And welcome back to 35,000 Watts, the podcast. My name is Michael Millard. I am the director of 35,000 Watts, the story of college radio. It is a feature documentary about college radio, and it is available right now at 35,000 watts.com. The podcast is also about college radio.
And today, we are gonna talk with our 2 resident music gurus, Keith Porterfield Nice to be back. And mister Scott Mobley. Thanks for having me back. Keith, I think you were kind of the start of this particular topic, so I’m gonna let you kick it off. Here’s the setup for today.
So, it’s your last day at the radio station for all 3 of us, that being KTXT. Right as you’re about to sign off the air, mysterious men in black burst in and tell you they’re gonna have to take you away to a mysterious desert island for the rest of your life for, you know, reasons. Who knows? But before you go, you’ve got exactly enough time to grab 5 albums out of the stack in the studios. So essentially we’re talking about the desert island album list, but pulled from the studio at KTXT at our time there.
So, this one, I had a lot of fun with putting my list together. I hope you guys did too. So let’s jump into it. We’ll get get going right now and start our list. For me, I’m gonna start with the first one.
My favorite band of all time, gotta have at least one of their albums, that being The Cure. With the cure, you know, I think the first inclination would be to take disintegration, which probably is their best album. Really, you know, a masterpiece of of kind of doom and gloom holding that one mood for the entire time. But for me actually, if I’m only gonna have one album, I want to take kiss me kiss me kiss me. And I want it for a couple of reasons.
First off, it’s a double album. So it’s kind of a cheat. I get 2 albums worth of material for 1 album. So, gotta go with that a little bit of volume there. The other thing I think that is really great about kiss me is that it’s really kind of the document of a band at the height of their creative powers.
You know? Whereas disintegration is all one move, kiss me is a little bit of everything they do done really well. It does have some of the doomy and gloomy dirges, kind of the disintegration style, like if only tonight we could sleep in the snake pit. It has also got some of their best pop songs, like just like heaven and why can’t I be you, both of which we played at k t x t. It’s got some great rockers on it like all I want and, shiver and shake.
Got a little more of the kind of experimental side of things that they do for the album opener, which is called the kiss. I’ve had that album since it came out in the eighties. I’ve listened to it a 1000000 times. I still cannot tell you what Robert Smith is doing with his guitar there. Strangling it, maybe.
I’m not sure. But, man, is it great. Whatever it is, it’s it’s a fantastic song. And then, Light Cockatoos is another one that’s a little more on the experimental side. It’s, in 6 eight time, which gives it a little bit of an off kilter feel.
And then it’s got that really great, keyboard kind of orchestral ending to it, which is fantastic. So, like I said, it it for me, it checks a lot of boxes of the different kinds of things that The Cure does and, really is probably my favorite album. I it would pain me to have to go the rest of my life without disintegration, but if I can only take one Cure album, I’m gonna go with volume and variety, and that means kiss me kiss me kiss me. My second album, since we’re going to this desert island, you know, if they were taking music with us, I’m assuming we’re not talking about, you know, the first season of lost or whatever, on the island. I’m thinking, you know, like, resort accommodations, that kind of thing, maybe, you know, some drinks and coconut shells.
So in other words, there’s gonna be some time to have some fun there, I think. And fun time rock and roll, you gotta have The Replacements. So my second, album is gonna be Let It Be by The Replacements. Now, Let It Be has got 2 of my all time favorite replacement songs on it, being I Will Dare and Unsatisfied. Both of which we played at KTXT.
But man, it’s got so many great songs on it. Favorite Thing is a great punk rocker. Androgynous, which is kind of a loopy half drunk piano ballad. You’ve got Answering Machine, which is Paul Westerberg doing the singer songwriter thing, but with just a screaming electric guitar instead of kind of the traditional strummed acoustic. Highbrow intellectual fare on it, like Gary’s got a boner, which, yeah, it’s a thinker.
If for whatever reason has a a kiss cover on it in Black Diamond, which ends up working pretty well. It’s loose. It’s sloppy. It’s a replacements album, and it’s my favorite replacements album. So that’s my number 2.
I’m gonna have Let It Be by The Replacements. For my next one for number 3, as you guys know and and probably anybody that’s listened to the podcast before, I’m a big fan of British rock. I’ve always feel like, even though it’s, you know, a quintessentially American art form, the Brits have always put kind of a weird spin on it. Word I like to use when I talk about British rock is eccentric. And so as a British rock fan, I gotta have to had to take some with me.
And for that, if we’re going back to that time, you know, right around 94, 95 at KTXT, The band I want is Ride. And Ride is a band, they put out 4 albums in the nineties. The first two are really good. 2nd 2 are pretty forgettable. Ride gets lumped in with shoegaze a lot of the time, but really to my mind, from my opinion, the only one of their albums that really I would qualify as being a shoegaze album is the first one which is called nowhere.
The second album, much more of a straight ahead rock album with just kind of some, shoegaze, you know, tendencies around the edges. And that’s actually the one I want. My 3rd album is gonna be going blank again by ride. It has one of my all time favorite one two punches to open an album, and that’s leave them all behind followed by twisterella. And, again, both of those songs we played at KTXT.
Although at KTXT, we played an edited version of leave them all behind, which for my money, you’ve got to have the album version. It is a 8 minute behemoth of squalling guitars and killer vocal harmonies. Just a great song. One of my all time favorite album openers. And then following that up, you’ve got one of the most perfect kind of jane lee guitar pop tunes ever recorded in twisterella.
So back to back, those two songs make one of the best opening combos to an album, in my opinion, that I’ve ever heard. But the rest of the album is great too. It’s got not phased, time of her time, making Judy smile, all great rockers. And then toward the end of the album, they do kinda get back to their shoegaze roots, and especially the last song of the album, which is called o x 4. It is kind of the big epic shoegaze capper of the album.
