BZZZZTTT!!!

Over at Tosy and Cosh, John posts some commentary on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 best albums of the last twenty years. I won't excerpt the entire list here, since I don't own very many of these albums and am incredibly surprised by the inclusion of certain items (not one but two albums by the Beastie Boys? Gimme a break!). And it goes without saying that since this list is skewed toward rock, pop, and a bit of country and jazz, some truly great items have slipped entirely through their cracks: Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings scores, that amazing live Les Troyens that Sir Colin Davis recorded with the LSO a few years back, Santiago by the Chieftains, anything by Lunasa.

I could go on, but I'll let it suffice that I can't take seriously a list of the "Best albums since 1985" that omits the still-brilliant-after-all-these-years Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits. The album makes Rolling Stone's "Master List", but apparently didn't crack the top 100 of the last twenty years, which to me constitutes an amazing omission. It's certainly a better album than anything by the Beastie Boys.

(Speaking of Dire Straits, the other day I happened to glance up at the TV in the cafe at The Store when a commercial for Mark Knopfler's newest solo album came on. The commercial featured, believe it or not, the two computer-graphic appliance delivery men from the classic "Money for Nothing" video, albeit aged a bit after twenty years: the cranky, fat one has white hair and beard now.)