Willie Colón & Rubén Blades - Siembra (1978)

I don't know anymore if I should look up the album before I listen to it or not. On the one hand it's nice to be surprised by what the album might have in store. I also don't want my preconceived notions about a genre to taint my listening experience. On the other hand if I don't know what the album is supposed to be, particularly if it's a genre I don't recognize, I won't be able to effectively comment on what the artist is trying to do.

Eh, whatever.

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid (2008)

Once again, I've taken several months off. And I hope that a band called Elbow that made an album in 2008 doesn't totally suck. We shall see.

Public Enemy - Apocalypse 91...The Enemy Strikes Black (1991)

David Bowie - Low (1977)

Johnny Cash - At San Quentin (1969)

X - Wild Gift (1981)

WZLX and the 2017 Firecracker 400 (Random Rantings)

Every year around July 4th Boston's "Classic Rock" radio station plays a countdown of 400 songs, which they advertise as "the top Classic Rock songs" and are supposedly selected by the station's fans. I've never participated in the voting myself, but after the event I discovered the webpage where I could make my selection by entering my name plus the song and the artist. I don't know if there's any further filtering of the votes either through the radio station's producers (who in theory could veto any picks that didn't fit their ideal) or MAYBE by controlling for ballot-stuffers who might vote for the same song hundreds of times. In any case however it was ultimately constructed, the final listing is a decent selection of 400 generic "classic rock" tunes that play regularly on the US airwaves.