Shamelessly Punting: 30 Things That Turn 30 in 2022, Ranked

I know, it’s only been a month since the last one of these, but man, things are busy. I’ll be back up and running normally soon. 

Uncle Tupelo – March 16-20, 1992

The Jesus Lizard – Liar

REM – Automatic for the People

Neil Gaiman – Sandman: Season of Mists (technically this was reprinted from 1991 material, but this is when the collection came out, so I’m counting it)

Neal Stephenson – Snow Crash

Terry Pratchett – Small Gods

Helmet – Meantime

Kim Stanley Robinson – Red Mars

Star Trek TNG, “The Inner Light”

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Henry’s Dream

Spiritualized – Lazer Guided Melodies

Army of Darkness

Erik Larsen – The Savage Dragon

Batman: The Animated Series

The Jesus and Mary Chain – Honey’s Dead

Vernor Vinge – A Fire Upon the Deep

Kyuss – Blues for the Red Sun

Sonic Youth – Dirty

A League of Their Own

Sugar – Copper Blue

Connie Willis – The Doomsday Book

Sleep – Holy Mountain

Candyman

Pavement – Slanted and Enchanted

Tom Waits – Bone Machine

X-Men (the cartoon)

Terry Pratchett – Lords and Ladies

The Muppet Christmas Carol

PJ Harvey – Dry

The Player

Somebody Make My Movie, Yet Again

Brutus had, of course, died by his own sword. He had been solid of conviction – had perhaps been the only one of us with the kind of conviction one can be solid of – and it had been that conviction that had ended in his death. Maybe he deserved it, maybe he didn’t, but he was dead, and I was alive. 

I’d done my best. We’d carved the country up into three parts, which made sense not because we were the only three that could be trusted to run the country, but more because we possessed the knowledge of how we came into it. Lepidus was a wet ninny, Octavius a stodgy blowhard, and I was, if I’m being honest, an opportunistic bastard. We divided it up, and then decided to do precious little to stay together.

I went off to Egypt which, in addition to being generally easier to manage my time in, also had a much better woman. Of course, I had to pretend to leave her, or at least pretend to be pretending to. I had to mend fences with the Human Scold over there, and so I married his sister. She’d been Gaius’s wife, which was well enough as far as all that went, but she didn’t have much else to offer besides the undying attention and loyalty of a puppy. 

Still, like I said, I was an opportunistic bastard. 

I should have been nicer to her. The Gods knew I did plenty of my own puppy-dogging around after Cleo. I see that now. It’s easy to be self-aware when you’re not thinking about that part of your life.

Anyway the marriage did mend the fences it was meant to mend, and the last time it almost came to this, it avoided the actual battle, but, you know. Things are harder than that, mostly. 

I couldn’t be married to her anymore. She was tying me down and, besides, Parthia was more exciting, there was more going on. Maye if I had had some time to get over how we got here, I could have spent some more time enjoying what we had, but I couldn’t even do that, because Bunchy Pants won’t even give me all of my land. All of the land that I am entitled to by helping him kill his stupid uncle.

Brutus was right, man. There was just no percentage in any of it. You try to be a bro, you try to be a good friend, and it just blows up in your face no matter what.

Well, there’s one way for this to end, and it’s with soldiers. We definitely aren’t friends now. 

This summer, learn the price you pay when you try to live with regret, while also trying to live with your friend.
Learn the peril of being…an Heir’s Bud

On Eating More Fresher, Again

Subway began when a man named Fred borrowed some money from a man named Peter Buck¹ to start a submarine sandwich shoppe, then formed a company, Doctor’s Associates Inc., which was named after Fred’s desire to go to medical school. The rest, as they say, is a monstrous clusterfuck full of the sort of stuff that, if it appeared in a movie, would be dubbed wildly unrealistic, and much of which is covered extensively elsewhere, sometimes even on this very site. 

¹ not that one

No, what we’re doing here is talking, once more, about a major chain restaurant deciding that changing their menu is going to give them a leg up. And as y’all know, I cannot resist such a thing.

Almost exactly one year ago, at the time this posted, I wrote about Subway’s travails, which at that point yielded them changing their mozzarella purveyor and, uh, slicing some of their meats thinner², and now things are getting real serious-like. 

²  you may note that in last year’s piece I didn’t know what was going on with the turkey, and was happy to have that edified. Great job, everybody

The crux of the current situation is that thye are introducing “The Subway Series”, a set of sandwiches that you order by name or by number³, and that basically come as-is, or that you can customize from there. You know, like Jersey Mike’s, except The Subway Series is on much-worse bread.

³ the press seems somewhat insistent on mentioning this

I’m still rejecting the bread, guys. Even the schmancy Hero bread. Even if the otherwise-delightful Nancy Silverton is involved. I accept none of it. 

OK, so, anyway. This phase does have a couple of reasons it makes sense, at least from a business standpoint. The first is that Subway, having expanded further than they could and then had to contract, in a brick-and-mortar sense, is expanding into what they’re calling “unattended retail”, which is nonsense-speak for “vending machines”. Obviously if you’ve set with people the expectation that it’s reasonable to expect a Subway sandwich that you don’t actually customize, then it would seem that it might be easier to pivot to that sort of thing when it’s in a cooler in an airport or whatever⁴. 

⁴ for a biographical reason that I’m not going to explain, but which basically everyone that already knows me knows about, I’ve driven across the country several times, and there is a tendency among a specific chain of truck stops, which are often equipped with a Subway, to sell pre-made Subway sandwiches in their grab and go cooler as it is, and I gotta tell you: they are the opposite of tempting, even if you try to forgive the bread. 

The other thing is, of course (because this is a story about changes to a player in the restaurant industry in the last several years), delivery apps. While I’m certain that there are people that FoodApp some Subway to themselves, the prospect of doing so seems like it would miss something fundamental about the Subway experience, and I’d bet, given the numbers⁵, that people agree, and that at least some of them are in the press.

⁵ I apologize for most of that link – it has the relevant information in it, but Restaurant Business, the source of the information, keeps a tight paywall. 

