Wonderful Wednesday: Track One, Side One

jack-black-high-fidelity

How can someone with no interest in music own a record store?

For those of you astute cinematic and/or literary wizards, you’ll recognize the title as one of the many quotable lines from High Fidelity.  Though the film sprang from the book, they both operate successfully in separate worlds.  Amongst the many things gleaned from High Fidelity is a penchant for ranking things.  Because what is important, children, isn’t what you’re like, but what you like. Sly declarations of new classic status aside, the idea for this post sprang from one of the many “Top 5″ conversations had within the confines of Championship Vinyl.

When I think of this first track, The Golden Age from Beck’s seminal album, Sea Change, I am reminded of two things: 1) A mildly obsessive compulsive co-worker who would incessantly put this song on repeat while we he was working in the kitchen and 2) a former love who (ironically) gifted me the magnificent breakup album.  Though both are somewhat lost chapters in my life, the brilliance of this track is not lost.

The Golden Age-Beck

Around that same time period, I began to develop a singular attraction to a group out of Louisville, KY.  My first exposure came by way of the Oxford American magazine (for my money, the finest periodical around).  The song featured was Evelyn is not Real, but what really piqued me was the discovery that they regularly covered an Erykah Badu song, Tyrone.  All of which leads me to the next track one, side one:

Heartbreakin Man-MMJ

Everyting is irie mon

Everyting is irie mon

This track kicks off The Tennessee Fire, My Morning Jacket’s debut album.  Perhaps I just like being a bit ornery, but for my money, it is the best My Morning Jacket album to date.  This jangly, reverb laden tune with romantically brief lyrics was a perfect opener…a precursor to what lay ahead.

For our closing opener, (“slipped into a bunch of safe ones”) I’ve prepared a little curve ball…Track One from Toots & the Maytals album, In the Dark.

Toots & the Maytals

I say curve ball because the album, in it’s original format is largely out of print.  Instead it comes packaged with the other great Toots album from that era, Funky Kingston.  The loping pace sets the stage, not only for the album, but for your day.  Listening to Toots gravely incantations, it’s hard not to think that it will indeed be a Wonderful Wednesday

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