Dreams the song is certainly the best song on Sweet Dreams the album - it's a perfectly synth-driven '80s pop song - but that doesn't mean you should throw away the rest of the album. Annie Lennox's soulful voice pairs so well with the electronic sounds of new wave, especially on the more upbeat dance tracks. It's worth at least one listen, and then you can put Sweet Dreams on repeat as many times as you want. That's my plan.
Favorite Tracks: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This); I Could Give You (A Mirror); Wrap It Up

Zack: So obviously the title track is just ludicrously famous. And the album overall stands as a testament to something I’ve written time and time again: New Wave – for the most part – sounds really dated now. But I think it’s more important to mention that I had no idea Atmosphere’s Shoulda Known sampled Somebody Told Me. For those of you who (sadly) don’t know, Atmosphere is one of the most critically adored and commercially “successful” underground hip-hop acts in the word (success being a relative term only applied to underground artists here) and the album where Shoulda Known appears, When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold, is absolutely in my top 10 favorite hip-hop albums of all time, maybe even top 5. So when I heard that pulsating synth appear, I damn near lost my mind. Overall, I liked Sweet Dreams less than I enjoyed Duran Duran or a-Ha, but more than several other albums from the genre. I expected to love it, and came away not upset in the investment of the time. I’ll take it.

Favorite Tracks: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This); I Could Give You (A Mirror); Somebody Told Me

#222: Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters (2004)

Emily: Zack listened to this album before I did, and he let me know that it was not just a great album, but the kind of album that I would absolutely love. He knows me so well. Scissor Sisters' self-titled debut album is a fun, dance-worthy reimagining of disco. This isn't Saturday Night Fever Stayin' Alive kinda stuff, but something new and modern - perfect for any dancing queen (or king) to get up and shake it. Beyond its danceability, the band is talented, creative, and clever. They take pop tropes and add an independent aesthetic to create music that at once sounds like the guilty-pleasure genre you know and (secretly) love and also like something you've never heard before. For instance, they take Comfortably Numb - the Pink Floyd classic - and completely redevelop it into a dance song. Roger Waters himself even congratulated them on this unique spin. Scissor Sisters have made this blend of genres and worlds their staple, even in the face of controversy (a song titled Tits on the Radio generally doesn't go over too well with the censors). Give this debut a listen, and get in on their fun.
Favorite Tracks: Comfortably Numb; Take Your Mama; Laura

Zack: My expectations were exceptionally warped before hitting play on this album. I’d never heard of the band before, but the name Scissor Sisters just sounds like an '80s post-punk band. So I dutifully went and pulled previous reviews of the likes of Siouxsie and the Banshees and Bauhaus and got ready to hit change all on the band names, because that’s basically where we’re at with those nearly indistinguishable efforts. Lo and behold, this album is 20 years past that era and completely different in every way (although they do list Siouxie as an influence). It’s a glam rock masterpiece with added sprinklings of disco and electronic music. Did I mention that it’s a masterpiece? Scissor Sisters' album is just impossible catchy and virtually impossible not to love. Had a Wal-Mart executive just given Laura or the Pink-Floyd-in-their-roller-blade-phase rendition of Comfortably Numb or, hell, even the so-called offensive Tits on the Radio a listen, I’d be willing to wager that they wouldn’t have banned it for its apparent crusade against conservatism. They would have been too busy shaking what all that high fructose corn syrup gave them. Seriously, though, I could draw a million musical parallels between everyone from Elton John to Arctic Monkeys, but it’s better just to go get a copy yourself and realize why people in the UK bought over 7 million copies of it.

Favorite Tracks: Laura; Music is the Victim; Take Your Mama

#221: The Flying Burrito Brothers - The Gilded Palace of Sin (1969)

Zack: Wikipedia says this album was probably inspired by the Louvin Brothers, but I promise I didn’t hold that against them. Gilded Palace was a pretty good country album, a genre I have slowly begun to embrace more fully. While listening, I thought back to a conversation I had recently with a friend. She told me that she doesn’t like country music, and I told her I could probably get her to give it a chance. So throughout this album, I kept listening for songs that would be well-suited for a Beginner’s Guide to Country Music playlist. Sure enough, two stuck out at me. Dark End of the Street is an R&B song that they repurpose, which I thought showed the ability of country music to adapt and infuse with its own unique character. Hot Burrito #1 manages to be a sad country song while eschewing all that crappy twang that usually gets bottled up with it. Those two songs were definitely the most accessible, and generally the highlights for me.

Favorite Tracks: Dark End of the Street; Hot Burrito #1; Wheels

Emily: Also according to Wikipedia, this album is a major influence on the alt-country movement in the '80s and '90s, especially for bands like Whiskeytown and Wilco. Now, I enjoyed both of those bands tremendously, but apparently not for their '60s country-rock influences. I thought Gilded Palace of Sin was just okay. Some of it harkened back to the heavily twangy '50s country sound that I completely disliked, while other tracks went in a new direction with rock, R&B, and psychedelic influences. Those tracks, in my opinion, were the most interesting and most successful. I especially enjoyed the pair of Hot Burrito songs. While they had nothing to do with the Taco Bell delicacy, each track incorporated country emotion and connection with the sounds of the time, modernizing country music up to 1969. Perhaps that's where the influence on alt-country comes in - taking the old-school country genre, adding modern twists and turns, and coming up with something at once classic and original.

