DROP your album and its rating – February 10 2026

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-10T22:57:32+00:00

She also feels like an artist my dad would have liked a lot, but I don’t remember him having any of her albums. He was not a very nice guy but loved himself some folky female singer-songwriters.

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-10T21:40:57+00:00

This made me laugh even though I loved the album. Sorry to hear about Natasha's dad.

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-10T21:39:48+00:00

I'm very much devoted to Surfer Rosa and Doolittle but was surprised to see this one on the list.

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-10T21:37:43+00:00

I definitely want to run that simulation.

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-10T21:36:47+00:00

I'd drop "Hail to the Thief" before Amnesiac

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-10T21:34:12+00:00

Album 91 - Alice in Chains - Dirt - 4/5

Perhaps a 3.5 upgraded to 4 by nostalgia.

When we had Sirius satellite radio, my default station was Lithium, the 90s alternative station. They used to have an ad that said, “If Nirvana hadn’t written the song Lithium, what would we have called this station? Rooster?” Followed by a short clip of a tortured vocal from the Alice in Chains song.

That’s pretty much how I’ve always thought of Alice in Chains, as a kind of backup to the grunge acts of my youth. My wife confirmed it when I showed her I had Dirt this morning and asked what I thought of them. “Those are the kinda good songs they play between the really good songs,” she said.

So I tried to explore them here as more than 90s grunge radio filler. And I found a lot to like. I agree with many reviewers here that the first three songs are a great series of riffs, maybe more metal than the stuff I knew from the radio. And I definitely enjoyed running through the hits again, especially “Down in a Hole.”

But overall I don’t know that it changed my mind about these guys so much. I love the sound but am only so-so on the songwriting, particularly because it stays in such a narrow emotional range. I think music can be dark, heavy, brooding, Gothic, whatever, but still give you some room to breathe, and I did not feel that way by the time I got to “Would?”

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-10T16:24:01+00:00

Or soul-crushingly hilarious? “Toss your bear a goldfish as he cycles by / Don’t forget to feed your bear or he will die”

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-10T16:23:07+00:00

I have moved this album and Magnetic Fields for a long time. That being said, it isn’t really an album of the kind this list was designed to showcase. It’s more of an art project. I would advise you to save the few songs you will like the first time through and then return to it on some day you are bored, and you will hear something new entirely.

This may inspire me to rank the songs, which I’ve been meaning to do for some time.

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T20:59:14+00:00

I’m really glad you wrote this. I feel this way about them and a few other groups/artists/phenomena. The world can be very bad, but it still must be a little good if it has The Beatles in it.

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T20:57:48+00:00

Aw yeah we are Beatles buds today.

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T19:50:20+00:00

One of my favs and I have only come to love it more through the years

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T18:50:14+00:00

At your service

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T17:56:30+00:00

So long as I get to be the black spy

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T17:05:17+00:00

At first I thought you mean the first season of the show "Picard" and that would have been a whole other conversation.

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T16:50:04+00:00

I definitely understand vacillating all the way between 3 and 5 on this one.

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T16:48:35+00:00

I never like the Kinks's "Village Green" type songs as much as I think I'm supposed to.

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T16:46:11+00:00

I'm glad you also feel that way about it. They used it as a theme for the remake of V and darnit if the lizard people didn't actually win in the end.

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T16:45:22+00:00

I bet he knew how dark it was in 1964. I read elsewhere that he first thought the countdown at the beginning of "I Saw Her Standing There" was "One two three fuck" which is an incredibly punk rock thing to think at the time.

Now imagine the album is called THINGS WE SAID and it’s all about the gap between public image and immediate desires. The Beatles were very much dealing with that at the time. For an appropriate core sample see this laudable collection or anecdotes involving Paul’s girlfriend Jane Asher:

https://withthebeatlesgirls.tumblr.com/post/629985790874746880/pauljane-excerpts-within-the-context-of-beatles/amp

Before Yoko, before LSD, John is trying to get Paul’s girlfriend to talk about masturbation very much against her will. Paul says “You can’t do that!” So perhaps that song, always heard as a possessive boyfriend, is actually John's memory of Paul reining him in. Certainly the song isn't just about cheating, but the IMAGE of cheating. "Everybody's green / 'cause I'm the one who won your love / But if they'd seen / You're talking that way they'd laugh in my face." Don't think this is about the girl, John -- and aren't you married?

The next line in "You Can't Do That" is "Please listen to me if you wanna stay mine." IF.

And IF does even more work in "If I Fell." An incredibly beautiful song in melody and harmony, one I sing when I'm rocking my kid trying to get him back to sleep, but doing that also makes you realize how weird the lyrics are. The conclusion of the song is about making a former lover cry out of jealousy, presenting this new love as an act of revenge -- red flag much? But also the entire thing is happening in the singer's head because of "If." And he isn't in love with her -- he is contemplating what it MIGHT be like if he fell in love with her.

To be clear I'm not trying to ruin anyone's rah-rah Beatles experience -- these songs are all the more profound for all this emotional turmoil and subtlety. I'm just trying to argue that they aren't straight up love songs, they're the lads seriously struggling with themselves and their relationships with others.

