1614. Wynton Marsalis: Hot House Flowers
1615. Wynton Marsalis Quartet: Live at Blues Alley
1616. Marshall Tucker Band: Greatest Hits
1617. Martha and the Muffins: Metro Music
1618. Martha Reeves and the Vandellas: Anthology
1619. Martika
1620. The Very Best of Dean Martin
1621. The Best of Dean Martin Vol. 2
1622. Dean Martin: Everybody Loves Somebody
1623. Freddy Martin in a Sentimental Mood
1624. George Martin and His Orchestra: Help!
1625. Moon Martin: Mystery Ticket
1626. Wink Martindale: Deck of Cards
1627. This Is Al Martino
1628. Al Martino: 20 All Time Favorites
1629. Marvelettes: Please Mr. Postman
1630. Marvelettes: Anthology
Mixworthy: "Can't You See," #1616; "Dancing in the Street," "Wild One," and "Nowhere
to Run," #1618; "Memories Are Made of This," #1620; "Don't Mess With Bill," #1630.
Al Martino never gets into mixworthy! That list is perfect for him, it'll make him a
big star, and I'm gonna run him out of the business! And let me tell you why...I've
bracketed this group to keep the Vandellas and the Marvelettes together, although
maybe I should have the Vandellas filed in the R's; I've always thought of them as
just Martha & the Vandellas, but Martha Reeves is credited under her full name on
Anthology. In any event, alphabetical proximity or not, there's no confusing the
one with the other. The Vandellas were the much harder of the two, and although my
preference usually runs in the opposite direction, in this case it's the Vandellas
I like better. The three songs I've listed are as close as Motown ever got to the
din and the density of Spector...Wish I had some companions for the Wink Martindale
album: Gene Rayburn Sings Dylan. Bob Eubanks' Feel Like Makin' Whoopee. Richard
Dawson's Survey Says 'Bossa Nova'!
_______________________________________________________________________________
1631. Mary Jane Girls: Only Four You
1632. The Masked Marauders
1633. Dave Mason: Alone Together
1634. Material: One Down
1635. Sweet Souvenirs of Mireille Mathieu
1636. Johnny Mathis: Romantically
1637. Johnny Mathis: Johnny's Greatest Hits
1638. Johnny Mathis: More Johnny's Greatest Hits
1639. Matt Bianco: Indigo
1640. Kathy Mattea: Untasted Honey
1641. Mavis Piggot: You Can Be Low
1642. Eric Clapton Featured with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers: Steppin' Out
1643. Curtis Mayfield: Heartbeat
1644. Max Webster
1645. Maximum Joy: Station M.X.J.Y.
1646. Maze: Golden Time of Day
1647. MC5: Kick Out the Jams
1648. MC5: Back in the U.S.A.
1649. MC5: High Time
Mixworthy: "It's Not for Me to Say," #1637; "Tonight," "Shakin' Street," and "Look-
ing at You," #1648.
The Bluesbreakers album is misfiled; I just noticed that Eric Clapton gets sole bil-
ling on the record itself. The Material album is also misfiled; it's in my collection,
and it should be in someone else's...I actually had an 8-Track of Back in the U.S.A.
at one point. Some other 8-Tracks I remember owning: The Best of the Guess Who, Exile
on Main Street, Let It Be, Harvest, the Stampeders' Against the Grain, the Tee Set's
Ma Belle Amie, Three Dog Night's Harmony, a Polydor compilation with Derek & the Dom-
inos' "Bell Bottom Blues," a K-Tel '50s compilation with a jukebox on the cover that
was heavily advertised at the time because of American Graffiti, and, after that, I'm
drawing a blank. We had at least 30 or 40 of them around the house--most of all, I
remember us listening to 8-Tracks on a green fold-out portable as we drove down to
Florida sometime in the mid-70s. Whatever you may have heard about how bad 8-Tracks
were, they were twice as hideous as that: bad sound, clunky packaging, zero durabil-
ity, ridiculous formatting. The Ramones would have had their first couple of LPs
come out on 8-Track; never seen one, but I bet there was an "I Don't Wanna Walk
Around With You" (Pt. 1) and "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You" (Pt. 2) on the
first. I'm trying to think of one good thing to say about them, and I can't. So how
was it that for a couple of years everyone got so excited about 8-Tracks? It's not
normally like the music-buying public to get all worked up over every bit of new
technology that comes along.