Favorite Tracks: Hot Burrito #1; Hot Burrito #2; Dark End of the Street

#220: Cream - Disraeli Gears (1967)

Zack: Behold: The first Clapton-related album I ever listened to. And it is indeed a marvel. For those of you curious about the exact path I took into Clapton fan-dom, I started, as I think many must do, by hearing Sunshine of Your Love. That is one killer of a song. So I tracked down the album it originated from and gave that a listen. I guess I was probably 16 or 17 at the time. Mind, meet blown. So then I went through Fresh Cream and Wheels of Fire (I skipped over Goodbye. Not sure why. It’s not particularly great, but Badge is a good song). From there I just grabbed whatever Clapton solo stuff my Dad had – August and Journeyman were the two that stuck out – and checked that out. They’re both kind of hit or miss, but Miss You (off August) remains one of my all-time favorite Clapton jams, no matter what Rolling Stone says. I located Riding with the King and Unplugged to vary it up as well. Both are awesome. I never made it to Derek and the Dominoes, other than Layla of course, or Bluesbreakers, but both are represented on the list and I eagerly await the opportunity. But to return to what launched my exploration, Disraeli Gears just has a bit of something for everyone. It’s kind of psychedelic, but there’s a real hard rock vibe as well. Of course there’s Clapton’s signature bluesy guitar and Ginger Baker’s jazz drums. All of these different components meld together perfectly to create a spinning sea of virtuoso musicianship. Besides for being my first Clapton exposure, it remains to this day my favorite example of his work.

Favorite Tracks: Sunshine of Your Love; Tales of Brave Ulysses; SWLABR

Emily: Unlike Zack, I know next to nothing about Cream. I first heard Sunshine of Your Love on Guitar Hero back in the day, and that song is fucking awesome. Also really easy to play on Guitar Hero. I don't know much beyond that. Oh, also that Eric Clapton is in the band. Yeah, I don't know all that much. I'm glad I got a bit more exposure to Cream by listening to this album in its entirety. You can clearly hear the late-'60s influence swirling around through a blend of blues guitar with psychedelic ambiance. Sunshine of Your Love still embodies this best with one of the best basslines and guitar riffs in all of rock music. So whether you're a Clapton expert like Zack or just a former Guitar Hero player like me, Disraeli Gears is a classic album worth listening to.

Favorite Tracks: Sunshine of Your Love; Strange Brew; Tales of Brave Ulysses

#219: Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (1977)

Zack: I think it’s fair to say that the big three of punk are The Ramones, The Clash and the Sex Pistols in some order or another. Technically, The Ramones were first, and The Clash had the longest stretch of sustained excellence. But I’ll be damned if anyone did the whole punk rock thing as hard as the Sex Pistols did. I mean, damn. The Ramones had a 22-year career that included 14 studio albums. Since my first London Calling experience, I’ve listened to every Clash album but their debut (on this list, so I’ll get to it) and Cut the Crap (unanimously understood to be terrible) and they really were just consistently great, even though they updated and expanded their sound pretty much at every turn. To be put in the same level with those two when you were around for two years and have exactly one album is an impressive feat. And they definitely earned that spot. This album is so consistent throughout. The instrumentals are more aggressive than The Ramones. Even if I compare them to Give ‘Em Enough Rope (the most apt comparison I can come up with within that era), there’s just a sharper edge, a certain violence, that you don’t hear elsewhere. It’s something that we heard echoed in The Dead Kennedys and The Germs, but the general attitude that they imparted in their music sticks out from the contemporaries we’ve already experienced and shows just how monumental their influence was, even though they only had one album to do it.

Favorite Tracks: Anarchy in the UK; Pretty Vacant; God Save the Queen

Emily: Somehow, in all of my time listening to punk and punk-influenced music, I have never listened to the the entirety of the Sex Pistols debut (and only) album. I'm a bit embarrassed by this fact too, since essentially all of punk music and culture can be traced back to this album. It has the bouncing-but-sneering three-chord sound, the loud scream-sung vocals, the social and political commentary, and - most importantly, at least to me - the punk attitude. That angry, vocal, don't-take-shit-and-don't give-a-shit attitude that became an absolute staple of the movement that followed and its many revivals and iterations. The Sex Pistols embody punk because they created it, and everything that followed built and developed off it. So if you've ever been a punk fan, or a pop-punk fan, or a post-punk fan, or an alternative fan, or a grunge fan, give this album a listen. My guess is you'll be a fan of it too.

