Aw, hell yeah.

Been posting like a bandit for Idolator this week, and I must admit the pop culture perusal fries my brain to the point where I haven't had the energy to say much here. Plus I couldn't find a worthwhile youtube of the Guess Who. I'm kind of obsessed with the Guess Who right now. These dudes were basically Canada's Beatles, Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Motown. They may have been their Doobie Brothers and their Grand Funk as well. Their 2CD anthology is a pretty sweet overview, but if you see The Greatest Of The Guess Who for a buck on vinyl, pick it up. Like Paul Revere & The Raiders, their hits (in Canada they had over 30 in the top 40) rock with a casual craft you don't get from more visionary artists. The Guess Who also kind of help me make sense of other bearded Canuck acts like Nickelback. Doesn't make me like them, just helps me understand what they're going for.

I couldn't find a good youtube for early Fairport Convention either. I've been listening to a lot of classic artists lately, but its been years since an album struck me like the comp Fairport Chronicles did recently. Richard Thompson, Sandy "Battle Of Evermore" Denny and a bunch of cronies, trained on English folk and drunk with inspiration from Dylan's then-unreleased Basement Tapes, which producer Joe Boyd was kind and wise enough to let them hear. Gorgeous. The looseness dried up fast (had to take one song off the comp to fit it on a CD-R and the 7-minute based-on "Tam Lim," based on a Scottish faerie tale, was an easy delete), but Chronicles includes some solo Denny and cuts from spin-off acts Fothingeray and the Bunch. I hadn't listened to FC since checking out Unhalfbricking from the library in middle school, inspired by some album guide. Flew by me at the time, but this stuff is soothing now, and nowhere as stuffy as I feared.

Occupational issues aside, it wouldn't break my heart if the industry never put another album out, instead focusing on ringles and the like. There are so many great LPs that I haven't heard, and I wouldn't mind catching up.