Bradley's Buzz

New Bubbatunes

These aren't exactly brand new Bubbatunes since I made them last month but I made them as Christmas presents, presents that also made it into my own collection but presents none the less. So let's take a look at our 66th and 67th Bubbatunes collection shall we?

bub 66 Melissa Etheridge - SOUVENIRS 1988-1995 (December 4, 2006)
Okay so it's not like Melissa Etheridge hasn't released a good song in a decade but the fact is the best stuff Little Miss E has released were all of her first four albums Melissa Etheridge, Brave & Crazy, Yes I Am and Your Little Secret. By the time of the fourth album she had even started to imitate herself in songs. But up until then some of the best anthem rock with poetic and fiery lyrics was released by Melissa. I was one of the first people on the block to know about Melissa Etheridge back when she was still somewhat in the closet. I had her first two albums and when my uncle Kermit came to visit Wisconsin one year he wanted me to let him borrow my cassettes. As I had "borrowed" an Elton John vinyl to him five years before hand I decided I wasn't falling for that. Now ten or fifteen years later I made it up to him by making him this little collection.

Melissa has her own official best of out there and though it includes some new songs most notably a recorded version of her "Piece Of My Heart" and a fairly rousing version of Tom Petty's "American Girl", she missed the mark on a few of the songs she left off. Since I like so many of her early songs, I decided to cut it off and then those who get a Bubbatunes will still feel the gumption to pick up her official best of package.

So on to the music, Souvenirs gives us the little souvenirs of Melissa and though it's not done in chronological order the songs still all work together. In fact while listening, I slowly turn it up a notch as each song comes on as I love them all. From her debut album is the essential Melissa song, "Bring Me Some Water" a song that has in its slow climb become a classic, rousing rock and desire pushes the scorching song through, while the two other singles from Melissa Etheridge, "Like The Way I Do" and "Similar Features" were mainstays in the gay bars when I lived in Wisconsin, I mean there were a lot of lesbians. "Like The Way I Do" is probably one of her best songs ever, starting smooth and slowly rocking through the lyrics are fierce as she fights for her lover, a similar take would be done a few years later in "I'm The Only One" but this one was the first and most exciting while "Similar Features" has some of the best lyrics she's written. While the guitar only accompaniment on "Occasionally" only heightens the excitement.

From 1989's Brave & Crazy comes six songs, the album is probably my favorite Melissa album to date. The title track is an acoustic drive with Melissa's growl pleading to be free, while the single "No Souvenirs" could arguably be her best single ever. "Hello hello this is Romeo/calling from a Jackpot telephone..." begins the song and it's swirling guitar and somber lyrics has me singing along every single time. One day it's going to be performed on that karoke stage. "You Can Sleep While I Drive" is my favorite Melissa Etheridge song ever, and damn Trisha Yearwood for even trying to do it. The sultry little ditty about packing up the car and taking off for new adventures could be the story of my life. I love the idea of just taking off on a road trip just to get out of the awful town they live in. As the song progresses and Melissa's plea to leave seems to go unheard her lyrics take on a new meaning - in the beginning of the song, she says they can leave that night and "you can sleep while I drive" as in the car while by the end of the song Melissa tells her lover that she is leaving and if she has to go alone, she will, and "you can sleep while I drive." I love it. Also from Brave & Crazy, are some of her best 'soul searching' type of songs where she talks of the trials and tribulations of daily life usually with some type of mystic or cynical elements in it - "Testify" and "The Angels" are great acoustically driven rock songs which find our girl trying to find her way through life and love. While the rocking "Skin Deep" is a great little take on Melissa's love life. Most of her songs finds our girl pining for love while "Skin Deep" tells her pursuor, "I ain't lookin' for no blue eyed lover, that's what stole my baby away/ I can see her eyes blacker than midnight/ and that's the time I want to play/ don't ask me for your heart and soul/ my love is only skin deep."

Never Enough, found our girl making more of a pop based rock album than her roots rock of earlier and the songs were all great. This was the very first Melissa album I played over and over and over. The first single "Ain't It Heavy" should've been the hit as she strives for attention as a woman and basically as a person, the second single "2001" is guitar laden heavy rock and is a sound she had never nor has ever done again. Though it's kind of out of style now since the 1992 song talking about "the future" is now 6 years past it's date, but it's still a damn good song and one that she sadly missed on her own collection. The third single from Never Enough was the ballad "Dance Without Sleeping" which isn't a great song but it's a nice enough song and one popular enough I would've thought it would make it onto her greatest hits package. Luckily it made Souvenirs.

