If 19-year-old you had been asked by NPR to check out an a classic released 3 years before your birth...

a) what album would it be?
b) how would you have described your previous familiarity (or lack thereof) with the artist?
c) what stupid nice thing would you have said about it?
d) what stupid mean thing would you have said about it?
e) what contemporary artist (At the time you were 19) would you have claimed to prefer?

(obv it needs to be an album you've become familiar with since)

a) Patti Smith's Horses
b) hey, I'm a HUGE REM fan, and I know that one poem off No Alternative, and the 10,000 Maniac cover
c) there's a lot of passion here, a lot of fast parts
d) i just don't think poetry is my thing and she seems rather beholden to trite icons of rebellion
e) Sleater-Kinney

...i looked at the albums out in 1978 and i just can't.

I would say it's true, "There's a Riot Goin' On" is one of the greatest albums ever made

started to fill one out for Joy Division's Closer and Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights, but i couldn't fake it.

(liked that Interpol a LOT, but i was a JD fan before they came around)

...i looked at the albums out in 1978 and i just can't.

― fauxmarc, Wednesday, July 18, 2012 6:51 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

ditto

da croupier and I are the same age

but my 1978 pick is

a) Brian Eno's Another Green World
b)I know this guy is in Roxy Music and looks a bit scary. Seems a bit chin-stroking and suspect.
c) Good music to go to sleep to, except for the scary parts
d) This is really fucking boring
e) Aphex Twin

1975, I mean

I wish I could select something from the 70s...but 1983 is no help

a) Miles Davis - On The Corner
b) I just started to "get" jazz. Mostly Miles & Coltrane.
c) I could almost dance to parts of this.
d) Some of this sounds like Red hot Chili Peppers instrumentals.
e) Fugazi

I suppose I could do "Blonde on Blonde" but I've still actually never heard it.

18/19 was around the time i got really passionate about late '70s records beyond just the alt canon punk/new wave stuff, so there's not a whole lot from that era that i know now that i wasn't familiar with or at least pretty open to by then. biggest classic that i hadn't heard then is probably Darkness On The Edge of Town, which ended being the Bruce record that i was like "this is perfect, why didn't i get this back when i started to take an interest in him when i was 18" so my theoretical NPR piece would be pretty reverent

haha yeah anyone blessed with a glorious year at least tell us what album you'd be a kiss-ass about

and what band of the then-moment you would have linked your affection to, etc

that's an interesting question - not sure what 1992 act I could link Sly to tbh

i think i wd do Otis Blue but i don't think 19 year-old me wd've got it really. wd've probably said i preferred Hearsay. thing is when i was 19 music from 20 years prior sounded much older than music from the early 90s sounds today

(liked that Interpol a LOT, but i was a JD fan before they came around)

At nineteen I was mostly listening to classical and jazz, though earlier I'd liked a lot of punk and prog era stuff. I could've been asked about Neu! '75 and said some of it's kind of pretty but there's too much pulse, and the more punk stuff isn't fast or guitar-dominated enough. I might have heard of them through the Kraftwerk connection. Contemporary artist... um, John Elliot Gardiner? (Stereolab would be the "right" wrong answer here; I think I discovered them at 20.)

a. Tom Waits-Swordfishtrombone
b. I knew my dad like him, but I don't think I had heard any Waits at 19.
c. Interesting voice.
d. "Interesting" voice.
e. Probably something awful.

The one from 1960 I would recommend now is probably Ornette's Change of the Century, but I didn't know anything about him at 19. But I was listening to Miles Davis by that time, so I guess the answer would be Sketches of Spain.

what came out in 1965? i want a list of all albums, please. there must have been a beatles album or something.

1st 2 Byrds albums, Help! and Rubber Soul, couple of Stones albums, Highway 61, Otis Blue as aforementioned. 1st Sonics album.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_in_music

a.) 96 Tears
b.) I heard these guys invented punk rock
c.) It's pretty noisy, I mean for the old days
d.) Didn't the Doors do this better?
e.) Can't match the intensity of That Petrol Emotion

byrds would be a good one for me! cuz i didn't love them nearly as much when i was 19. love them now. i probably thought they were too wimpy or something when i was 19. and i would totally be embarrassed by anything i wrote about the byrds when i was 19. there, that was easy.

