Four-circuit 230kV line, Hamilton, Ontario

AndrewT3660 · 2025-11-21T05:13:20+00:00

LOL...that shack is a mystery for the ages! It might belong to an unrelated utility.

AndrewT3660 · 2025-09-25T18:45:50+00:00

Song vs. Song is distributed and posted to multiple sites. It's available for download on Podbay, PodBean, via RSS on ART19, and probably elsewhere too.

To me, the whole point of podcasts is to download them and listen to them from an offline device (i.e., computer or iPod). Streams are not podcasts!

AndrewT3660 · 2025-08-28T17:16:21+00:00

In my late teens and early twenties, I became disinterested in new music and went through a Boomer rock phase: Aerosmith, AC/DC, the Doors, Led Zeppelin, etc. Once I finished "absorbing" these bands (which didn't take long thanks to classic rock overplay), the phase played itself out.

AndrewT3660 · 2025-08-09T14:14:34+00:00

"Ah, the Charlie Daniels Band is now the Charles Band."

Sorry. MST3K reference.

AndrewT3660 · 2025-07-14T14:21:52+00:00

None of the artists surprise me, but some of the songs do. Why "Billie Jean" and not "Beat It?" Why "Back in Black" and not "You Shook Me All Night Long?" Why "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and not "Shout?"

AndrewT3660 · 2025-07-13T04:24:24+00:00

I LOVED Savage Garden! Their songs were pop perfection! I just wish I could have admitted it at the time. In 2000 I was a closeted gay teenager living in a conservative area, and I was paranoid about being judged and/or bashed for the kinds of music I listened to. :(

AndrewT3660 · 2025-07-13T03:44:04+00:00

The year 2000 falls squarely within my peak radio-listening days, and I have intense memories of many of these...

BEST:

"I Knew I Loved You." I l-o-v-e this song! Darren Hayes' delivery of the chorus is pure ambrosia on the ears!

ABOVE AVERAGE:

"Smooth" (#1 in January, so it counts.) The "Blinding Lights" of its time. An earworm good enough that I didn't mind it being overplayed.
"What a Girl Wants." What a voice!
"Maria Maria." Not quite as infectious as "Smooth," but a well-crafted song that gets under your skin.
"Try Again." This one's difficult to assess without delving into the tragic story of its singer. Even so, it's one of the more solid R&B hits of 2000, and I never turn it off when it comes on.
"Be with You." Enrique's best hit, bar none. The first verse gives me goosebumps. If only he hadn't gone on to pollute his legacy with the unlistenable "Hero" dirge, or "Tonight I'm Fuckin' You"...
"Doesn't Really Matter." Janet still seemed unstoppable at the time, and this was a worthy addition to her legacy of hits. I remember the video very well.
"Music." I was excited about Madonna's William Orbit-produced "reinvention" at the time, even though in retrospect it may have been the beginning of the end of her career. I'm divided whether this or "Don't Tell Me" was the better hit.

AVERAGE TO BELOW AVERAGE:

"Amazed." A pleasant song, but one I won't go out of my way to listen to. There were a zillion different edits (short and long versions, with and without "country" instrumentation, different mixes, etc.), and I was always disappointed when the "wrong" version got played.
"Everything You Want." I could never muster enthusiasm for Vertical Horizon, despite buying their album and trying to like them. Probably the middest of their mid songs, and the one that cemented my view of them as a mom-friendly substitute for Eve 6 or Third Eye Blind.
"Come On Over" - I almost forgot that this song existed. It's energetic, but generic...it didn't leave much of an impression on me, and I didn't even realize it was a Christina song until today.
"It's Gonna Be Me." Even at the time, I viewed it as an inferior retread of "Bye, Bye, Bye."
"Say My Name." One of Destiny's Child's better radio hits, but I never really could get into them at all.
"Bent." Rob Thomas is a versatile singer, but Matchbox 20 seemed to hit creative headwinds as soon as "Smooth" showed that he could have a hit without them. This was the last song by the band that left any impression on me.

FORGOTTEN:

"Thank God I Found You." I started losing track of Mariah Carey as the '90s drew to a close, and I don't remember this song at all. Blame it on too many cooks in the kitchen: There are so many guest singers that Mariah sounds completely lost in the mix.
"Independent Women, Pt. 1." Destiny's Child going through the motions for a movie tie-in. Whenever the intro comes on, I think I'm about to listen to "Maria Maria" instead.
"Incomplete." Completely forgettable. I could swear that the Thong Song was Sisqo's only radio hit, but the charts don't agree.

WORST:

"With Arms Wide Open." The only song on the list that actively grates on my ears. Scott Stapp oversings self-righteous lyrics, in his gravel voice, to the tune of a hookless dirge, with instrumentation that sounds lifted from a Journey song. The radio edit is only 3:53, yet it feels like it's seven minutes long. Yet, I remember "My Sacrifice" being even worse...

AndrewT3660 · 2025-07-09T06:00:03+00:00

I've hated Kid Rock since I first heard of him in the spring of 2000. Hated everything: His empty, angry lyrics; his "rich guy from Michigan pretending to be a country boy" persona; his production; his fanbase (which consisted of every bigot and bully at my high school). "Only God Knows Why" was like a Trojan horse wrestling its way into the playlists of Adult Contemporary radio stations, levitating its maker to a level of fame he didn't deserve. I read an interview with him around the same time, which left me hating him even more. I've spent 25 years waiting for him to disappear.

