Adele and Baltimora in 'Tarzan and Rain'

I am never listening to any other song ever again. (Mashup by The Reborn Identity)

LXB | '80s high school mixtape

This week's League of Extraordinary Blogger's assignment is music-related:

What songs were forever being looped on your car’s stereo back in high school. A cassette could only hold a dozen or so songs, so that’s the magic number of songs to list.

I bought a lot of music in high school. I didn't have the technology to make a decent mixtape, but I worked in a grocery store next to a K-Mart and every payday I'd go next door and buy at least one cassette. I had a huge collection, but it's pretty easy to remember the albums that got the most play in my car. I drove a Chevy Suburban for most of high school, but my folks also had a Mitsubishi Dodge Colt Vista (the car was as odd as the name) that I ended up driving quite a bit as well. Fortunately, both had cassette decks.

I was all about New Wave, though seeing Purple Rain caused me to buy and wear out a couple of copies of that tape as well as Morris Day's album. That was the thing about cassettes. If you played them enough, you could literally wear them out by stretching the tape to the point that it was unlistenable.

Here are twelve of my most-played songs from those days.

My Favorite Music Video: Why Can't I Be You?

One of the easiest items I've had from Calvin's List:

Music Meme: 1983

Continuing my list of favorite albums from every year I've been alive.

1983

U2: Under a Blood Red Sky



I'm breaking my own rules in picking this one because I didn't actually discover it until the following year. But it's such an important album to me, because it launched a long-term infatuation with U2. Even though there was other music I was listening to in 1983 instead of this one, I can't in good conscience pick them over this. Even though (or because) it's a live album and not a studio record, it's one of my favorite recordings of all time.

My brother was actually the one who brought this home, but I borrowed it from him and didn't give it back for about a year. I remember carrying it around in my Walkman at high school to listen to between classes.

Can't embed the video, but here's the Blood Red Sky version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday."

I have to embed something though, so here's a song from an album I was actually listening to in 1983.



Runners up:
Big Country: The Crossing
David Bowie: Let's Dance
Genesis: Genesis
Billy Idol: Rebel Yell

Singles:
Culture Club: "Karma Chameleon"
Def Leppard: "Rock of Ages"
The Eurythmics: "Here Comes the Rain Again"
Men at Work: "Dr. Heckyll and Mr. Jive"
Men at Work: "It's a Mistake"
The Romantics: "Talking in Your Sleep"
Styx: "Mr. Roboto"
Spandau Ballet: "True"
"Weird Al" Yankovic: "Another One Rides the Bus"
Yes: "Owner of a Lonely Heart"
Yes: "Leave It"

Edited to add: Rebel Yell by Billy Idol; "Mr. Roboto" by Styx

Music Meme: 1980

Continuing my list of favorite albums from every year I've been alive.

1980

Talking Heads: Remain in Light



My love affair with disco was very short-lived.

In 7th grade I had a couple of friends who somehow latched onto New Wave and introduced me to it. It changed the way I thought about music and it was this album that hooked me on the movement. It was so poppy and listenable, but so different from everything I was hearing on the radio. And of course, there was that video that made David Byrne the strangest, coolest guy in the world as far as I was concerned.



It was also about this time that I started listening to Devo and Blondie and that Adam and the Ants popped on my radar.

The B-52s - "Funplex"

Yeah, this might just be Music Week at the Adventureblog.

New Wave of the Week: Dexy's Midnight Runners - "Come On, Eileen"

Bonus: Save Ferris' version

New Wave of the Week: The Blow Monkeys - "Digging Your Scene"

I'm stretching the boundaries of New Wave again this week, but I think the eye shadow qualifies them.

New Wave of the Week: Howard Jones - "No One is to Blame"

New Wave of the Week: Icicle Works - "Whisper to a Scream"

New Wave of the Week: Icehouse - "Crazy"

Okay, that mullet is truly hideous twenty years later, but man, I still love this song.

New Wave of the Week: Wild Swans - "Bible Dreams"

Awesome List: Spooky comics, Hellboy 3, nightmare playgrounds, the B-52s, and more

"The Haunted Forest"

I'm linking to some short comics stories today. The first one is "The Haunted Forest" from Web of Evil #15. I've always loved spooky, bare trees with faces and finger-like branches. And giant spiders.

I really need to pay more attention to music

When the B-52s have a new album out and I don't know it... that's just very, very sad.

"The Headless Monster of Bloodrock Castle"

It's cool enough that there was a '40s pulp comic about about a war correspondent who fought crime and enemy spies in a rubber Halloween mask.

It's even cooler that he occasionally tussled with headless suits of armor.

Hellboy 3, but that's it

Guillermo del Toro has an idea for Hellboy 3, but he doesn't want to push the franchise past that point.

If there was ever a third one, I would really make sure that we at least sign a contract that there is no more. No prequels and no sequels: nothing. If that happens, then there is a third one we have planned, and the seeds are planted in this film...

The idea for me is to bring back the Nazis characters, but bring them back in a way they would operate now. Meaning, what public face would the Nazis have in 2009/2010? How rich would they be? How in charge could they be? It's not this group of freakies that hide in the sewers, but people that are incredibly rich.

"Gorilla Man"

I'm a huge fan of Jeff Parker's Agents of Atlas. (Okay, I know it's really Marvel's Agents of Atlas, but I still think of it as Parker's.) Where else are you going to find a talking gorilla, a killer robot, a spaceman, an undersea queen, and the goddess of Love fighting evil spy organizations? Nowhere, that's where.

And having fallen in love with the team, I'm pleased as punch that Karswell has posted the Golden Age origin of said talking gorilla: Gorilla Man.

Pirate Freedom

SF Signal really liked Gene Wolf's time traveling pirate story, Pirate Freedom. I've already got it on my Amazon Wish List, but this review makes me want to add it again.

"She's just CGIed that way"

Those real-life versions of Homer Simpson and Mario were just creepy, but... okay, this one's creepy too, but in a sort of hot way.



Wolverine: First Class

As much as I'm enjoying Jeff Parker's (there's that name again) X-Men: First Class, my Wolverine ennui runs deep enough that I wasn't even tempted to try Wolverine: First Class. I figured I'd buy the Alpha Flight issue when it came out, but that would be it.

That is until I read that another upcoming issue will feature Shang Chi: Master of Kung Fu. If Fred Van Lente's cool enough to want to include both Alpha Flight and Shang Chi in his comic, I'm not going to be able to ignore him. If he announces he's got an upcoming Rocket Raccoon issue, my head will explode.

Nightmare Playgrounds



I wouldn't want to send my son to any of these scary playgrounds, but man they look cool to go to as an adult. (Via.)

Truth Serum

One of my new favorite web comics. Really funny, low key superhero stuff. (I'll tell you about my other new favorite later this week. If you're reading the Newsarama blog, you already know about it.)

New Wave of the Week

U2: "New Years Day"

Not Really New Wave of the Week: Somebody's Watching Me

This isn't New Wave, but it's kind of New Wave flavored I guess. Something about it always reminded me of Men at Work, so I dug it. And the video's awesome.

New Wave of the Week

I want surprises.

Video du Jour: Cowboy George

Remember that episode of The A-Team with Boy George? Seeing that Face Man wasn't into Culture Club was the final proof I needed that he was no replacement for Starbuck. Now, Mr. T and Mad Dog... they had taste.

Video du Jour: The Greatest Love Song of All Time

Happy Valentine's Day again!