The reason, I would argue, that last year’s menu experiment gave apparent results was because it coincided, basically, with the return of people to offices and traveling and arrangements where they found themselves in the circumstances that led to people eating at Subway traditionally. Now, I may be way off base here, and it might be the thinner ham, but I’m going to proceed as though I’m correct, because this is my website. 

Anyway, it’s also worth noting a passage from the above piece: “currently, its biggest rival seems to be Jersey Mike’s Subs.” They added a Jersey Mike’s menu to their existing menu, because more people are eating Jersey Mike’s and fewer people are eating at Subway. This is where I really think the thing starts making less sense, but this is not a piece about corporate philosophy, this is a piece about how Subway’s new menu is going to help them reclaim their market share and be the biggest restaurant chain ever again, no matter what John Oliver says⁶.

⁶ also, I didn’t open back up their relationship with their franchisees, because I assume it’s still a messy shitshow, but, you know: don’t open a Subway franchise, the people at Subway corporate hate their franchisees so much  that they arbitrate at a completely bonkers rate for seemingly nothing. Subway doesn’t want you to anyway – they’re moving away from single-unit operators toward multi-unit owners, which I presume is meant to have some ameliorative effect. Obviously I’m including this in a footnote because, while it’s interesting, it’s tangential, and also I don’t care. 

Oh, and they’ve still done nothing about the tuna. The tuna is fine. You love the tuna, actually. The tuna is everyone’s favorite thing and nobody has anything to say about the tuna unless they’re a real jerk or a liar. 

So how is this new menu going to rescue Subway? By allowing us to trust the culinary minds at the central office to decide the makeup of sandwiches, rather than pointing ourselves. Surely this will get people to order the sandwiches, and not just further-muddy the whole-ass point of the enterprise in the first place. Let’s take a look!

There are four categories, each of which has three sandwiches in it, and each and every one of which could potentially mean big success! Somewhere there is a press release with what each sandwich contains in it, but that information is not available via subway’s website, even if you give it an alarming amount of location data. I’m sure that’s fine. Anyway, thanks to the people at um chewboom.com, I can see what’s on the damn things. Since Subway is setting their sights on “unattended retail,” and that one article up there suggests an ease of ordering through an app, I’ll be considering the sandwiches from that vantage point. I will, admittedly, not be eating them. 

If anyone finds a way to access this menu (not the general menu, the one that includes sandwich descriptions) via the website, I will send you a Subway Series sandwich of your selection, seriously. 

Onward!

Cheesesteaks
The categories, at least, make some kind of sense. A cheesesteak is traditionally served on a sub roll, the ingredients are pretty straightforward. I’m not sure what’s going on with the sandwich names⁷, but I get the idea, anyway. 

⁷ obviously, a traditional outlaw sandwich is made from the meat of David Allan Coe

The Philly
WHAT IT IS: “The classic cheesesteak stacked with juicy steak and a double helping of provolone, toasted on Artisan Italian bread and topped with green peppers, red onions and mayo.” 

In short, a pretty basic cheesesteak in the Philadelphia style⁸. It probably needs something pickled, but that would probably insult the broad vending machine appeal or whatever. 

⁸ albeit taking a strong pro-provolone stance in the provolone/cheez-wiz divide. 

IS IT GOING TO SAVE SUBWAY: It might, actually. This is simple enough, straightforward enough, and hard enough to screw up that it’s basically a completely-different kind of bread away from being a basically successful fast-food sandwich. This is, by far, the one of these I would be most likely to order

The Outlaw
WHAT IT IS: “Juicy steak meets double Pepper Jack cheese, with green peppers, red onions and Baja Chipotle sauce, toasted on Artisan Italian bread.” 

Oh, I get it. It’s “outlaw” like “cowboys,” because “Southwest”. It’s still dumb, but at least it’s not quite as nonsensical as I thought it was before I wrote this. 

IS IT GOING TO SAVE SUBWAY: I would imagine that the Baja Chipotle sauce does something to cut the meat/cheese situation, but not enough. It won’t save Subway, and really, it just seems like changing the sauce on The Philly doesn’t solve the problem. Oh, and the pepper jack cheese, about which I have basically nothing to say. It’s not better than the provolone, and it’s not peppery enough for me to enjoy it. 

The Monster
WHAT IT IS: “Thick juicy steak, crisp bacon, a double helping of Monterey cheddar, green peppers and red onions piled high and served toasted on Artisan Italian bread, and topped off with creamy Peppercorn Ranch.” 

This is a cheesesteak with a third (and, really, worse) kind of cheese, and also bacon. I suppose it was inevitable. It’s a steak bacon ranch sandwich.

IS IT GOING TO SAVE SUBWAY: Their pre-made sandwiches have a heavier reliance on mayo-based sauces than I’m happy with, and I mentioned in the previous writeup that somehow fast-food bacon is almost always inedible, so I’m going to say that this is probably the worst idea in this subcategory, and move on. 

Italianos
This ends up sort of the catch-all, but also is the quintessential sub category. These are the sorts of sandwiches you can find much better versions of in whatever city you’re in and are, therefore, the hardest to consider a real alternative. 

Supreme Meats
WHAT IT IS: “Black Forest ham, Genoa salami, pepperoni and new capicola on fresh-baked Artisan Italian bread with provolone cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, red onions and banana peppers, all topped off with MVP Parmesan Vinaigrette.” 

I need some clarification on whether “Supreme” means that this sandwich is supreme and it has meats, or if the meats are supreme. I need to know where the supremacy comes in, is what I’m saying. In any event, this has a pickle (the banana peppers) and a vinaigrette, and while I don’t know or care what “MVP” means there, this is the sandwich I would be second-most likely to get. It seems pretty heavy, but, you know. 

IS IT GOING TO SAVE SUBWAY: I mean, it might. If I’m staring down the barrel of a vending machine sandwich and they’re out of the Philly, this is a solid choice. No mayonnaise, the best cheese, whatever is going on with the capicola, this sounds fine for airport or whatever food. 

Bella Mozza
WHAT IT IS: “Thin-sliced Black Forest ham, new capicola and BelGioioso Fresh Mozzarella on fresh-baked Artisan Italian bread. Topped with spinach, tomatoes, red onions and banana peppers and drizzled with tangy MVP Parmesan Vinaigrette.” 

