Just Can’t Get Enough

January 16th, 2006

When I was younger, I wanted to be cool, but it just wasn’t happening. The evidence has already been presented in gross detail: I was an oboe player who wore a busbie, marched in the band and had a penchant for horrendous fashion choices, such as horizontal striped tights. I also went to the midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show dressed as Magenta and, I’m horrified to admit, participated in *acting it out* at the front of the theater with everyone else on more than one occasion.

Wicked cool, yes? SO COOL. Anyway, I never really listened to supercool music, either. New Wave wasn’t all that hip in the early ‘90s, when grunge was making its first appearance on the scene. Suddenly piles of young kids were listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam (who had zero influence on my life whatsoever), and dressing in clunky workboots and flannel shirts. New Wave and electronica was the anti-cool, but it made me feel cool anyway.

I started listening to Erasure in the 6th grade, and I can’t even remember how or why, but if I really thought about it, that whole discovery influenced what I listen to today, nearly 20 years later. In fact, everything I listen to can pretty much be boiled down to the influence of 10 albums, which are arguably the best albums in the entire history of albums, in my opinion. They aren’t cool, but I don’t care. Make fun of Morrissey I will poke your eyes out with sticks.

For the past few months, every post title has been after a song title from my history – even Anne Murray, as my mother is a tremendous fan and I grew up listening to her on repeat. I daresay that post title hasn’t been inspired by these albums, but many of the others have.

1) The Smiths, Hatful of Hollow – There’s really one simple reason why this album is fabulous: It includes “How Soon Is Now?” which is heralded by many as the first alternative song to grace mainstream radio. I wasn’t really paying enough attention at the time, but I will say it remains the one song I can listen to on repeat over and over again without getting tired of it. And the lyrics are a brilliant study in ridiculous self-absorbed melancholy. Plus the album includes, in one happy collection, other greats that I adore without condition: “William, It Was Really Nothing,” “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want,” “This Charming Man” and “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.” The Smiths were arrogant enough to release “greatest hits” albums like this one incredibly early in their career, but I daresay it worked out well for them.

2) New Order, Substance. Bernard Sumner has one of the most soothing voices in music. It’s not great by classical standards, and he’s not particularly artful in his delivery, but the slightly clipped, nonchalant singsong tone sucks me in every time. New Order also took light electronica and mixed it with actual instruments. While I loved the band’s roots in Joy Division, New Order brings a certain flip, irreverent tone to their songs that Ian Curtis lacked. Where Curtis was self-conscious, Sumner is self-effacing. I mean, the man actually sung the words, “You’ve caught me at a bad time/so why don’t you piss off” in such a compelling tone that he invites legions to sing along in good-humored solidarity. Substance is the collection of many of their greatest songs, including “Blue Monday,” “Shellshock” (immortalized in Pretty in Pink) and “Bizarre Love Triangle,” one of the few songs that gives me goosebumps at every listen.

3) There needs to be a Depeche Mode album here, but it’s nearly impossible to pick just one. On one hand, there is Speak and Spell, which brought the world “Just Can’t Get Enough,” a simple, bubbly anthem that showcased Vince Clarke’s incredible talent for catchy hooks supported by deceptively complex arrangements. Vince Clarke went on to become one of the most incredibly underrated musical icons, and I can’t help but feel more loyalty to his work with DM than anything they did later. However, there is the brilliance that is Violator. I mean, everyone from Marilyn Manson to Johnny freaking CASH covered “Personal Jesus,” and the rest of the album is equally gripping. But as brilliant as Martin Gore is, he possesses an arrogance that Vince Clarke endearingly lacks.

4) Erasure, Wild. Vince Clarke, I love you. Had I known all this time that you were willing to marry an American girl and live in Portland, Maine, I would have tried to find you a long time ago. Electronica rules here, and every single song on this album is perfection, from “Blue Savannah” to “Brother and Sister.” Beautifully – truly stunningly – arranged with sweeping emotion and spot-on, soul-baring vocals, it’s Erasure’s finest masterpiece. Clarke proves once again that electronica is much more than pushing buttons on a synthesizer and faking it. The longtime duo is an incredible concert experience not to be missed, but is not for the faint of heart. Frontman Andy Bell has been known to don tutus, strategically-placed (ahem) horns and a mind-boggling amount of Spandex. Prepare for a jolly good time with a dose of irreverent, at times graphic, self-effacing gay humor.

