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Song of the Day #966: ‘Yer So Bad’ – Tom Petty

Tom Petty’s 1989 Full Moon Fever was his first solo album and remains his one truly flawless effort. He has put out wonderful albums both on his own and with The Heartbreakers (Wildflowers and Southern Accents are particular favorites) but nothing quite as consistent and immediate as this one.

Full Moon Fever is like the Thriller of southern rock. It’s packed with hits (five of its singles reached the top five of Billboard’s rock chart, including three straight number ones), one hook-laden track flowing into the next for 43 minutes of pure bliss. Not only doesn’t it have a weak song, it doesn’t have a weak moment.

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Song of the Day #965: ‘Jackson’ – Lucinda Williams

I feel like I’ve mentioned Lucinda Williams’ 1998 Car Wheels On a Gravel Road about a thousand times on this blog. So I checked and the actual number is thirteen (not counting today). This is another of my desert island discs and one I can’t help but reference frequently.

That’s because it does so much right in so many different ways. It rocks awfully damn hard but also contains moments of great tenderness. It is filled with simple but profound story songs, such as the title track’s childhood reminiscence of an early morning car ride or a woman stripping down to wait for her lover in bed (in opening track ‘Right on Time’).

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Song of the Day #964: ‘I Know It’s Over’ – The Smiths

Jumping ahead to 1986, here’s a selection that’s sure to irk some of my regular readers.

The Smiths’ The Queen is Dead is on my shortlist of favorite albums by any measure. It doesn’t have a weak song on it, it epitomizes its genre, it engages me both emotionally and cerebrally and it puts me in a specific time and place (freshmen year at the University of Florida). If I had to bring ten albums to the proverbial desert island, it’s a safe best this would be one of them.

I wonder what kids today would make of the desert island scenario. They have thousands of songs on devices no bigger than a stick of gum… the idea that they might be restricted to ten of anything is probably absurd.

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Song of the Day #963: ‘The Carter Family’ – Carly Simon

Carly Simon’s No Secrets is another of several 70s albums to make this list of great records. In fact, seven of the 20 albums I’m featuring come from that decade.

However, most of those 70s albums are records I discovered much later in life, during high school or college (early 90s). Only a few reached me as a child, and in each case it was thanks to my parents. One was Billy Joel’s The Stranger and another is today’s featured record.

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Random thoughts on the Oscars

– The choice of hosts was interesting but ultimately a failure. The pre-taped bit inserting them into the movies was cute (though it’s been done before, and better) but the opening monologue was uncomfortably lame. There’s a reason they usually get comedians or stage performers to do this.

James Franco said he was able to rehearse only on weekends due to his school obligations, and it showed. He seemed completely out of it and wasn’t trying at all. Anne Hathaway, on the other hand, was trying like crazy, sometimes too hard. Overall she had the right spirit and she’s very personable so she came off pretty well.

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