The Sheila Variations

Clancy Brothers live at Carnegie Hall is a solid choice. I grew up on that album.

Remind me to order the Wainwright siblings' [individual] albums tomorrow.. I keep forgetting.

here is my list
Plastic Letters- Blondie
American Idiot- Green Day
The Dreaming- Kate Bush
London Calling- Clash
The Final Cut- Pink Floyd
Green- Throwing Muses
Automatic for the People- REM
Rock Spectacle- BareNaked Ladies
the first album w/Birthday- Sugarcubes
Mirrorball- Sarah Mclaughlin

Yeah, Blondie! Yeah Clash! Yeah Green Day.

Awesome list.

I could go on and on. I loved Dan's list- Smiths, Bob Mould, Replacements...I'm having flashbacks..I wish I had a turntable so I could play my Husker Du albums.. :(

My absolute earliest memory from childhood (early '60's) is waking up one Saturday night/Sunday morning to very loud Clancy Brothers music. We lived in what would be called a railroad flat in Brooklyn....you walked through everybody else's bedroom to get to the living room. I got out of bed, and walked towards the music. When I opened the French doors to the living room, every aunt, uncle, grandmother, great aunt and great uncle on my dad's side (all of whom were off the boat) were marching in a circle around the living room. Each of the were carrying "band instruments": an inverted Kirby vacuum was the bagpipe, the long pole attachment to the vacuum was the drum major's marching stick, wooden spoons were flutes, saucepans were drums...etc. And every one of them was either wearing large stockpots or large empty cookie tins on their heads as a headress. They were, of course, the East 51st Street Emerald Society Air Bagpipe Band. I've always wondered exactly how much whiskey needs to be imbibed to get to that stage. Oh, and I bet that whoever carried the "bagpipe" wishes that ultra-light Orecks had been invented much earlier, too.

Michael - I honestly don't know what to say. That is absolutely gorgeous. Thank you for sharing it here!

No, thank you! You sparked the memory for me with your list and made me laugh. I don't find the Clancy Brothers on too many Top Ten album lists on the Internet six months past St. Patrick's Day.

hahahaha

Yeah - they're always on my top 10. :)

I love the image of an "Air Bagpipe Band". I, too, grew up with the Clancy Brothers (as well as The Chieftans). I used to cringe as a teenager when friends were walking up to the door, to pick me up to go out. "Ma! Turn that DOWN!" I would hiss at my mother. (For those of you who don't know my mother, let me tell, you- you do NOT hiss at Nance. At least without KNOWING you are going to end up in big trouble!!!) I was a Senior in High School on St.Patrick's Day when I realized I knew ALL the words to all the songs of the great Irish bands. We were at Casey's Bar and Grille (my mom and dad and little sister) and I absentmindedly was singing along with the music, when I realized I knew ALL the words, recognized all the music and what's more, LIKED IT! I have never turned back.

My personal favorite is William Bloat. I know there are multiple versions of the song - but this is the one I know. I sing it in the shower:

In a mean abode on the Shankill Road
Lived a man named William Bloat;
He had a wife, the bane of his life,
Who always "got his goat."

So one day at dawn, with her nightdress on—
He slit her bloody throat.

Now he was right glad he had done as he had
As his wife lay there so still
But a sudden awe of the mighty law
Filled his heart with an icy chill.
So to finish the fun so well begun
He decided himself to kill.

He took the sheet off his wife's cold feet,
And twisted it into a rope,
And he hanged himself from the pantry shelf—
T'was an easy end, let's hope—
In the face of death, with his latest breath,
He solemnly cursed the Pope!

But the strangest turn of the whole concern
Is only just beginnin'!
He went to Hell, but his wife got well,
And she's still alive and sinnin'—
For the razor blade was German made,
But the rope was Belfast linen!

beth - i don't have rehearsal this weekend. I'll be home. saturday night?

I don't think William Bloat is on the Carnegie Hall album... although the version I have is definitely live. The whoops and hollers at "rope was Belfast linen" make you WISH you were seeing it live.

mere - I just bought Flip Your Wig and New Day Rising on CD.

Some personal favorites:

Frontier Days, The Del-Lords
Drums and Wires, XTC
Equal Rights, Peter Tosh
Life'll Kill Ya, Warren Zevon
Robin Lane and the Chartbusters
1000 Kisses, Patty Griffin
Forget About It, Alison Krauss
Beggar's Banquet, Rolling Stones
The River, Bruce Springsteen
Zuma, Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Jeff! Robin Lane and the Chartbusters???

classic!!

Dan- I'm so jealous. What great albums.

OOooh. Good topic. Off the top of my head:

Genesis - Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Dream Theater - Scenes From a Memory
Megadeth - Peace Sells But Who's Buying?
The Misfits - Walk Among Us
Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols
Slayer - Reign in Blood (and this was a toughie, but as speed metal goes, this is probably one of, if not the best album ever made)
Rush - Moving Pictures
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Rollins Band - Nice
The Stooges - Raw Power

1. The Band - The Last Waltz
2. Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation - Mighter Rearranger
3. David&David - Boomtown
4. Blondie - Live in New York
5. Bela Fleck and the Flecktones - Flight of the Cosmic Hippo
6. Patti Smith Group - Wave
7. Annie - Anniemal
8. Black Crowes with Jimmy Page - Live at the Greek
9. The Chieftans - Tears of Stone
10. Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler - Kneck and Kneck

You have no idea how hard it was to keep this down to just ten. Watch for the outtakes on the special edition DVD.

