A To Z: A.C. Newman to Billy Bragg (Catching Up)

A couple of months ago, I decided to try and listen to all of the music in my iTunes library (that I all found from legal means, wink wink) that was listed at a play count of zero. My reasoning behind this was that I found I had an insane amount of music on my computer and it was almost reaching the point where I was running out of space for it all. I have lots of things that I either haven’t listened to or will probably never listen to because they actually aren’t all that good. Also, I kind of shamelessly stole the idea from The AV Club.

I’m going to try every week to recap some of my thoughts about some of the artists I listened to. Since I started back in April I’ve made it about half way through the Bs. We’ve got some catching up to do (Note that bands I actually really like, I’ve listened to most, if not all of their albums since I got my new computer and new iTunes library set up in the fall of 2006).

A.C. Newman – I guess I never really put it together that the main guy from the New Pornographers would release a solo record that sounded a lot like his songs from the NP records.

AC/DC – I still haven’t found a compelling argument that I need any full albums besides Back in Black.

Aerosmith – I listened to Toys In The Attic and was less interested than I remember being when I first heard it when I was in eighth grade.  I’ll probably just keep the Greatest Hits and the album length versions of the singles.

Aimee Mann – She has lots of pretty songs.  @#%&*! Smilers (her newest album) is pretty great, as well.

Al Green – Falling into the category of “Music that I cannot relate to on any level for a variety of reasons, yet I still love it.”

Alcest – Amazing French black metal/post-rock/shoegaze stuff.

Alice In Chains – They have a lot of songs that sound the same.  That sound is what I assume doing heroin feels like.  Still, they do have some great songs like “Would?” and “Man In The Box.”  Dirt will probably stick around.

Alison Krauss & Union Station – I am a sucker for this stuff.  Good thing I don’t know anyone that actually likes real bluegrass because they would hate me for enjoying people like Alison Krauss and Nickel Creek so much.

Alkaline Trio – Goddamnit! is such a great album.  I think the downward slide of this band started when their songs began to be about dark stuff like Satan and dying instead of just being drunk all the time and brokenhearted.

Amy Millan – I love Broken Social Scene, I like Stars a lot, but her solo album is just boring.

Amy Winehouse – I really like certain songs of hers, but I really dislike just as many.  The public persona doesn’t help much either.

Andrew Bird – It is hard to find a weak spot in his discography, but at the same time, I always feel like there is this distance between me and the song that makes it hard to really connect with any of it.

Andrew W.K. – I Get Wet.  You don’t need anything else.

At The Drive-In – This blew my mind as a thirteen-year-old.  Still does.  Mars Volta?  Not so much.

The Band – Most bands have better musicians than songs.  The Band has better songs.  I should probably check out more than their first two albums.

Band Of Horses – I don’t know if I would have any use for Band of Horses if My Morning Jacket was still doing the same thing they were about five years ago, but BoH does it pretty well.

Barenaked Ladies – Maybe the closest thing to a guilty pleasure so far, even though I don’t really like or believe in that term.  When I first started listening to them around the time “One Week” came out in 1998, I gravitated towards the funny songs.  Now, for the most part, those don’t hold much appeal, but they have some really powerful serious songs (OK, as serious as a band named “Barenaked Ladies” can get) like “Jane” and “What A Good Boy.”  Rock Spectacle is probably the best place to start.

Be Your Own Pet – In theory, I love this band.  In execution, it isn’t as effective.

The Beach Boys – I need to figure out where to go after Best Ofs and Pet Sounds.  It doesn’t help that I always get hung up on how amazing Pet Sounds is that I obsess over it and don’t even want to hear anything else.

Beastie Boys – I cannot imagine any reason why a female would enjoy this band.  Everything appealing about Beastie Boys seems to be the complete opposite of everything I know about women.

The Beatles – What?  Do you really think this is the first time I’ve listened to this band?  I’ve heard all of their albums so many times that I can probably recreate each one in my head perfectly, so you can understand why I might not listen to them on my computer that often.  All of them are great, except for maybe Magical Mystery Tour, which I know isn’t actually an official full album, and it has a bunch of amazing songs.  It is just that it doesn’t work as an “album.”

Beck – I listened to Mellow Gold for the first time.  Other than “Loser,” I’m deleting that album.  After that, however, I’m a big fan of pretty much everything else, especially Midnite Vultures.  I don’t care that some people say that is when Beck stopped being sincere, when you make as funky of an album as that, you can get away with a lot.

Belle & Sebastian – I actually had not heard much, if any of their early releases.  Wow.  Tigermilk and If You’re Feeling Sinister really blew me away.

Ben Folds Five/Ben Folds – I got really into Ben Folds around sophomore year of high school.  I loved, and still do love, most of everything that he and Ben Folds Five released up to that point.  For some reason, bad luck or maybe just black magic, outside of a few songs, nothing he has released since then has held my interest for more than a few weeks.  I’m not expecting this to change in the future.  Sorry, Ben.  We’ll always have “Underground.”

Ben Harper – This is another artist kind of like Andrew Bird, where there is a consistency between all of his releases, yet there is still something that prevents it from connecting on that next level with me.  Diamonds On The Inside has come the closest and is one of the few albums that I can relate to a specific point in my life where it seemed to be “our album” with everyone I knew.

Ben Kweller – Sha Sha is awesome. On My Way, not so much. Ben Kweller? Return to form.

Better Than Ezra – While I was listening to Deluxe, I thought, “Wow, how awesome are these first two songs (“In The Blood” and “Good”).”  Then I forgot how horrible the rest of the album is.  For some reason I had their complete discography on my computer.  Yeah, I got rid of everything other than those two songs before I even listened to the rest.

Beulah – My friend Brian told me to listen to this band about four or five years ago.  I finally did about a week ago.  “Popular Mechanics For Lovers” is probably the best song on The Coast Is Never Clear.

Big Black – This is cool.  I haven’t yet figured out if I actually really like it, but I know that it is cool.

Billy Bragg – This guy really gets a boner when talking about fascism, doesn’t he?  Beyond the first two or three Billy Bragg releases, which I think are all amazing, I found myself being much more into the songs about relationships than those about the politics of England in 1990.