_______________________________________________________________________________
1650. Mary McCaslin: Prairie in the Sky
1651. Mary McCaslin & Jim Ringer: The Bramble & the Rose
1652. John McCormack Sings Irish Songs
1653. George McCrae
1654. Gwen McCrae: Rockin' Chair
1655. Reba McEntire: Reba
1656. McFadden & Whitehead
1657. McFadden & Whitehead: "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now" 12-inch
1658. Kate & Anna McGarrigle
1659. Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Love Over and Over
1660. Barry McGuire: Eve of Destruction
1661. Kenneth McKellar: The Voice of Scotland
1662. The Voice of Scott McKenzie
1663. Jackie McLean: A Fickle Sonance
1664. Jackie McLean: Destination Out
1665. Jackie McLean: New and Old Gospel
1666. Jackie McLean: 'Bout Soul
1667. Penny McLean: Penny
1668. Barbara McNair: More Today Than Yesterday
1669. Jay McShann: The Big Apple Bash
McMixworthy: "Prairie in the Sky," #1650; "Rockin' Chair," #1654; "Ain't No Stoppin'
Us Now," #1657; "Love and Hate," #1664.
McSpent: "Eve of Destruction," #1660.
There's a couple of decent litmus tests in here as to how much you were paying atten-
tion to the pop music of a certain time and place: if you know the difference between
Barry McGuire and Scott McKenzie, you know at least a little bit about the hippie mo-
ment, and if you can sort out George McCrae's "Rock Your Baby" from his wife Gwen's
"Rockin' Chair," you were there in 1975. I had to give a quick listen to the latter
myself to remember how it went, and that's supposed to be one of my areas of "exper-
tise." If you can tell John McCormack from Kenneth McKellar, well, chances are you
talk funny...I haven't listened to McFadden & Whitehead in ages, but I had "Ain't No
Stoppin' Us Now" very high on my CIUT Top 100, and I think it was on the Radio On 100,
too. Fantastic epiphany from the mountaintop, seconds before the big fall (an inter-
section in time captured really well by P.T. Anderson in Boogie Nights).
_______________________________________________________________________________
1670. Meat Puppets
1671. Meat Puppets II
1672. Meat Puppets: Up on the Sun
1673. Meat Puppets: Out My Way
1674. Meat Puppets: Mirage
1675. Meat Puppets: "Huevos"
1676. We're the Meatmen...And You Suck!
1677. Mekons: The English Dancing Master
1678. Mekons: Fear and Whiskey
1679. Mekons: Honky Tonkin'
1680. Mel & Kim: FLM
1681. Melanie: Gather Me
1682. John Cougar Mellencamp: Scarecrow
1683. Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes: I Miss You
1684. Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes: To Be True
1685. Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes: Wake Up Everybody
1686. Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes: All Their Greatest Hits!
1687. Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes: Reaching for the World
Mixworthy: "Split Myself in Two" and "Lost," #1671; "Hard to Be Human Again," #1678;
"Respectable," #1680; "Brand New Key," #1681; "Bad Luck," #1684. If I had the John
Cougar Mellencamp album that came right after Scarecrow, I'd definitely be listing
"Check It Out." Objectively, "Small Town"'s a great song; subjectively, it's a little
too mixed up with all that morning-in-America sentiment it came out of. And just like
the Born in the U.S.A. singles that preceeded it, it doesn't really matter to me that
Mellencamp likely intended the exact opposite, that the idea of being born in a small
town and dying in that same small town is not a happy or celebratory thought. It still
has some of that gooeyness attached to it.