It’s 9 minutes long, droney, loud guitars, lots of keyboard. Really, like I said, kind of hearkens back to the the shoegaze sound which, you know, they kind of get lumped into. But, man, it is a fantastic song. A great album closer. For me, I gotta have some British rock, and if I’m gonna take some British rock, I want Going Blank Again by Ride.
So, those are my first three. Now, we’re kind of getting down to the nitty gritty of it. We only got 2 more left here. My next album, I kinda felt like I wanted to take one of the heavyweights of the era. You know, you’ve got your Sourgarten, your Alice and Change, Stone Temple Pilots.
But my favorite, kind of the big band of that time was always Pearl Jam and I love Pearl Jam. Especially, the run of albums that opened their career. And if we’re talking about my time at KTXT, that gives me access to their first three albums. 10, Versus, and Vitalogy. 10, you know, you’ve got all of those singles, all the songs that really made Pearl Jam huge in the first place.
Plus, you’ve got Black, which is worth the price of admission by itself. With Vitalogy, you know, you’ve got Better Man, one of the biggest songs they ever did. I also got Spin the Black Circle, Not For You, one of my personal favorites, Corduroy’s on that album. But, if I can only take 1, I want Verzuz. And I’m not even gonna try to convince you that Verzuz is Pearl Jam’s best album, but it is my favorite, one of their albums.
It’s got daughter on it, which we played at k t x t, and I think pretty much everybody else everywhere played. I mean, that song was huge. But even above and beyond that, you know, Pearl Jam during those days, they would tend to on a lot of their albums, they would open up with kind of a fast paced punk rocker, and I don’t think they ever did it better than they did on Verzuz with Go. It’s one of my all time favorite Pearl Jam songs. Just just all, you know, propulsive forward energy.
I mean, that song sounds like it was working so hard to bust out of the band that they could hardly keep up with playing it. Just a great song. I think you’ve also got some other good ones like animal, dissident, rearview mirror. On the back half of the album, you’ve got one of my all time favorite Pearl Jam songs, an elderly woman behind the counter in a small town. Even all these years later, it still gets me in the feels every time I listen to it because I grew up in a small town and you know you get lines like I change by not changing it, you know, small town predicts my fate.
Like, I know that person, you know, I I grew up with that person, and I know they’re still back in the town, you know, where I grew up in. So, that’s one of my all time favorite Pearl Jam songs. Yeah. That song that album is just chock full of songs that I love. And like I said, I feel like if I’m gonna go away, forever, I’m and, you know, at that time in my life, I want one of the big boys.
And so, it’s gotta be Pearl Jam, and if I’m taking Pearl Jam, I gotta take Verzuz. It’s my favorite. So it leaves me with one left to complete my list. And so, for that, I’m looking at an album that was just massive at the time. It’s kind of an odd one in that really nothing else in these guys’ career suggested they would be able to produce an album that’s this good.
But my 5th album is gonna be throwing copper by live. And we played about half of that album at KTXT. I mean, we played a bunch of songs on it. We did all the usual suspects, like I lung, lightning crashes, selling the drama. We also played top, gave it a good run through our top 35, which was one of my personal favorites on the album.
So, we played a ton of songs off that album and man, like I said, Throwing Copper is their 2nd album. Their first album was pretty good, 2 that came after that were pretty good. I kinda dropped out alive after those. But, yeah, nothing suggests that they be able to put out an album of the quality of Throwing Copper. There is just not a bad song on that album.
It is just fantastic from end to end. Really, to my mind, one of the best rock albums of the nineties. So I gotta take it with me. I gotta have it. If I’m going to the desert island, I want my my nineties rock and roll, and nothing says nineties rock to me better than throwing copper by live.
So that’s my 5. Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me by the cure, Let It Be by the Replacements, Going Blank Again by Ride, Verzuz by Pearl Jam, and Throwing Copper by live. If I’m gonna go away forever, those are the 5 albums I want with me. I’m not sure I can add anything to you, Keith. I mean, I’m not I certainly don’t disagree with anything.
That’s that’s the that’s the problem. And I think it’s all wrong. Let me jump in and Yeah. So here’s why you’re wrong, Keith. So great list.
Nothing I can really disagree with. I can’t say I’m a huge Riot fan, but it’s not that I dislike them. I got to know them pretty well, from when you and I were working together at KTX, but also when we were running some internet radio stations later on. I think we played a lot of Ride, and that was probably when I really got to know them. So that’s the one I’m probably the least familiar with, but, I can’t fault that.
Great choice on the Cure album. I think your debate is correct. Disintegration is the kind of the obvious choice, but like, I was thinking of, like, if I’m stuck on a desert island, do I want something that depressing play? Like play, I need something that has maybe a little more, so kiss me, kiss me, kiss me is a great choice. Replacements, man.
I I I don’t know the albums as well, like, exactly which albums have the songs that I love the most. I feel like you could take, you know, any one of the first three or four of their albums and and probably feel pretty good about it. So, I definitely will defer to you on those. The 2 I probably have the most opinions about are Pearl Jam alive. I you know, at first, when I when you said Verzuz, I was kinda like, that’s an odd choice.
But when I really started thinking about the track list and kinda comparing it to some of the other albums that would fall into this category, like you said, really just the first three and the time frame that we’re looking at. You’re right. Verzuz is is solid front to back. It’s got a little more variety, I think, than 10 does, you know, where they’ve found a little bit of a few different textures and they’re doing a few different things that they’re not doing on 10 on Verzuz. So where I was gonna kinda argue a little bit about that one, I’ve I’ve thought it through, and I I can’t really argue with that.
And throwing copper is is on my honorable mention list because it didn’t quite make my list, but it is possibly one of the best front to back albums of the nineties, just track for track. If you, you know, are looking for, like, a weak spot or also looking at the heights that the the singles hit, you know, songs like lightning crashes and I alone, which went way beyond college radio and way into the mainstream and and well onto the billboard charts. Yeah. It’s hard to poke any holes in that as well. So, you know, I I can honestly say if you had to choose my desert island just for me and I had to take your options, I think I would be yeah.
