Anti-playlist

A few events have conspired to make me temporarily eschew the random playlist feature on ye olde - or rather, ye updated - Wimpy. The good folks up in Redmond, WA felt it necessary to "improve" their Media Player this week, and the new random play feature isn't to my liking. They completely threw off the random chi, and until I grow comfortable with this strange, new randomness, I can't subject you, dear reader, to the unpredictable whims of an application I don't fully trust.

So instead, I'm going with whole albums. Because albums are where it's at. On tonight's playlist:

• This Year's Model - Elvis Costello & the Attractions
  Sometimes you just want to bop around to fun tunes. Sometimes you're in the mood for something more literate. With Elvis Costello, you can do both.
• Extra Width - Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
  The Blues Explosion ranks right up there with the Stones in producing really raw, libidinal, sleazy blues-based rawk. There's a lot of throw-away filler on this album, but on tunes like "Afro" and "Soul Typecast," they nail some of the fattest nasty blues grooves around.
• Document - R.E.M.
  To be a southerner of our generation, as ash points out, is to love R.E.M. My first ever "real" concert (I don't count seeing the Monkees on their reunion tour with my mom!) was seeing R.E.M in the eighth grade at the Tennessee Theater in Knoxville, right after Document came out. To second ash again, R.E.M. actually made you feel proud to be a southerner, and Document, to me, was something of a manifesto for the "New South" (anyone remember that particular PR gambit?). It's hard to describe to people how vital the Athens-Atlanta area was during the late 80s/early 90s - especially in hindsight. Anyways, I love this album.