“The Beatnigs only released one album, and it’s unique. A place where industrial noise and all manner of other musics don’t so much blend as find a way to grind together, intensely and intelligently, with Nature a standout because I agree with Michael Franti, yeah, I love all the doves and coyotes and flamingoes and rats running wild and free, but short of a dog or two, all of my favorite animals are human.” (Philip Random)
Alphabet Street being the lead off track from the last truly great Prince album, 1988’s Lovesexy. “We didn’t realize it at the time but he really did have to reign things in, else there would have been no reason for humanity continuing, God’s own paradise of peace and love and f***ing having been achieved here on earth by Prince Rogers Nelson’s unstoppable cavalcade of genius.” (Philip Random)
Wherein suburban tape pirates Negativland get busy with pretty much every oversweet MOR pop song and radio jingle from the 1970s, (and the tapes that prove the brain control conspiracy at hand) grind everything together in an overripe mush and leave us all laughing at the fact that nothing is really funny anymore. Shut up. Stop complaining. Have another piece of meat.
A Led Zeppelin rocker from 1975’s Physical Graffiti, but for Philip Random, it was more of a 1988 record. “A pivotal year for me. At the time, it was just something to be endured, one of those phases where the winter winds never stopped howling, even in the middle of summer (figuratively speaking of course). The Winter of Hate we ended up calling it. Aliens with a hunger for human flesh had taken over all the world’s governments and the only thing worth laughing about was that nothing was funny anymore. Musically, this manifested in a lot of pure raw noise as even punk/hardcore wasn’t really fierce enough anymore. Or maybe I was jonesing for some honest, raw, nasty blues – the kind of stuff Led Zeppelin had in ample supply on their biggest, longest, last truly great album. Man did it sound right!”
“A Sonic Youth song about Joni Mitchell (or so I think I read somewhere years ago), found on 1988’s Daydream Nation, a four-sided psychedelic monster if there ever was one (even if it did show up in a most un-psychedelic year). Or whatever. I’ve always had trouble putting words to Daydream Nation kicking as it did through all the gloom and permafrost of its time, like an unexpected future full of cool and fierce and infinitely complex noise, and in that complexity hope, I guess. Because I did need it.” (Philip Random)
“Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation being arguably The Greatest Album Ever assuming you don’t mind a pile of noise mixed up with your raw yet mystical guitar stylings, Kissability being the kind of nugget that would’ve torn the charts apart in a better, cooler world. But good luck with that in the Winter of Hate, which is to say, 1988. Twenty years on from the Summer of Love, and trust that it rained every f***ing day. Nothing else to do but daydream.” (Philip Random)
Randophonic 