I think I’d be alright. So so excellent choices. I actually totally agree with that last sentiment. Like, if you if this was the box they got handed to me to go to the desert island, I’d be perfectly fine with that. I I will disagree with Michael on one thing just really quickly.
I well, not gonna even disagree. Disintegration is a depressing, moody, gloomy album. I find it very pleasurable to listen to, though. I and I always have. Maybe there’s a part of me that likes doom and gloom and that gives me some sort of endorphin rush.
I don’t know. But I I don’t, I I find the album sort of depressing in its style, but it doesn’t depress me in any way, shape, or form. I find it I find it really energizing, probably because it’s so darn good, you know, and it’s just the it’s a very long album that does not have a week second on it. But that said, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, I think, is, as you were saying, a very nice sampling of everything The Cure does. And it’s it’s really a a much more diverse, even longer album, and it’s an excellent choice for something like that.
If it was me, it would be Disintegration. I adore that album. It’s probably one of my top 5 albums of all time. And I left it off of my list because I knew Keith would have a Cure album on there. There’s a few more just like that.
Another one like that is throwing copper, which I know we’re gonna talk about more at some point. I’m sure you guys remember that I was absolutely goo goo gaga over that album when it came out, And still I am in a lot of ways. I gave it another listen a while back, and I think it’s it hasn’t lost a step in in its quality and its the way it hits me, there’s all that stuff. I kinda gotten away from it for a while because, to be honest, I think we burned a hole in it back in the day. But it it’s really just a a phenomenal album from beginning to end.
The Replacements, I if you told me I had to take a Replacements album, I’m not sure I could pick 1, honestly. I love the one you picked. I also love Tim. I also love Please To Meet Me. You know, if you’re looking for late eighties, early nineties power pop, you can do no better than The Replacements.
And they they have a lot of really great albums, but Let It Be is a fantastic pick as well. Pearl Jam, I also agree the first three albums are all great. I think if I was gonna make that pick, it might be vitality, and I’m not even really sure why. I just always kind of I was kind of was attracted to that album more than Versus, but I really can’t give you a good explanation for that. And then, Ride, again, like Michael, I am not terribly familiar with them, although I do have and and know that album.
I always kind of thought of them as a shoegaze band too. Sounds like I need to give them my ears a little bit more if they you know? Not that there’s anything wrong with shoegaze. There’s a couple of albums that are labeled as such that very easily could have made this list. Yeah.
So I excellent choice. I would gladly take that box to a a desert island. Yeah. With Ride, they are a little bit kinda off the beaten path, but have always been one of my favorites. And the interesting thing about those guys is that about 10 years ago, they got back together.
They put out 3 albums, since then, all of which are really good. So I might actually be as fan a big fan of the second act of Riot as I was of their first act. And then you also highlighted a couple of my my most difficult choices, which were between Disintegration and Kiss Me For The Cure and between Let It Be and Tim for the replacements. Scott, the aliens have landed. They are, about to abscond you to a desert island.
Somehow we’ve kinda mixed our metaphors, but I think it makes sense in a way. So, what are you grabbing, man? Okay. So I started this with just by writing down just, like, every album I love from that basic window of of time, and I started with a good 40 albums. I narrowed it down to 5 somehow, someway.
But I am going to start with one that would be on this list if you removed every caveat. The years, the style of music, the radio station, you take it all the way and tell me I get 5 albums to take to a desert island, and this one’s coming. It’s Jane’s Addiction’s Ritual Day Love Habitual. Interestingly, at the time this album came out, you know, Nothing Shocking had come out, was very popular. It kind of is more of a as mainstream of a rock album as Jane’s Addiction was ever gonna do.
This album is a little more out there, a little more experimental. And at the time, the critics really hated it. I re I pulled a few reviews. I was gonna print them out, and I did they’re they’re long. But, basically, one one critic described it as, the music that a pimple faced overweight guy in a rush t shirt is listening to at the you know, they basically accused it of being bad prog rock, which I guess on a first listen it might be.
And I was one of those people. I bought this album the day it came out. I was a huge fan of Nothing Shocking. The first half of the album is 5 pretty straightforward rocking songs, including Been Caught Stealing, which is arguably their biggest hit. And then it goes into the second half, which are 4 very long, very meandering, very, sort of, prog rock is a fair description of of what they’re doing there, but they are magnificent songs.
They did not hit me the first time I heard it. It took a lot of listens. And I think the interesting part of all that is that this album came out, was kind of derided by the critics, had a big hit on it, sold some copies, and then at the end of that year, was named the album of the year by almost every music publication under the sun after they had dissed it. And what happened in between those two times is they got to listen to the second half a few more times and let it take take him over. If you have never heard then she did or I think most people that are Jane’s Addiction fans have heard 3 days.
If you haven’t heard the song right after it, then she did. It is, in my opinion, Jane’s Addiction’s crown kitchen. Obviously, these guys were a mess. They still are. They couldn’t ever really do it again.
But for one one shining moment, they they recorded this album, which I think is one of the greatest albums of all time. And that’s, that’s ritual of the original ritual of James Addiction. My second pick is, from a band that I have always loved and continue to love, even though they have sort of abandoned me a long time ago, is Ministry, and their album, The Mind, is a terrible thing to taste. I could have easily gone with Land of Rape and Honey here too, but I think mind is a little bit, a little bit better in the sense that it’s a little more cohesive. The thing I find interesting about ministry is that they are sort of considered the granddaddies of what we call industrial music now.
You know, they they sort of got this banner. These were the guys that started it. I don’t think anybody thinks they invented it. You know, there were bands certainly before them doing industrial. They were the ones that sort of mainstreamed it a little bit, maybe got it out there a little more.
