The Scud Mountain Boys - The Early Year: Pine Box/Dance The Night Away (1995) and Massachusetts (1996). Joe Pernice's alt-country band is more of a mopey, Smith-influenced guitar pop band with country flourishes. That said, these are excellent albums, and Pernice's songwriting chops are in great form.The Sea And Cake - The Fawn (1997) and Oui (2000). Excellent fake jazz outfit from the John McEntire wing of the Chicago mafia with Sam Prekop of Shrimp Boat out front. They're not quite as fantastic as Tortoise, but that's a pretty high bar.The Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop Boxed Set (2002). I wasn't that crazy about the anime or its soundtrack, but I somehow ended up with this.

1. Erik Satie Works
2. Composer Erik Satie

Erik Satie Works

The best track is the one they used as a theme for the opening credits. Otherwise it's just mediocre bebop.Sebadoh - III (1991) and Harmacy (1996). I have a hard time believing that I only have two Sebadoh albums, too. And no Bakesale! Not sure how that happened. Anyway, yeah.

My musical tastes are based in the indie rock of the early 90s. I love Sebadoh.Secret Crush Society - Baltimore Chapter (2005). Freakin' excellent heart-on-its-sleeve indie-punk from a band fronted by my pal Lisa. They have a new incarnation, which is the one appearing in the video below. The one on this album is a little more Ramonesy.The Secret Intentions - Don't Fight It, Feel It (2001) and Love's Permutations (2002).

These are two excellent lo-fi fuzz-pop basement albums by my pal Michael.Secular Joy - Made For Better Things (2012). I was in this band briefly after the original guitarist Zeno Gill left. It was (is?) fronted by Mark Edwards of My Dad Is Dead and it is an AWESOME band. These recordings (which I don't play on, for the record) are intense, emotional, and overwhelmingly beautiful. Truly excellent stuff. I can't find videos to embed from youtube other than this glimpse into the recording process, but the whole album is.

Scharpling & Wurster - Rock, Rot, and Rule (1999), New Hope For The Ape-Eared (2004), and Hippy Justice (2005). The host of The Best Show On WFMU and the funniest man in rock music cracking wise for the edification of the hundreds, if not fives of hundreds, who fall into this target demographic. Tom Scharpling is a pretty great straight man, willing to roll with whatever Jon Wurster throws at him, which is considerable because Wurster is both hilarious and amazingly imaginative. Rock, Rot, and Rule has the first of these, where Wurster takes on the persona of a guy who has written a book to definitively answer where bands fall into these arbitrary (which is the point) categories, and the angry callers who are not even close to being in on the joke are the most delightful part. By the time of New Hope, most of WFMU's listeners knew they were being trolled, but the focus shifts to a brilliant and weird world-building experiment.

Hippy Justice has some of the greatest bits these two have ever pulled off, including Hippy Johnny, who embodies the ruthless, fascist, corporate spine behind many of the more bullshitty hippy feel-good companies, Timmy Von Trimble, a three-inch tall neo-Nazi, and Old Skull, which hilariously skewers reunion shows, aging rock dreamers, and stupid band schticks with the kind of eye that comes with being an aging rock drummer.Schoolly D - Smoke Some Kill (1988) and 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force.' The original scary rapper, Schoolly D was throwing out rhymes about drugs and violence when the old school was just school.Shubert - String Quartet No.

13 in A Minor (Kodaly Quartet, 1995) and String Quartet No. 14 in D minor 'Death and the Maiden Quartet,' D. 810 (Lavard Skou-Larsen and Salzburg Chamber Soloists, 2006). Emotional.Scott Adair - Liquidation (2007).

Great countrified songs from a talented guy in Austin who used to be in Spoon. These are clearly home-recorded and a little lo-fi, but the material is very strong.Scott Walker - Scott (1967), Scott 2 (1968), Scott 3 (1969), Scott 4 (1969), 'Til The Band Comes In (1970), Climate Of Hunter (1984), Tilt (1995), The Drift (2006), and And Who Shall Go To The Ball? And What Shall Go To The Ball? The albums from the 60s show Scott Walker's development into King Emotional Chamber Pop.

