Thirty Summers

It’s an overcast day, and that’s why I’m glad my album roulette landed on Cowboy Junkies. Theirs is music for cloudy skies and dark nights, I think. Or, of you’re of a different constitution, lazy mornings spent in coffee shops. If an album evokes dust …

Thinking About You

First of all, I can’t believe this came out in 1990, because I think of Black Uhuru as 70’s music even though they made some of their best music in the 80’s and 90’s. I also think of Black Uhuru as music for cookouts, grilling …

Texas

There are two things that I don’t usually go for: country music and unironic odes to Texas. (Which is a Venn diagram so overlapped it’s practically a perfect circle.) But old-school outlaw country is something I do have a soft spot for, and when the …

Teenage Brainsurgeon

It’s a cosmic mystery how and why some bands get popular. There’s the ones who gain a massive following despite being not good, which makes sense, because people have terrible taste. And there’s the ones who somehow become popular despite being so weird that it’s …

Taste of Blood

You may have noticed that I’m attracted to the melancholy. I like to inoculate myself against real feelings of depression by microdosing on other people’s sadness. Of course I have an extensive selection of the most sumptuous sad music. I like to have a wide …

Tanha

Oh my, I haven’t played Cesaria Evora in a long time. I guess I’ve been neglecting the teatime music. That’s a genre, and if you know you know. Cesaria Evora possessed the kind of voice that inspires reams of purple prose from critics. My best …

Take Heed

Take heed of what, though? Whatever looked like impending doom in 1990, I guess. Black Uhuru’s music is usually focused on positivity – “That’s the nature of the Rastaman” as they said in one of their other songs. But it is also the nature of …

Sunny Side of the Street

You’ve maybe heard a lot about the relentless cheerfulness of the Irish – a national cliche, the happy hobo in his pints and whatnot. If you can be as unrepentantly happy hitting rock bottom as the stereotypical Irish drunk appears to be, your life would …

Sun Comes Up, It’s Tuesday Morning

This is a true reflection of a rueful morning-after. It’s a song that perfectly captures the sense of having mixed feelings that comes with a big life change, like a breakup. She doesn’t know what to think or feel because she just woke up and …

Summer In Siam

This not the content that the Pogues’ punk fans would have expected back in the early 80’s, but by 1990 a tired reverie and a dream of exotic places was exactly the mood. Shane Macgowan was kicked out of the band shortly after the release …