You know, on the heels of this, we started hearing bands like Skinny Puppy and Nitzer Ebb and KMFDM, and even 9 Inch Nails sort of came after this. But in their long and storied career, I think, they really have only recorded 2 industrial albums. Before this, they were an electronic band. After it, they were a metal band. And in that transition between those two things, they recorded 2 industrial albums, Land of Rape and Honey and this one.
This is not an album you’re gonna put on right before you go to sleep. It’s really aggressive. It’s really loud. It’s really in your face. It’s noisy and all of the things that you want ministry to be, but I don’t think they really ever got any better than this.
Burning Inside is probably their best song. I don’t know that too many people would fight me on that, but it also has thieves and, Breathe and So What, which is fantastic. You know, these are these are great, great, great songs, from a band that’s that’s really nailing industrial at this time in their career. After this, they sort of drift more and more into speed metal. Funny thing about this an interesting thing is on this album was when it came out.
The last two songs on it, Faith Collapsing is one I think the other one was called Dream Song. They said that that’s where they were going. If you like this album, we’re gonna go in a different direction. It’s gonna be what these two songs are. If they had done that, I think we’d still be talking about them, but they didn’t do that.
They did NWO and Jesus Built My Heart Rye. So, and became a metal band, and they’re still pretty good. And I’m just gonna give them a real quick shout out here. They just put out an album about a little less than a year ago, that’s really good and closer to this sound than they’ve been in a long time. So if you’re a ministry fan, you jumped off the off the bandwagon a while ago like most people did, maybe give that that new album a listen.
Alright. My third pick is we’re gonna mellow it out a little bit. This is The Smiths, The Queen is Dead. I could have gone with a couple of different Smiths records. This one is far and away my favorite, though.
I think that The Smiths are kind of an anomaly in that they they never really fit into any specific genre. Some people wanna call them goth. Some people wanna call them, you know, British pop music, whatever. But British pop at this time was going electronic. There wasn’t a lot of guitar based pop coming out of England at this time, but you had you know?
And the ones that were, like The Cure and Susie and the Banshees and all that stuff, were a little darker than what the Smiths were doing. Their sound is a little janglier, a little more upbeat. And then you combine that with the sort of gloom and doom lyrics of Morrissey, who’s singing about horrible things in the most upbeat positive way. It’s it really makes for a very unique and and and a sound that I don’t think a lot of people have been able to recreate. Most importantly on this album, if you have never been convinced that Johnny Marr is the guitar god that he is, listen to this album.
It is all over it. It is some of the most brilliant guitar work you will ever hear. I’ll give you one great example, but there’s not a bad track on it. But one great example is listen to the song, big mouth strikes again, and realize that in the chorus of that song, there is not a woman singing. That is Johnny Marr’s guitar backing up Morrissey.
And what you hear is a woman singing along with Morrissey. It she’s not there. It’s Johnny Marr’s guitar. That’s how incredible the guitar work is on this album. That’s just one small example.
So if you, you know, if you’re familiar with The Smiths, you obviously know this album. It’s considered their masterpiece, and it and it is. But if you’ve never heard them or you you heard of them and you didn’t know kinda what they do, start here. This is really, really fantastic album. K.
My next pick is Rancid and Out Come the Wolves. Rancid was an interesting band to me because I’ve always kinda been a punk fan. And when the punk revolution started in the nineties, when the the punk resurgence, I guess, is the right word, started in the nineties. Most of those bands were trying to sound like the California power pop punk. Like, the descendants is probably the best example, but there’s others.
But you had your green days and your, you know, Blink 180 twos and those bands coming out that were doing basically sort of a a punked version of something like the Descendants and the Ramones. No one was really trying to recreate the magic of the British punk, which was its own animal and also really, really good. You have bands like the Damned and Buzz Cox and, you know, obviously, when you hear Rancid, the first thing that pops in your mind is The Clash. I think the reason they get compared to The Clash favorably is because they do kind of use that ska sound that The Clash was famous for. I think they really captured the sort of aggression of the British punk that the American punks were not really going for.
They were going for more of an upbeat sort of, you know, get in the pit and have some fun kind of kind of punk music, which is wonderful. I have no problem with that whatsoever. But there’s there was an anger and aggression and sort of political leaning to the British punk that none of the American bands in that second wave of punk really tried to do except Rancid. This is a great album from cover to cover. Obviously, Ruby Soho, the big hit on here.
But my favorite song on it is called Olympia Washington. If you haven’t heard it, it’s great, great, great song and a really good pure simple punk song, great hooks, great chorus, and, definitive of what the sound of of this album was. My last one is the Beastie Boys Paul’s Boutique. And this is another another complicated one. I’m gonna go on the record and probably make some people upset by saying that not only do I not like license to ill, I can’t stand it, and I never wanna hear it again as long as I live.
I will never understand why that became as popular as it did, although I guess I sorta know. But I I couldn’t have not liked it more. I did not get on board with Paul’s Boutique for many years after it came out. It was probably 92 before I really got a hold of this album. But the reason I I bring it up and the reason I would want it here is because I think as hip hop goes, this is as solid as an album cover to cover as you can get.
When you listen to rap and hip hop, it is not an album genre. It is a singles genre. It is a radio genre. And so it’s very rare to find an album that is cover to cover great rap slash hip hop, but this is that. And I wanna talk briefly about sampling because this came out at a time when sampling was sort of on the fence between, is this a good thing or is this a bad thing?
The answer is that it’s both. You can do one of 2 things. You can either just take a song and rap over it, like p Diddy did with Cashmere or whatever, and people go, oh, I love that song. You don’t love that song. You love Cashmere by Led Zeppelin.
But you can also take it and sort of use it like, what artists call found art. You know, you have discovered this and this and this, and you piece them together into something different, where it’s almost unrecognizable is what it originally was. The best example on that album, there’s a track called The Sounds of Science, which samples something like 8 or 9, maybe 10 different Beatles songs. Within the course of 3 minutes, you hear all these different samples from The Beatles. You may not know it if you you know, the one the only obvious one, I think, is the drumbeat from the reprise of Sergeant Pepper’s.