Ok, so, the first thing I have to ask is: is the “thin-sliced Black Forest ham” the same as the Black Forest ham on the Supreme MEats? Also, while we’re on the subject, he word “new” stuck in there makes me wonder if they’re announcing that they now have capicola, or if it’s part of the name of the meat⁹. It’s like that above, also. 

⁹ the precedent here being that a decade ago they declared, in court, that the word “footlong” did not refer to a measurement, but was merely the thing they called the sandwich, because this restaurant has always been a mess.

IS IT GOING TO SAVE SUBWAY: The raw spinach and the mozzarella basically make this a less-supreme version of the Supreme Meats, so no, but it could probably ride backup if you didn’t want a sandwich with four pork products on it. I mean, you’d be cutting it down to “only” two, but you know what I mean. 

The Boss
WHAT IT IS: “Juicy meatballs in marinara sauce with slices of pepperoni and BelGioioso Fresh Mozzarella. Sprinkled with parmesan and served toasted on Italian Herbs & Cheese bread.” 

A pepperoni meatball sub is one thing too many, but even if you take one of the meats off, you still have a classic Subway Bad Idea, in that both their regular meatball subs and their pizza subs are terrible. I do wonder if there’s a power struggle between The Boss and The Supreme, unless, again, the Supreme only refers to meats, in which case it’s probably fine. I cut out both an American Horror Story joke and a second cannibalism joke here, but you can pretend I made either one if you’d prefer. 

IS IT GOING TO SAVE SUBWAY: No, this is not going to save Subway. A meatball sub is best consumed as close to the making of the meatball sub as possible, and the bread they use at Subway¹⁰ just falls apart under the best of circumstances. 

¹⁰ I know, I know, again with the bread, but it’s bad

Chicken
Would you believe that these are all chicken sandwiches? Weird, I know. Part of the first phase of the Eat Fresh Refresh was bringing back the roasted chicken, which I think I liked for a portion of my young adulthood, but also had not noticed was gone from the menu. Anyway, chicken sandwiches, you know? 

The MexiCali
WHAT IT IS: “Juicy rotisserie-style chicken, smashed avocado, double Pepper Jack cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and red onions topped with smoky Baja Chipotle sauce and served toasted on Artisan Italian bread.” 

Subway are definitely not the first people to use “rotisserie style” as a gussied-up version of roasted, but they’re the ones doing it right now, so it is to them that I say: stop that. It’s just roasted. There’s nothing wrong with “roasted” as an adjective. You, yourself¹¹ use it for your turkey. Anyway, their tomatoes are problem enough, please feel free to miss me with whatever they’re still doing with avocado.

¹¹ I’m speaking directly to Subway here

IS IT GOING TO SAVE SUBWAY: Absolutely not. Avocado from a vending machine is like the punchline to a joke. 

The Great Garlic
WHAT IT IS: “Juicy rotisserie-style chicken, crispy bacon, provolone, lettuce, tomatoes and red onions, served toasted on Artisan Italian bread, all topped off with new creamy Roasted Garlic Aioli.”

Oh, I see, we’re also doing the “new” thing with the “aioli”. Maybe this would make more sense if the Subway Series part of the menu was accessible from the website, and I could see how it was actually written on the menu. That’d be nice. Anyway, you can see the problems coming a mile off, and they’re the tomatoes and the bacon. 

IS IT GOING TO SAVE SUBWAY: No. The bacon, the fact that chicken is basically the least-exciting option, and my deep suspicion of the garlic mayonnaise all make me think that this doesn’t have much to stand on. 

The Champ
WHAT IT IS: “Tender hand-pulled rotisserie-style chicken, a double helping of Monterey Cheddar, green peppers and red onions. Topped off with creamy Peppercorn Ranch and served toasted on Artisan Italian bread.”

Now this is interesting. This says the chicken is pulled. Previously I had only associated the chicken option at subway with chunks. I’d be interested to see if that’s the case and, if it is, then this chicken ranch sandwich is something I can more-or-less endorse, especially if you leave the cheese off of it, or substitute provolone or whatever. 

IS IT GOING TO SAVE SUBWAY: No. The spirit of the exercise here is to take the sandwich as-is, and none of the problems with the monterey cheddar are solved by there being twice as much of it. 

Clubs
I’m not sure what makes any of these a club¹² (I did think that a third piece of bread was involved, but it turns out it’s not that), but, you know, I also agree that these are all a category, and I don’t know what else to call them.

¹² I went on a rant about the mid-teens obsession with making everything an acronym last time, so I won’t repeat it here, but if any of you say anything about it being an acronym, I will buy one of these sandwiches and bop you in the damn nose with it. I will say, though, that the origin of the term is slippery, as is its definition. Still not an acronym. Nothing is an acronym. 

The All-American
WHAT IT IS: “ Oven-roasted turkey, Black Forest ham, crisp bacon and American cheese with lettuce, tomatoes, red onions and mayo, on Artisan Italian bread.”

Yep, that looks just about like an all-american club sandwich, I tell you what. 

IS IT GOING TO SAVE SUBWAY: No. There used to be a “turkey and ham” sandwich that was my preferred Subway order in my “heavy traveling” days, and it was fine but not life-changing, and it definitely would not be improved by the addition of bacon (still) or tomatoes (still). 

Subway Club
WHAT IT IS: ”Oven-roasted turkey, Black Forest ham, USDA Choice Roast Beef and provolone cheese piled on Hearty Multigrain bread and topped with lettuce, tomatoes, red onions and mayo.”

“Club” gets murkier here, but, perhaps surprisingly, this is an old sub (from before the time when they had discontinued the roast beef), that they’ve brought back/repurposed. While I was mentioning subs that I would get theoretically, this one is a sub that I have, in fact, ordered. Without tomatoes. Never tomatoes. 

IS IT GOING TO SAVE SUBWAY: It already didn’t, so it’s unlikely to this time. 

Turkey Cali Club
WHAT IT IS: “Oven-roasted turkey, crisp bacon, BelGioioso Fresh Mozzarella and smashed Hass avocado. Topped with spinach, tomatoes, red onions and mayo, toasted on Hearty Multigrain bread.”

