Animal Stencils

I was burned out on post-punk a month ago. I was reading a horrible book called Rip It Up and Start Again about the history of the genre, and by the time I was finished I didn’t want to listen to anything post or punk.  It was written like the worse Wikipedia entries. You know, the ones that people start so people who know something about the subject will correct it. Or worse like the entries you question if the band wrote it themselves. Yuck!

I decided to take a break and the next time my emusic subscription renewed I would download albums the mainstream rock credits loved. I read the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list before I downloaded albums by Al Green, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Meat Loaf, Carole King, Janis Joplin, and a couple of others. Most of them were great but a few of them were stinkers.

I’m listening to Janis Joplin right now, so I’ve been youtubing her interviews. I like the ones on the Dick Cavett show. It’s fun to watch these because you can tell they like each other. I don’t mean like like but I think they’re amused by each other. It makes me happy to see when one makes the other smile.

~Chris