That’s the drumbeat that’s, like, laid down underneath it. But there’s all these other sounds and little things coming in there. It’s its own unique song, but it’s all borrowed and sampled music. So there were 2 magnificent albums of sampling done at this time. This was 1, the other one was Day La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising.
If you’re one of those people that think sampling can’t be done correctly, pick up one of those 2 albums and see how it’s done right and how it could be done right, how it still should be done right, but everyone’s afraid to do it now. And it’s probably expensive now that they make you pay for all that stuff. I I be if the Beastie Boys recorded Paul’s Boutique 5, 6 years ago, probably would have cost 10 times what it cost to record in 1988 or whenever it came out. So so that is that’s my list. Jane’s Addiction, Ritual of the Deal of Habitual, Ministry, The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste, The Smiths, The Queen is Dead, Rancid, and Out Come the Wolves, and Beastie Boys, Paul’s Boutique.
Yeah. You know, I think that’s as solid a list as you’re gonna get. I, yeah, I don’t disagree with pretty much anything there. I do have to admit Rancid was kind of a a blind spot for me. I knew Ruby Soho, and Time Bomb is also on that album, but I don’t know a lot of the rest of that album.
So that one, I can’t speak to as much, but your other choices, especially Jane’s Addiction, Ritual, Dale, or Obituel, it’s it’s shorter. It’s only 9 songs shorter, but, you know, I took the cure as a double album because I wanted lots of different things. And I think with this, you it’s almost like having a double album and that the front and back sides of it are so different. You know, you get the upbeat rock songs on the front side of it, and then the kind of the the slower, dronier songs on the back side of it. So it’s almost like having 2 different albums just having the one Jane’s Addiction album.
Easily my favorite Jane’s Addiction album. Like, I was not anywhere near as big a fan as nothing shocking as you are. So, yeah, if I’m gonna take Jane’s, it’s abs absolutely gonna be ritual of dehula visual. I like the choice on ministry. That’s also my favorite ministry album.
The only problem I really have with ministry is that I find their albums to be really hit or miss. Like, when they are on, they are all kinds of on. When they’re off, they are all kinds of off. And that’s that album to me is about 5050. Like, about half of it is so good, you can hardly stand it, and then the rest of it is so bad, you can’t stand it.
But that to me, all ministries albums are that way. I that’s just kinda how I feel about ministry. So if I’m gonna take a ministry album, I agree that mine is definitely the one you want. With the Smiths, always a good choice. If I could only have one, it would be Meat is Murder, but my second choice would be The Queen is Dead.
So definitely agree with you on that one. And then, on the beasties, I was never as big a fan of the beastie boys. I’ve always liked them, you know, and I was okay with license deal when it came out. So when Paul’s boutique came out, it is so different that I was really turned off by it, but came around to it like you like you say, you know, after some time and hearing it and kinda giving it more of a chance. Guess if I was only gonna take 1, it might be ill communication just because I have a lot of good memories about that one, being on the radio station at the time that I was working there.
But, but, man, you can’t go wrong with Pulse Boutique. So, yeah, totally solid list. I like pretty much every choice on there. Yeah. I mean, it’s I definitely nothing I would argue with.
I think our music tastes aren’t quite as aligned as me and Keith’s music taste, but that’s kind of always been the case, I think. So the ministry album, for example, is not one that I think I would probably go back and listen to a lot. And I, and I haven’t that said it’s one of the albums that got me. It was one of kind of my starter albums to the entire world of not just industrial, but like alternative music. Like I was in high school, a friend of mine from high school, let me borrow 2 cassettes.
1 of them was, 9 inch nails, pretty hate machine. And the other one was, ministry. The mind is a terrible thing to taste. And I was pretty into, as we talked about for pop metal, but also, you know, Metallica and and some of that. So it wasn’t a elite.
It was new, but it was not so far off the beaten path for or my beaten path that, I was, like, closed off to it. So in that sense, it’s kind of an important album for me, but it’s not one that I go back to a lot. Granted, it’s kind of the same way. I have some really fond memories of rocking out to that while we were at k t x t with you guys, specifically rocking out to that a lot. But it’s not one I I returned to.
And Jane’s Addiction has never been in a band that I’ve been super into. It’s it’s one of those that I’m there’s songs that I like. I’ve never really owned a a Jane’s Addiction album. I don’t know that anybody really owns albums these days anymore, but it’s not really in my in my library, I guess, is what you would say these days. So, you know, those 3 are a little more outside of not not my comfort zone, but they they wouldn’t really be probably even in my top 30 or 40 or anything like that.
The other 2, however, are are absolutely excellent choices. The Smith’s queen is dead is amazing. Big mouth strikes again is one of my favorite, not only Smith songs, but one of my favorite songs of that era. You nailed the the conversation about Johnny Mars guitar and his ability to to literally make it sing beyond, you know, 20 or for 30 other things he does with it on that album. And Paul’s boutique, like you, I, I didn’t hate license to ill.
I think it hit me when I was young enough for it to, you know, to hit for what it is which is a, you know, a, a, a, an old school hip hop album that, that did not in any way hint to what the BC boys were gonna become like, in any way, shape, or form. And Paul’s boutique absolutely does. It’s an example of what should have happened with with that style of music if record labels hadn’t gone nuts with with not allowing samples and, you know, if if they had been able to forge a path where artists were allowed to sample albums in a certain way without having to pay out the nose just for the rights to like 3 seconds snippets of a song. What you were talking about with, like, the cashmere, you know, quote, unquote sampling or a lot of what, you know, that that era of hip hop where they just took an entire song, stripped the vocal out, and wrapped over the top of it. Like, yeah, you should be paying all your royalties to the original artist in that sense.