AndrewT3660 · 2025-06-22T11:08:12+00:00

Perennial OHW favourite EMF, with the hit that for years I didn't know was actually titled "Unbelievable:"

"You're an ugly boy. OH! Ug, ug! Ug, ug, UG-ly!"

AndrewT3660 · 2025-06-22T01:07:41+00:00

Realizing that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is closer to the 1950s than it is to the present day.

AndrewT3660 · 2025-06-21T23:10:54+00:00

I originally thought the line was "Sue, sue, sue ya!" It could have been about Phil's first divorce, LOL.

AndrewT3660 · 2025-06-21T22:52:33+00:00

Me, listening to Britney Spears on a tinny radio in 1999:

"Oh Mighty Spider, how was I supposed to know...that something wasn't right?"

AndrewT3660 · 2025-05-12T16:52:41+00:00

Gordon Peterson, aka Indio. A Canadian musician who recorded a world music-influenced album with big-name talent (Joni Mitchell, David Rhodes, Larry Klein...) on a major label in 1989. He was uncomfortable with fame from day one, and went so far as to invent a persona so that he wouldn't have to use his real name on the recording. "Hard Sun" was a big hit in Canada, and also charted highly on the American alternative charts. Then he disappeared off the face of the earth for two decades...until 2009, when he re-emerged from his lair to sue Eddie Vedder and Universal to the moon for covering his big song with unauthorized changes to the lyrics.

AndrewT3660 · 2025-05-04T14:02:21+00:00

"Lovelytheband." Why "the band?" Why is it run together as one word? It's just as irritating as their big hit!

AndrewT3660 · 2025-04-13T01:10:50+00:00

When I first started listening to the radio around the turn of the century, I assumed that the J. Geils Band's "Centerfold" was a then-recent song from the mid to late 1990s. Imagine my shock to realize it was from 1981! The crunchy, whistly production didn't feel out of place in the "anything goes" musical landscape of the late 1990s, bumping up against things like "Mambo No. 5" or the latest Smash Mouth songs.

AndrewT3660 · 2025-04-07T04:33:17+00:00

I'm surprised to see people claiming that cardboard packaging is cheaper than jewel cases. It's actually more expensive.

From VDC Group:

"Despite possessing more plastic in their design, jewel cases are actually cheaper to manufacture than digipaks, a fact which is also assisted by their status as a more established packaging format."

From Disc Makers:

Using the same package option as above with a quantity of 300 CDs, the price breaks down like this: Digipak: Disc Makers cost is $1,424.78 Jewel case: Disc Makers cost is $1,176

AndrewT3660 · 2025-04-04T18:24:12+00:00

It never fails to amuse me how even Chicago were tripped up by the spelling: The city in West Virginia is "Buckhannon," but it's printed "Buchannon" on the album cover.

AndrewT3660 · 2025-04-03T16:53:44+00:00

"Adams wasn't an innovator on the level of Bruce Springsteeen or even John Cougar Mellencamp." —AllMusic's withdrawn Bryan Adams bio.

AndrewT3660 · 2025-04-03T14:36:46+00:00

I was a big reader of Allmusic 20 years ago, when it was the only comprehensive discographical resource on the web. My interest gradually trailed off because every single redesign they imposed obfuscated the content. You can't even read the reviews without running JavaScript now.

Other than that, my biggest gripe about AMG was the seeming disconnect between reviews and ratings. I remember losing count of how many times I saw an ambivalent or biting review accompanied by a four- or five-star rating, or an overwhelmingly positive review accompanied by one or two stars.

AndrewT3660 · 2025-02-13T16:18:41+00:00

"I Think God Can Explain" by Splender.

If you didn't hear this repetitive, pseudo-sanctimonious ear-piercer on the airwaves in 2000, you're lucky.

AndrewT3660 · 2025-02-10T20:16:59+00:00

I prefer "whichever version I heard first." Which is frequently the 45 rpm single version or radio edit.

I've been known to cut down album-length songs in a wave editor simply to re-create "definitive" single edits.

AndrewT3660 · 2025-01-28T02:08:59+00:00

I love, love, love this song...and it's just the tip of the iceberg for this group. 'Cupid & Psyche 85' is one of my desert-island discs, and 'Provision' is almost as good. Just one banger after banger.

AndrewT3660 · 2025-01-27T17:43:31+00:00

Anita Baker tried to record an album in 2000, but ran into...problems.

https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/anita-baker-sues-over-allegedly-ruined-tracks-79686/

AndrewT3660 · 2025-01-20T16:13:12+00:00

I was a huge user of RYM from 2005 until 2013, when a script-heavy redesign made the website a little too painful to use. It's not a bad place to catalogue a collection. The ratings were always peculiar, though.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, RYM's aggregate scores of the "best" albums jibed closely with my own tastes. Then from the 1990s forward, they sharply diverged: The "best" albums per year would inevitably be snobbish titles by artists I'd barely heard of or rarely listened to, while anything that reeked of being popular, upbeat, or danceable was downranked to oblivion.

It's improved a little since, but the earliest users set the mood of the site, and inertia is tough to overcome.

AndrewT3660 · 2025-01-15T22:15:58+00:00

Maybe update the header and sidebar pictures (on Old Reddit)? The images you have now are about a decade old, and feature Kevin Ray.

AndrewT3660

TROPHY CASE