SONIA'S SUGGESTIONS 1983

#10. In the Heart - Kool & The Gang

Bingeing on The Deuce TV show soundtrack for an entire year (very good show- please watch) may have broken my brain but it did expand my taste in music to include more funk and disco. Here’s one album I’d like to cruise around on rollerskates to. 

Songs: Joanna, Straight Ahead

#9. Blues N Jazz - B.B. King

I started listening to blues and jazz because of Ghost World. This album won a grammy which Enid probably wouldn’t have approved of.

Songs: Broken Heart, Heed My Warning

#8. Get it Right - Aretha Franklin

Timeless. Not her best album but I still like it. Just when you think you’ve got the hook down, she transcends it with something different. The gospel influences are still detectable here, and all of you godless cretins need more of that in your life.

Songs: Get It Right, Giving In

#7. Hootenanny - The Replacements

Something for everyone. A little bit of everything that punk can be- fun, dreary, nonsensical... It’s easy to see (..or should I say hear? heheh ) their mark on artists that cite them as influences, like reading a book after watching the movie it was based on. Which ironically makes for a very not-punk lesson: respect your elders!

Songs: Take me down to the hospital, You Lose

#6. Madonna - Madonna

The gays really know how to pick ‘em, and by ‘em I mean female artists that start out as icons but turn into complete monsters (Madonna, Lady Gaga, Beyonce...). It’s hard to believe there was a time when Madonna was groundbreaking, beautiful, and not doing that weird bathtub thing. I could imagine throwing this on for the handful of times a year I engage in the tedious feminine ritual of painting my face.

Songs: Borderline, Burning Up

#5. Mostly Blues... And Some Others - Count Basie

Last album before he died one year later. Makes me think of a time when people used to listen to records and just take them in. When’s the last time you just listened to a song without multitasking? Doesn’t count if you’re drunk! Closest thing for me is when I’m driving or cleaning or something, and that kind of makes me sad.

Songs: Snooky, Blues for Charlie Christian

#4. Suicidal Tendencies - Suicidal Tendencies

This is a hilarious album. I like punk that has a sense of humour without being too on-the-nose a la NOFX or Offspring (nothing against that) while still managing to express something sincere. See Institutionalized: “And they go: Well you know if you want to talk about it I'll be here, you know / And you'll probably feel a lot better if you talk about it, so why don't you talk about it.” Anyone who's ever had a mental breakdown will be able to relate (what's with normies and wanting you to fuckin talk about it) but it pulls back before you might conclude you should wallow in it. This permits a type of catharsis. I think that’s what they call art, baby!

Songs: Institutionalized, Subliminal

#3. Mumije Lažu - Pauk

Some sources say this album was released in 1982 but other sources say 1983 so whatever, I’ve included it. It is Bosnian new wave post punk that you can basically sing along to by going s szsssscchchc zssshssh. My people LOVE consonants and smooshing them together. Imagine post-punk made by people without the capacity for extreme irony or petulance. Real slavs are not very ironic or self-indulgent. Take in this adorable comment from one of the members about why they disbanded and how they started:

“We came from small town and far from media and industry people ... I wanted to just care about music and artistic aspect of it. Never liked business part… we were disappointed with lack of interest and support of record company … I guess, they didn't believe in commercial success of that kind of music, and they signed us mostly for two reasons: 1. Political (In multinational Yugoslavia, if you were publisher, you should have artists from ALL former republics (today, independent states!), so, that, nobody accuses you of favoritism on national basis. "Suzy" was Croatian label and at the time they didn't have band from Bosnia in catalog. So, signing us served political purpose, but they never invested in album, or helped it marketing-wise. That was problem that we faced throughout our career, and that's why I wrote out first single "Momak iz provincije" ("A Boy from Province")....and, 2. They want to "prove" that they are "giving chance to progressive bands, and not only those who sells lots of records:..... (see, it's not easy to explain those things to foreigners...lol!) … I left after 7 months and bass player left at the end of the war (luckily, he survived!). How we started? Well we were all from small town and knew each other, as musicians. At one point (and few drinks!). we decided to try "mission impossible": start new alternative band with innovative approach to rock music and shake up society we have lived in, and to prove, if you stubborn enough and believe in yourself, you can achieve artistic success even from small Bosnian town, that not many people in industry even knew where is it on the map...! 38 years later - we became band with the MOST WATCHED SONG on YouTube IN THE WORLD (!) OF ALL BANDS OF FORMER YUGOSLAVIA! The irony of life…”

I love him and I hope you do too.

Songs: Balkanski Futur, Kurvarluk

#2. Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes

Am I the only one who finds Gordon Downie’s voice strangely titillating? One of my all-time favourite artists that I frequently neglect (spotify-induced music overload). Amazingly, Add it Up being in a commercial didn’t ruin it for me. I’m just going to pretend that didn’t happen.

#1. Volume 9. Want to Keep it As Smiling Memory - Sanulrim/Sanullim (sp?)

According to Wikipedia it’s Sanulrim, according to Spotify it’s Sanullim. Not sure which platform I trust more here. There’s lots of good South Korean psychedelic rock from this era, and the genre is one of the only positive things that Spotify introduced to me before it started recommending me the same bland “indie rock”(?) trash on loop (death to the algorithm!!!). The great thing about foreign language artists is that you'll probably never know the words! They could be singing super anti-semitic shit for all I know!!! But I don’t caaare!!!!!!