5) Peter Gabriel, Shaking the Tree. Peter Gabriel is by far the most brilliant musician and songwriter I have ever had the privilege of listening to. Seriously – he is absolutely outstanding, and let’s all thank God that he left Genesis, for could you really imagine him enduring “The Living Years” with a straight face? Or worse, sinking to the easy-listening depths of Phil Collins? This album would be worth it for the stark beauty of “Here Comes the Flood” alone, but the fact that it’s 16 of Peter Gabriel’s personal favorite songs from the past few decades makes it beyond special. Perpetual concert favorite, “Biko” closes the album, as he closes every concert – and everyone must find a way to see Gabriel in concert at least once. Of note, this compilation does not include famed love-anthem “In Your Eyes,” and with good reason: Pete has often commented that it is far from his favorite tune, and was reluctant to permit its defining appearance in Say Anything.

6) REM, Automatic for the People. I don’t love REM the way I love the other artists on this list, but Automatic is too good not to be here. R.E.M. is hit-or-miss for me a lot of the time, and unlike my beautiful friend Annie, I prefer Michael Stipe in his later years, after he gained the confidence to showcase his vocals and relinquish his position as reluctant frontman and emerge as an icon, but before Monster turned him into a cartoon. Automatic for the People is a wondrous collection of moving, quirky tunes with lyrics that catch listeners by surprise. While the oft-played “Everybody Hurts” is the best known track, “Nightswimming” is perhaps the most beautiful REM song in the history of REM, rivaled only by “Daysleeper” in its stunning simplicity.

7) Tori Amos, Little Earthquakes. While Tori has gone on to create much edgier albums that would define her in ways well beyond her angry roots, “Little Earthquakes” is what Tori should be. Not only does the album give us “Me and a Gun,” and “Silent All These Years,” but “Tear in Your Hand” is a marvelously spot-on breakup anthem that is more poignant with each listen. “Maybe she’s pieces of me you’ve never seen/Maybe she’s just pieces of me you’ve never seen” speaks to the desperation of an unwanted break up better than any song I’ve heard before or since.
Garden State Soundtrack. Once in a while, a soundtrack comes along that is virtually inextricable from the movie that spawned it. Listening to the Garden State soundtrack instantly transports listeners back to the quietly moving, quirky film that made Zach Braff a superstar and outed a generation of indie rock bands, surely pissing off legions of condescending followers. I can hear the collective exasperated sigh of a nation of Shins fans, and in a few short months, have already heard grumblings that they have indeed, sold out. Whatever. Aside from its indie status, the soundtrack is an amazing journey that melds little-known tracks like “The Only Living Boy in New York,” with modern vocal genius Imogene Heap in Frou Frou’s “Let Go.” And really, the use of “The Only Living Boy in New York” redefined the song, originally a melancholy tune about a disintegrating relationship (Garfunkel pulling away from Simon) and turned it into a tune of redemption and discovery. Brilliant.

9) Paul Simon, Graceland.
You’ve simply got to go to Graceland, and forget about the visual of Chevy Chase on a bongo drum. Please. It’s so much more than “You Can Call Me Al.” Simon blended influences from all over the world before Dave Matthews even thought about it. The title track is wonderful, as is “Boy in the Bubble.”

10) The Killers, Hot Fuss. Thank you, Brandon Flowers, for not only being more magically delicious than a bowl of Lucky Charms will ever be, but for bringing new wave back to modern radio. Thank you for thinking Morrissey is cool and discussing Erasure with the tone of reverence that they so richly deserve. Thank you for taking vocal cues from David Bowie in “China Girl,” (among countless others) and sounding sexier than sexy in the background of “All These Things That I’ve Done.” Thank you for bringing eye makeup back to male lead singers. But mostly, thank you for restoring my faith that good music is still being recorded post-1986.

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