Relatedly, a song review in AMG for The Associates "White Car in Germany."

Like just about every other song recorded by Billy Mackenzie and Alan Rankine as Associates, “White Car in Germany” sounds little like anything else you’ve ever heard. Their songs might bring up fuzzy recollections or thoughts – the score from an obscure foreign film you can’t quite recall, Berlin-era Bowie at a war-ravaged cabaret, Scott Walker at his most fractured, a disturbing dream you once had. Their ambitious, experimental pop tapped into a type of genius that few other groups can lay claim to. “White Car in Germany” closed out a fantastic run of 1981 singles and wound up as the lead song on Fourth Drawer Down, the LP that collected those singles released for Situation 2. It’s a plodding march of a song, led by an overdriven machine beat, that features peculiarly cracked lines from Mackenzie. They seem to vacillate between a children’s playground chant (“If some brat annoys you/Do what’s felt impromptu/Kick them in their own”) and something scrawled by a hallucinating lunatic (“Slide your way through Zurich/Walk on eggs in Munich”). The cold, concrete-and-mortar atmosphere is offset by Mackenzie’s detached diva vocals, which add a darker color of gray. Like every other song recorded by Mackenzie and Rankine, “White Car in Germany” is likely to be seen as either a steaming pile of pretentious slop or a glorious slice of oddball pop. (It’s truly the latter, of course.)

Attention, s'il vous plait! I have a Teaching Emergency here!

I am in need of Mos Def's "Respiration" for my Yo!Hip-Hop IS Poetry unit for tomorrow.

I don't suppose anyone can BuffistaRawk me all night long?

Ok, leaving before y'all throw tuneful rotten tomatoes at me.

Last night, I decided to replace three very cherished albums that I once owned on vinyl, but lost long ago. All three albums were by the same band -- a band that only ever put out a grand total of five studio albums.

As a body of work, those five albums are quite possibly the tightest, most solid body of work ever put out by a rock band. The volatile personalities that produced such great music also meant they couldn't last. They straddled genres and in many ways redefined what music could be, all while helping propel the overall sound of rock music into it's next phase.

The albums I picked up are (IMO) the best three of the five, though the other two still kick much ass. One was the best of their two early albums. One was the middle album -- an album very representative of a slight shift in the sound of the band, but still solid in its own right. The third album I bought was, in my opinion, lip to label one of the greatest rock albums ever recorded.

Anyone want to take a stab as to who the band is, and what three albums I picked up?

I'm guessing the Police. Album: Zenyatta Mondatta, Synchronicity, & Regatta de Blanc

Tool

I'm pretty sure Sean has Tool on CD.

I'm guessing The Pixies.

HA! Good guess bon, but no. Sue guessed correctly with surprising alacrity. Except for the part where she thinks that Synchronicity is a better album than Ghost in the Machine, which is just wrong, wrong wrong.

I'm guessing The Pixies.

Didn't they only have four LPs? COME ON PILGRIM was an EP, and it's on the CD of SURFER ROSA.

I was guessing POLICE as well, and the number of releases is correct. However, as enjoyable as I found them, there's nothing they put out I'd consider a great album back to front, let alone of all time. That's just MO, though.

You know, I probably wouldn't have even thought of The Police, but I saw an interview with Andy Summers last night, so they were fresh in my mind.

I was way into The Police in high school and early college. So now they're one of those bands I just can't listen to objectively. I hardly listened to them at all for a long time, but in the last few years I've acquired their oeuvre on CD or iTunes.

I was gonna guess The Feelies, but I googled and found they've released four albums and an EP.

The Feelies were awesome....

eta: "Can't Stand Losing You" was my favorite song in high school....