If 19-year-old you had been asked by NPR to check out an a classic released 3 years before your birth...
a) what album would it be? Rumors
b) how would you have described your previous familiarity (or lack thereof) with the artist? Are they the same as John Denver?
c) what stupid nice thing would you have said about it? I bet my dad would like it.
d) what stupid mean thing would you have said about it? It sounds like old people music.
e) what contemporary artist (At the time you were 19) would you have claimed to prefer? FLESH OF MY FLESH BLOOD OF MY BLOOD

d) i just don't think poetry is my thing and she seems rather beholden to trite icons of rebellion

^^

patti smith someone i liked more when i was younger and can barely listen to now except for "pissing in the river" and "people got the power". and the springsteen song.

i mean i read jonathan livingston seagull and illusions when i was a teen.

i definitely thought tom robbins was profound.

had a picture of timothy leary on my wall.

If 19-year-old you had been asked by NPR to check out an a classic released 3 years before your birth...
a) what album would it be? Rumors
b) how would you have described your previous familiarity (or lack thereof) with the artist? Are they the same as John Denver?
c) what stupid nice thing would you have said about it? I bet my dad would like it.
d) what stupid mean thing would you have said about it? It sounds like old people music.
e) what contemporary artist (At the time you were 19) would you have claimed to prefer? FLESH OF MY FLESH BLOOD OF MY BLOOD

'Rumours' is held up as an iconic portrayal of the messy end of a relationship, but Buckingham's paltry kiss-off ("you can go your own away...") or Nicks' tortured climatic metaphors fade into insignificance when compared to DMX's cold-eyed admission (or boast), "Ain't no other cats got love for me..." What is a bit of a intra-band tension compared to the apocalyptic isolation of the urban warrior?

a) South Pacific O.S.T.
b) I remember seeing The Sound of Music as a kid. Mostly I know nothing about musicals.
c) I might like this better than "In the Navy." It's close.
d) I was in university, so it would have been something more pretentious than mean.
e) Cowboys International.

that's an interesting question - not sure what 1992 act I could link Sly to tbh

― the alternate vision continues his vision quest! (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, July 18, 2012 4:29 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Arrested Development, obv ;)

kollege skot at 19. sinead long box next to me on the bed. yeah, fuck the byrds.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2084/1784362672_0abd03e2dc_b.jpg

I can't think of a 19 yr old me comparison incidentally, but 14 yr old me definitely did this with Joy Division and Puressence.

Love that photo scott.

No wonder what I write is so off here, most of you are ten or more years younger than me.

This is an excellent topic.

I'm sorry to say I apparently don't know ANY albums from 1961 all the way through. The long-term acclaimed releases were apparently by Bobby Bland, Ornette Coleman, Bill Evans, and the Monk/Coltrane record. I'm still catching up with jazz and blues.

Pop hits: "Blue Moon" by the Marcels. Freaking great. Thought so when I was a little kid, think so now. Likewise with "Hit The Road, Jack" and "Tossin' and Turnin'". This is no big imaginative stretch to say I'd have liked these at age 19: in just three years, "oldies" radio that included the 60s and 70s had hit my town, and it was my car music of choice.

I would have hated Ricky Nelson's "Travelin' Man" Bobby Vee's "Take Good Care of My Baby" either, and at age 19 I would have been especially snide about it. "Please Mr. Postman" is among the most boring girl group hits, but I would have known to praise "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" because I had read enough rock criticism at that point to understand that this was an acclaimed song.

I don't have a period of being innocent of the influences of major rock critics after age 14, so my 19 is not everybody's 19.

19-Year-Olderizer Reflects on Eric Dolphy's Time Out

I chose this record because because Byron Coley and his friends tell me that I am interested in but uninformed about "free jazz", and I have the impression that this it will serve as a suitable introduction. Plus it looks cool and they had a cheap copy down at Rainy Day. I did a bunch of gravity hits before spinning it, as I've been told that's the procedure. After a while I noticed that the clock on the cover was all comically fucked up and got freaked out that I hadn't noticed it before

It's great, I think. I mean I think I think it's great, which really means I'm not sure I get it but am unwilling risk the admission. Between you, me and the drugs, I sometimes suspect that pretentious people pretend to like annoying music - and in many cases convince themselves that they actually do - in order to fortify a sense of superiority to the dung-rolling masses. This tendency gives difficult music a survival advantage that it hasn't otherwise earned. Parts of this album sounds like an old black & white movie guy with bugs in his suit. Other parts are very nice, cool and drifty.

I think I'll stick with Sonic Youth, if it's all the same to you, Byron.

