Sunday, February 27, 2005

Double-Sided, Side 2

Okay, Side 1 was an example of a completely incongruous pairing of albums, the Harry Nilsson and the Black Sabbath. For today's Side 2, we have two relatively obscure but excellent albums paired together. This was one of my favorite tapes, but it tragically disappeared when I was in high school. Fortunately, thanks to the magic of MP3s, I now have all of its content back again.

Side 1: Thomas Dolby, One Of Our Submarines. I think most people think of Dolby as kind of a novelty act, with songs like "She Blinded Me With Science", "Hyperactive", and "Airhead". One Of Our Submarines is a real album, with a coherent theme and sound which is very lyrical and haunting, especially songs like "Radio Silence", "Europa And The Pirate Twins", "Airwaves", "Windpower", and "Cloudburst At Shingle Street".

Side 2: The Nails, Mood Swing. Again, The Nails are viewed as kind of a one-hit wonder novelty act because of "88 Lines About 44 Women" (also on Mood Swing), but this is another good album top to bottom, especially "White Wall", which is grim and creepy ("They found him naked on the bed/His eyes were vacant, dark and dead") but still rocks. Musically, "88 Lines" is pretty representative of the whole album, somewhere between new wave and rock, with dark, hollow vocals.

God, I miss the 80s.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heh -- after years of albums, the very first CD I ever bought (and yes, back then, CDs really DID cost $20) was The Flat Earth. It still holds up.
.

V said...

The first CD I ever bought was Depeche Mode's "Violator". Still a favorite after 15 years.

Eli said...

Ya know, I can't even remember what the first CD I ever bought was.

My dad would buy me classical music CDs for years before I got a CD player, though.

"Do you have a CD player, son?"
"No, dad."
"Oh. Well, here you go."

Anonymous said...

In the parlance of sports talk radio: "Long time ..., first time ...". (Or at least, long time relative to the brief life-span of The Blog.)

Just wanted to check in as the original owner of the Black Sabbath tape that got dubbed into the classic Double-Sided combo of which the author speaks. (I think I probably was also the owner of the Nilsson Schmilsson that got dubbed.) Of course I can claim no credit for the combination of the two: that was Eli's genius in action. This was sort of an 80s version of the "mash-ups" that the kids are into these days, I think.

Now there's an idea: a "Black Schmilsson" mash-up. Eli? History is calling you to take the challenge...

First CD purchase ever was Philip Glass's Koyaanisqatsi. There was a period of a year there where I had just that one CD and no CD player. I purchased it so that I could be a digital music nomad, going around to different people's Big Stereo Systems and making the walls shake.

Eli said...

You have our... gwatitude.

Finished with the lime and the coconut 'cause they could not help me with my mind...

Ah, Koyaanisqatsi. Great movie, great soundtrack. I can only assume you're talking about playing the first track on systems with killer woofers.

Ever considered a blog of your own? I'm pretty sure you could pull it off.

Anonymous said...

YOU miss the 80's? I heard Danny Elfman talking about his new symphony on NPR Sunday. I still have the original Oingo Boingo 4-song EP on vinyl.

Also, I wanted to cry after missing out on that Atrios comment session a couple weeks ago that became one long Raising Arizona quote-fest. Dang!

Eli said...

Man, I have a buttload of Oingo Boingo - "Not My Slave" is one of my all-time favorite songs. I think my big sister is (or was) friends with Elfman, actually.

Um, who am I talking to?