I'm not sure what I'd think about the Meat Puppets today, so I just went with the two
songs I remember best from an album I played almost as much as Metal Circus or Let It
Be at the time. As with the Butthole Surfers, I already revisited the Meat Puppets in
Radio On, when they had their fluke these-guys-influenced-Nirvana hit in the mid-90s
("Backwater"). Another ten years have now passed, and I think I'm happy just sticking
with the idea that Meat Puppets II is as good as I remember it. Finding out otherwise
won't serve any purpose...I tried hard to love Fear and Whiskey in 1986: I'd get drunk,
roll home and put it on, and pretend I had the fear and was living inside those songs.
Then I'd kind of lose the plot and switch over to Psychocandy instead...Hopefully I
won't have any trouble finding a good scan of the Melanie album; excellent cover. And
for the second entry in a row, a grateful shout-out to P.T. Anderson...I'm just getting
back from the first 90 minutes of Jean-Luc Godard's Histoire(s) du cinéma. On deck for
tomorrow night: Histoire(s) du cinéma: The Final Conflict. The reason I bring this up
is because I realize I'm trying to mount my own Histoire(s) du cinéma with this project,
except mine's a Histoire(s) du cheaply-bought phonographic records. The Godard film has
him sitting at a typewriter mumbling riddles, while images from the 20,000 movies he
carries around in his head flitter across the screen. With me, I'm trying to get down
some thoughts on the 3500 records I carry around in mine. I'm a lot more reliant on
the dumb joke, but I'd like to think we're on somewhat of a parallel track.
_______________________________________________________________________________
1688. Members: At the Chelsea Nightclub
1689. Members: "Working Girl" 12-inch
1690. Members: Uprhythm, Downbeat
1691. Membranes: Crack House
1692. Membranes: Everything's Brilliant
1693. Best of Paul Menard
1694. Merrymen: Standing Room Only
1695. Messenjah: Rock You High
1696. Metal Mike: Plays the Hits of the 90's
1697. Meteors: Teenage Heart
1698. Meters: Rejuvenation
1699. Meters: Fire on the Bayou
1700. MFSB: Philadelphia Freedom
1701. MFSB®/The Gamble-Huff Orchestra
1702. George Michael: Faith
1703. George Michael: Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1
1704. Bette Midler: The Divine Miss M
1705. Midnight Oil: Diesel and Dust
Mixworthy: "High on Drugs," #1696; "Father Figure," #1702; "Friends," #1704.
Don't ask me why I have three Members records. Don't ask me why I have two Membranes
records. Don't ask me why I have two Meters records. I can, however, explain why I
have a Midnight Oil album. It's one of my more recent acquisitions, bought a couple
of years ago when I was compiling a mix-CD for a longtime secretary at my school who
retired. The idea was to assemble as many songs as I could from Billboard's Top 100
for the week she started with us, which was sometime in September 1988. I think in
the end I tracked down a little less than half the chart, a combination of stuff I
already owned (e.g., #1702 above), a number of songs off a DJ collection I borrowed
from Scott Woods, and, why I have the Midnight Oil LP, a raid on Open City's dollar-
basement. Diesel and Dust I can live with--"Dreamworld"'s almost good enough to list.
But generally speaking, the chart I was working from was abysmal. I ended up buying
a handful of albums that, when I get to them, I'll make a point of doing something I
haven't yet felt the need to do; make excuses for the fact that they're there. If
you were to scan back over what I've listed so far, you'll see I have a relatively
high threshold of embarrassment when it comes to music. Anti-Pasti, the Cruzados,
Irene Cara, Randy Crawford, "2 Legit 2 Quit"--for whatever reason, they're all part
of the collection, and I'm OK with that. Late-80s Sammy Hagar-led Van Halen, though,
that's beyond the pale; some explanation is in order. (Some of the '88 pile is still
sitting there unplayed and unfiled two years later, so I many never get to them any-
way)...MFSB joins Cowboys International in the trademark department. If you're sit-
ting at home right now contemplating starting an MFSB cover band, or even one that
borrows liberally from the MFSB sound, forget it--you're only asking for a lawsuit.