Tag Archives: Wire

820. ambitious

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“Speaking of Wire, I finally paid attention to them in 1987 when, after more than seven years doing various solo and other things, the four original members recombined with the The Ideal Copy (and some dynamite single-only releases). Ambitious gets the nod here because it’s more or less the title track, and it does a sharp, tidy job of touching on all manner of essential 1980s topics such as paranoia, the Cold War, competing intelligence agencies and, of course, the ever present end of the world.” (Philip Random)

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821. Strange

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“I realize it’s not cool to prefer REM’s cover of Strange to Wire’s original, but who even heard Wire’s first three albums when they were new? Not anyone I was hanging with. So to me, REM’s more jangly, more rocking, more fun take is the original. And given that it comes from 1987’s Document, that means they’re at their pre-mega-mainstream peak.  Still suitably artful and obscure, but beginning to enunciate.” (Philip Random)

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The 12 MixTapes of Christmas

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The Twelve Mixtapes of Christmas have got nothing to do with Christmas (beyond being a gift to you) and they’re not actually mix tapes, or CDs for that matter – just mixes, each 49-minutes long, one posted to Randophonic’s Mixcloud for each day of Twelvetide (aka the Twelve Days of Christmas).

The mixes are in fact remnants of an unfinished project from a few years back that had something to do with compiling a playlist for an alternative to Alternative Rock (or whatever) radio station. To be honest, we’re not one hundred percent clear about any of it because somebody spilled (what we hope is) red wine on the official transcript, thus rendering key parts illegible.

Bottom line: it’s five hundred eighty-eight minutes of music covering all manner of ground, from David Bowie to Bow Wow Wow to Tuxedomoon to Claudine Longet, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Captain Beefheart, Aphrodite’s Child, Tom Jones, Marilyn Manson, Ike + Tina Turner, anything and everything, as long as it’s good.