Scott 4, in particular, is an amazing album, an attempt to convert pop music into an experimental context. Band Comes In is an attempt to make something more in line with the popular tastes of 1970s audiences, and it sucks mightily. Climate Of Hunter is an odd attempt to fuse 1980s productions with the weirdo experimental sounds that Walker was clearly interested in pursuing at the time. It doesn't really work, but there's something there. With Tilt and, especially, The Drift, though, Walker made the music of nightmares. The Drift may be the most terrifying album ever recorded, a freefloating consideration of a uniquely American ugliness.

Consider the song 'Jesse,' which is included below, a tone-poem of sorts addressed to Elvis Presley's stillborn twin that culminates in a wrenching a capella cry 'I'm the only one left alive.' I have not yet bought last year's Bisch Bosch, which completes a trilogy started with Tilt. The truth is that I'm afraid to do so. The Ball? EP is only ok.Jack Scott - Classic Scott (collection, 1957-74). This is a completist Bear Family box of singles and album cuts by Scott, the Canadian rockabilly/country singer behind the mysterious 'Goodbye Baby.' It is excellent.Raymond Scott - Reckless Nights And Turkish Twilights (compilation, 1937-40).

I covered Scott before, but then acquired this collection of his more swing-y music, including the omnipresent 'Powerhouse.' Screamin' Jay Hawkins - Cow Fingers and Mosquito Pie (compilation, 1956-58). This disc collects some of Hawkins' best and best-known tracks from the 50s. The man had a graveyard disposition and a cemetery mind.The Screaming Blue Messiahs - Gun Shy (1986), Bikini Red (1987), and Totally Religious (1989).

Bluesy British band that kind of reminds me of ZZ Top for their thick guitar tones and goofy humor, although the Messiahs have more of a surf influence. And the opposite sort of hair on their heads.The Screaming Trees - Sweet Oblivion (1992). Maybe the most grungy of all grunge bands, the Screaming Trees were actually based outside of Seattle. Saccharine Trust - Paganicons (1981), Surviving You, Always (1984), Worldbroken (1985), We Became Snakes (1986), and Past Lives (1989). This is the great Joe Baiza's brilliant hardcore/fake jazz outfit who recorded for SST back in the 80s.

Baiza was pals with Mike Watt and D. Boon and shared their love for avant-noise and free jazz, but took this to a more extreme place than the Minutemen. I think that Watt's friendship with Baiza and familiarity with Baiza's skronk-jazz style is what led him to start working with Nels Cline in the 90s, which is what eventually led to Cline joining Wilco and entering the general guitar god pantheon rather than just the pantheon of the few. As I will report when I get to Universal Congress Of, Baiza continued making some of the most interesting music under the SST punk umbrella. Of these Paganicons, Worldbroken, and Past Lives are all great (the latter two are live albums, but Worldbroken is full of original material), but Surviving You and especially We Became Snakes are flat-out stellar.Doug Sahm - 'Give Back The Key To My Heart' and 'Village Girl.' Two excellent Sahm songs, the former covered quite notably by Uncle Tupelo. I've covered Sahm in more detail elsewhere.Saint Vitus - Saint Vitus (1984), Hallow's Victim (1985), The Walking Dead EP (1985), Born Too Late (1986), and Thirsty And Miserable EP (1987).

Considering how much I like Scott 'Wino' Weinrich's take on doom metal, I feel weird about not having two of his Saint Vitus albums. Saint Vitus was, of course, SST's flagship doom metal band, and the first two albums and EP feature their original vocalist Scott Reagers. They are pretty good, if a bit one-note, although the Walking Dead EP starts to bring the thunder.

Starting with Born Too Late, though, possibly due to the addition of Wino, Saint Vitus nails down the Black Sabbath-on-quaaludes sound they were born to play. Thirsty and Miserable, featuring the titular Black Flag cover, is also excellent.The Saints - (I'm) Stranded (1977), Eternally Yours (1978), and Prehistoric Sounds (1978). One of the greatest of the first-wave punk bands, the Saints were unfortunately a bit isolated due to being Australian. All three of these albums are just magnificent, though, and show an unusual musical progression. (I'm) Stranded is a first-rate blast of pop hooks and chainsaw guitars, Eternally Yours adds horns and some R&B swing to the rhythm, and Prehistoric Sounds builds on this to the point that it sounds more like the Rolling Stones than the Stones sounded in 1978 and very little like the work of a band that was trafficking in punk symbolism the prior year. The live bonus tracks on Prehistoric Sounds show that the Saints were still punk as shit live, though.Sally Crewe and the Sudden Moves - Drive It Like You Stole It (2003), Shortly After Take-Off (2005), Your Nearest Exit May Be Behind You (2008), Transmit/Receive EP (2011), and 'Making Plans For Nigel.'