^ i actually bought a copy of time out when i was 19, and this is pretty faithful to my response at the time, iirc

Arrested Development, obv ;)

lol this was all I could think of too but the problem is I hated AD (and still kind of do)

a.) physical graffiti
b.) i guess i've probably heard some of the classics on the radio without even really knowing who they are? i own a lot of vintage def jam albums that plundered them for beats. i dunno man, classic rock's just not really my thing.
c.) some of this is heavy as shit! and the drummer is just killing it throughout. good riffs, when they stick to riffs.
d.) it's not really like...fast enough if you listen to a lot of punk rock. christ some of these songs are long. END THE FUCKING SONG ALREADY. and that *is* a dude singing, right? i dunno parts of it are mosh-worthy and other parts remind me of shit my dad would listen to when he was in high school and drinking boones farm and reading novels about lusty elf maidens being defiled by orcs.
e.) bad brains

(i'd fudge something about how bad brains were still playing even if their best work was behind them, eliding the fact that their best work came out when i was two to seven.)

a) what album would it be?
b) how would you have described your previous familiarity (or lack thereof) with the artist?
c) what stupid nice thing would you have said about it?
d) what stupid mean thing would you have said about it?
e) what contemporary artist (At the time you were 19) would you have claimed to prefer?

a) Ornette Coleman - Dancing in Your Head
b) I just got Free Jazz from the library and thought it was really great, really intense.
c) It's like minimalism in the way it uses varied repetition without harmonic change. A little like Indian classical music in the way it still leaves room for improvisation.
d) But it's got this weird laid-back wing-tip funk vibe to it. I didn't get into this shit because I wanted to dance!
e) Rake (local free jazz group)

(Contenderizer, do you mean Out to Lunch or did Dolphy also do an album called Time Out? I don't think you mean the Brubeck album? Not trying to be a dick; I'm actually curious.)

(I listened to tonnes of rock music when I was 19 btw. I just don't know that there's much from 1976 that would have interested me at 19 that I didn't already know, maybe except for the mellower end of classic rock. Hm.)

I'm pretty old.

a) Anthology of American Folk Music
b) I loved folk music, but wasn't familiar with it.
c) There's a whole education here!
d) It's sure a lot of music...
e) Doc Watson

(Contenderizer, do you mean Out to Lunch or did Dolphy also do an album called Time Out? I don't think you mean the Brubeck album? Not trying to be a dick; I'm actually curious.)

lol, no offense taken. of course, i meant out to lunch. i knew something felt wrong while i was writing that, but couldn't figure it out even while looking at the album cover. for the sake of fuck.

in my (weak) defense, i'm feeling pretty out of it tonight. the world is too much with me. then again, i was more or less constantly stoned off my ass when i was 19, so the confusion is at least appropriate.

a) Frank C. Stanley, "Auld Lang Syne" on the Blue Amberol label
b) Had not heard of the artist, but wanted the song for our home
c) this is a very clear sound!
d) dad, you should get a job doing this, you sing like him!
e) Igor Stravinsky

a) The Beatles - Beatles For Sale (came out Dec 1964)
b) I loved these guys briefly in junior high.
c) "I'm A Loser" could've been about me.
d) It's completely played out.
e) XTC

at first i was going to say Dark Side of the Moon but I had already been living with that for a good 4 years when i was 19

a) The Stooges - Raw Power
b) since we were still a year away from "Lust For Life" resurfacing in Trainspotting, i would probably have known this from like reading SPIN or w/e and being all, "oh this is the crazy dude that cut himself on stage and sort of invented punk rock"
c) these guys seem pretty fired up about something
d) instrumentally these guys are pretty sloppy
e) in '95 i definitely would've said i vastly preferred Rancid

a) The Velvet Underground & Nico
b) I had no idea music like this existed in 1967!!!
c) There are moments on this, I swear it's almost metal.
d) They need a better drummer, that girl's terrible.
e) It's cool and all, but Sonic Youth does the same thing better.

a) Van Morrison - Moondance
b) St Dominic's Preview acquainted me with his mystico-bullshit side, especially when he evokes it by growling.
c) The pianos are pretty!
d) The second side is gas
e) I'd say he's still one of a kind. Only Ghostface mouths incomprehensible romantic blather with such conviction.

you were a weird fucking 19 year old

you seriously talked like that about Ghostface like that in the '90s?