I like that they specify the kind of avocado as if 1) everyone didn’t already assume it was the most common kind and 2) it matters to whatever happens to the avocado to make them possible to ship and store in thousands of restaurants/vending machines. Anyway, FOH with the avocado already. 

IS IT GOING TO SAVE SUBWAY: No

And there you have it! Stay tuned, probably next July something weird will have happened with this bonkers restaurant chain and I’ll be back to tell you about it! Maybe they’ll introduce yet another menu! I live in hope!

A Considered Look at the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Part 18

So, an ongoing feature of the site for the last few years has been a series of posts taking a Considered Look at various and sundry lists of things, and in this particular instance, Rolling Stone has delivered unto me A List, and the prospect of sinking the ol’ chompers into an arbitrary list of a once-dominant institution’s picks for greatness is simply too much to bear.

The list is exactly the sort of high-minded ridiculousness that I’m deeply enthralled by. They touted that they had 300 people vote in a staggered points-assigning system, with several thousand albums in consideration, and tabulated it numerically. 

So does this mean it’s a reasonable version of a consensus list? Do they succeed? Does what they’re doing even make sense? Let’s find out!

I’ll be evaluating every album – all 500 of them – to let you all know exactly how right or wrong the folks that return Rolling Stone’s calls are

Links to the previous sections are here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9,  Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16 and Part 17. Previous Considered Looks can be found starting here and here.

Aretha Franklin – Lady Soul
WHAT IT IS: It is, in addition to being the Aretha Franklin record with the highest concentration of hits, somehow also the one with Eric Clapton on it. Not an auspicious start, guys. 

WHY IT’S HERE: “Chain of Fools,” “Natural Woman,” “Groovin’”, “Money Won’t Change You”, plus, you know, the whole general Aretha of it all. This probably needs some of the least explanation. I’m surprised it’s this low, not for personal reasons, but just due to the amount that people genuinely love Aretha Franklin. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: It is, but I’m still pretty gobsmacked by that surprise Eric Clapton got in there. Ew. 

Kanye West – The College Dropout
WHAT IT IS: Kanye West’s debut album, for better or worse

WHY IT’S HERE: Well, there’s lots to say about Kanye, and I realize that this is the last time that I can kick this can down the road¹, but, for all that he’s now a deeply divisive dipshit troll/stalker/general all-purpose ass-clown, this really was revelatory when it happened, and it’s very hard to separate how incredible this all sounded from the trump-backing gospel-party blood fart that threatened to kill Pete Davidson. 

¹ there’s one more Kanye album on the list, and I’ll probably have to get all the way into it with that one

BUT IS IT GREAT?: Yes, it is. 

My Bloody Valentine – Loveless
WHAT IT IS: This album not only made Ohioneedsatraindotcom’s list of the 25 best rock records ever a billion years ago, it also made the list of the best records by year of my life before that. It also made a previous shamelessly punting. I’m saying I’ve praised this album a lot. 

WHY IT’S HERE: Shoegaze music has been having something of a perpetual moment for the last few years, and while it’s impossible to say this was first, it was definitely super-duper important, and is probably still the best. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: Absolutely

Neil Young – Harvest
WHAT IT IS: My least-favorite of Neil Young’s incredible seven-album run. I mention this seven-album run a lot, but that’s because it’s the finest run of albums in, at least, rock music history. I’m not saying they’re the seven best albums, I’m saying even the least of these albums is still Harvest.

WHY IT’S HERE:”Old Man” and, primarily, “Heart of Gold” were the hits. It’s also the one with “The Needle and the Damage Done” and “Are You Ready for the Country”, which are, you know, the best songs on the album. Anyway, it’s hard to argue with anything from this era, and this is the one that has the songs that still get some radio play. Good work. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: Yep

Bob Marley and the Wailers – Exodus
WHAT IT IS: Bob Marley is in a tiny handful of people who, notably, have both a regular (in Bob’s case, two) album on here, and a best-of that draws from them. I dunno. Seems more interesting than it is.

WHY IT’S HERE: Bob Marley remains synecdochally responsible for reggae’s presence, with a handful of bare exceptions (Jimmy Cliff was back there a few entries ago, and I suppose it’s not fair to have expected 2019 to be the year Rolling Stone finally acknowledged the existence of dub), but his status as a guy who is both a token representative of a genre that people don’t know much about gets him in here a lot. Handily, Bob Marley was, in fact, great, and Exodus is a tremendous album, so in addition to all of the fringey unfamiliar sort of voters who want a reggae album in there and don’t know another one, there’s also all the people who do know a bunch of reggae albums, and do want it on there anyway. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: It is, although I suppose this is the day that I admit that roots reggae is as fine as most other folk music, and that I would have given one of Bob’s spots to King Tubby. Still and all, it’s hard to deny Exodus. It’s great. 

N.W.A – Straight Outta Compton
WHAT IT IS: A foundational document of gangsta rap, and of radio-rap all the way through the nineties. 

WHY IT’S HERE: Dr Dre continues to be an institution, people do seem to try to remember that Ice Cube was once a great rapper. I’m sure that Eazy-E being dead gets in there somewhere, although it’s also hard to believe that his contributions to this album (saying words that Ice Cube wrote) are much of a weight on its reputation. Anyway, people liked this album at the time enough that it gets to be a classic, and it’s deeply not my cup of tea, so I am forced to believe them. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: Well, it’s important, certainly. 

Alanis Morrissette – Jagged Little Pill
WHAT IT IS: The one with the song about Dave Coulier on it. 

WHY IT’S HERE: I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s the Dave Coulier thing. It’s weird, right? Still? It’s still weird. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: No

Kate Bush – Hounds of Love
WHAT IT IS: I probably would have mentioned when I started this that it’s the one with “Running Up That Hill” on it, but now, well, you know

WHY IT’S HERE: You know, I think the fact that it made the top 100 of this list in a world where it hadn’t yet landed on Stranger Things speakers to the fact that, actually, plenty of people knew and loved this album already, and the idea of it coming out of nowhere was pretty overstated, albeit still surprising. Anyway, I still don’t know why people like Kate Bush (See: pretty much everything I’ve written about Kate Bush in the past), but here we are. For bonus points, ask me why “Running Up That Hill” is going to be the “Don’t Stop Believin’” of the next decade or so. Go ahead, ask me. 

