In which those stupid things that people get "tagged in" on Facebook win out (Jim's List):

Kristina beat me to it by a couple days, but, here's my (hopefully not too embarrassing) first 20 song shuffle from my iPod. Here goes nothing:

1) "Mercury" by Bloc Party, off Intimacy
2) "Waiting for the End of the World" by Elvis Costello, off My Aim Is True
3) "Gentle Sons" by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, off of their self-titled
4) "Do or Die" by Super Furry Animals, off Guerrilla
5) "Green Jacket" by Deerhunter, off Microcastle
6) "I've Seen Enough" by Cold War Kids, off Loyalty to Loyalty
7) "Stop Dat" by Dizzee Rascal, off Boy in Da Corner
8) "Stars and Sons" by Broken Social Scene, off You Forgot It in People
9) "Dr. Strangelove" by Blonde Redhead, off 23
10) "Bigmouth Strikes Again" by the Smiths, off The Queen Is Dead
11) "Fuck You Tonight" by Notorious B.I.G., off Life After Death (featuring R. Kelly. This, in itself, is a victory.)
12) "Faster Than a Dead Horse" by Viva Voce, off Get Yr Blood Sucked Out
13) "Just a Toy" by Barenaked Ladies, off Born on a Pirate Ship
14) "Drain the Blood" by the Distillers, off Coral Fang
15) "Hang on to Yourself" by David Bowie, off The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust...
16) "I Just Wanna Get Along" by the Breeders, off Last Splash
17) "The Rip" by Portishead, off Third
18) "Nobody's Real" by Powerman 5000, off Tonight the Stars Revolt
19) "Healer" by Marnie Stern, off In Advance of the Broken Arm (thankfully, I won't have to type the name of the other album out.)
20) "Dry Your Eyes" by the Streets, off A Grand Don't Come for Free

SO CLOSE. That Powerman 5000's really gonna bring down the cool points on this, but other than that it looks pretty good. The Brits seem to be pretty well-represented, and I'm really happy about the Bowie and Marnie cause I've been listening to a lot of both recently.

Also, "Bigmouth Strikes Again" is great. I wonder if Morrissey would turn down stupid amounts of money (again) to reunite the Smiths at my wedding.

Anyway, on to that 20 albums thing that a lot of people I know have been doing. I'll let them explain it:

Think of 20 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world.

Kind of a big task, but people who have known me for a bit aren't going to be too shocked at a few of these. I'm gonna try to do it without attempting to justify them, but I might have to. Also, there's no real order to these:

*Absolution by Muse
*Turn on the Bright Lights by Interpol
*Apologies to the Queen Mary by Wolf Parade
*Chutes Too Narrow by The Shins
*There Is Nothing Left to Lose by the Foo Fighters
*OK Computer by Radiohead
*Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie
*Fashion Nugget by Cake
*The Blue Album by Weezer
*Revolver by the Beatles
*Pinkerton, also by Weezer
*Morning View by Incubus
*Odelay by Beck
*Elephant by the White Stripes
*Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age
*In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel
*Hybrid Theory by Linkin Park
*The Electric Version by the New Pornographers
*Either/Or by Elliott Smith
*Whatever and Ever Amen by Ben Folds Five

There. What I'm realizing is that with the notable exception of Revolver, there isn't a single album released before 1994. I guess classic rock wasn't really super important to me for a really long stretch, which is kind of sad. Anyway, I'm fairly confident I could tell you where I was the first time that I heard all twenty of these albums.

Honorable mentions should probably go to Life is Peachy by Korn, cause my older cousin used to love it, and I kind of idolized him, so I loved it too, as well as Three Dollar Bill, Y'all and Significant Other by Limp Bizkit. Yes, Limp Bizkit. Yes, Fred Durst was speaking to me.

On second thought, I'm just gonna give an honorable mention to literally any song ever played on Y100, Philly's old rock radio station. The reason most of these albums were released so late is cause I didn't really care about entire albums through Y100's reign.

And that should about do it, mainly cause i have class pretty soon. Enclosed is a playlist with ten favorites from these. Enjoy!

Love,
Jim