The Rundown: Music I Miss

I rip on current music a lot around here. Maybe that makes me a grumpy old man or maybe that makes me a rock snob who has a taste for music that is better than shiny beats and meaningless lyrics.

Whatever it makes me, I got thinking today about artists and bands that I miss; musicians that would, in my opinion, have kept me from becoming so disinterested in what is on the radio today. Not that there aren't some things I still like, but if I hear Lady Gaga one more time, I might just cut my ears off.

Since it's Wednesday, you know what that means.

Top Five Musical Acts I Miss

5. Boogie Down Productions / KRS-One
One of the first intellectual rappers that I ever got into was KRS-One. Amidst all the dance rap on Rap Traxx 1 and 2 was "My Philosophy" by BDP, a totally different cut from everything else on the cassette and I latched on. KRS went solo after DJ Scott LaRock was murdered and did some good things for a while, but then he got flashy with I Got Next and has disappeared since.

4. Rage Against the Machine
Part of me is mad at myself for being so deeply into hip hop that I listened to almost nothing else during the high school years because I kind of missed Rage during their rise. Thankfully, I caught on later and fell in love, only to have them disband. While they have reformed at various stages, it never lasts long and that sucks, because we could really use a band like Rage today.

3. A Tribe Called Quest
Q-Tip is still around and The Renaissance was cool and all, but Tribe was arguably the best unit out there for some time and I miss that. Tip and Phife Dog played off each other perfectly and Ali Shaheed Muhammed was a drastically under appreciated DJ and producer. Midnight Marauders and Low End Theory are two of the best hip hop albums ever and I wish there were dozens more that followed.

2. Sublime
Every so often, I toss the Sublime Greatest Hits into the CD player and just chill. It reminds me of university and hanging out on the patios of Waterloo with the boys, good times that I enjoy reminiscing over. Then I remember that Bradley Nowell didn't have to die and Sublime could have kept putting out killer ska for years and years and I turn it off because I'm sad.

1. Blind Melon
I don't even really want to get into it more than saying these guys were my favorite band when lead singer Shannon Hoon OD'ed. While most people remember them as the guys who did that song with the bee girl in the video, they were so much more than "No Rain" and their greatest hits is on regular rotation in my office.

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Soundtrack of My Life

Song: Bulls on Parade

Artist: Rage Against the Machine

Album: Evil Empire (1996)

Ever had a song stuck in your head for an extended period of time?

Welcome to the song that's been stuck in my head since the middle of September.

Ever since we spent the night in Vancouver having dinner with Tim and Tania and playing Guitar Hero, this track has played over and over and over in my head. We have a video on our camera of Sarah and I trying to complete the song. Unfortunately, Sarah drops the ball, but that's neither here nor there.

That being said, Guitar Hero may have lodged this song into my memory bank as of late, but it's not responsible for my Rage love.

I actually don't know where my love of Rage came from, since I wasn't a fan of their original album when it dropped in '92 and never really spent any time listening to anything of their's extensively even after this album came out in '96. I was just so emmersed into hip hop that I couldn't identify that the mix of Tom Morello's awesomeness on guitar and Zack de la Rocha politically-tinged lyrics was an outstanding mix of the things I love about music.

Thankfully, I removed my head from my ass long enough somewhere along the way to realize that Rage really could be (and now is) one of my favourite bands. Or at least they were, before they broke up and everything.

While the lyrical content - dealing with the military-industrial complex that the band saw as prevelant during the mid 90's - is laced with terrific references, including one to a book everyone should read (Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451), the biggest reason everyone, myself included can identify and remember this song is Tom Morello's mesmerizing guitar riff.

That's also the reason it ended up on Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and embedded in my brain for the last six weeks.

And just to prove it's awesomeness, the link in the title is of the full Tom Morello Battle / Bulls on Parade expert performance from GH3... enjoy!

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