Anybody remember the Gin Blossoms? Arizona band of the early nineties? I've been seeing the trailer for some medical drama on 5 or 4 or somewhere that has a song from those ulster MOR rockers Snow Patrol over the top. An inoffensive enough tune but it seriously reminded of a great country rock album that was one of my favourites from years ago. Couldn't remember the band or album for the life of me but I did remember that the guitarist/ song-writer was an alcoholic depressive who shot himself at 32 which was more than enough for google...
...New Miserable Experience by the Gin Blossoms, 1992 (yikes) and probably one of my top5 played records that year. Not ground-breaking or terribly rock and roll but definitely hook-tastic and with some great all-time depressing lyrics about being a depressive alcoholic in your 30's. Thanks to iTunes I've got it again after a gap of 12 years (I tend to clear out all my stuff now and again) and it rocks and pops. 'Lost Horizons' and 'Hey Jealousy' are thumping great drivin' down the highway tunes. Which reminds me I have to go and seek out some of the early Springsteen small-town classics - Nebraska, The River. J'adore l'americaina.
As I write this I am listening to Kelly Clarkson. File under Guilty Pleasures. Anybody noticing a theme here in some of the music I like...
(The Credibility Barometer: The last thing I downloaded was a compilation of Ethiopian funk/reggae/soul/blues from the 70's - Ethiopiques vol. 13. The Golden Seventies. Does that cancel out Since You Been Gone?)
Any other cred-busting guilty pleasures out there?
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Hey Jealousee-ee! Oh Jealousee-ee.
ReplyDeleteI remember the Gin Blossoms.
There are plenty of guilty pleasures on my iPod but the difference is I don't feel guilty about them.. Why should I feel guilty about singing along to Together in Electric Dreams (for example) or Waiting For a Star to Fall (another)? But then, I'm not sure girls are under such pressure to have credible taste in music.
Guilty reading pleasures: the kind of books with dragons and prophecies. No. Really. And I do feel guilty about these. George R R Martin, Robert Jordan... Currently not stocked by your friendly Waterloo indie bookseller. Snobs.
I have to confess to a secret love for...Dire...Straits...gulp...
ReplyDeleteNeil Young I am not ashamed to love!
I have an entire set of original orange Penguin editions of the Miss Read books. They are now being reissued by Orion in pastel chick-lit covers which makes sound commercial sense but misses the point to her writing. For me, she is one of our country's finest observational writers. In cataloguing the life of a village school and community she genuinely shows the good and bad. These are not the twee village tales they are made to appear. The early books especially are quite dark and bleak in places.
ReplyDeleteSo, Miss Read for me. And Pink.