I don't think anybody picked a cut from Dire Straits Making Movies album. Hmmm... can't pick a favorite. Okay Romeo and Juliet. Back in the day, I spent a LOT of time on AC/DC's Back in Black, Hells Bells being the favorite cut and Ozzys Blizzard of Oz....

Gonna have to agree with the wipper snapper though The Clash, Rock the Casbah is #1. We must however give the Violent Femmes props for Blister in the Sun though.

S'interesting, though - what tends to really last, over time, are strong melodies. Of what we've thought of so far as the "best", which ones have a melody that could compete with standards like such as "Smoke Gets in your Eyes" or "Yesterday" or "Girl From Ipanema" "As Time Goes By" "Misty" etc.?

It's the stronger songwriters that get it done. Squeeze. "Tempted". An instant standard.

Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry is your unmistakeable standards singer - and writes great standards melodies as well.

Mr. Costello and Mr. Dolby also write excellent melodies. And then there's They Might Be Giants - I think their earlier better work is 80s. They're all about melody.

Do you like amercan music
I like american music
don't you like american music baby
I want you to hold me
I want your arms around me
I want you to hold me baby
did you do too many drugs
I did too many drugs
did you do too many drugs too baby
you were born too late
I was born too soon
but every time I look at that ugly moon
it reminds me of you
it reminds me of you ooh ooh ooh
I need a date to the prom
would you like to come along
but nobody would go to the prom with me baby
they didn't like american music
they never heard american music
they didn't know the music was in my soul baby
you were born too soon
I was born too late
but every time I look at that ugly lake
it reminds me of me
it reminds me of me
do you like american music
we like american music
I like american music baby
do you like american music
we like all kinds of music
but I like american music best
baby you were born too late
and i was born too late
but every time I look at that ugly lake
it reminds me of me
it reminds me of me
do you like american music
it reminds me of me
do you like american music...

Thats the hard part for those of us who were there. We get wound up in the memories, so the songs are touch tones. We have a hard time looking at the music critically, when its tied in with graduation parties, smoking in vans, driving girls home, playing ball... Think I'll start digging around in this music more and see how many layers the onion has.

That's a good point, Griff. It's hard for older people to look at newer music critically, and it's hard for the youth to appreciate the older tunes (though I think it's easier for youth than older folks).

Rho's bread and butter music is 80s pop...her formative years were the last half of that decade. Mine is grunge-hard rock-modern rock, and my formative years were the tail end of the 80s and early part of the 90s. It actually works well for us, because we happen to like each other's music, yet our CD collections don't overlap much (beyond our DM stuff).

Over the past decade, and especially in the past 5 years, I've tried to give props to the old school. I like a lot of new music, but maybe I'm falling into the above trap when I say that the music of the past year or two overall has just sucked ass. I see hope in the upcoming year with new shit from Ministry, Martin Gore, and possibly Tapeworm (a project of NIN's Trent Reznor). (And I haven't listened to radio much since late 2001.) But most of the CDs I've purchased in the past year have mostly been jazz or old school soul-funk. Because if you don't know the past, you really can't understand the present.

Avalon and Bete Noir are two CDs that I keep meaning to add to my collection...but then I forget about them.

I dunno UT...Flood was a fantastic pop record...and that was '90.

Elvis Costello is going to be part of the tribute to Joe Strummer tomorrow night on the Grammys. His new CD happens to be really good.

I liked the first Dolby album, but I thought Aliens Ate My Buick was pretty good too...and he did a great video for "Airhead."

We're in sync on Aliens. All killer, no filler. I saw that band on that tour, from the second row. It was magnificent.

Avalon plays 24 hours in the ideal lounge in your mind. Its beat seeps in through the carpet, up through the seat, and controls your soul. Little saxes and guitars nip at you from behind curtains. A single spotlight from above widens to a solitary soul with a cigarette. Our hero is cool like Bogey or Clint, impeccably dressed, and dark and mysterious. You feel comfortable, and yet there is something strange about it, something compelling. Maybe it's the drink.

<b>Tapeworm</b> is actually a project of Charlie Clouser, but Trent is contributing some stuff (as is Maynard James Keenan).

Dave, not according to what I've been reading. Clouser is out.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/145...06/story.jhtml

(This is from last August...the most recent info I can find.)

That's disappointing. It was originally Charlie's project, and he was seriously talented. Which is not to say that Trent isn't; I consider him the most talented musician today. But Clouser did some pretty amazing stuff. Oh well.

Dave, for clean representation of 80 I think you may be right with "Casbah"- captures the whole punk wave thing. A great song that stands. But "Should I Stay or Should I go" could do it too.

I have the flashbacks: Oh yeah baby. The clove cig is figuring in there.

U2- "I Will Follow". "Sunday Bloody Sunday". "Pride". I can remember reading a Rolling Stone article about this young Irish band like in 1981, then seeing the Bloody Sunday video - I remember thinking how very cool it was. Joshua Tree was a huge 80s album.

REM- "Fall on Me", from Lifes Rich Pagent. "End of the World as We Know it" still wakes me up. REM adds that kinda roots/ accoustic thing. Leads towards the cowpunk-rockabilly daze.

My sister doesn't JUST live in the same town where the fire occured. She lives just down the STREET. She's having trouble getting in and out of her development because of the number of people driving down to the site for 'vigils'. She's that close. (not next door close, but it's not more than a quarter-mile.) At least she's unlikely to have teddy bear and flower overflow into her backyard.

I forgot U2; shame on me; I would nominate "Pride" too.

I tried to think of an REM song that summed it all up, but IMO they changed everything but never really knocked it out of the park with a specific song. "Fall on Me" is as good a choice as any during the 80s. Or "Finest Worksong" or, for the early, "Radio Free Europe".

Under a Blood Red Sky- very important album to me personally. Vinyl copy hanging around here somewhere. Its silly to keep them but...

I've got the vinyl for "Unforgettable Fire". Good album. I've recently completed my CD collection of U2. Didn't have "Boy" or "War".

The Fixx: "One thing leads to another"