The great Sally Crewe plays perfect minimalist power-pop trio gems with all the hooks of a Joe Jackson or Nick Lowe. She's an Austin institution, but she's due for more. Considering how ridiculously catchy her songs are, how energetic and solid her band is, and how much overall delight her music brings, it's a mystery and a crime that she has not been embraced more on the national level by the indie-rock press. My buddy Matt is her current bassist, but since Matt doesn't tour, she usually hits the road with a significant figure like Tommy Keene or Doug Gilliard on bass.

I don't think I can emphasize enough that all of these albums are excellent. I like the more recent ones a little bit more, but it's not because they're significantly better, but because I just find myself rocking out more to them.Sally Timms - Soundtrack To Hangahar (as Sally Smmit And Her Musicians, 1980) and Cowboy Sally's Twilight Laments for Lost Buckaroos (1999). Another tiny English blonde lady who now lives in the US named Sally, Ms. Timms is one of the many frontpeople for the Mekons.

The earlier album here is all experimental electronica, though, and I do not much enjoy it. The latter album is a dreamy alt-country covers album, and it is lovely. Neither of these, though, have the ragged glory of the Mekons.The Salvage Brothers - Barnstorm EP (1998). This is a four-song EP by a punk-tinged string band I was in.

I've skipped over some of my own efforts in this ongoing project, but sometimes I just want to mention how much fun a band was. This one was about the songs and the singing, and it was a blast.

Some quick catch-up reviews.Boyce and Hart - I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight (1968). Tasty bubblegum from the Monkees' main songwriters! It was filed in the Ts for Tommy Boyce.Nick Cave - Nocturama (2008). Oh yeah.Daft Punk - Random Access Memories (2013). Isn't it odd that it has suddenly become an event when Daft Punk releases a record? When did that happen?Drive-By Truckers - The Dirty South (2004) and Brighter Than Creation's Dark (2007). When I reviewed these guys last time, I was not completely sold on them.

I liked some songs and didn't care much for others. But these albums both hit me just right.Haydn: Three Favorite Concertos (1990). Wynton Marsalis, Yo-Yo Ma, and Cho-Liang Lin. Is Wynton Marsalis a bullshit classical trumpeter? I don't know.

This is okay.Jason Isbell - Live From Alabama (2012). My least-favorite Drive-By Trucker out on his own. I just don't care for his music, y'all.

I can even admit that I like some of his songs, but the way he plays them here is slick as greased shit.The Meat Purveyors - Sweet In The Pants (1998), More Songs About Buildings And Cows (1999), Pain By Numbers (2004), and Someday Soon Things Will Be Much Worse! Punk-bluegrass band from Austin. Went to see them a few times in the '00s, so I can report that they put on a hell of a great show.Randy Newman - 12 Songs (1970). My buddy Gary told me he would bet I would like this album or he'd eat his proverbial hat.

I like it, man! Don't start cooking the Stetson yet! It's not my favorite thing, but I like it, man. Roy Acuff - The Essential Roy Acuff 1936-1949.

As Uncle Tupelo sang, play me a song that everybody knows and I bet you it belongs to Acuff-Rose. Roy Acuff was the archetypical country singer who grew to accumulate first great power in the music business and then political power in Tennessee and who became a legend when he was gone. You know the type. These are hillbilly songs on the verge of becoming country music or maybe they're on the other side of the cusp.Roy Buchanan - 'Green Onions.' Blues guitarist ripping through a cover of the track by Booker T & the MGs.

I didn't think I was much of a fan of the guy, but this cooks.Roy Orbison - The All-Time Greatest Hits (1960-64). Such a brilliant weirdo.