19 and a freshman in college, I was a freaking music listening sponge finding all sorts of new things (like drugs), I was listening to all sorts of stuff and probably would have been pretty open minded to most things from 1966. I might not have dug Nancy Sinatra or maybe Bert Jansch or Phil Ochs, but I would probably give it a listen.

a) Songs in the Key of Life
b) that I fell in love with his music a couple years earlier and had remained in love since
c) that it was his second best album ever
d) that it was his second best album ever
e) none, since Stevie was my favorite pop artist then and still remains so now

dug nancy sinatra and pentangle in 86, and became curious about phil ochs the following year due to squirrel bait's cover of "tape from california" on skag heaven. still haven't given him a fair listen though.

xp

a) More Songs About Buildings and Food
b) David Byrne gyrating in front of a green screen in the "Once in a Lifetime" vid, "Burning Down the House" in Revenge of the Nerds
c) wow I would not have expected these guys to pull off a killer Marvin Gaye cover!
d) I don't really like it when singers talk a lot
e) ...can I go back to listening to Kid A again?

a) Pet Sounds
b) I would have been very familiar with individual songs from commercial radio and tv ads, but I would have pretended not to know any of it because I was too cool for commercial radio and tv ads.
c) "The chords are so complex! The bass almost never plays the root! The lyrics are sooo personal -- what, they were written by an ad man? The lyrics SOUND so personal."
d) "Of course, they were too emotionally repressed to scream, but they use that corny falsetto to stand in for it and it almost works. Almost."
e) "This stuff would all sound better screamed by 19-year olds thrashing on guitars through Roland JC-120s and ProCo Rats. Hey Dan? Let's do 'Don't Talk', only fast."

if I'd heard the first Cheap Trick LP in 1999 I'd've prolly liked it OK, but I already thought I was king shit for finding 'Songs About Fucking' on my own, so my thing would no doubt have been "hey check this out these guys totally improved your song!!"

idk who was analogous to Cheap Trick at the time? would say Weezer but I tuned out between their first and third albums

Real life one: when I was 19 I found a used copy of Bowie's then-22-year-old Low and was excited because I'd hearrrd it had invented moody chin-stroking electronic music, and I thought it would make me look clever like listening to Steve Reich was meant to.

b) oh I like that one that goes uh Ch-ch-ch-changes, yeah, also he wore tights in Labyrinth
c) (I did not like it) uh it's very clever (bcz I'm clever and recognise cleverness, do you see)
d) but... rather dull
e) Aphex Twin or whichever semi-forgotten late 90s Autechre copyist I had just heard that week

I should really listen to it again now I'm not 19.

a) for an imaginary one, perhaps I would have picked the Clash's first album
b-c) because I secretly liked the Clash tracks that still got played at indie discos
d) but declare that they were not real punks because I had heard their daddies were rich, and that they ruined "Police and Thieves" because they were too white to "get" reggae (unlike me, of course)
e) then declare that the real soul of punk circa 1999 was, err, Mo*ho*bish*o*pi, or maybe Fugazi, who I had just discovered via a decade-old album but had a vague idea were still together

a) Why Can't We Be Friends by War
b) Vaguely knew Low Rider through the Beasties and my high school marching band.
c) You know these guys smoked a lot of pot.
d) Too much of it feels like the soundtrack to an educational film. I can't sit through some of these songs.
e) The Almighty Senators

1) Live at Birdland by Art Blakey
2) I saw Art and the Jazz Messengers live when I was 19, didn't know this album yet. 19 was my big jazz-discovery period.
3) "wow the drum solos are better than Keith Moon and John Bonham put together"
4) "does the announcer have a speech impediment?"
5) Patti Smith

a) what album would it be?
b) how would you have described your previous familiarity (or lack thereof) with the artist?
c) what stupid nice thing would you have said about it?
d) what stupid mean thing would you have said about it?
e) what contemporary artist (At the time you were 19) would you have claimed to prefer?

1. Hounds of Love
2. She's the chick on helium reading fucking Bronte.
3. "Ethereal is a word, right?"
4. Calm down woman, God and dogs aren't real.
5. The Futureheads innit

a) What's Going On
b) The guy that sang the song from the Levi's laundrette commercial
c) It's nice that he cares about [chronologically inaccurate laundry list of Important Issues] and it would sound good on a post-club comedown
d) Too much saxophone (God, I hated saxophones when I was 19), too sappy
e) Marxman (short-lived anglo-Irish socialist rappers)

This thread is by far the best response yet to the NPR article BTW

I could do "Station to station" or "A trick of the tail" or "The Modern Lovers" but I loved all those albums immediately, instead:

a) Stevie Wonder "Songs in the key of life".

b) Stevie Wonder is often a punchline for hair jokes on SNL because he's visually impaired and may have once had blue cornrows. Also: "Isn't she lovely" on the radio all the time, SITKOF mentioned in every music magazine as being "great".

c) "Sir Duke" is just about the best thing and briefly knocks off Jackson 5's "I want you back" as my favourite slippery Motown song.

d) "Love's in need of love today" is just fine. "Have a talk with God" offends my 19-year old anti-theist. The synth strings on "Village Ghetto Land" sound silly in 1999, and the lyrics are trite. Disc 2 begins with "Isn't she lovely" and I turn it off almost immediately.

e) Lauryn Hill

"Have a talk with God" offends my 19-year old anti-theist.