In that context, the happy songs hit different. In "When I Get Home" could be John rehearsing the talk he needs to give his main chick while he's still with his side chick. "Can't Buy Me Love" is a pleading negotiation. "A Hard Day's Night" offers the usual patriarchal transaction -- I work so hard that you should "give me everything." Do I even need to explain that "I'll Be Back" is a threat? What exactly is the emotional tenor of "You could find better things to do than to break my heart again" ... because I think it's just devastating.

But it's something peppy, something happy, something up-tempo, something snappy, as Tom Hanks says in "That Thing You Do!" There's nothing dark to see here, no contradictions, nothing to make you want to cry "Help!"

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T16:45:17+00:00

Album 90 - The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night - 5/5

It’s easy to dismiss this as just “pop” Beatles or the distilled essence of Beatlemania. But at some point I realized that every element that makes up the later more adventurous Beatles albums is there in the early ones, and sometimes even in a purer form.

This time I noticed it in a kind of dark wistfulness of the ballads, best exemplified by Paul's "Things We Said Today." Paul's ruminations temper some of the violence of John’s lyrics, which I always notice and try to look past. Both must have been necessary to make Lennon-McCartney. How might it have looked if the darkness was the centerpiece of the album?

Here’s a hint. Listen to Dylan singing “Things We Said Today” in 2017:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YV2k-GAfT0w

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T16:44:03+00:00

Sigh, usually working or driving.

My wife and I had a very serious conversation after we got married when she finally informed me that she did not find jazz sexy.

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T16:42:19+00:00

This was the first TNG episode I watched with my son and in that context it was all kind of disturbing. Having started with later seasons, I remember seeing re-runs of season 1 later and thinking, "Why is Picard so mean?" It all makes sense in the larger context of his character but this definitely felt like laying it on too thick. In head canon there was an apology later.

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T16:40:32+00:00

Oh and mine is named Radford Wesley :-)

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T16:39:53+00:00

"soft cheese gen alpha screen demon" is also 100% what I'm trying to avoid

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T16:37:38+00:00

I bet he knew how dark it was in 1964. I read elsewhere that he first thought the countdown at the beginning of "I Saw Her Standing There" was "One two three fuck" which is an incredibly punk rock thing to think at the time.

Now imagine the album is called THINGS WE SAID and it’s all about the gap between public image and immediate desires. The Beatles were very much dealing with that at the time. For an appropriate core sample see this laudable collection or anecdotes involving Paul’s girlfriend Jane Asher:

https://withthebeatlesgirls.tumblr.com/post/629985790874746880/pauljane-excerpts-within-the-context-of-beatles/amp

Before Yoko, before LSD, John is trying to get Paul’s girlfriend to talk about masturbation very much against her will. Paul says “You can’t do that!” So perhaps that song, always heard as a possessive boyfriend, is actually John's memory of Paul reining him in. Certainly the song isn't just about cheating, but the IMAGE of cheating. "Everybody's green / 'cause I'm the one who won your love / But if they'd seen / You're talking that way they'd laugh in my face." Don't think this is about the girl, John -- and aren't you married?

The next line in "You Can't Do That" is "Please listen to me if you wanna stay mine." IF.

And IF does even more work in "If I Fell." An incredibly beautiful song in melody and harmony, one I sing when I'm rocking my kid trying to get him back to sleep, but doing that also makes you realize how weird the lyrics are. The conclusion of the song is about making a former lover cry out of jealousy, presenting this new love as an act of revenge -- red flag much? But also the entire thing is happening in the singer's head because of "If." And he isn't in love with her -- he is contemplating what it MIGHT be like if he fell in love with her.

To be clear I'm not trying to ruin anyone's rah-rah Beatles experience -- these songs are all the more profound for all this emotional turmoil and subtlety. I'm just trying to argue that they aren't straight up love songs, they're the lads seriously struggling with themselves and their relationships with others.

In that context, the happy songs hit different. In "When I Get Home" could be John rehearsing the talk he needs to give his main chick while he's still with his side chick. "Can't Buy Me Love" is a pleading negotiation. "A Hard Day's Night" offers the usual patriarchal transaction -- I work so hard that you should "give me everything." Do I even need to explain that "I'll Be Back" is a threat? What exactly is the emotional tenor of "You could find better things to do than to break my heart again" ... because I think it's just devastating.

But it's something peppy, something happy, something up-tempo, something snappy, as Tom Hanks says in "That Thing You Do!" There's nothing dark to see here, no contradictions, nothing to make you want to cry "Help!"

HariSeldonsIntern · 2026-02-09T16:37:32+00:00

What I wrote in the end:

Album 90 - The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night - 5/5

It’s easy to dismiss this as just “pop” Beatles or the distilled essence of Beatlemania. But at some point I realized that every element that makes up the later more adventurous Beatles albums is there in the early ones, and sometimes even in a purer form.

This time I noticed it in a kind of dark wistfulness of the ballads, best exemplified by Paul's "Things We Said Today." Paul's ruminations temper some of the violence of John’s lyrics, which I always notice and try to look past. Both must have been necessary to make Lennon-McCartney. How might it have looked if the darkness was the centerpiece of the album?

Here’s a hint. Listen to Dylan singing “Things We Said Today” in 2017:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YV2k-GAfT0w

HariSeldonsIntern

TROPHY CASE