Just to call back to Roy Acuff's power, Orbison spent a part of his life as a songwriter at the songwriting firm of Acuff-Rose. It's hard to hear him without David Lynch creeping in.Royal Trux - Twin Infinitives (1990). Beautiful lo-fi rock melodies drowning in waves and waves of thrashing, screaming, dreaming, howling noise.Ruby Suns - Sea Lion (2008). The kiwi version of Animal Collective, Ruby Suns have Beach Boys-like harmonies and pure pop hearts with layer upon layer of electronics.Rufus - 'Tell Me Something Good.' Yeah.Run The Jewels - Run The Jewels (2013). El-P and Killer Mike collaborating like they were born to it.

One of my favorite 2013 albums, right here.Run-DMC - Run-DMC (1984), King Of Rock (1985), Raising Hell (1986), Tougher Than Leather (1988), and Together Forever - Greatest Hits 1983-1991. Clearly everyone's been waiting for this 40-odd-year-old white Southern guy to talk about the great Run-DMC. 'Oh, Hayden,' said the world, 'stop talking about all this stuff that you know a bunch about and instead provide your dilettante-esque thoughts on a seminal hip-hop group!' But instead I decided to narrate this.RZA - RZA As Bobby Digital In Stereo (1998).

More hip-hop for me to avoid discussing? Don't mind if I do! Love this album by The RZA. You might be surprised to learn that he conceived of the Bobby Digital persona while he was high. Beggar's Banquet (1968). I don't know what broke in them, but the Stones stopped fucking around with this album and decided to become The Greatest Rock Band In The World. They've reined in Brian Jones (assisted by Jones himself, who was rapidly on his way to becoming a drug casualty), dropped a lot of the psychedelia flourishes (although I think it's fair to say that the piano-and-maracas-driven 'Sympathy For The Devil' was the most psychedelic song that the Stones ever made, even without a mellotron), and added some pure muscle that makes even jokey songs like 'Dear Doctor' just crackle with inventiveness.

The Stones, scions of the middle-class, all, and gazillionaires at the time, struck a creative lodestone by claiming common purpose with working men in 'Street Fighting Man,' 'Factory Girl,' and 'Salt Of The Earth.' The self-mythologizing in 'Jig-Saw Puzzle' is also a pip. While 'No Expectations,' 'Prodigal Son,' and 'Stray Cat Blues' are all still mining the Chicago blues, 'Dear Doctor,' 'Factory Girl,' and 'Salt Of The Earth' were pretty much country-based songs. Keith sings lead on the first part of 'Salt Of The Earth,' too.Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (1968). This is the soundtrack to a 1968 film that was shelved until 1996 for reasons that are somewhat unclear, but probably due to ego. The Stones invited a handful of artists to perform with them, including Jethro Tull, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and The Who. Most of these guys were poor (Tull) to okay (Mahal), but The Who cranked out a version of 'A Quick One' that completely dusted the Stones.

That said, the Stones were pretty damn great.Let It Bleed (1969). And then Brian Jones was out, and dead a month later, after barely bothering to show up to play on this album. His replacement Mick Taylor played on the same number of songs, two. Every song on the album is great, but the bookends, 'Gimme Shelter' at the beginning and 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' at the end, were the alpha and omega of the fast-curdling hippie experience. Or maybe just the omega, I can't tell. Some writers say the hippie dream died at Altamont (and that is certainly supported by the great Maysles Brothers documentary Gimme Shelter), but this album dropped the day before, effectively staking hippiedom in the heart before Altamont could finish it off.

Let It Bleed continues to work country music with 'Country Honk,' the cornpone version of 'Honky Tonk Women,' and with the title track. Keith Richards sings the lead on 'You Got The Silver.' And the whole thing is one of the most perfect albums ever recorded.Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!

Composer Erik Satie

Blistering live album documenting the 1969 tour.Sticky Fingers (1971). A near-perfect album from The Greatest Rock and Roll Band In The World with Mick Taylor on lead and all pistons firing. 'Brown Sugar,' despite its catchiness, deserves to die. 'Sway' has the greatest riff in rock. 'Wild Horses' is a song that Keith Richards gave his pal Gram Parsons to record a year before and then made a classic song for this album.