Ha ha. Me too back then. "How dare you sing about God?"

Difficult to think, I was a mod at 14 then developed into listening into later 60s music. So not sure what records from '64 I wouldn't already have dug.
Have just realised that the record i'm listening to at the moment dates from that year Giusseppi Logan Quartet & I probably would have tried to get into it.
Previouas material by him I might have been familiar with. Don't think anything exists and he disappeared back into obscurity after cutting one other record and helping out on the Patty Waters college tour lp.

Or I could possibly go with a John Coltrane or Miles Davis thing or maybe the Beach Boys who I didn't really pick up on until later.
Or maybe Another side Of Bob Dylan which I don't think I picked up at that point, but might have done.

At age 19, I was already way way way up on the Ramones and Modern Lovers et al

I guess I hadn't heard Songs in the Key of Life in its entirety at that point, but "Sir Duke" was my favorite song on the 2-disc Stevie greatest hits I had, so I would have been all "this is awesome."

that 2-disc Stevie set is unfuckwithable

original musiquarium?

yep

a) Bob Marley and The Wailers - "Natty Dread"
b) I like(d) Bob Marley. I knew a lot of his songs from the radio and most friends had a copy of "Legend". My brother had "Natty Dread" on tape which is where I heard it.
c) its good to smoke WEED to, or so I heard. I didnt really smoke weed tbh.
d) some songs go on too long like "Rebel Music"
e) Pavement. Sonic Youth.

the mean things 19-yr-old me would have said (did say) about the classic albums i forced myself to endure would not have been stupid, for one thing

Hmmmm, I was 19 in 1980 so, let me think about it.

the year you're looking for is 1977

a)Captain Beefheart - Trout Mask Replica
b) I know Bongo Fury, but I liked the Zappa songs more than the Captain's
c) He sounds like Tom Waits minus the Kerouac
d) It's a glorious mess that would have been better if they'd practiced more
e) Thinking Fellers Union Local 282

Thing is, I actually was 19 when I was introduced to TMR. I spent a weekend absorbing it and fell for the record head over heels.

@ DL, kind of? At age 19 I think I technically still accepted Christ, but felt that "Have a talk with God" was some Christian Science logic. On my first listen I actually thought Stevie was being ironic (!) having "Village Ghetto Land" and "..God" right next to each other.

nobody liked my joek :(

was it as good as Mr Que's?

Hmmmm, I was 19 in 1980 so, let me think about it.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, July 19, 2012 1:19 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the year you're looking for is 1977

― Mr. Que, Thursday, July 19, 2012

I like your math better than looking at my birth certificate.

a) I imagine the NPR people holding out a copy of Miles Ahead but me sensing a trap and instead grabbing Here's Little Richard.
b) Everybody knows "Tutti Frutti," this guy is famous, like Elvis and Buddy Holly.
c) These songs are so such better than the Beatles versions -- this is the real thing, man.
d) Is this ... mono? Can't you get this in stereo?
e) Have you heard the B-52's? They're so crazy and fun! And they're from Georgia!

(I loled J0hn. I was going to post something like "he said 3 years before your birth, not 30 years after" but decided it would be cheap.)

a) what album would it be?
b) how would you have described your previous familiarity (or lack thereof) with the artist?
c) what stupid nice thing would you have said about it?
d) what stupid mean thing would you have said about it?
e) what contemporary artist (At the time you were 19) would you have claimed to prefer?

a) Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (1977)
b) Aren't they that lame classic rock band that all bonked each other? Why were people listening to this when they could have been listening to all that awesome punk and postpunk I feel smug for having just discovered?
c) That's the best white-boy afro I've ever seen...
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51QhpdVcfhL.jpg
d) The creamy-voiced woman's songs are too lite
e) Boredoms

a) In A Silent Way
b) Oh man, he just died...I should probably check him out.
c) Parts of this sound cut-up/edited...that's kind of like what the Bomb Squad does, right?
d) the fuck is Tony Williams doing? What is it, disco time now?
e) Gonna listen to Apocalypse 91 again.

