15 Albums...part 2

Too long a hiatus from writing--the blog (to say nothing of the book proposal) has gone to seed in recent months. What is Winter Break if not a chance to jump-start neglected projects, New Year's resolutions, yadda yadda yadda? So here's a comfy way to ease back in: taking a cue from the "15 Albums" thread that circulated through Facebook last summer, I'm finally writing a bit from the list I'd jotted down after getting to enjoy several of your posts....To embellish and/or spread it out a bit, I'll break it into a bite-sized, 3x5 format.....This is part two, w/ albums 6-10--see yesterday's post for 1-5 if you're so inclined....If you've not done this yourself, it's worth it to take a few minutes....and be in touch!

Bjorn's 15 Albums (in chronological order of when I got hold of them):

6. Brian Eno: Before and After Science (1977) Sophomore year of college at Gustavus--and the vast majority of our studying was done at the North Mankato Perkins restaurant, the only 24-hour cafe/diner/coffee shop to be had in the area. Ace and I would bring our Walkmen and a stack of tapes to study with. I think I read about Eno in Rolling Stone as not only the producer of debuts by Ultravox and Devo, of key albums by Bowie, Talking Heads, and now U2, but also as a solo artist of merit (after a one-record stint with Roxy Music)... I think I'd bought a tape used at Bookman's in high school, but never got my head around it until one night I happened to throw it in my Walkman whilst eating a PeterBert Special (we ate there so often we could order OFF the menu if certain cooks were working). What is it that just CLICKED that night, after several years of having that tape just sitting around? The music hadn't changed--but maybe I was. "No One Receiving," "Backwater," "Julie With...," "Spider & I".... So many great songs here! This jump-started me to first fill out the "vocal" back-catalog from the '70s, and then start in on the ambient stuff....

7. The Stone Roses: The Stone Roses (1989) I must confess that even while I was studying at UEA that Fall of 1989, I was aware of how big The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays were (ah the weekly purchases of NME and Melody Maker!), but I hadn't fully investigated until back stateside. My story is that I spent my money on trips to Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany...which is true! But it's also true that I was measuring each purchase in terms of the number of Guinness pints sacrificed otherwise. Still, once back at GAC to finish my junior year, I played this disc into the ground--I even remember having an absurd argument with two fellow-travelers over who got into the Roses first. How could a debut album be this perfect? And how could it all dry up so soon?


8. Kitchens of Distinction: The Death of Cool (1992) Having graduated college, having made a mess of my personal life, and thus having moved back to AZ for a time, only to move back to MN for a while more, I was plotting my next move from a shared apartment in Uptown. Somehow I got the biggest bedroom in a shared 3-bedroom apartment, despite having the least furniture. I kid you not: we set up a fully-functional train set I got for Christmas in my bedroom, with the TV in the middle to count down the New Year of 1993. This is an album full of sonic space--big enough to step inside, and try to figure out how to invite someone else in, too. Seeing Kitchens at First Ave. was a treasure--they seemed honestly gobsmacked at the positive feedback they were getting from the crowd (as an opener for 99.9-era Susanne Vega). One more album and they were gone...

9. Tindersticks: Tindersticks (1993) It used to be an annual rite to try to track down the year-end issues of both New Musical Express and Melody Maker to get a look at their year-end best-of lists. This was a crucial record from UT days, although I might have picked it up originally in Bloomington studying Czech Summer 1994. The dark and moody atmosphere lent itself to any number of late night study sessions, writing blitzes, and sleep soundtracks. I remember hearing Curtains (1997) playing at a record store in Poznań several years later, recognizing the band on the spot, and willingly handing over all the złotys I had...


10. Everything But The Girl: Walking Wounded (1996) Sure, the papers cried foul: folksters coming late to the trip-hop party, and all that. But the tunes were there, and it captured a weary determination that permeated our mid-90s circle of friends in St. Paul. This was one of the cassettes I took with me to Lithuania in '97, which seemed again to strike the right chords. Ben Watt had nearly died before he made this album, which could then easily be heard as a rebirth, as a redefinition of who they were going to be as a band. After having to walk away from NYU, and going to Lithuania to teach, I too was hitting the reset button... At the time, it felt like the hardest decision of my life--but in retrospect it was one of the best decisions I ever made....