'Can't You Hear Me Knocking' has a killer Mick Taylor coda. 'You Gotta Move,' 'Bitch,' and 'I Got The Blues' make up a series of A- songs before 'Sister Morphine,' 'Dead Flowers,' and 'Moonlight Mile' hit three all-time pitch perfect final songs.Exile on Main Street (1972), Exile Outtakes (bootleg, 1972), and I Gave You Diamonds, You Give Me Disease (bootleg, 1972). Exile is a mess, a perfect mess. Like Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers, it is the sound of a band barely keeping it together. Recorded in a French country house with a steady parade of high-profile heroin abusers and high-quality heroin flowing through it like a tide of reasons for the Stones to quit and never start again, they somehow made it work.

Magic is when something that shouldn't exist comes to be, and Exile is magic. The two bootlegs collect outtakes and unmixed versions and the I Gave You Diamonds bootleg in particular is an amazing document. The Outtakes bootleg sounds like crap.Goat's Head Soup (1973). Then the Stones started sucking. 'Dancing With Mr.

D' and 'Star Star' are okay, but only okay. 'Angie' and 'Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)' are bullshit.It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (1974). This is the last Stones album with Mick Taylor, who was starting to feel used. They still sort of sucked, but much less so on this album.Some Girls (1978). With Ron Wood replacing Mick Taylor, the Stones somehow found it in them to make one more good-to-great album. This one has several great songs and several good-to-great songs.'

Memo From Turner (Single)' (1970), Hot Rocks (1964-1971) (released 1971), More Hot Rocks (Big Hits & Fazed Cookies) (released 1972), Metamorphosis (released 1975), and Jump Back:The Best of the Rolling Stones 1971-1993 (released 1993). There's a number of nonalbum tracks and tracks from albums I don't have. 'Memo From Turner' is a solo Mick track from the Roeg film Performance. When I switched to the UK albums, I missed out on the nonalbum tracks included on the US albums, like 'Paint It, Black,' 'Ruby Tuesday,' and 'Let's Spend The Night Together.' Metamorphosis, which collects outtakes and alternate tracks from 1964-70, is pretty much the best of these, with the full band version of 'Memo From Turner' and the great 'I'm Going Down,' a pretty amazing track.

The Jump Back greatest hits album includes 'Emotional Rescue' and 'Undercover Of The Night,' which are two tracks on albums I really have no interest in picking up. Ashrae 1997 handbook - free software and shareware. Between 1971-72, they were the greatest rock band in the world. Now they're a glorified oldies band and, more or less, the greatest Rolling Stones cover band in the world.

Top five, at least. I gave up on them when they started sucking in the 70s, but I do really love their rise to Exile. Anyway, this pose covers only the first four years of the Stones' rise to fame (or infamy) and the growth is amazing. Four freakin' years! Or, considering the first album is in May 1964 and the last covered here is December 1967, THREE AND A HALF! Damn, y'all.England's Newest Hit Makers (May 1964). Through Satanic Majesties, their UK and US record companies put out different versions of the same album.

This is the American version of the first UK album The Rolling Stones, and it replaces a cover of Bo Diddley's 'Mona' with a cover of Buddy Holly's 'Not Fade Away.' Most of the other songs were covers, too, because that's how the pop business was done in those days. It has two originals, the bluesy 'Now I've Got A Witness' and the poppy 'Tell Me.' The former is credited to Nanker Phlege, which was the nom de musique for the entire band, and the latter was a Jagger/Richards collaboration.12X5 (Oct 1964). This was a US-only release collecting a number of singles with a UK EP.

There are two Nanker Phlege songs and three Jagger/Richards songs out of the 12.The Rolling Stones, Now! This is the US version of the second UK album The Rolling Stones No. Instead of trying to pretend that I know how to unravel the differences, I'm just going to quote wikipedia:The album contained seven tracks from their second UK album The Rolling Stones No. 2, the recent US Top 20 hit 'Heart of Stone', the recent UK #1 hit single 'Little Red Rooster', 'Surprise, Surprise', from the UK various artist compilation Fourteen, 'Mona (I Need You Baby)' from The Rolling Stones and 'Oh Baby (We Got A Good Thing Goin')' which would appear on the UK edition of the Stones' next album Out of Our Heads later in 1965.Strangely, given how convoluted the sequence is, it is a much more coherent album than the previous two, and 'Heart Of Stone' is the first truly great Jagger/Richards song.Out Of Our Heads (US, July 1965). This is the greatest of the early Stones albums, and the US version is significantly better than the UK one.