BUT IS IT GREAT: No

Jay-Z – Reasonable Doubt
WHAT IT IS: Jay-Z’s unreasonably good debut album

WHY IT’S HERE: Leaving aside that Jay-Z is Jay-Z, and that he’s got another, even better album, coming up later in the list, let us instead note and praise that this is a debut album in which Jay-Z, a contender for the best rapper to ever have lived, arrived basically fully-formed, and that rap fans and radio-listeners agreed, as this album sold in the bajillions and spawned a handful of songs that are still on the radio. It’s a very rare coming-together of someone being actually great and the entirety of the potential audience saying “yeah he sure is.” 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: Yes

John Coltrane – A Love Supreme
WHAT IT IS: If you want to hear the story of some truly wild ideas, go look up literally anything about this album. I’m not sure that everything he was doing worked, but it was definitely a lot of big swings. 

WHY IT’S HERE: I mean, I’m not sure all the ideas work. The music is about as good as you could ask it to be. Free jazz comes from a lot of places, but a lot of those places here in the twenty-first century are still marked on the map that is A Love Supreme

BUT IS IT GREAT?: Yeah, it really is. 

James Brown – Live at the Apollo
WHAT IT IS: An album that documents a set by what was, I’m pretty sure, the greatest band in the world at the time. 

WHY IT’S HERE: Later on in this very writeup I will have occasion to refer to James Brown as “not an albums guy”, a thing which is generally true, but does elide this: one of the greatest live albums ever recorded and, much like the higher-ranking Star Time, a pretty much impeccable slice of the body of work of an all-time great. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: Extremely so

OutKast – Stankonia
WHAT IT IS: The last three of Outkast’s “classic”-era albums are here, and, in true RS list fashion, they are in the wrong order. 

WHY IT’S HERE: The duo was well on the trajectory that would lead to their next album being, essentially, two solo albums in one clamshell box (CD joke), and so most of Stankonia features songs that are primarily one of them, with the other one doing what amounted to feature work. That said, a lot of it does still hang together as an actual group project, and it’s the album that gave the world Killer Mike. So basically it’s perfect, no notes. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: Yep

Steely Dan – Aja
WHAT IT IS: The one with “Deacon Blues” on it. “Deacon Blues” isn’t a hit or anything, it’s just my favorite Steely Dan song, such as it is. 

WHY IT’S HERE: Steely Dan got unfairly lumped in with, like, The Doobie Brothers or Hall and Oates because they don’t play very loudly, and also because I think people just like to say “Yach Rock.” That’s always seemed unfair to Steely Dan, at least as far as I can tell, because while it’s true that they were too clever by half and didn’t play loudly, they definitely had more going on, musically. Mostly things (clever lyrics, virtuosity, that sort of thing) that don’t captivate me particularly, especially in a rock context, but things, nevertheless. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: I bet I could put together about an album or so of Steely Dan material that I like enough to call great, but this isn’t it. 

Guns N’ Roses – Appetite for Destruction
WHAT IT IS: A truly terrible example of the form

WHY IT’S HERE: Because people have rocks in their heads

BUT IS IT GREAT?: Decidedly not

Eric B. & Rakim – Paid In Full
WHAT IT IS: A sort of pivot point between the kind of thing that Run DMC was doing on Raising Hell (released one year earlier), and the sample-heavy, equally-complex stuff Public Enemy was doing on It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (released one year later). NB that early hip-hop moved so fast that also, all three of those bands are basically contemporary to each other. 

WHY IT’S HERE: Rakim was a complicated lyricist, putting syllables where people did not believe syllables could be, and Eric B was happy to cram as many samples into his beats as time, budget and technology would allow. These proved to be enormously influential to the genre. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: It’s hard to create an argument for why it isn’t, but I’ve listened to it all the way through exactly twice (once while writing this) and, really, I can’t say that I’m going to do so again unless it’s for another project like this one. 

Van Morrison – Astral Weeks
WHAT IT IS: More like asshole weeks. Geddit? Because Van Morrison is an asshole. It’s funny.

WHY IT’S HERE: Look, pre-pando I probably would have written something about how I’ve wrestled with the obviously-talented Van Morrison – his voice is great, I like a lot of what he did with Them, etc. But really, all I think of when I think about Van Morrison now is his temper tantrum about how unfair it was to not be allowed to wander around murdering people with your poison plague breath, and, while it makes me laugh now, it also makes it tremendously difficult for me to consider his music under the light of it. If you want to chalk that up to being my fault, or some sort of failure to “separate the art from the artist” (a thing that assholes say to mean “you must substitute my judgment for yours”), then that’s fine. But then, if that’s the sort of person you’re inclined to be, I bet you’re probably angrier about my GNR opinion, and we don’t ever have to talk about Asshole Weeks (Geddit?)

BUT IS IT GREAT?: No. It’s overbaked by half, even without all the other stuff. I don’t think I’ve ever actually liked this album. 

Stevie Wonder – Talking Book
WHAT IT IS: The album where Stevie Wonder told Motown records to let him do what he wanted, and then started a string of albums that was, functionally, perfect

WHY IT’S HERE: You know, I didn’t have a joke here, or much to say about other than “it’s great and every human being with two ears and a heart loves ‘Superstition’”, but I looked it up on Wikipedia to see if there was something I didn’t know that I could key this to and found the following sentence: “The sound of the album is sharply defined by Wonder’s use of keyboards and synthesizers.”. So it must be that. Sharply defined, guys. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: Yep

Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV
WHAT IT IS: It’s the fourth Led Zeppelin album

WHY IT’S HERE: I mean, there are a lot of things, but between the drum intro to “When the Levee Breaks” (see also: “Army of Me”, that one Beastie Boys song, that one Beyonce song, like a billion other things) and “Stairway to Heaven”, the other reasons are all kind of overwhelmed. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: Yes

The Band – The Band
WHAT IT IS: The Band’s second album, and their second-best album to be recorded in a house instead of a studio. 

WHY IT’S HERE: It’s gotta be “Look Out Cleveland,” right? Obviously. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: Yes

Liz Phair – Exile in Guyville
WHAT IT IS: Liz Phair’s debut album, as well as being the one with all the hits on it, and her best album. 

