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Song of the Day #1,381: ‘Mumbo Jumbo’ – Squeeze

Best Albums of the 80s – #20
East Side Story – Squeeze (1981)

By now you know that I can’t resist a list. So after spending a month counting down my favorite 90s albums, I’m turning my attention to the preceding decade.

First, a disclaimer: My record collection narrows as I go back in time. The 80s spanned my life from age 8 to 18, not exactly prime territory as far as disposable income goes. So I don’t have the breadth of material to choose from that I do for the 90s and beyond. Many of my 80s albums were bought much later, as I sought to fill in the catalogs of artists I discovered mid-career.

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Song of the Day #1,380: ‘Baby Can I Hold You’ – Tracy Chapman

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve managed to post 1,379 songs without ever featuring a track by Tracy Chapman. You’d think she would have come up at some point.

True, I own only one Chapman album (her 1987 debut) but that record is a wonderful piece of work. And it’s an album of which I have very specific memories of exactly the sort I like to explore on this blog.

I guess she was just never high enough on my radar to break through. So thank you, Random iTunes Man, for the reminder.

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Song of the Day #1,379: ‘On Fire’ – Eminem

Check out the admirable sense of symmetry by the random iTunes man. Last Saturday he served up a track from Eminem’s worst album, 2004’s Encore, and a week later he delivers a song from the rapper’s comeback album, 2010’s Recovery.

Listening to those albums back-to-back, it’s striking to note the difference sobriety makes. Eminem recorded Encore while hopped up on pain pills and Recovery after taking a couple of years to get clean.

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Song of the Day #1,378: ‘Alice Childress (Live)’ – Ben Folds Five

Best Albums of the 90s – #1
Ben Folds Five – Ben Folds Five (1995)

This pick will come as no surprise to regular readers of the blog. I’ve gone on record calling this my favorite album and even featured it in its entirety a year and a half ago.

In fact, I’ve had to cheat in order to post a song today. This recording of ‘Alice Childress’ isn’t from the album itself but from a live radio performance by the band on KCRW. Fittingly, given yesterday’s featured album, Folds writes in the liner notes that he sang this song “absolutely intimidated by Fiona Apple’s performance on the same show.”

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Song of the Day #1,376: ‘To Your Love’ – Fiona Apple

Best Albums of the 90s – #2
When the Pawn… – Fiona Apple (1999)

The highest ranking sophomore album on this list, Fiona Apple’s When the Pawn… (the full title is a 90-word poem) totally caught me by surprise. I was a fan of Apple’s debut record, and had even seen her in concert opening for Counting Crows, but nothing on the first album prepared me for this one.

On her debut, Tidal, Apple’s voice was rich with a depth and maturity that belied her age, but many of her actual songs revealed her as the 19-year-old girl she was. She was tentative and prone to languid ballads that put her and her piano at center stage.

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