The UK version has 'Heart of Stone' and 'I'm Free' in its favor, but the US version loses those while focusing on the singles, adding 'The Last Time,' 'Play With Fire,' and '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction,' a song that you may have heard once or twice in your life. This is the first essential Stones album, at least in the US version.December's Children (And Everybody's) (Dec 1965).

This album picks up the rest of the tracks from the UK Out Of Our Heads and adds a few killer singles. When it is not cooking, it sounds a bit like leftovers, especially coming right after the US Out Of Our Heads.

But the killer tracks - 'Get Off Of My Cloud,' 'As Tears Go By,' 'The Singer, Not The Song,' and 'I'm Free.' Aftermath (UK, 1966) and Could You Walk On The Water? (bootleg of unreleased album, 1966). Aftermath on both sides of the pond was the first of the intermediate Stones albums, where every song was a Jagger/Richards composition and the band was experimenting with sounds far beyond the R&B and blues covers that had previously fueled them. The UK version has 14 tracks to the US version's 11.

While the US version adds 'Paint It, Black,' one of the greatest Stones singles, the UK version has 'Mother's Little Helper,' 'Out Of Time,' 'Take It Or Leave It,' and 'What To Do,' all of which would turn up on later released. Besides those tracks, both versions of Aftermath include 'Lady Jane,' 'Under My Thumb,' 'Goin' Home,' and 'I Am Waiting,' all of which are amazing, if shockingly sexist and quite dated in one case.

Could You Walk On The Water? Was the proposed US counterpart to the UK Aftermath (before they decided to just release a version of the same album). Wikipedia says:The track list for the shelved album includes 'Take It or Leave It', 'Mother's Little Helper', 'Think', 'Goin' Home' (short edit) and 'Doncha Bother Me'. Of these, all five would be released on the UK version of Aftermath, three on the US version. Of the remaining tracks, '19th Nervous Breakdown' and 'Sad Day' were released as a single, 'Sittin' on the Fence' and 'Ride On, Baby' were later to be released on the US album Flowers, along with 'Mother's Little Helper' and 'Take It or Leave It'.

'Looking Tired' remains unreleased to this day.' Looking Tired' has actually popped up on some bootlegs, including this one.Between The Buttons (UK, January 1967). This is a great and underappreciated album, with each song brimming with Swinging London pop brilliance.

The US version cuts 'Back Street Girl' and 'Please Go Home' for the current singles 'Ruby Tuesday' and 'Let's Spend The Night Together,' but somehow the UK version is a better album for not having any of the Stones' best-known tracks on it. It seems more personal than even Aftermath, and Brian Jones' increased eclecticism (he is credited on the album with electric guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, organ, electric dulcimer, percussion, harpsichord, kazoo, recorder, theremin, trumpet, trombone, tuba, saxophone, harmonica, sitar, and backing vocals) only adds to the weird pop brilliance of this one.Their Satanic Majesties' Request (Dec 1967). This is the first Stones album to be released with the same track listing on both sides of the pond. And it is a fascinating mess of an album, with guitars shrieking on a most un-Stones-like frequency, loads of crude psychedelia, a general lack of focus, and still almost brilliant enough to pull it off. 'Citadel,' in particular, has been covered by a lot of artists, because that song rocks ass.

Robert Creeley - Four poems from Ubuweb. These are three tracks with four poems as read by the authors, including the sublime 'I Know A Man.' As I sd to myfriend, because I amalways talking,—John, Isd, which was not hisname, the darkness sur-rounds us, whatcan we do againstit, or else, shall we &why not, buy a goddamn big car,drive, he sd, forchrist’s sake, lookout where yr going.Robert Forster - Danger In The Past (1990), Calling From A Country Phone (1993), Warm Nights (1996), and The Evangelist (2008). The more cerebral half of the Go-Betweens' creative team, Forster spent his solo years making excellent, jagged folk-pop before the G-Bs reformed in 2000. The Evangelist, released shortly after the death of his partner Grant McLennan, features several of McLennan's last written songs, and it is easily the most heartbreaking work that Forster has ever done.Robert Fripp - God Save The Queen/Under Heavy Manners (1980) and The League Of Gentlemen (1981). Art-noise and guitar loops as the woolliest of the woolly King Crimson mammoths reinvented himself as a downtown no-wave/new-wave pioneer.Robert Johnson - The Complete Recordings (recorded 1936-37). Seminal blues artist Johnson, he of the Faustian legend, was a master of several different styles of guitar, some of which he would demonstrate at the same time, and a fantastic singer and songwriter, to boot.