WHY IT’S HERE: Liz Phair has a real place in the sort of people who are a little older than me, which was then passed on to people who are basically the same age as me as sort of “received wisdom.” I’m unclear where her reputation and/or popularity went from there, but the people that voted on this list seem to skew toward 40-50 year olds, and this album is, somehow, a thing that everyone born between 1973 and 1984 has a copy of. It’s weird. But, you know, I do own it, because that’s me. Good record. Solid songs. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: Oh, I don’t know about great. Some of it’s very good. 

Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon
WHAT IT IS: If you’ve ever been annoyed at the frequency with which you hear a Pink Floyd song, and it’s not “Another Brick in the Wall Pt 2,” then it’s probably a song from this album. 

WHY IT’S HERE: I’m a little surprised, actually. In the last blurblet, the Liz Phair one, I talked about how everyone from a certain generation cohort seemed to be really into this record. That exact same set of people is the set of people I have spent the last, oh, twenty-five or so years arguing with over the obvious greatness of post-fame Pink Floyd. I love this album, and I’m surprised to see it up this high despite the fact that I don’t think I’ve read or heard an unironic good word about it from someone younger than, oh, my parents or so, in the entire time that I’ve loved it. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: It sure is, no matter what cranky-ass millennials want you to think. Unless the cranky-ass millennial you’re listening to is me, in which case it’s exactly what one (1) cranky-ass millennial wants you to think. 

James Brown – Star Time
WHAT IT IS: It’s a four-cd box set. Or, like, a playlist on Spotify. You know what I mean. 

WHY IT’S HERE: On the one hand,a four-disc box set seems like it’s cheating. On the other hand: JB wasn’t an albums dude, and this collects his finest singles, and James Brown’s finest singles are literally some of the very finest work ever put to tape, so I’ll allow it. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: I will pause in my breathless appreciation to say: three discs of it are absolutely perfect, and the last disc does actually show that the man himself was not able to hold it up until the very end, but on the whole, it really is some of the best music anyone ever released, ever. 

Jimi Hendrix – Electric Ladyland
WHAT IT IS: Jimi Hendrix made three studio albums, this is the third of them. 

WHY IT’S HERE: Because when you’re basically synonymous with rock guitar playing, and you only made three albums, and we’ve had sixty-odd years to deconstruct them, you’re going to get very far up this list. I mean, this album is very good. All the Jimi Hendrix albums that came out during his lifetime are good. But that’s also sort of beside the point. This album exists in this spot on this list because this list is, functionally, in part, a reason to put this album in this spot. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: Oh it definitely is. Just because its reputation is bigger than it doesn’t mean that it’s not an all-timer. 

David Bowie – Station to Station
WHAT IT IS: It’s the one on which David Bowie was The Thin White Duke.

WHY IT’S HERE: At this point, there’s very little for me to say beyond re-iterating that I clearly do not respond to the same things in David Bowie’s music that other people do, and tha tmakes it difficult to say why this is here. The title track is great, though. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: The album itself isn’t a particular favorite of mine, no. 

Chuck Berry – The Great Twenty-Eight
WHAT IT IS: Sometimes a thing is what it says on the cover. 

WHY IT’S HERE: Chuck Berry is also “not an albums guy,” and this collects all of the Chuck Berry songs you could need. 

BUT IS IT GREAT?: Guess I’m not ready for it yet, but my kids are gonna love it. 

The Best Records of June 2022

Wire – Not About to Die (Wire were good in a lot of different ways, to varying degrees of “good”, but man, more prime-era Wire is the best thing in the world)

Elucid – I Told Bessie (both of the Armand Hammer dudes have absolutely murdered things with their records this year. Great job all around.) 

Namir Blade – Metropolis (in the short time this album has existed, it’s grown on me enormously. I think it might even be better as time goes on. Science fiction rap forever!)

Anteloper – Pink Dolphins (jaimie branch is a genius, now and forever)

Soccer Mommy – Sometimes, Forever (you guys already know this one, come on. Anyway, Oneohtrix Point Never. Soccer Mommy. The whole thing.) 

The Best Songs of the First Half of 2022

You guys know how this goes. These are fifty songs, presented in alphabetical order, that (by arbitrary standards, pegged to my own judgment) came out in the first six months of the year. There’s a spotify thingy at the bottom, as always. Please to enjoy. 

Anteloper – Earthlings
jaimie branch already leads an incredible jazz ensemble, and, in addition, fucks around with beats and stuff to make whatever you call this. I say “whatever you call this” with the utmost admiration, mind you. 

Katie Bejsiuk – Onion Grass
While I am sad that I, a creature, am no longer wished free cake by the output of Katie Bejsiuk (here operating under her government name), I have to say: this song is gorgeous, as is the other single (“Olive NY”, which competed mightily for a spot on this playlist) and several of the other songs on this surprisingly-good album. I mean, it’s not like I expected it to be bad, but it’s definitely good enough that I see why she changed the name of the project. 

The Body & OAA – Barren of Joy
I mean, it sounds like the Body and, from what I know about OAA, it also sounds like OAA, but sometimes you really do want chocolate and peanut butter together. Plus, you know, there’s a higher percentage of heavy music and noise in this six-months’ list. It’s almost like we’re living through an apocalypse. 

Boris – Beyond Good and Evil
A relatively quiet, all-Wata album is the sort of thing that reminds even the most ardent listener that Boris are masters of figuring out what they can do within any given form, and then doing it the very best. What a great band. What a great song.

Brain Cave – Queasy Forever
I mean, I’m here for bands that sound more-or-less like Helmet even when they aren’t from Cleveland, so this was pretty much a shoo-in. 

Buñuel – Roll Call
After making surprising headlines by being a dude who quit Ozy Media right before that whole shitshow (he’s a key figure in this Defector piece, which is paywalled), Eugene Robinson got back up and started a band where he gets to howl over loud guitars which is, quite frankly, my favorite of his many (many) modes.

Celeste – (A)
I was going to type “man, I bet people use a bunch of subgenres to describe these guys” and then I looked up their Wikipedia page and discovered that I was right. Metal fans are hilarious. Anyway, however you want to describe it, this song rules. 

