You can blame a cheerleader for this one.

Back when I possessed even less of a clue about life and love than I do today, I met a girl and she introduced me to her favorite band. To be fair, she introduced me to several of her favorite bands but most of them didn’t grab my attention. She was my first love, and I fell like a lead brick. Our relationship spanned two states, crossed the mighty Columbia, and lasted a couple of months.

I was a complete wreck for twice that long afterward. As I said: Clueless. Also: Wholly unprepared. I was replaced by a local jock on Christmas day, so some of it was justified. Let’s say, oh, two or three days’ worth. The rest of it? A total waste of energy. (Sorry, Dad. You had to put up with me. No jury in the world would have convicted you, when you get right down to it.)

While it lasted, we traded mixtapes on the handful of occasions when we could meet. I sent her an assortment of stuff, mostly Pet Shop Boys if I remember correctly. (PSB comes to mind because their excellent album, Behaviour, formed most of the soundtrack during my terribly “emo” recovery period.) In return I received a significant portion of her Depeche Mode library. Violator was one of the biggest albums around at the time, but I also received a well-rounded ‘cheMode education covering all of their studio work and some live material and some videos and so on.

You shouldn’t be surprised to learn, knowing all of this, that Depeche Mode is the only band from which I have more singles than the Pet Shop Boys. I’ve only picked up a couple of their albums post-Violator and they’re decidedly hit-or-miss, but I don’t regret having them take up so much space on my shelf. They suit a particular kind of mood that I suppose most people use NIN for. Too bad I can’t really get into NIN, eh?

I didn’t actually set out to select songs whose titles all begin with the letter ‘S’, but here you go anyway. Please enjoy “Stories of Old” from Some Great Reward, an outtake from Violator called “Sea of Sin” and Playing The Angel‘s “Suffer Well.”

We’re almost done, folks! I wonder if any of you can guess who’ll be closing out this little series…

Well, what do you know? This one really does go to eleven! (It’ll go a few more beyond that, actually…)

I came across this week’s band thanks to a fan-made music video combining the film “Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind” with the song “Surefire.” (The video’s title? “Giant Armored Maggots.” Well, it does rather neatly sum up a significant element of the movie. Unfortunately I can’t find the video file anymore, which may be for the best considering it was a low-resolution RealMedia effort. One of these days I’m going to make my own rendition with high-quality footage…) Three CD purchases later and I’ve found that Econoline Crush neatly fills the need in my library for a particular kind of vaguely alternative-sounding harder-edged rock sound. There are other bands in the same realm among my collection, to be sure, but I figured most of you wouldn’t be as familiar with this one.

Let’s see what you think of their work. Please enjoy “Surefire,” “Blunt,” and “You Don’t Know What It’s Like.”

Next week we’ll check in with one of the iconic figures of rock ‘n’ roll. Join us, won’t you?

We’re on the home stretch, friends!

This week is just a silly throwback to those heady days of yore. Yes, the 1980s. For good old-fashioned pop/rock stylings with just the right amount of cheese, it’s hard to do better than Rick Springfield. Please enjoy Bop ‘Til You Drop, Dream In Color (from the album that ended his chart run in America, “Rock of Life”) and Stranger In The House (from my favorite album of his, “Tao”).

We’ll go with something rather more obscure and “alternative” next week…

My mother and I don’t have very many things in common, and in fact for quite some time I avoided becoming a fan of Jethro Tull because she liked to play along with some of their songs on her flute. I probably don’t like them in the same way that she does, of course. I listen a lot of their stuff from the ’80s, stuff that most Tull fans turn their nose up at. (They especially despise the Under Wraps album, and I adore it.)

Because the song “Steel Monkey” played on the radio a bit when I was starting my music collection in a big way, I picked up Crest of a Knave, the Grammy winning “heavy metal” album. (There are layers of irony in the fact that so many people were incensed because “Metallica should have won it!” Now, of course, it’s fashionable to loathe Metallica… go figure.) During my later boxed-set craze I acquired the compact disc rendition of the 5-LP box, 20 Years of Jethro Tull, a 3 disc set that seems to have vanished in favor of a single-disc Highlights sampler rather quickly. The 20 Years material guided me through the back catalog, and while I did pick up a couple of their later releases I just don’t have the same fondness for their post-Rock Island work that I do for the “middle years” material. With that said, I do highly recommend the live A Little Light Music album from 1992. It’s worth the cost almost for the stage banter alone. I’m a sucker for that sort of thing sometimes.

I’m a weirdo, in case you’d forgotten.

At any rate, let’s play three of my very favorite Tull tunes. “Broadsword” comes from 1982’s excellent Broadsword and the Beast, “Heat” is off of the highly electronic Under Wraps, and “Part of the Machine” was the sole new piece of music on the 20 Years compilation. (It shows up on a recent reissue of Crest of a Knave as a bonus track, for what that’s worth.)

Next week we’ll come home for some fluffy American ’80s pop/rock music, the kind that Grandma… never used to make, come to think on it.

We’re starting off the back nine eight seven with something silly and not terribly meaningful. I like an occasional bit of Duran Duran, not because they’re the greatest band ever or because of some event in my youth or anything of that sort. No, they just happen to write some songs I like tapping my feet to on occasion.

So, for want of any other criteria for selecting songs, I went with (sort of) a theme. Enjoy “Planet Earth,” “Taste the Summer” and “Winter Marches On.”

We’ll be plowing ahead next week with one of the old masters of the trade. Stay tuned, won’t you?

Usually I take a slightly unusual path to finding and following a particular musical act. To the older “progressive” bands from the UK I’m a latecomer, and to the Japanese performers I’m a foreigner. In the case of Midnight Oil, however, I’m like a lot of American fans from the mid-80’s: I heard “Beds Are Burning” on the radio and became curious about this politically-motivated band from Australia. “The Dead Heart” hooked me even deeper, and giving their Diesel and Dust album a full listen made me a fan for life. It is still, arguably, their finest album. They’ve written fantastic songs before and since, but Diesel and Dust is entirely brilliant and timeless.

Naturally, then, I won’t be playing any songs therefrom. Call me perverse if you must.

What you’re getting instead are a track each from 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 (the very second music CD I purchased), Redneck Wonderland and Earth and Sun and Moon. I recommend working outward, chronologically, both directions from Diesel and Dust if you want to get “into” the Oils. A couple of steps forward and backward through their catalog will take you to two of the three albums listed above (barring EPs and live records, that is). Redneck Wonderland comes a bit later and takes getting used to, as it’s considerable harder in tone early on than much of the material from the previous few albums.

So without further ado, please enjoy “Short Memory,” “Seeing Is Believing” and “My Country.”

I think it’s time for more bouncy pop music next week, don’t you?