I wondered how long it would take the Random iTunes Man to settle on an Elvis Costello song.
I have 536 songs performed and/or written by Elvis Costello in my iTunes collection, even more than the 520-something I have by Bob Dylan. You’d think that those two would pop up with some regularity. But through three and a half months of Random Weekends, each of them has come up only once.
I might have neglected to list this album had I not been reminded of it by a random selection this past weekend. But revisiting it for that post, I once again succumbed to its earnest folk charm.
This album is half protest record and half romance. But, as the AllMusic review points out, even the love songs are laced with the sorrows of the lower class. Nearly 25 years ago, Chapman’s debut was the soundtrack of the 99%.
Tom Petty is an artist who could have albums on best-of-decade lists from the 70s, 80s and 90s. And he kicked off the 10’s in excellent fashion with Mojo, so the man is showing no signs of stopping anytime soon.
I don’t know that he receives enough credit for the amazing career he’s forged — he’s too often described as a follower of the great artists he counts among his peers rather than a fellow trailblazer. But you can stack his output against pretty much anybody’s.
Almost all of the albums on this list belong to artists whose careers I’ve followed obsessively. Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms is the first exception.
It’s not that I’m not a fan of the Knopfler brothers’ British rock band — on the contrary, I’ve liked pretty much everything of theirs I’ve heard. But they just never made their way onto my radar in a way that would line their six albums up on my shelf.
I ranked Michael Penn’s second album, Free-For-All, higher on my list of 90s albums than his debut album sits here, but I consider them essentially equals.
Free-For-All owes its placement to a weaker field overall as well as my personal associations (it belongs to that fabled class of ’92, after all).