But Paul’s boutique is not that. It is reconstructing all of these little bits and pieces that you’ve found from some really obscure places a lot of the time and turning it into an entirely new soundscape. And it’s a shame that more artists didn’t get to explore that and follow-up on on that because it really got shut down just a couple years after that. It became, like you said, way too expensive and just way too much legal red tape to do that. So the aliens are after me.
I’m in the booth and grabbing albums. Probably a good time to mention that we did say that you you couldn’t take more than 1 album from the same band. My guess is Keith probably would have taken maybe 2 Cure albums at least on his list. I absolutely would take 2 or 3 REM albums even if I only had 5 to take. We did restrict it, so I had to choose 1 REM album, and I I’m kicking it off by choosing Fables of the Reconstruction.
I don’t know that you could really go wrong with maybe 1 of 7 or 8 REM albums that all deserve to be on a desert island list depending on your mood, depending on your particular taste in REM. But I love Fables of the Reconstruction because it’s where REM is really starting to find their voice. The first two albums are are fantastic, but they’re they’re kind of of a piece. They definitely haven’t started to really experiment with their sound or dive a little deeper into into the their songwriting bag of tricks. And I think right off the bat with, like, feeling gravity’s pull, you definitely know, okay, this is this is a little different.
They’re kind of starting to go a little beyond just, like, the straightforward jingle pop of the first two albums. Also has driver 8 on it. One of my favorite RM songs of all time, life and how to live it, and also good advices. Oddly enough, not one of the bands necessarily their favorite albums. And I think some of that came from having a rough time recording it.
It was recorded in London. One of the only albums they or I think the only album they didn’t record in the United States as far as I know. And it was kind of famous for for being a little bit of a a struggle to record the album, but if I have to listen to 1, over and over again, that that one is the one. Next up is an album we actually have recently talked about on on a previous episode, so I won’t go too deep into it, but I’ve gotta take a blur album, of course. And because the self title album came out after my time at KTXTA, I’m gonna grab Parklife.
It’s their 3rd studio album, and it’s really where they start to hit their stride. Like REM, which was also their 3rd studio album, you know, they had kind of 2 albums to kind of work the kinks out. You can kinda see where they’re going, and then Parklife is where it all starts to come together. Title track is fantastic. Tracy Jacks is fantastic.
To the end is a completely different style of of anything they had done before, and they start to get into, it I mean, that’s like a French chamber pop kind of record. And then, just like I did on the previous episode where we talked a lot about blur, I’m gonna continue to push for people to go listen to this is a low. 3rd in my list is one of my all time favorite bands and the and the first band that I ever really fell in love with, and that’s Devo. Again, really difficult to choose from their first 4 or 5 albums and I, and you can’t go wrong with, are we not men? You can’t go wrong with duty now for the future.
You absolutely can’t go wrong with new traditionalists. And that was my battle was between new traditionalists and the one that I eventually chose, which is freedom of choice. Again, the 3rd studio album, I’ve kinda noticed a a trend that I didn’t realize I was I was doing until I started looking into the the details of each album. But again, the 3rd studio album, although this time, not necessarily a progression of what they’ve been doing. Devo, you know, the first album is is basically a punk album.
Duty now for the future leans way far in the other direction and is extremely electronic. And, this one is kind of a mix of that. They they bring the guitars back, but there’s also songs that are completely synth driven. It’s famous for for having Whip It, but that’s by, you know, by far not the best song on the album. And and if that’s all you know about Devo and if even if it’s all you know about freedom of choice, there’s a lot more to the album.
Girl You Want obviously was the other single. And I think that’s maybe the other song that people know it also appeared later on on the Tank Girl soundtrack. The the songs that you really wanna listen to, if you, if you can only pick a few are it’s not right. The title track freedom of choice is fantastic. Probably my man, top 2 or 3 favorite Devo song gates of steel, which is just chef’s kiss.
What they do and their style, like it’s gates of steel to me is kind of Devo just embodied completely perfectly in a song. Number 4 is a tiny bit of a cheat. It is not an album studio album proper, but it is new order substance, which is a collection of the the 12 inch versions of a lot of the songs that had been released, and during the first part of their career. It has some alternative versions of songs, for example, ceremony. It has the Gillian Gilbert version, whereas it had previously only been released as a 7 inch and was just the the version that they recorded as a trio right after, they had changed their name from Joy Division.
It’s got true faith. It’s got bizarre love triangle. It’s got blue Monday. It’s got sub I mean, you could just go on and on. It is essentially a greatest hits album.
It is fantastic front to back. It is by far the best introduction, I think, to new order that, that you could ask for. They have kind of a whole smattering of weird, like greatest hits albums out now. They’ve, they’ve got a singles collection and greatest hits album and whatever, but I think track for track substance is the best versions of those tracks. I think it’s the best collection, if you have to choose one to listen to.
It’s sad in some places. It’s, kind of triumphant in some places. You know, it it to me kind of encompasses the rebirth of of new order after after joy division and and all the angst and yet all the happiness that kinda comes from from new order songs is all there. It’s just got a little of everything that you love about new order. So I don’t think you can go wrong.
And again, it maybe it’s a cheat to to choose a compilation like that, but I think in this case, it’s warranted. And then the last album, it’s not one that I would have thought would have made this list. And maybe maybe if this is a real exercise, it doesn’t make the list. But like Keith was kind of saying about Pearl Jam Versus, I wanted one song that really, really, really represented my time at KTXT while I was there, songs that just stuck in my head. And, when I hear them, I it puts me right back in the booth.
So I thought of a few albums like that. Like what are the albums that when I, every time I hear them, I can, I can like smell the KTX booth and I can feel the, the board and, you know, that one was, was Matthew sweet, 100% fun? I I went back and and listened to a 100% fun. And man, it is so good front to back. It I it’s Matthew Sweet at his best.
