I must have a couple of these albums left.  Ok.  It was mid-2000s.  Had survived the dot-com crash and here comes Mr Bush with his 9/11 and his wars.   I just kept thinking that the young people of America are getting screwed, but are too naive to realize it.  Along comes American Idiot, and I realized the kids were going to be ok.  The country would see lots more wreckage before it was all over, but at least there was some hope for the future.

I realized immediately that these guys have made a 1970s style Rock Opera, like Tommy or Jesus Christ Superstar!  I never figured out why the whole Concept Album thing died out, but I was glad to see it make at least a small comeback.  And who would have figured Green Day to rise to the occasion?

I remember playing this one over and over again at summer backyard BBQs with friends and neighbors.  I don’t think any of them picked up on it.

Taking a lazy day off.  In the horse latitudes of this Top 10 Albums thing  (and no, I don’t think a Doors album is in the cards).  So much stuff that I really like, that could easily make the list.  New Orleans music like Dr John, Prof Longhair or even Wayne Toups.  Bands with long strings of albums I bought like U2, R.E.M. or even early Elton John.  Maybe some Bob Schneider to show I’m not just living in the past (does that even prove anything?)  Maybe some older Jazz that I still listen to like Sun Ra’s Blue Delight, to class it up a bit.  Even some of my parents old music that I still listen to.  Frank Sinatra, Louis Prima, Dean Martin.  Sometimes nothing else will do.

From the New York Times:

BRITAIN’S BIG SQUEEZE

In Britain, Austerity Is Changing Everything

After eight years of budget cutting, Britain is looking less like the rest of Europe and more like the United States, with a shrinking welfare state and spreading poverty.

Out at Joel’s on the lake.

Freshman year in college a guy down the hall in my dorm, John, tried to turn me on to Neil Young. He was certain that if I liked Bob Dylan, I would like Neil Young.  I didn’t.  A few decades later I ran across Harvest Moon, an album I really didn’t expect to like.

I listened to this one over and over again while I was writing up my dissertation.  I had been working at Motorola but my time there was officially over, but I really needed their workstations, and  mostly their printer.  I would come in late in the evening around midnight, after my fiancee had gone to sleep and would work until dawn, having the whole place to myself.  I played Harvest Moon almost exclusively, over and over.

I would come home at dawn, see the fiancee off to work and go to sleep for a while.  I figured when the writing was done I would be sick of Harvest Moon, but that never happened.  I still find listening to this one, end to end, a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

When I started this I wanted to avoid putting out a list of the top albums of my high school and college years, but here we are.  Goth pioneers Bauhaus turn psychedelic and come out as Love and Rockets.  As the wiki pages says, there is still a thrill in Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven.  I saw these guys in Minneapolis at First Avenue and their live show was as stunning as their studio album, which I didn’t imagine possible.

Well, we always knew this was a possibility.  I wonder where else this data has been going (I’m think of you, NSA).

Woman says her Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact

By: Gary Horcher. Updated: May 24, 2018 – 9:51 PM

The local FM station used to play albums straight through with no commercials when I was a kid.  I think they called it The Album Hour.  It was late at night, and when an interesting sounding one would be announced, I would try to stay up and (hopefully) record it all onto one side of a TDK 90 minute tape on my boombox.

This is how I got a few of my early favorite albums, including Steely Dan’s Aja, which I still like and may yet make my list.  This one is Rod Stewart’s Every Picture Tells a Story.  Even wiki has lots of good things to say about this one.

It had the hit Maggie May, but just a good mix of music.  I still listen to this one end to end probably every year.  Rod did have a long pop career, but the later music makes people forget that in the early days, with the guys from The Faces (who all appear on this album) he did some great stuff.

Not sure I agree with all of this, but an interesting read.  From the Wall Street Journal:

In Booming Japan, the Phillips Curve Is Dead
Unemployment is down but inflation isn’t budging. Why companies resist raising prices

Wanted to catch the Boston vs Cleveland game, but we don’t  have a cable box upstairs and the game is on TNT (or one of those cable channels).  We do have a new Amazon Echo on the nightstand, but couldn’t find the game on it last night.  Looks like ESPN radio has the game live!  When was the last time you listened to a game (any sort of game) on the radio?