Favorite Tracks: Anarchy in the UK; God Save the Queen; No Feelings

#218: Mylo - Destroy Rock & Roll (2004)

Emily: I listened to this album without any context, meaning I was completely unfamiliar with the album beforehand and as I listened I had no Wikipedia or other source to inform me. Sometimes this is the best way to hear an unfamiliar album, at least for me, because I go in with no judgment or preconcieved notions of the era, artist, or genre. For the better part of two train rides, my ears were filled with Mylo's DJ-produced electronica. I speculated as to its origins: '80s spoken-word samples of rock and pop albums to be eliminated from the Bible Belt in the title track seemed to age it, but the repetitive beats seemed like a recent predecessor to the current EDM and dubstep craze (minus that genre's heavily dropped bass lines). Was Mylo a peer of Daft Punk, or Aphex Twin, or some random Swedish DJs I've never even heard of? Turns out he's pretty modern - Destroy Rock & Roll is a British product from 2004. While listening, my questions and speculations kept me engaged even when the repetition inherent in this style of music bored or irritated me. A a few tracks used unique samples and looping techniques that had me listening closely and (discreetly) bobbing my head, but 5 minutes of the same 3 beats over and over and over again was just too much for me on a few tracks. It was simply too long - cut this album in half, and I would perhaps have been a bigger fan.
Favorite Tracks: Destroy Rock & Roll; Drop The Pressure; Valley of the Dolls

Zack: I haven’t shied away on this blog from discussing my affinity for the Foo Fighters and pretty much all things Dave Grohl (Probots included). That love extends to their last album – Wasting Light – which just so happens to have been recorded in Mr. Grohl’s garage using only analog, and therefore features absolutely zero digital enhancement. It’s a great album, and won the Grammy for Best Rock Album. I remember (it happened two years ago, I’m not exactly stretching far back here) when they went to accept that award, and Dave Grohl talked about how proud of it he was because he inferred that a moral victory for natural rock music accompanied that weird little figurine or whatever the hell it is. The group of friends fucking around in a garage, making music that sounded exactly like them and not some computer-enhanced super-band iteration had won. Chock it up for the good guys. That same night the Foos did a live mashup with Deadmau5 and Lil' Wayne, but Atmosphere told me I “have to let people be hypocrites,” so I’m letting it slide. With that context in mind, I found this album pretty interesting. Obviously you have the title, and it’s an electronic/chillout album through and through. It’s completely synthesized, and so I guess should be an affront to real rockers everywhere. But I don’t think that’s the case. If anything, it seemed to me to be a love letter to rock music. The most obvious example is the album’s namesake track, which samples the “Invocation for Judgement Against and Destruction of Rock Music” by Church Universal and Triumph. That’s an actual church, mind you, not a Lupe Fiasco side project. And the dialogue usurped for this purpose is an unabashed condemnation of rock, used in these circumstances as something to be mocked. Seriously, how dumb do you have to be to mispronounce David Bowie’s name? He’s hardly Krist Novoselic. The point of the song is clear: Listen to these fucking morons not understanding the value to all these musicians that we grew up listening to. But it’s sort of a theme build upon throughout the album. Even if Mylo is producing music a different way, using different techniques, he’s still appealing to a shared cultural context that we all share, one forged by the audial storytelling done by plenty of the names listed on that song. Mylo can’t exist without all those rockers that predate him, and he knows it. So he never sat out to destroy rock & roll, just to celebrate it.

Favorite Tracks: Destroy Rock & Roll; Sunworshipper; Emotion 98.6   

#217: Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance (1978)

Zack: I often find myself wondering why there aren’t more experimental synthpunk bands out there, and contemplating if this is a niche market worth conquering. Only now, in this late hour, do I learn that Pere Ubu has that subsection of music lovers covered, and has done so pretty consistently since 1975. They even released an album this year. I hadn’t heard of this band before this list-related escapade started and had absolutely no idea that they are seemingly this influential. On The Modern Dance, you can hear New Wave and post punk about to be born. I’m pretty sure Sonic Youth descended from its womb a few years after its release, and I picked up a bit of Butthole Surfers as well. And, perhaps most remarkably, it doesn’t sound dated. If you had told me this album was released any time between 1972 and 2011, I wouldn’t have blinked. It just sort of has a well-preserved sound to it that is really impressive for its age. As an overall album, I thought it was alright. But it was still really cool to get to listen to this overlooked but seemingly important corner of modern music history.

Favorite Tracks: Street Waves; Life Stinks; Over My Head

Emily: When I first encountered Pere Ubu, I thought it would be one dude playing Latin American music (or something along those lines). Much like Steely Dan, Pere Ubu is not a person. It's a whole band. And they don't play salsa or bachata tunes, but rather experimental post-punk-ish rock. They experiment with different noises and sounds beyond instrumentals, but combine them with garage and other rock rhythms. This prevents them from venturing too far into Captain Beefheart territory (though one song veered dangerously close) while remaining innovative. Pere Ubu also works with post-punk before punk was even over, perhaps blazing a trail for that genre in the early '80s. It's different without being weird, attention grabbing but not in a negative way. Others perfected this sound in the years following, but Pere Ubu - though obscure - was one of the first to go there.

Favorite Tracks: Real World; Street Waves; Non-Alignment Pact