Beats By Matt

The blog is getting harder to write lately, because of the time of year.  If you have kids ages 8 and older, you know April and May become a screaming hot burning bus, accelerating over a cliff into a lava flow.  It gets a smidge busy.  Add a house remodel I'm doing, and I'm...preoccupied. I know this doesn't matter to you, just more of an explanation.  I know what you want!  You want me to dance for your pleasure!  For that, we'll need some music.

I got tagged in a Facebook post from a friend of mine, Rob.  Rob and I relate on a popular culture level, especially our music tastes.  So I wasn't surprised when this popped up:

Here are the rules, if you wanna play & like rules: (copy this to paste in your status update).
LIST 10 ALBUMS THAT HAVE STAYED WITH YOU, but only ONE per band/artist (yes, that's the difficult bit). Don't take too long and don't think too hard. [This was the hard part for me.] In no particular order. Then send to ten (10) friends to do the same.

Yeah, one of THOSE posts.  I usually ignore them, but since I was listening to one of my favorite all time albums when he brought it up, I decided to play along.  No, I'm not sending this off to anyone else on social media, but you're more than welcome to post your 10 albums in the comments section.  Limiting it to only one Rush album was not really fair, but I'll play by the rules.  For me, the sorting is the worst, but I finally narrowed it down.  First the albums I DIDN'T put on my top ten:

U2 – Achtung Baby, Tim Finn – Before & After, Stevie Wonder - Innervisions, Simple Minds – Real Life, The Replacements – Let It Be, REM – Life’s Rich Pageant, Paul Carrack – Twenty-One Good Reasons, Paramore – Paramore, October Project – October Project, MisterWives – Our Own House, Men at Work – Business As Usual, Marvin Gaye - What's Going On, Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV, Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band – Greatest Hits!, Husker Du – Candy Apple Grey, Harpers Bizarre – Feelin’ Groovy: The Best of Harpers Bizarre, Green Day – American Idiot, Girls Aloud – Chemistry, Fatima Mansions – Viva Dead Ponies, Dessa – Parts of Speech, Dave Brubeck – Jazz Collection, The Cure – Mixed Up, Coldplay – Parachutes, CHVRCHES – The Bones of What You Believe, The Breeders – Last Splash, Black 47 – Fire of Freedom, The Bison Burns – The Year of Nixon, Better Than Ezra – Closer, The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beastie Boys – Licensed to Ill, The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds, The Alarm – Standards

I like my music, but I know I'm missing a few.  Here's my top ten list.  Feel free to ask about any of these albums and I'll explain my choice:

1 - Rush  - Roll The Bones (after negating Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, Power Windows and Snakes and Arrows)

2 - Kate Bush – The Dreaming

3 - The Waterboys – Room to Roam

4 - Agent Orange – Living In Darkness

5 - Chris Isaak – San Francisco Days

6 - Tears For Fears – The Seeds of Love

7 - Sugar – Copper Blue

8 - The Rainmakers – The Rainmakers

9 - INXS – Listen Like Thieves
10 - Radiohead – OK Computer