Throw Cares Away

Over the past three weeks, I’ve summed up impetus behind the last six years of the blog, and why it dried up last year. And why I’m back. To get you up to speed:

My uncle tagged me in a Facebook chain challenging me over 10 days to post 10 albums (just the cover, no explanation) which really made an impact on me and nominate someone else (each day) to do the same. By total coincidence, this came on the six-year anniversary of this music sharing game my friends/coworkers had started. I went through some of the runners up and some other things from my list I’ve already shared on the blog. Which got me down to three albums that hadn’t been shared yet. This week is the last of those three.

Between my friends, what I can see of their friends, and what I can see of THEIR friends, I’ve got about 40 album suggestions I haven’t covered on the blog yet. I’ll get around to all of those eventually.

Most of the people I tagged were those I was in bands with. There were two exceptions. This week’s exception is my wife.

Mannheim Steamroller – A Fresh Aire Christmas (1988)

She didn’t stick to the “no explanation” part of the game and shared this:

I Was Following My Heart

Two weeks ago, I summed up impetus behind the last six years of the blog, and why it dried up about nine months ago. And why I’m back. You can get the basic back story from that post, but to get you up to speed:

My uncle tagged me in a Facebook chain challenging me over 10 days to post 10 albums (just the cover, no explanation) which really made an impact on me and nominate someone else (each day) to do the same. By total coincidence, this came on the six-year anniversary of this music sharing game my friends/coworkers had started.

Last week, I went through some of the runners up and some other things from my list I’ve already shared on the blog. Which got me down to three albums that hadn’t been shared yet.

Because I know you want to know, of the 10 people I tagged in my 10 days of posts, three friends didn’t respond, two did a single album (and one of those was sent via Facebook Messenger, so nobody else could see it), one friend shared five albums, and 4 went all the way (more or less).

Two of those friends tagged others to keep the game going – the one who shared five albums and one of those who went all the way (although only tagged people through day seven). Obviously, I’m not friends with all their friends. As far as I can tell, between the 12 people they tagged, three people shared 13 albums. Those three also tagged people, but not being friends with anyone they tagged, I was only able to see one of my friends’ friends’ friends’ posts. Being open to suggestions, I’ll get around to all those albums eventually.

Next week, my recap will be even shorter.

The Mighty Mighty BossToneS — Pay Attention (2000)

I joined a ska band in 2004/2005. Before that, I don’t think I had ever heard the term “ska” before, although I had absolutely requested to hear ska songs on the radio (back when people listened to the radio and called in to request songs) and I had a couple of albums from ska bands. This was the first purely ska album I think I ever got.

Here’s a moment of ashamed honesty: I didn’t buy this album. I can’t tell you how I got it. I remember thinking as a 14-year-old that my parents would be so mad if I bought a CD with an explicit language sticker. But it made its way into my collection anyway.

I obtained this album based solely on name recognition. I had never heard any of the songs off it before. Gratefully, I think it’s mostly pretty good. I recommend So Sad to Say, She Just Happened, One Million Reasons, and (especially) Riot on Broad Street. Perhaps it uses more acoustic/folky instruments, but I absolutely remember learning to play Riot on Broad Street on banjo. The only songs I don’t really like are High School Dance and Over the Eggshells.

If you like this album, there are some bonus tracks to hunt down. The Meaning and Favorite Records are off their b-sides compilation Medium Rare (which I absolutely recommend). Together and Just as Much are pretty good, too.

This isn’t my favorite album of theirs. While I’d usually recommend Medium Rare over this album, this one had a deeper impact on me at the time. And even now there are songs whose message resonate with me. I’d give this whole album a 3.3/5.