(IASW became one of my favorite things in the world when I finally heard it at 22, and I haven't listened to Apocalypse 91 since...91)

1972, so I was 19 in 1994

a) Ege Bamyasi
b) I think I saw this at the library once, but didn't pick it up because it had a stupid cover.
c) This sounds like it would be super fun to dance to, but I have no idea where they play music like this
d) Second side is way better than the first side
e) If I want weird noises with a melody, I'll listen to Pavement

(indie snobbery peaked at 19 obvs)

I'm 29, born in 1983.

a) Talking Heads - Remain In Light.
b) I know Road To Nowhere and I've seen them do Psycho Killer on The Old Grey Whistle Test. Big suit.
c) Wow, I had no idea Talking Heads were this out-there.
d) The cover art is ugly.
e) British Sea Power.

a) what album would it be? Hmm, 1958, can't see any albums on the wikip list that I could say I know now that I didn't know then. And there's not many of those..
b) how would you have described your previous familiarity (or lack thereof) with the artist? The whole "lp" thing hadn't happened really, apart from soundtracks (a few I know) or Jazz (not really into)
c) what stupid nice thing would you have said about it? The world changed so much in five years, didn't it?
d) what stupid mean thing would you have said about it? even 1957 was better!
e) what contemporary artist (At the time you were 19) would you have claimed to prefer? Ooh, look there's "More Specials!"

omg i <3 stevie nicks

a) what album would it be? This would be 1968, so they'd probably ask me to listen to either the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat or Johnny Cash's At Folsom Prison
b) how would you have described your previous familiarity (or lack thereof) with the artist? At 19, I was already well over the Velvet Underground, having tried to listen to them in high school out of punk-rock obligation and fucking hated them; w/r/t Johnny Cash, I knew maybe two or three songs.
c) what stupid nice thing would you have said about it? I don't think I'd have had anything nice to say about the Velvet Underground; I would have talked about Cash's voice in hilariously overblown terms, using words like "portentous" and "Old Testament" and totally skipped over the jokes.
d) what stupid mean thing would you have said about it? Again, w/r/t the Velvets, I would have called them boring, their attempts at guitar noise weak and half-assed (at 19, I was already listening to Borbetomagus and Merzbow, plus tons of metal), their lyrics stupid, etc., etc.; w/r/t Cash, I would have made dumb jokes about prison rape or something.
e) what contemporary artist (At the time you were 19) would you have claimed to prefer? I would have unfavorably compared the Velvet Underground to the Jesus and Mary Chain, who took all the former group's dumb ideas and turned them into pop songs; I would have expressed a preference for Social Distortion, or maybe X, over Johnny Cash.

rather than do Kind of Blue, let's assume I still wouldn't have anything interesting to say about it.

a) Marvin Gaye, "Here, My Dear"
b) Obviously knew the name, I think I had "Purple Snowflakes" on a Mojo Christmas CD but I never even knowingly heard "What's Going On" until a year or two later
c) Production has nice spacey vibes, and self-indulgent concept albums are always commendable
d) Can't this guy stop whining? Funky music should be positive, man.
e) Jurassic 5 (lol 19)

a) Kind Of Blue
b) He did all that jazz-rock fusion stuff in the early Seventies, but I guess this is going to sound more jazzy and less rocky, right?
c) Some of the melodies are quite pretty, wasn't expecting that!
d) ...but this is still basically high-class elevator music for boring old people!
e) The Lounge Lizards, who are re-inventing jazz for a whole new generation!

a) Songs in the Key of Life
b) Checked out Innervisions from the library when I was 16 and thought it was pretty cool
c) There are some cool jams on here, and it's totally eclectic!
d) It's too long and doesn't really work as a cohesive ALBUM
e) The thing is, I didn't really listen to ANY contemporary R&B/pop artists when I was 19. I was too busy geeking out over Stereolab and Tortoise, and I wouldn't have bothered mentioning them in a review. Haha, I *might* have mentioned Jamiroquai, though. Not to say that I ~preferred~ them (though I did really like Return of the Space Cowboy) but just as a way of linking Stevie to the present day.

Arrested Development, obv ;)

lol this was all I could think of too but the problem is I hated AD (and still kind of do)

ah I thought of a better modern comparison point that I loved at the time (I'm sure you all have been dying for me to figure this out) - BASEHEAD