My Thermos

It has been a long time coming but it is my pleasure to revive the Build Your Own Best Of series with a truly remarkable artist - Peter Gabriel.

As a long-time member of Genesis his contributions to my collection are already significant. His tenure with the band, culminating in the brilliant Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, represents some of the greatest music ever created.

As a solo artist he has continued to push the boundaries, and his incorporation of rhythmic textures and world themes has always led to interesting and compelling music.

It won't come as a surprise to anyone who is a regular reader that I tend to enjoy his lesser known work, or should I say his less popular work. In this instance I don't believe it is snobbery but more a reflection of my admiration for his darker, more experimental, less traditional stuff.

I do want to especially comment on Up. I was hesitant to listen after the disappointment of Us but when I got over myself and actually listened I found it to be an incredible work. "Darkness" may frighten you upon first listen but get through it and you will be rewarded.

So once again inspired by Nat at Mini-Obs , the idea is the same as always:

Pick one of your favorite bands / artists and list 10-15 songs by that band / artist to compile your own best of compilation.

So here goes - The Best of Peter Gabriel as compiled by me: Continue reading "The Triumphant Return Of The ... »

I've been a fan of Elton John for a long time. His writing collaboration with Bernie Taupin has created some of the greatest music of my generation. He is an amazing live performer, one I've seen countless times over the years. His string of 7 albums from 1971's Madman Across The Water through 1975's Captain Fantastic is a staggeringly amazing collection of songs. This amazingly prolific period is surpassed probably only by The Beatles for sheer quantity of quality work in such a short period of time.

But Elton is also one of those artists that I occasionally despise. You see, for every Tumbleweed Connection there was a Leather Jackets. For every "Amoreena" there was a "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" A quick scan of ratings in my library shows a tremendous number of 3 and 4 star entries along with a boatload of "never play this again"s - it seems I either love him or hate him.

But when he clicks, it really is magic.



So once again inspired by Nat at Mini-Obs, the idea is the same as always:

Pick one of your favorite bands / artists and list 10-15 songs by that band / artist to compile your own best of compilation.

So here goes - The Best of Elton John as compiled by me: Continue reading "Build Your Own Best Of - ... »

In honor of my recent Lyle Lovett concert experience, I thought I would go ahead and compile my BYOBO for Mr. Lovett.

As I have mentioned, I'm not a big fan of the genretization of music and musicians and Lyle is a perfect example of why. Typically called a Country artist, that tag fails to acknowledge the Jazz, Pop, Bluegrass, Gospel, Swing, and Folk aspects that are also a big part of his music.

Lyle happens to be one of my favorite songwriters. I don't love everything he has done but there are certain things that just really connect with me, and quite a few songs of his rank among my favorites. He's also a very talented guitar player.

So once again inspired by Nat at Mini-Obs, the idea is the same as always:

Pick one of your favorite bands / artists and list 10-15 songs by that band / artist to compile your own best of compilation.

So here goes - The Best of Lyle Lovett as compiled by me: Continue reading "Build Your Own Best Of - ... »

Boy, do I have bad timing or what. Here I am posting a BYOBO from Sir Paul just one day after he celebrated his 66th birthday. Should I have done this yesterday as a birthday tribute - sure I should have. But as it is, perhaps I can be the first to wish him a happy birthday for next year.

In any case, here is a list of some of my fave Macca songs. I've decided not to include Wings stuff as that is a list of it's own, and there is no way I could limit to just 15 with them piled in.

I think you'll find some surprises here, and if you're not familiar with them, I encourage you to check them out (clicky the linky in the list) and let me know what you think.

So once again inspired by Nat at Mini-Obs, the idea is the same as always:

Pick one of your favorite bands / artists and list 10-15 songs by that band / artist to compile your own best of compilation.

So here goes - The Best of Paul McCartney as compiled by me: Continue reading "Build Your Own Best Of - ... »

One of my favorite quotes is:

When you have a number of disagreeable duties to perform - always do the most disagreeable first.

Josiah Quincy

I have this printed and hanging in my office.  I try to do this in my work, getting the tasks I dread out of the way so that they stop looming over me and I can get on to other work. It seems to work well for me.

For my BYOBO series, I've created a rather lengthy list of artists I want to feature and each week when I go to choose the artist for the week, there is one that I pass over knowing that it is an impossibility to narrow down a list to just 15 tracks. Their name mocks me when I view the list, each time I hear a song of theirs on the radio I cringe at the thought of trying to decide whether to include it. As much as I love The Beatles, they were wearing me down.

Enough is enough - it's time to bite the bullet and get at this.

So once again inspired by Nat at Mini-Obs, the idea is (almost) the same as always:

Pick one of your favorite bands / artists and list 10-15 songs by that band / artist to compile your own best of compilation.

This week, I'm changing the rules a bit. I decided that to just pull 15 songs from their collected works was going to be impossible, so instead I'm going to take advantage of the fact that there were 15 original CD releases and choose one song from each release. Considering how much they evolved from the first notes of Please Please Me to the end of Abbey Road, this also seems like a good way to make sure the full evolution is represented.

So here goes - The Best of The Beatles as compiled by me: Continue reading "Build Your Own Best Of - The ... »

I've been a fan of the band I've chosen for this week's BYOBO since I heard the first single from their first release back in 1995. I've written about them here before but they are certainly deserving of a place among the great artists I have already featured in this series.

They are adventurous, creative, passionate, a great live act, and one of my favorite bands. I've listened as they constantly experiment and develop their sound, all the while still managing to sound like and be Wilco.

I'm also a big fan of their attitude towards their audience. Not only do they allow taping of their live shows but they are a pioneer in the belief that if you trust your audience they will do the right thing and buy the records. Their Wilco World site also frequently offers live shows and other goodies for streaming and download - very very cool.



So anyway... once again inspired by Nat at Mini-Obs, the idea is the same as always:

Pick one of your favorite bands / artists and list 10-15 songs by that band / artist to compile your own best of compilation.

So here goes - The Best of Wilco as compiled by me: Continue reading "Build Your Own Best Of - Wilco" »

I thought I would give you some insight into my process of putting together this Build Your Own Best Of Series. It should be a no-brainer really - choose an artist, listen to some tunes, list my favorite songs, publish, repeat... I use the amazing Backpack app to manage my blog post ideas so I created a handy BYOBO page and started a list of artists, along with notes about songs to include for each one.

The problem is that I seem to have overwhelmed myself with possibilities. What started as a running list of 4 or 5 has now gone completely out of control and currently contains nearly 30 artists to choose from - and that's far too many. I've really been struggling to decide who to feature next.

So this week I used the handy Randomizer to help me choose. I loaded up the list and had them put in random order. Then I had it choose a random number and matched that to the already randomized list. It was a fairly convoluted process, and I'm likely to write some sort of automated script to use in the future (oh my, did I just say that - what a tremendous geek I am)

So anyway... once again inspired by Nat at Mini-Obs, the idea is the same as always:

Pick one of your favorite bands / artists and list 10-15 songs by that band / artist to compile your own best of compilation.

So here goes - The Best of Supertramp as compiled by me: Continue reading "Build Your Own Best Of - ... »