Gordon - Barenaked Ladies
Live Noise - Moxy Früvous
Cereal Killers - Too Much Joy
Use Your Fingers - The Bloodhound Gang
Internet Dating Super Studs - The Vandals
Surrender To Jonathan - Jonathan Richman
Bone Machine - Tom Waits
One Step Beyond - Madness
New York Dolls - New York Dolls
Flood - They Might Be Giants

New York Dolls was an excellent choice Mark. I almost put that instead of the Sex Pistols (McLaren obviously modeled the Pistols after the Dolls).

Let's see if I get this one right; stuff you want people to ADD to their collections, right?

OK:

Blood On The Bricks, the Iron City Houserockers.
Shoot Out The Lights, Richard and Linda Thompson
Men Without Women, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul (if you remember that one, I tip my hat to you)
Tunnel Of Love, Springsteen (not my favorite Bruce album (it's #3), but the one you should add to your collection)
Stand In The Fire, Warren Zevon
Steeltown, Big Country
Tim, The Replacements
Will The Wolf Survive?, Los Lobos
Roses In The Snow, Emmylou Harris
Never Mind The Bollocks..., the Sex Pistols.

That should give everyone plenty to work on.

BTW, my dad is/was the least musical person I know. We owned maybe ten records when I was a kid - and the Clancy Bros were one of them. Every Sunday morning, he'd put 'em on.

By the risin' of the moon,
by the risin' of the moon,
and a thousand pikes were flashin' by the
risin' of the moon....

I could also sing "Beer Beer Beer" pretty fluently in first grade, which did not amuse the teacher much. On the upside, "Dirty Old Town" was the first song I ever figured out on guitar without the aid of music...

Tracy Bonham! Sheila, you rock my world. I love that album.

jess - Yay! Nobody appears to know who she is excpet for you and me. That's one of my favorite albums. The stuff she's done since hasn't had the same thrilling sound ... I'm still waiting, though!!!

Red and Jess,

That's one one from ten years or so ago, with "Dear Mother" on it?

That was a pretty cool album.

("Nobody appears to know who she is except for you and me"...as if. Sheesh).

mitch - go out on the street right now and say, "Have you heard of Tracy Bonham". See the response you get.

You're a music lunatic. Of COURSE you would know who she is!!

And yeah, that was from 1993, 1994.

"Mother Mother
Are you listenin'
Sure I'm sober, sure I'm sane .."

And then how she just starts SCREAMING. Great stuff. And she's teeny. She's like a small Hobbit creature. But that voice.

I listened to that Tracy Bonham CD every day when it came out right when I started driving. I still see images of high school when I hear certain songs. *sigh*

I'm going to have to agree with a previous posters on
They Might Be Giants Flood
Moxy Früvous Live Noise
Barenaked Ladies Gordon

The obvious choices
The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Radiohead Ok Computer
Nirvana Nevermind

And the others
Badly Drawn Boy Have You Fed the Fish?
The Dukes of Stratosphear (aka XTC) Chips from the Chocolate Fireball
Camper Van Beethoven Key Lime Pie
the bogmen Life Begins at $40,000,000

Correction: The bogmen album is called Life Begins at 40,000,000. No $. Sorry! It's a play on the album's cover art.

Oh, and I think Tracy Bonham came out with a new album last month. She was featured on Breakfast with the Arts along with Gogol Bordello, another faboo band whose album Multi Kontra Culti vs. Irony is worth checking out.

I have Tears of Stone by the Chieftains. That's the one, Sheila, with Brenda Fricker reciting "Never Give All the Heart."

Other than that one album, I have none of the ones ANY of you mention. I'm a dork.

I know of Tracy Bonham. Boston girl, right?

Oh man, Tracy Bonham! I think I had just gotten my drivers license when the "Mother Mother" song came out and it was the first song I remember ROCKING OUT to by myself in the car. It was fantastic! Thanks for reminding me of her...

Ah, that's the style that Mary sat on!

Earliest concert memory: The Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, MA. I thought they were all relatives of ours, since we sang the same music. Thanks for the connection.

Making the List of Ten is a seductive challenge, that could easily be overthought. Here goes (in no particular order):

1. Ani DiFranco- Reckoning/Revelling
2. Elvis Costello and Anna Sophie Von Otter- For the Stars
3. Bjork- Post
4. Michael Hedges- Taproot
5. Stevie Wonder- Songs in the Key of Life
6. Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane
7. Joni Mitchell- Blue
8. Dar Williams- Mortal City
9. Mark Knopfler- Sailing to Philadelphia
10.Glen Gould- Bach: Two and Three-Part Inventions, BWV 772-801

That was fun! And you're right; tomorrow the list could be entirely different. There's too much good music in the world not to rotate the top contenders often.

Now I'm thinking about mix tapes...

Here goes nothing, after #1, it's no particular order:

1. Derek and the Dominos - Live At The Fillmore
2. Radiohead - The Bends
3. Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out
4. E.S. Posthumus - Unearthed
5. Jimmy Buffett - A1A
6. John Lee Hooker - Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive
7. Jimmy Buffett - Coconut Telegraph
8. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
9. New Order - Technique
10. The Smithereens - 11

Why are lists so much fun, red?