Cheater Slicks – Don’t Like You

There’s a whole ocean of indie punk that came out in the 90’s, as grunge opened the doors to the entire underground rock tradition that had been mushrooming for a decade-plus. Why I picked this, and why I picked it up, I have no idea, even though it happened recently. It turned out great. They remind me of The Oblivians, and if they left off that irritating corny skit on on the hidden track, where they prank-call some record store owner, I would recommend this whole-heartedley.

Various Artists – No Alternative

This is the sort of thing I detested when I was an actual Gen-X teenager and they were marketing it to me like it was ice water in the desert. This was so profoundly uncool, precisely because it was everything they were telling me I was and should like. But nostalgia is a devilish beast, and when you wander past it in a record store the temptation is real. In retrospect, it’s a perfectly adequate distillation of early-90’s alterna-rock also-rans (Urge Overkill, lol), and underground royalty (one day, I will listen to a Patti Smith song and not wish I was listening to literally anything else), and it doesn’t suck as much as 16-year-old me would have assumed. The Nirvana hidden track is, as one would assume, effortlessly great.

Miles Davis – Kind of Blue

I’ve had this thing forever. It’s one of the first Jazz albums I ever acquired, and remains a favorite despite being the Jazz Album everyone likes by the Jazz Artist that everyone knows. Miles Davis is to Jazz what Johnny Cash is to country music, but it doesn’t matter. Listening to him trade fours with Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly while Bill Evans tickles the ivory and Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb supply the best rhythm section ever heard on a jazz album never ever gets old. Sometimes everyone likes something for a good reason.

Dan Auerbach – Keep It Hid

One half of the Black Keys vibing with musicians that aren’t the drummer he’s made himself famous with. I yoinked this at the record store because I’ve heard songs from it on streaming and liked them. Auerbach is keeping the art of blues-rock guitar alive like Jack White wishes he was doing (his 2020 solo album is why I no longer pay attention to Anthony Fantano – that and anyone who takes Kendrick Lamar that seriously is not a real critic) (I’m sorry Jack, I really like you, let’s be friends). It is exactly what I was expecting it to be, and that is good.

Lana Del Rey – Born To Die

Look it, I don’t gravitate towards a lot of female vocalists, mostly because I’ve never gotten the idea that they were singing anything for me. Blame Madonna, but I always felt like female pop singers are for girls and gay dudes, and that’s fine. Not everything needs to appeal to me. Which makes it odd that I find this particular singer, and this particular album, full of haunting and beautiful songs. It means something for a man my age, but I don’t know what.

My daughter tells me it means I can hang out with the 14-year-old coquette crowd. I think that’s probably a bad idea.

The Cramps – Psychedelic Jungle/Gravest Hits

For someone who is a snob about compilations albums (I don’t judge, but I don’t participate. You know: that quiet, unobtrusive snobbery, that’s the good shit), and have a Strong Critical Stance that Double Albums are a sign that a band is either out of ideas or discernment and needs a nap (The White Album and Exile on Main Street being noted exceptions to this rule), I somehow love it when the shove two albums onto one CD. I have News of the World and All Mod Cons by The Jam on one disc, and I feel like I got a way with larceny. So it is with this beauty, the Cramps second album and their first EP smushed together. Sure, neither of them are as good as the first album Songs the Lord Taught Us, but really, what is?