1176. Adolph Hofner: South Texax Swing
1177. Billy Holiday & Ella Fitzgerald
1178. Billie Holiday: The Original Recordings
1179. The Billie Holiday Story
1180. Billie Holiday: Stormy Blues
1181. Michael Holliday: The Story of My Life
1182. Hollies: Evolution
1183. The Very Best of the Hollies
1184. Holly and the Italians: The Right to Be Italian
1185. Brenda Holloway: Every Little Bit Hurts
1186. The "Chirping" Crickets
1187. Buddy Holly
1188. Buddy Holly/The Crickets: 20 Golden Greats
1189. Buddy Holly: Legend
1190. Buddy Holly: For the First Time Anywhere
Mixworthy: "The Story of My Life," #1181; "Carrie-Anne," #1182; "Pay You Back With
Interest," #1183; "Every Little Bit Hurts" and "Land of a Thousand Boys," #1185;
"Tell Me How" and "I'm Looking for Someone to Love," #1186; "Peggy Sue," "Look at
Me," "Listen to Me," "Baby I Don't Care," and "Rave On," #1187.
Michael Holliday's "The Story of My Life" reached #1 in England in 1958, one of a few
hits he had there; he never charted at all in North America. It's a song I first came
across on an odds-and-ends compilation of British #1s, then later I lucked into the
best-of listed above. He's a crooner, basically, but "The Story of My Life" is plain-
tive, almost folky, and belongs alongside "Sukiyaki," "Patience," and "Me and Julio
Down by the Schoolyard" in the pantheon of whistle-songs...There've been a lot of
Michael Jackson threads on ILM lately, usually on the order of "What's on Michael
Jackson's iPod right now?" I haven't seen Brenda Holloway's name turn up yet...When
my focus was still on albums as opposed to songs, Buddy Holly's solo-billed second LP
(#1187) was one of my favourites. I don't think it's quite as famous as its predeces-
sor, #1186, but to me it's the real blueprint for the middle-period love songs of
the Beatles...I'm not the person to write anything illuminating about Billie Holiday.
Although I haven't listed any songs, I do find her more compelling than people of com-
parable stature I've bypassed. Maybe too compelling, as I'm not the first to suggest--
she commands your attention so completely, listening to her can definitely feel like
work. I always play "Strange Fruit" for my students on her birthday, challenging them
to see if they can figure out what's going on. One or two do. Talking afterwards about
the context that brought such a song into being is always uncomfortable...How would
you like to have been Adolph Hofner, making country-swing records down in Texas during
the '40s? Must have been exasperating: "That's Hofner, you idiot--Adolph Hofner, OK?"
________________________________________________________________________________
1191. Clint Holmes: Playground in My Mind
1192. The Holy Modal Rounders
1193. Holy Modal Rounders: Last Round
1194. Hombres: Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out)
1195. Honey Cone: Sweet Replies
1196. Hoodoo Gurus: Stoneage Romeos
1197. Hoodoo Gurus: Mars Needs Guitars!
1198. The Greatest Hits of John Lee Hooker
1199. Lightning Hopkins: Original Folk Blues
1200. Jimmy "Bo" Horne: Dance Across the Floor
1201. 20 Golden Pieces of Lena Horne
1202. Lena Horne: Feelin' Good
1203. Johnny Horton's Greatest Hits
1204. Hot Chocolate: Cicero Park
1205. Housemartins: "Caravan of Love" 12-inch
1206. Housemartins: Now That's What I Call Quite Good
Mixworthy: "Give the Fiddler a Dram" and "Bound to Lose," #1192; "Let It Out (Let It
All Hang Out)," #1194; "I Want You Back," #1196; "Bittersweet," #1197. First Bo Donald-
son gets shut out, now Clint Holmes. I'm letting down my people.
On a related note, although I don't quite like "Want Ads" enough anymore to list it,
I nominate Honey Cone as the best-looking girl group of their era, better even than
the Shaggs...I've always been a little suspicious of my copy of Let It Out (Let It All
Hang Out). No special markings on the album cover, but the record itself is stamped
"Special Disc Jockey Record - Not for Sale." Maybe--I have no idea how radio operated
in 1967, but I thought it was still strictly a singles medium at that point, and it
strikes me as odd that a smaller label like Verve would be sending out promo albums
of a local garage band nobody knew from Adam. I've got a bootleg pressing of the In-
ternational Submarine Band's Safe at Home, and I wonder if the Hombres album isn't
phoney too...Mars Needs Guitars! was among the second batch of records I reviewed for
Nerve. I wrote with some embarrassment about how much I liked a couple of Hoodoo Guru
songs, but 20 years removed from that, I'm not really sure how I concluded that they
were one thing and the Long Ryders another--I seemed to turn so much more serious
when reviewing the Long Ryders an issue or two later. Must have been the visuals:
the Long Ryders looked like they'd stepped out of a Peckinpah film on their covers,
while the Hoodoo Gurus decorated theirs with dinosaurs and cartoons.
________________________________________________________________________________
1207. Thelma Houston/Commodores: "Don't Leave Me This Way"/"Fancy Dancer"
12-inch
1208. Thelma Houston & Jerry Butler: Two to One
1209. Whitney Houston
1210. Miki Howard: Love Confessions
1211. Miki Howard
1212. Freddie Hubbard: Hub-tones
1213. Best of the Hues Corporation
1214. Human League: Dare!
1215. Human League: Greatest Hits
1216. Human Switchboard: Who's Landing in My Hangar?
1217. Michael Hurley/The Unholy Modal Rounders/Jeffrey Fredericks & the Clamtones:
Have Moicy!
