I heard the first four Bunnymen records ages ago, and Ocean Rain is a fucking classic, but I never got around to hearing their 1987 self-titled album (except “Lips Like Sugaaaaaaar!”) or their reunion albums, which nobody seems to care about. I guess Ian McCulloch needed to be part of a scene where he could just rag on all of his contemporaries for people to give a shit about him, it seems really appropriate that he faded away after the 1980s? Yes, no? Somebody (Mike D, I think) here once asked the question “Does Ian McCulloch like ANYBODY?” here and I really couldn’t disagree, and that would have been based on reading the liner notes for their reissues alone, before I watched interviews and such which simply corroborated what a dick McCulloch is. He’s like Morrissey’s shithead kid brother in interviews, minus the effete qualities. The post-punk equivalent of Dave Mustaine.

Psychedelic Furs - I really loved a number of songs from their first three albums, despite being misproduced on all three (in the case of Forever Now, by Todd Rundgren, who normally does better than that!) Buuuuuuuuut, I forgot to hear the stuff from after 1982. Not a huge priority right now, but never say never.

I did see your Comsat Angels reviews and the whole densest-sounding-band ever thing caught my interest, I think I listened to them as background music a couple times and forgot them. Might save them for a wild card next year.

I listened to a few Stranglers albums as background music too, the idea that they were so critically reviled that they didn’t even get the cool kind of rejection held my interest, but I wasn’t able to get into these much and hearing them turn into chintzy 80s pop was certainly weird. I liked that “North Winds Blowing” song for the overblown 80s Goth-rock vibe, even though these guys were far too old to be doing that kind of music at their age, weren’t they? Few other songs seemed to really catch my ear, and their hits “Peaches” (dumb misogyny and not the funny kind) and “Golden Brown” (stupid fruity harpsichord shit with a boring melody) didn’t impress me one bit. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to try them again, mind you.

I’m going to try to knock out the remainders of Queens Of The Stone Age, Pere Ubu, The Tubes, Love, T. Rex (the generally dismissed 1974-77 albums), a couple more Hendrix archival albums, the other original Soft Boys album (A Can Of Bees), and the other Longpigs album before the end of the year. This year’s “band of the year” is probably going to go down as QOTSA in my mind, I’ve forgotten a lot of crucial albums by them over the years.
As for next year: I really want to do the rest of Yo La Tengo, even though I think I’ve heard (and really liked) all of their essential albums. I don’t like PJ Harvey at all but I kind of want to give her another try, sort of like how I hated Oasis but ended up liking their best album at least, hearing it properly at age 38 when I should have heard it at 19. Depeche Mode’s remainder is in consideration too, but I’m not itching to hear it. Dylan and Zappa will continue into next year obviously. The Pretty Things have to be done because I loved SF Sorrow, but I really liked Music From A Doll’s House too and may need to find room to hear Family as well. I should probably try some Lou Reed solo albums, the major Lou Reed stuff is a big blank spot in my discography. The Band’s first two albums are great and their third is okay, but I sort of forgot to try the rest of their discography, which would be six or seven albums counting the reunions. Oh, and I really wasn’t entirely unserious about hearing all those Styx albums, even though they might be terrible.