For a person who dislikes music, I have a lot of it.  Rather, I had a lot of it.  But my computer went up in smoke and my collection was decimated.  I had to start rebuilding from scratch.   Frankly, I would recommend the experience.

Music is as easy to replace as garbage.  And, like garbage, it’s a good idea to occasionally throw it all out.

It’s like this:  Your music is a ship and eventually it becomes covered in barnacles.  You can’t even use shuffle because you can’t stand the songs.  That has to be a bad sign. You don’t even like the music you like.

So what do you do?  I’d say, delete everything.  (Unless you’re one of those nuts who actually pays good money for music.)  Start your journey from a new port.

You’ll learn quite a bit about your tastes just in the few days of getting some of it back.  You set priorities and you’ll quickly learn who your favourites really are.

After the jump, is a brief list of who I rediscovered and who I like.  This way, you can just judge me based on what I listen to.  Isn’t that what music is for?

PERE UBU

[youtube=http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=rBRJLqBiTzA]

Honestly, I had no idea that I liked Pere Ubu so much.  But apparently, I do.  When it was crunch time, this was one of the first groups I looked for.

I don’t really know anything about them except that I really like their music.  I’m too lazy to even read the bio that Songbird gives when I play one of their songs.

I’ve never understood why people care so much about where a band came from, what clothes they wore, what drugs they did and what other people say about them.  It either sounds good or it doesn’t.  To my ears, Pere Ubu sounds great.

NO THANKS!: The Seventies Punk Rebellion

[youtube=http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=nUU85sOxZ78&feature=related]

I’ve been listening to punk rock for too long.  You might think you can blow my mind by mentioning a punk band you think I haven’t heard before.  You can’t.

Heard it, bought it, put it on a mix tape.

Probably don’t remember the name even if I wrote it on my coat.

And let me tell you something about punk rock.  Most of it sucks.  And not in the good way.  In the Gogol Bordello way.  That’s right.  Gogol Bordello sucks.  They’re just The Voodoo Glowskulls with a gimmick and lyrics that the over fourteen crowd can relate to.  And The Voodoo Glowskulls sucked too.

I’ve spent half my life sifting through this refuse.

And there comes a point when you just want someone to put it together for you.  To just give you the key songs from the best groups and call it a day.

No Thanks! does that.  It’s punk from before punk celebrated the moronic; when being clever was still an attribute.  It misses some stuff but you already have the full album for that stuff.  No Sex Pistols or Crass?  Well, you already have that.  Only one Ramones or Cramps song?  They only wrote one song.

This isn’t so much an introduction to punk as a farewell.   That song you heard and liked when you were drinking an eight dollar pitcher with no glass?  It’s here.  That other track that was on a long lost mix tape with no band names?  It’s somewhere on the third disc.

No Thanks! will kill punk for you and you’ll feel great.  You can finally get on with your life.    And you should.  Just ask your mom.  She did.

DEVO

[youtube=http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=n8fORGIhbAc&feature=related]

Anything by DEVO and all of DEVO.  Even Whip It.  I love DEVO.  Especially Whip It. If you don’t like Whip It, you don’t like DEVO.  Stop fronting.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxH39QlRuhg&NR=1]

They take anything human out of pop music and strip it right down to its basics.  It’s precise and efficient.  They are the perfect pop band.

If pop music was a robot, it would be DEVO.

If you don’t like them, I can’t help you.

If you’ve never listened, start with Hardcore DEVO.  It’s just their demos but what demos they are.

Wendy Carlos

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su9eNg4T798&feature=related]

I need some Bach.  I like the fugues by Gould, the cello stuff by Pablo Cassals or Yo-Yo Ma and the Harpsichord Concertos.  But, because I was rebuilding my music collection, I wanted to kill two birds with one stone.

So I got Switched on Bach by Wendy Carlos.  And a whole slew of other stuff by her too.

I like Wendy Carlos.  She did The Clockwork Orange Soundtrack and has an immediately recognizable sound.  She also started life as Walter Carlos.

Figured someone would mention that so I might as well.

Ol Dirty Bastard:  Return to the 36 Chambers

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P9U6hYTLlA]

You know that crazy drunk you see on the corner?  If you want to know what the inside of his head sounds like, right down to the version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, then this is the album.  Enough said.

Except, of course, R.I.P. O.D.B.

MF DOOM:   Madvilliany and Viktor Vaughan Vaudeville Villain

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpaonSDPw7Y]

A lot people think MF DOOM is some sort of joke because he wears a metal mask and backpackers love him.  And they may be right.  But Madvillainy is one of the most depressing albums I’ve ever heard.  And I didn’t even know hip hop could be depressing.  But it’s really sad and emotional.  Like a hangover from life.

And just what could get you so drunk that you’re hungover from life?  Being a Vaudeville Villain.  This album is like the up to Madvilliany’s down.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pivAG_FJEf0]

There’s more, of course, but I’m probably as bored writing this as you are reading it.  I’m not sure what the moral is here or what brought it on.  You should probably just forget about music and watch RAMBO.