1218. Steve "Silk" Hurley: Work It Out Compilation
1219. Mississippi John Hurt: 1928 - His First Recordings
Mixworthy: "Don't Leave Me This Way," #1207; "Slurf Song," #1217; "Frankie," #1219.
The Human League's "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" is close--my Martha Quinn Problem
again (see Culture Club entry).
The Miki Howard covers are hilarious. She's got her arms wrapped around her own self
on both of them, like she's in the throes of some deep spiritual ecstasy, perhaps even
a state of transformative rapture. Such was the wreckage left behind by Anita Baker...
Because I got to love "Don't Leave Me This Way" via its inclusion in Looking for Mr.
Goodbar, I've always heard it as a very dark song. The Hues Corporation were earlier--
lots of disco was earlier--but it still seems to me to signal a deepening, in 1976,
of what the genre could do. Anyone who knows or cares about disco more than I do will
shoot that theory down in three seconds flat with a few hundred counter-examples...
Among my favourite verses ever, from "The Slurf Song":
Oh, I see the dishes over there
They fill me with despair
Oh, I see the dishes over there
They fill me with despair
Dishes over there
They fill me with despair
Have Moicy! also goes back to 1976, year of the Bicentennial. It was a time of joy
and celebration across the land, everywhere, that is, except Thelma Houston's heart
and Michael Hurley's kitchen.
________________________________________________________________________________
1220. Hüsker Dü: Land Speed Record
1221. Hüsker Dü: Everything Falls Apart
1222. Hüsker Dü: Metal Circus
1223. Hüsker Dü: Zen Arcade
1224. Hüsker Dü: New Day Rising
1225. Hüsker Dü: Flip Your Wig
1226. Hüsker Dü: Candy Apple Grey
1227. Hüsker Dü: Warehouse: Songs and Stories
1228. Willie Hutch/Eddie Kendricks: "Shake It, Shake It"/"Goin' Up in Smoke"
12-inch
1229. Ice-T: The Iceberg: Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say
1230. Golden Hits of Frank Ifield
1231. Imagination: All the Hits
1232. We Are the Imperials Featuring Little Anthony
1233. Impressions: The Vintage Years
1234. Incredible String Band: The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
Mixworthy: "Everything Falls Apart," #1221; "Real World" and "It's Not Funny Any-
more," #1222; "Something I Learned Today," #1223; "Books About UFOs," #1224; "Flip
Your Wig," "Makes No Sense at All," and "Divide and Conquer," #1225; "Tears on My
Pillow," #1232; "For Your Precious Love" and "Giving Up on Love," #1233.
I don't feel the need to relisten to any Hüsker Dü; I've listed the same eight songs
I would have listed 20 years ago, with the other two spots reserved for "Eight Miles
High" and "Love Is All Around," both 45-only. The only other music that ever domi-
nated my life to the extent that Hüsker Dü's did from Metal Circus through to their
break-up was Neil Young's my last three years of high school. (I've recently down-
loaded pretty much the entirety of Stereolab's output, but the non-Stereolab part of
my life proceeds exactly as before. It's not quite the same thing.) The timing was
perfect. Metal Circus came out as I was heading into my final year of university--
I didn't hear the two earlier, lesser releases till later--and everything about the
record and the group just clicked with me. It was loud and abrasive, like most of
what I listened to at the time, but there was also a majestic wash of songcraft and
melody carrying the din along, and that spoke to the 12-year-old pop fan in me who'd
never really forgotten "Hello It's Me" and "Baby Blue," even if I hadn't given them
any thought for years. It's a little harder to reconstruct how the words hit me--
meaning there was a lot about myself then I don't necessarily want to think about
now--but they got those exactly right too. After a step back with Zen Arcade (the
record generally singled out as their greatest; I've always been in the minority
there), they went farther with New Day Rising, farther still with Flip Your Wig,
then finished with two albums that, even though I don't have room to list anything
from either, were both very good. I was right with them the whole way, and when they
packed it in at the precise moment when my own tastes were starting to change drasti-
cally, the timing was again perfect. How imperfect the timing was for Hüsker Dü is
something you could think about for a long time and not get anywhere. They affected
me much more than Nirvana did, but the fact remains that Hüsker Dü didn't reach even
1% of the people "Smells Like Teen Spirit" did, and there's no reason to think they
would have under any circumstances. They likely wouldn't even be famous if Metal
Circus had come out eight years later than it did--I'm pretty sure they didn't have
a video as monumental as the one for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" anywhere inside them,
the launch point for everything that transpired with Nirvana, and absent that, Metal
Circus might have come and gone quietly in 1991, with not even enough critical inter-
est to secure a follow-up. So maybe the timing was perfect for them, too--not on a
personal level (you read some very strange stories about Grant Hart), and not finan-
cially, either, but in creating the context in which they thrived: Michael Jackson
and Madonna and Bruce Springsteen doing important things over there, but for anyone
who didn't need to hear about that, there was Hüsker Dü doing important things over
here, and doing them so amazingly well that over here felt like a world much, much
bigger than it ever actually was.