Cloakroom – Fear of Being Fixed
I guess I listen to a lot of heavy bands that occupy this stretch of the alphabet? That’s funny. Anyway, Cloakroom are still plowing a pretty familiar row of heavy shoegaze, but it’s a fertile row. 

Cult of Luna – Blood Upon Stone
I used to find Cult of Luna irritating, and then they made that record with Julie Christmas, and I liked that, and I’ve quite liked what Cult of Luna have done since. I’ve gone back and revisited the stuff that irritated me in the first place, and mostly I have the same reaction to it that I always have, although whether that’s because of the material or just the mental muscle memory of my original reaction is up for debate. What isn’t up for debate is that this song is great. 

Dälek – Decimation (Dis Nation)
Dälek were among the pioneers of the thing we now call noise-rap (they’re in their third decade of this), and have continued to burrow further into the “noise” part, which is, of course, the right thing to do. 

Destroyer – Tintoretto, It’s For You
It comes to pass that I still love Destroyer, and as time goes by it becomes ever-more apparent that I’m the one Destroyer fan who’s not listening to the lyrics. Because I never remember the lyrics, not out of any, like, decision. Just, in general. Anyway. I have no idea what anything he’s saying means, but I like when his music gets real weird.

Aaron Dilloway – Blue Studies (for Tom Smith)
Tom Smith was a longtime noisenik who passed away, and this yielded a genuinely-lovely, extremely-listenable Aaron Dilloway (himself also a longtime noisenik) piece. Use it as a springboard to go listen to all the Aaron Dilloway you can find. (This song is not on spotify, so I replaced it in the playlist with Merzbow and Lawrence English’s “A Thing, Just Silence”, which pulls that out of the honorable mentions and up to here. Merzbow meets English halfway, resulting in something like “ambient harsh noise” or “harsh ambient” or whatever)

Drive-By Truckers – The Driver
There are not enough talking-songs in the DBT catalog. I want there to be more of them. 

E – Hey Strongman
I have little to say about this other than that I love this band deeply, and I don’t know that I would have imagined before now that my favorite song on any given E record would be one that Thalia Zedek didn’t sing, but here we are. (This song is not on Spotify, so is replaced in the Spotify playlist by Biitchseat’s mighty “I Think I Hate You Now,” which is pretty much does what it says on the tin).

Elucid – Betamax
Elucid is so prolific, I keep expecting not to like something, but it sure as hell isn’t I Told Bessie.

Elzhi & Georgia Anne Muldrow – Nefertiti
Georgia Anne Muldrow could makes beats for the damn Wiggles and it would be great. I mean, Elzhi is also very good and I’m always happy to have him around – he does a good job of wearing the beat and not letting the beat wear him – but this record is about the beats. 

Fontaines DC – Nabokov
This song isn’t one of the admittedly-impressive singles, but man, the best song on each Fontaines DC album so far has been the most-relentless one, and this one is perhaps the most relentless of them all. 

A. Billie Free & The Lasso – Silhouette
The Lasso is on a deeply un-discussed hot streak right now. Go listen to a bunch of The Lasso, and if you want it to be extremely friendly, vocal-forward R&B, go find Holy Body Roll, it’ll be worth your time

Greet Death – Panic Song
Greet Death have really changed their sound for the material that ended up on the EP that just came out, but I like it, especially for a shorter release. It has a little more breathing room, and a little less volume. But, you know, I still sort of hope they don’t abandon the volume. 

Guerilla Toss – Famously Alive
Subtlety is overrated

Homeboy Sandman – Keep that Same Energy
Featuring Sand’s usual plainspoken excellence, as one could expect.

Just Mustard – Still
Just Mustard is a great band name. They are also a very good band. “Still” is a great song. Sometimes I just don’t have something to say about a song. 

Kids on a Crime Spree – When Can I See You Again?
Sometimes I sleep on a band so hard it’s embarrassing. I’m not sure how I missed their material leading up to this (I think I didn’t like one of the singer’s other bands, maybe? But that’s a guess, based on kind-of recognizing the name. Anyway), but this is fantastic, and never shall I miss them again, even if it takes a bunch more years to follow it up. 

Kendrick Lamar – Mother I Sober (f Beth Gibbons)
It feels damn silly trying to write, like, a three-sentence blurb in the middle of all this about a record that was so hyped and meant so much to so many people, and will probably go on to be something that I write about in several different contexts all the way down the line, but, you know, it’s good. That’s what I’ve got. Good song. Cool feature from Portishead lady. Top marks. 

The Linda Lindas – Magic
I guess I’m here for any song where the chorus ends “maybe reality is better”, but that’s mostly for personal reasons. 

Micah Schnabel – Coin$tar
Micah Schnabel has always been pretty good at writing about the vicissitudes of capitalism, but has been on an especially welcome tear lately, writing largely about the way that those vicissitudes leave us vulnerable and powerless. This one also has a great shout-along chorus, as many great Micah Schnabel songs do. 

Namir Blade – Cain and Abel
Namir Blade seems like a real weirdo, and I’m excited to see where this goes from here. See what I mean about not always having something to say? 

Primitive Man – Cage Intimacy
It only takes three guys to be this impossibly heavy. I admire the minimalist’s approach, frankly, as longtime readers will probably have twigged onto.

Psychic Graveyard – Building You A Rainbow
It was a good year for noise-rock super-groups, I tell you what. 

PUP – Robot Writes a Love Song
All that twaddle about lyrics aside, I do love an accurately-titled song. 

Quelle Chris – Cui Prodest (f Denmark Vessey & J Jig Cicero)
The answer is: we all benefit from a song this good. I think Quelle Chris has made, like, six of these writeups in a row. Mello Music Group generally is on a hell of a release tear.

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – My Echo
Every RBCF song to date has been exactly as good as its chorus. Sometimes there’s more going on than just the chorus, but even when that’s the case, the song itself is still as good as its chorus. Someday the band my achieve a song where this is not the case. In any event, “My Echo” has a great chorus. 

SB The Moor – Yo! Pick Yo Fro!
SB the Moor is rapping again! This is very exciting. He traveled pretty far afield into “experimental” territory (ask me sometime about the time I saw him perform, it’s a funny story), and last year made an “I just learned to play guitar” album in his house, and then came back out with this, and we’re all very happy that he’s made peace with his hair.