Sick of myself was the big single, and it’s it’s as good as you would expect a a Matthew Sweet out, single to be. But also, we’re the same Superbaby, Smog Moon is Smog Moon is one of the most beautiful songs. Matthew Sweet is one of those guys who is kind of a college radio icon. You know, he never really hugely broke into the mainstream. I’m not sure.
Maybe Sick of Myself was his biggest track that that would have kind of broke outside of the college radio world, but he represents everything good about college radio and everything good about singer songwriters, and and so I felt like that needed to be included on here. So that is my list. REM, fables of the reconstruction, blur, park life, devo, freedom of choice, new order substance, and Matthew Sweet, 100% fun. Excellent list. All great choices.
I, starting with fables of the reconstruction. Of the IRS years of of REM, Fables is my 2nd favorite album. I think it though if I had to do, like, if I was gonna put an REM album on this list and the only reason I didn’t is because I knew you would, mine would be Lifetouch Pageant, but Fables would would be right there behind it. There’s so many great songs on that record. And like you said, it’s kind of starts to show where they’re maybe heading a little bit as where the first couple albums were, like I I think you said the just the jangly pop that, you know, that REM was kind of known for at that time.
You start to see a little more slowed down stuff, a little, you know, a little more of what they’re going to try to morph into as as the years go on. And a perfect example of that is my favorite song on the record, which is Maps and Legends. A beautiful example of how they could slow it down and still kinda sound like themselves, and it’s got nothing tickles my ears more than great Mike Mills harmony on the early RPM albums. And it’s all over this album, but especially Maps and Legends as a a great example of it. So Blur, you know, you guys we’ve I think for each of us there’s been the one band that everybody went, well, that’s my weak spot.
That’s Blur for me, I have to admit. I I am familiar with with most of their singles. I think I know most of the stuff they put out there that got some air. But I never really dove much in their album. So I don’t have a whole lot to say about that.
I know I know that they were always kind of compared to Oasis, and I always thought that their singles were better than Oasis’ singles, if that if that makes any difference. But that’s really all I all I have on them is that I know that they were a great sort of, you know, British pop band of that era that I just wasn’t that into and never really got exposed to very much. But a band I was exposed to very much was Devo. So, my my story with Devo is kinda similar to yours. My first exposure to them was hearing their cover of working in a coal mine on the heavy metal soundtrack, which they also put on an album, I think, later.
And it might have been a b side or something before that, but that’s where I heard it was heavy metal, which is this wonderfully bad eighties cartoon, that had nudity in it, you know, and it was this sort of taboo thing or whatever. But it had a wonderful soundtrack, and one of those songs was working in a coal mine. I think on the strength of that, I got freedom of choice. And I had probably heard Whippet at the time too, although I wasn’t that big of a fan of Whippet. But I also love the album that comes after this, New Traditionalists, for no other reason.
It’s it’s a great album cover to cover, sounds like jerking back and forth and things like that. But I absolutely adore Through Being Cool, and I don’t know why. I can’t tell you why that song gets in my ears so much, but I love it. I listened to it again when we were, sending emails back and forth about this topic, and you mentioned it. And I was, like, oh, I gotta put that album on.
And 5 seconds into Through Being Cool, I’m like, dang. I missed listening to it. It’s just it’s just a fun album from cover to cover, and so is for your own choice. It’s excellent choice. And like you said, if what you know about Devo is Whip It and, you know, stuff like that, you do not know the whole story.
This is a very creative, very experimental, very, ahead of its time band that I think influenced more people than you can probably count. And so if you if you’re not one of those people that’s familiar with Devo beyond what you know from their public persona or their MTV videos or whatever, dive in there and give that a listen. They are fantastic and, a much more, influential band than I think they get credit for. So Substance, new order, I have a funny story about this. When I was a freshman at Texas Tech, the guy that lived across the hall from me and I used to go, like, twice a week to university records and look through the used stuff to see what we could get.
And one of the first times we went, we were both freshmen and and relatively, you know, green and all that stuff, we went there and he bought new order substance. Now I had heard of new order, I had heard technique and, you know, whatever, but I wasn’t that into them yet. And he bought substance by new order. What we didn’t realize at the time was that he had just bought the second disc. They, you know, they had 2 discs and this was just the second one.
And we took it home back to the dorm. We listened to it. It’s all instrumental, I think, or if there are vocals on any of it, it’s pretty rare. It has a track called The Beach, which is Blue Monday without the vocals. And, you know, so like and we’re listening to this and we’re going, what is this?
Like, we had heard New Order. We knew they had songs, like, what you know, and we I don’t think we found out till years later that, there was a second disc involved in that that had the stuff we actually wanted to hear on it. Anyway, that’s my funny story. But, on Substance, I think it’s a good pick, and you said it might be a little bit of a cheat, but I think it’s a good pick because, it is a great sampling of sort of what they were doing at that time and that transition from being Joy Division and going into what would become New Order, Substance is a great little slice of what that was going to be. Because a lot of those songs, even though they are sort of upbeat and electronic and and, for lack of a better word, techno, they still kind of have that.
The Joy Division bass lines, the Joy Division sort of ambiance to them, but it’s a nice transition into what they’re they’re going to be. And then I can say nothing more about 100% fun than what a perfect album title for that album. It is 100% fun and a great pop album, great singer songwriter stuff. Every song on it is hooky, every sing on it is is in your ears, every song on it is fun, and it’s just that’s that’s a really great pick. And what I probably wouldn’t have dug out, you know, even given more time or more, you know, lists of things to look at.
I’m not sure I would have found that one, but I’m sure glad you did because that is that is a wonderful album that I haven’t thought about in a really long time. So great list, man. Yeah. Actually, Matthew Sweet, that the 100% fun was the biggest surprise when I heard your list to me. I that’s one.