The upside of this collection is that, unlike the King Of The Delta Blues Singers albums (which I have on vinyl), these include alternate takes of most of the songs. The downside of this collection is that they sequenced the tracks with the alternates following the final take, so that to listen straight through is to hear the same song at least twice, which can be quite annoying.Robert Pollard - From A Compound Eye (2006). Despite the fact that Pollard, the Guided By Voices frontman, has recorded a few dozen solo albums, this is the only one I've ever picked up.

It's pretty good, too!Robert Quine and Fred Maher - Basic (1984). I've covered Quine on this blog in a number of places before. This is an instrumental album he made with drummer Maher. As you might imagine, it has freakin' brilliant guitar parts.Robert Randolph and the Family Band - Live At The Wetlands (2002).

Randolph is a sacred steel player, meaning that he primarily plays steel guitar gospel music that is heavily influenced by the blues and soul music, which actually plays really, really well with the jamband audience. This is basically a jamband album, with the shortest song clocking in a 8 minutes and the longest at 13. It's not bad for what it is, but it's not my thing, either. Notice the abundance of awkward middle-class white person dancing on display in the attached clip.Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom (1974). Synth-heavy prog-rock that is quite unusual and yet also quite moving.

Wyatt, formerly the drummer of Soft Machine, was in an accident while working on this album that left him paralyzed from the waist down, and the result is a bizarre and beautiful work. Highly recommended. Ringo Starr - 'It Don't Come Easy.' Tell us about it, Ringo.Rita Lee - Build Up (1970). Os Mutantes vocalist out on her own. Unfortunately, this is mostly syrupy and lacking in the Mutantes insanity.RJD2 - 'Exotic Talk' and 'A Beautiful Mine.' Excellent hip-hop/glitchy instrumentals.

The latter is the music from the Mad Men theme.Robbie Basho - The Seal Of The Blue Lotus (1965) and The Grail And The Lotus (1966). Fingerstyle guitarist with a heavily Indian-classical bent who recorded for John Fahey's Takoma label.

Psychedelic stuff, and a big influence on Six Organs Of Admittance's Ben Chasny.Robbie Fulks - Country Love Songs (1996), South Mouth (1997), Let's Kill Saturday Night (1998), The Very Best Of Robbie Fulks (1999), Couples In Trouble (2001), 13 Hillbilly Giants (2001), Georgia Hard (2005), Revenge! (2007), 50-vc Doberman Sampler (2009), and Happy (2010). Fulks is the definition of a cult artist, a guy with an album called The Very Best Of Robbie Fulks that is not a greatest-hits album, but collection of new songs and EP-only releases. He winds up somewhere between a smartass and a hardcore troubadour. He is funny and sarcastic and serious and insightful, sometimes all in the same song.

I love his music. Country Love Songs and South Mouth are both smartass country albums, straight up, with the former's best track being 'She Took A Lot Of Pills (And Died)' and the latter dropping a not-so-much-love letter to Nashville on 'Fuck This Town.' Let's Kill Saturday Night is a part-power-pop/part-country album with the excellent 'God Isn't Real' on it. Very Best is an excellent genre-crosser with 'That Bangle Girl' on it. Couples In Trouble is indie rock, while 13 Hillbilly Giants covers obscure country songs.

Georgia Hard is a countrypolitan country-plus-strings experiment. Has live versions from all over Fulks' career, and it has an electric side and an acoustic side. 50-vc Doberman Sampler collects 12 songs from an online-only 50-song release.

It's not so great, unfortunately. At least, it hasn't grown on me. Happy covers Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 songs all through a number of genres.

It is quite good.Robbie Robertson - Robbie Robertson (1987). Doesn't seem possible this was the work of the man who wrote 'The Weight' and 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.'

Marty Robbins - Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs (1959). Excellent work from Mr. Robbins, who I've covered elsewhere on this blog.