I love Mojo, the unapologetically obsessive magazine for unapologetically obsessive music listeners. Yesterday the latest issue came in the mail, and Radiohead was on the cover -- no captions, no names, no nothing, just sullen peering into the camera. I asked Madeline who she thought they were, and she didn't know; I thought that proved my point -- if you didn't know then the magazine obviously isn't for you. =)
But the real prize is a little booklet entitled "The 100 Greatest Guitar Albums," which exemplifies their obsession for making lists, like Nick Hornby's protagonist in High Fidelity. Each album is accompanied by an illustration, a short review, and best of all, a "key moment." Here's an example -- since Catherine Meng's been reading Shakey for a month now, I'll use their description of the "key moment" from Neil Young's Zuma:
Cortez the Killer, 6:11, Young teases out one final molten lamentation, sending the song into endless flight over the abyss.The booklet is arranged chronologically, from Charley Patton's Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues to The White Stripes's Elephant (if you must know, the key moment is two minutes and seventeen seconds into "Seven-Nation Army.") They're not ranked -- but at the end, though, the critics give in and make a list of the Top 20. Here's the Top 10:
10. Johnny Burnette and The Rock 'N' Roll Trio, The Rock 'N' Roll Trio
9. Brooks Eaglin, New Orleans Street Singer
8. Charlie Christian, Genius of the Electric Guitar
7. Ramones, Ramones
6. Radiohead, The Bends
5. My Bloody Valentine, Loveless
4. Funkadelic, Maggot Brain
3. Howlin' Wolf, Howlin' Wolf
2. The Who, My Generation
1. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced
I'm suddenly reminded of my former e-mail buddy Boyong Valencia, who hasn't written in years. In a spate of true music geekiness, we would transcribe guitar riffs phonetically and make the other person guess it. Like (and I'm quoting one of his from memory):
TE-NEN-NEN-NEN-NEN!
TE-NEN-NEN-NEN-NEN!
Which was, of course, the opening riff from the Kinks's "You Really Got Me."
I had foolishly thought it was "All Day and All of the Night" at first, but that one goes "Ten, teren, tererereren."
This later mutated into three different threads, if I remember correctly:
1. Cheesy Uses for Horns (funny, there's a thread just like it on the Postal Blowfish list right now -- if you must know, I absolutely hated the one on Men At Work's "Who Can It Be Now"),
2. Best Guitar Solos Ever and One Lame Guitar Solo -- to be precise, Springsteen's half-hearted, wussy fill-in immediately after he sings "Well I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk" on "Thunder Road,"
3. and Best Album Openings Ever. (The Smashing Pumpkins's Siamese Dream had just come out then, and I absolutely loved the way each band member would come in one after the other on "Cherub Rock.")
Posted by the wily filipino at August 1, 2003 09:54 AM