I had thought about it. I I remember that album because it was big, you know, during our time there and has so many great songs on it. But but, yeah, it was funny that I hadn’t really considered that because I actually, back in the day, at that time, really considered myself to be a pretty big Matthew Sweet fan on the strength of Girlfriend and Altered Beast. And I think, both of those are good albums, but I do think this one is better. I think it’s a little more, like, cohesive, you know, kind of a of a piece than those.
And man, yeah, the singles, you just you can’t get better than Sick of Myself, Super Baby. Yeah, just great songs. So, yeah, that was a that was a good pick, and really was for me the big surprise of your list. I did like the list, really solid. I’m a big fan of substance, actually.
I’m glad you picked that one. I don’t really consider it to be much of a cheat at all. You mentioned the rerecorded version of ceremony, and it also has the rerecorded version of temptation on it, which I think is the definitive version of temptation. They really kinda went in and and gave what was kind of just a sprawling mess, some actual structure, and made of more, you know, cohesive song out of it. And it actually temptation is my all time favorite new order song, the version of it that’s on substance.
So, yeah, a great pick. It’s also about everything’s gone green on it. You didn’t mention that one, but I’m a big fan of the early new order stuff, the early singles and power corruption and lies where it was a little sloppier, especially on the vocals. Like, I think, you know, they weren’t going quiet as slickly produced as they would get later on in the technique and brotherhood eras. And I think, Everything’s Gone Green is a really great example of that, like just kind of the wild, you know, shouted vocals.
I really appeal to me. I liked that era of New Order a lot. And so, yeah, another one that it’s got on it is Thieves Like Us, which is an all time favorite of mine as well. So Taking Substance, is an absolutely a good call. We did talk a little bit about Blur in earlier episodes.
I won’t hit that one a lot other than to say that Parklife is my favorite Blur album, so excellent choice there. Devo, for me, is a band the one band that you picked that I don’t have a whole lot of knowledge on. But I remember you actually, you turning me on to some of their other stuff. And Gates of Steel, which you mentioned, is now my all time favorite Devo song. Just a fantastic song, like you said.
So I appreciate you turning me on to that one. I could have guessed you were gonna take some Devo, and, yeah, you can’t go wrong with this particular album. It’s a great one. And then, of course, an REM album, you know, I know that you’re that they’re your favorite band, so, obviously, you know, that one of those was gonna go. You guys pretty much discussed it as as well as I could.
I will mention that it’s got some of my all time favorite album tracks on it. You know, the singles are great, but, man, there are so many great album tracks on it. You guys mentioned some of them. But for me, Good Advices is the song that, for whatever reason, I could listen to Good Advices over and over and over again. It’s just a just a great song.
So Fable’s a good choice. I don’t know that it would be the R. E. M. Album if that I would take if I was gonna pick 1, but it would definitely be in my top 2 or 3.
So solid choice, solid list all the way through. You could do a lot worse than than those 5 albums for sure. Excellent discussion, and we are starting to run out of time. But before, before we wrap it up, I I’m sure we all had a couple albums that didn’t quite make the cut. We won’t go into them in detail, but I am kind of curious about, you know, which ones were, right on the edge of your list.
I can quickly go through mine. Oasis definitely maybe was right there. Sugar file under easy listening was right there. As I said before, live throwing copper, I think was on all of our lists essentially because I think we all just love that album. Catherine Wheel Chrome, and also Soul Asylum, Grave Dancers Union are the are the ones that, I I considered very, very, closely before finally landing on my 5.
Yeah. I mentioned a couple of mine, with Disintegration and, Tim from The Replacements. The other 2 that were my last cuts were, album called Soul Mining by The The. I was a big fan of theirs back here in those days, and it would have scratched my British rock itch as well. But also really, at the time felt like that, you know, for that time period, Ride was really the more representative band.
And then the other one I strongly considered and ended up leaving off was Siamese Dream by the Smashing Pumpkins. Just a great album and, kind of the spot in the Venn diagram where grunge and glam rock come together and just have some great songs on it. Cherub Rock, probably my all time favorite Smashing Pumpkins songs. So those were my 2, probably most difficult cult cuts were soul mining and, Siamese dream. So for mine, it it we did not make this a requirement that we did not choose the same artist, but just I like the idea of having 15 unique artists on this list just to give a little more variety to it.
So I kinda put that caveat on myself. So for that reason, just, the Cure Disintegration, REM, Slifers, Pageant, and Throwing Copper were all crossed off my list. But some of the other ones that almost made the cut, Rage Against the Machine’s first album, Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation, 9 inch nails, Pretty Hate Machine, and, the Stone Roses debut album. All almost right there. But, you know, I looking at my list now, there’s not one of those I would cut in favor of any of the ones I just mentioned.
So If you’re a music fan and you’ve you’re listening and there’s an album that you’ve heard on this list that you that you’re not familiar with, go check it out. If if it’s risen this high to the top of our collective, list, it’s probably pretty solid all the way through because we’ve listened to literally 100, if not thousands of albums in our lifetime. So, yeah, to make our a top 5 like this, it’s probably worth listening to. So go check it out. Let us know what you would take to the desert island, in this situation.
You don’t have to follow the exact same rules, but in general, we were going from, like, 1980 to 1995 in albums that that were played on college radio. So if you wanna make your list, go to social media. We’re on Facebook. We’re on Instagram. You can fill out the form on our website, and we’ll put it up on socials ourselves if you’re not a social media type person.
But I’m seriously kind of very curious. What albums do you remember from your time in college radio that you just couldn’t live without if you were stuck on the desert island? What a fun conversation. It’s a really fun exercise to go through, and, I really enjoyed it. There is also a film it’s called 35,000 Watts, the story of college radio.
It is available for download right now at 35,000 watts.com. So after you make your list of of albums and listen to some music and you wanna kick back and watch a film, why not make it 35,000 watts? I’m just I’m just throwing it out there. Just, you know, just an idea. We appreciate it.
Thanks for tuning in, and we’ll catch you next time on the next episode of 35,000 Watts, the podcast.