Oops, I think I missed last week. Oh well. Our previous selection, the Footloose Soundtrack
This week’s classic album is…Kristin Hersh: Strange Angels
To recap the procedure here: At the beginning of each week, I’ll post brief thoughts on the previous week’s listening experience along with the coming week’s classic album selection. Then sometime in the week that follows, we’ll all take the time to listen to the album from beginning to end with no distractions. It can be as simple as just getting away from the computer to listen alone or you can make an event of it with candles, beverages and friends. Whatever format you play the album in or the manner in which you listen, just give the music your full and undivided attention.
Feel free to comment or email your opinions of our selections and recommendations for classic albums (from any decade, including this one).
has more nostalgic value than timeless artistic merit as the band’s heavy use of synths keeps the music firmly dated in the early 1980s. Yet despite all the electro-80s flourishes, 1984 is still a mostly solid rock album. And pop-rock hits “Jump,” “Panama” and “Hot for Teacher” are just as catchy and enjoyable now as when I first heard them. Now for one of my all-time favorite soundtracks…
, is a classic in the truest sense of the word. Other than “Born to Run” – one of the greatest rock songs of all time, in my opinion – none of the tracks really stand out as individuals, but flow smoothly together as a cohesive whole. There’s a reason so many young artists and bands aspire to sound like Springsteen, the same reason he’s called The Boss, because he has always recorded the most authentic and brilliant of rock songs. Now for some ear candy…
, is so good I wrote a proper review of it rather than my usual classic album “listening experience” blurb. You can read the album review by clicking 
boxset – set for release by Universal Music on July 20th. I hope to have my review of the boxset complete before the release date, but it’s a deliciously, ridiculously large amount of music to make my way through. Until then…
, is my favorite musical soundtrack. Well, the songs are anyway…apparently the version I had on cassette in the 1990s was not the original Broadway Cast. I preferred the vocals on whichever version I had, but this one is still pretty good. It would be difficult for any singer to ruin such substantial, timeless songs as “I Dreamed a Dream,” “Red and Black,” “A Heart Full of Love,” “On My Own,” “One Day More,” “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” and my personal favorite: “Do You Hear The People Sing?” (which is still impossible for me to listen to without singing along in a very deep and very bad pseudo-Broadway voice).
, has held up surprisingly well. Despite the album’s undeniable 1980s style and imagery (the cover art alone is integrally linked with childhood memories of my older sister’s vinyl collection), hits like “Rio,” “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “New Religion” and “Save a Prayer” are just as catchy and interesting now. And “The Chauffeur” remains one of the most unusual and eerily lovely pop songs I’ve ever heard.
, reminded me that I’m really not as big a fan of The Cure as I always thought. I love certain songs of theirs – particularly “Love Song,” “The Love Cats” and “Just Like Heaven” – but I tend to lose interest a few songs into any of their albums. So while I have nothing bad to say about the disc, it’s already faded from my memory.
, has been a favorite of mine since I first heard Sinéad perform the songs at 