Shabaka – Black Meditation
Shabaka Hutchings is already a world-class genius of a bandleader and saxophone player, and the fact that he’s still able to make music just as effectively using traditional African instruments seems unfair. Unfair to other people that make music, I mean. It’s the best for the listener. 

The Smile – You Will Never Work in Television Again
You know, having basically slept through most Thom Yorke side projects, and not really appreciated most latter-day Radiohead as much as many, I was pretty excited to get a record of him getting real into it. Same goes for Johnny Greenwood. Tom Skinner has yet to do even one single damn thing wrong. Maybe he’s the secret sauce.

Soccer Mommy – Shotgun
Of all the pop-oriented turns that I could have predicted were in the future ca 2012 or so, Oneohtrix Point Never is definitely the strangest of them (he also worked on The Weeknd’s album from a few months ago). Soccer Mommy have gotten more shoegazey as they’ve gone along, but it’s definitely helped along by their producer. Basically this was catnip for me the whole time, and I love it. 

Jon Spencer & The Hit Makers – WORM TOWN
21st-century Jon Spencer has been a sort of hit and miss affair, and a lot of Spencer’s Got the Hits is, to be fair, probably much better live than it is on the record (not in the least because the other half of Quasi – he’s already got Sam Coomes shouting the title there – is in the live band), but is largely not the best of his recorded output. It does, however, have its moments, like this song, which is a whole lot of fun no matter what it’s surrounded by. 

Spiritualized – Crazy
Spiritualized, by contrast, have been just about perfect every time in the 21st century. Also in the 20th. Anyway: Spiritualized makes a great album full of great songs is a real dog-bites-man headline. Doesn’t make it less true, though.

Spoon – Wild
I could probably have written all the stuff I just wrote about Spiritualized here, but “consistent” is just-about the only adjective every applied to Spoon, so I just want to give this song considerable approbation for rocking real good, and then move on.

Vince Staples – Magic
I don’t think it’s quite fair to lump “Magic” in with my oft-stated love of sad gangsta, but Vince Staples can stick in this introspective mold for as long as he wants, as far as I’m concerned – it just keeps getting better. Also it occurs to me that this is the second song on the list called “Magic”. Weird. Eerie. 

Earl Sweatshirt – Vision (feat. Zelooperz) 
This song, which is not called Magic, also comes out at the end with a quote against believing in magic, which is handy because it allows me to hint at a conspiracy, because otherwise this would be another of the ones where I say something like “Two of the greatest rappers currently operating made a song together, and it’s super-great”. 

They Hate Change – Some Days I Hate My Voice
Formerly affiliated with the mighty Deathbomb Arc, They Hate Change went to Bloomington to sign to the same label as Angel Olsen, and then released a Florida-as-hell hip-hop record. This makes me laugh.

The Weeknd – How Do I Make You Love Me?
The Weeknd’s recording career and the existence of this website are basically the same age, and for the whole time I’ve been a fan. His sort of re-emergence as someone who was able to balance his weirdest impulses (the thing that made his Trilogy of mixtapes so compelling) with his ability to write tremendous pop songs (an aspect of his music that has only grown) have reached a sort of synergistic union on his last couple of albums. Weirdly, this is the song that Swedish House Mafia produced, which shocks the hell out of me, but hey, maybe they just needed to work with the right frontperson. 

Wet Leg – Ur Mum
A secret joy of mine is when someone says they’re going to do something in a song, and then they do it. It worked for Wire, it worked for Pavement, it works for basically everyone that does it. When it’s someone’s longest and loudest scream, well, that would’ve worked without the announcement, but it sure did help. 

Wilco – Cruel Country
Wilco recorded an album in a room together as a band and, as a result, it’s their best album in several albums. This is not a surprise – nor is it a surprise coming from me, a person who thinks even the worst Wilco album is still pretty good – but, you know, there’s no extra points for being surprising. 

billy woods – Nynex (f Elucid, Quelle Chris & Denmark Vessey)
I want to tell you that this song is amazing, that it’s an assemblage of four of the very-greatest rappers currently operating, and that Aethiopes is probably woods’s best solo album to date, but I also want to mention that I don’t know how to make spellcheck stop forcing me to capitalize his name at the beginning of a line, so now I’m angry. Go buy Aethiopes it’ll make me feel better. 

Nilüfer Yanya – L/R
The way that Nilüfer Yanya synthesizes the music she’s drawing from in her own music is something that I find really intriguing – without adding anything that particularly strikes me as novel or weird, she’s managed to make something totally unique, and it’s even more impressive this time around than it was last time. This is the highlight, but really, you should treat yourself to the whole entire album. 

Yawners – Rivers Cuomo
You know, this really does appear to be a song about how much a young woman in Spain likes Weezer. That’s…unexpected. Especially since it’s a much better song than Weezer has written in what seems to be the singer-lady’s whole-ass entire lifetime. So double unexpected, then.

Zola Jesus – Desire
Zola Jesus opened up her doors, decided to let other people help her make a record (she did that record with JG Thirlwell a few years ago, but that was reworkings, not, um…workings), and the result was a record with a lot more space for her and her voice. Of course, this song probably would have been a home-run no matter how she recorded it, but, you know, there you have it.

700 Bliss – More Victories
Moor Mother is a fixture of these writeups, and this, a collaboration with DJ Haram (with whom I’m not familiar) is a truly incredible piece of work. Play it out your window. Your coolest neighbor will come find you.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Most of the honorable mentions consist of bands that do the thing they always do – it hasn’t been a particularly auspicious months for me getting into new stuff, particularly, what with one thing or another – in a way that I didn’t necessarily think needed to elevate them to the main list. So you have Chastity’s “Real World” and Joyce Manor’s “Don’t Try”, in which genuinely-terrific live bands sort of do their thing in a studio so you know where to sing along, RLYR’s “Real Air” and Mono’s “Kioku”, in which post-rock geniuses do their usual thing for (respectively) a side project and a soundtrack, Cocaine Piss’s “Castle Vanilla” is a song in which a very fun rock band laments being bored in their own sex dungeon.  Los Bitchos’ “Tripping at a Party” was an excellent effort by a good band that just didn’t make it.