By the time 1993 came around Melissa was pretty well regarded in the music community but no one really expected the enormity of what that year's Yes I Am album would do. But it wasn't exactly over night, the album came out in October of 1993 and slowly climbed from the lesbian halls to the world with videos for "Come To My Window" which featured Juliette Lewis and the steamy smoky "I'm The Only One". From there the whole world knew Melissa and by the time the album hit the top 20, she had declared publicly that yes, she was... The two aforementioned singles are still main stays on the radio though I have to admit "Come To My Window" is a bit overplayed and I find myself wanting to fast forward through it, something that also happens with the third single from the album, "If I Wanted To", however, the blazing hotness and sexy swagger of "I'm The Only One" gets me singing along everytime.

Melissa went back to the studio a full fledged rock star and came up with 1995's Your Little Secret album. The title track and first single is a solid hard hitting rock song telling the sordid tale of what amounts to our girl being hit on by someone else's girlfriend. The video was great with people of all colors, shapes, sizes and sexes climbing up one another to create an enormous tower. The song itself is probably her hardest rocking song ever and perhaps that's why it didn't sell the millions or hit the chart as you would've expected. It's probably also the reason they don't include the song on her official greatest hits, but to me it's one of my favorite songs she's ever done. I mean I don't necessarily like Melissa Etheridge, the adult contemporary artist, I want my lesbians raw and dirty and scorching up the guitar. The other singles from Your Little Secret did better on the charts and radio, "I Want To Come Over" and "Nowhere To Go" both were the familiar Yes, I Am Melissa E, with the woes of unrequited love and the world's misunderstanding of love, but to me they were kind of boring. Though when put together with a collection of her best music, they work quite well.

Melissa Etheridge - SOUVENIRS 1988-1995 (bub66)
Track List:
01. Ain't It Heavy
02. Bring Me Some Water
03. Brave And Crazy
04. I'm The Only One
05. You Can Sleep While I Drive
06. 2001
07. Come To My Window
08. Testify
09. Like The Way I Do
10. Skin Deep
11. If I Wanted To
12. No Souvenirs
13. Similar Features
14. Nowhere To Go
15. Occasionally
16. Your Little Secret
17. Dance Without Sleeping
18. I Want To Come Over
19. The Angels

bub 67 P!nk - JUST DEAL WITH IT! (December 12, 2006)
It may be a tad early for a best of compilation by the sassy Alicia Moore but when you have so many good songs to choose from with only 4 albums under her torn leggings, it's hard not to want to put together a mix. Plus my best pal Lisa almost bought some P!nk CD's and then put them back so I thought I should show her some of the highlights and then she would go back and buy those used CDs I believe that everyone should own.
I have to confess that I don't own P!nk's debut album Can't Take Me Home and there are a few reasons for this. First of all, when it came out I was not on the bandwagon of the girls pushing out albums of pop and though I heard a more soulful sound in her voice than the Brittney's of the world, the music didn't grab me. However, when she went back to the studio and came up with her own set of rules of the music she wanted to make and released Missundaztood! she had me in her corner. The album had everyone floored, from the critics to the masses, it became a huge hit and instead of me getting sick of the girl, it just made me want more and more. Of course since the release of that album and her two subsequent albums I am forever a fan, so let's talk of the songs shall we?

P!nk's debut album had three successful singles from it, but from those the only one that stood out to me is "Most Girls", it has the bulky R&B back beat the whole first album had but it also has that attitude that we've come to know and love from P!nk.

From the essential Missundaztood! comes a slew of tracks - the awesome single "Just Like A Pill" was the song that pushed me into full on P!nk loving, while the first single "Get This Party Started" is a no brainer to be on the compilation as is the third single "Don't Let Me Get Me" full of both self loving and self loathing she takes swipes at the very people who got her a record contract and I love that. "Family Portrait" was a fourth single and it touches on those ever so touchy dysfunctional family ties we all have, while "Respect" is an awesome bitch fest with Scratch and "18 Wheeler" which is full of catchiness, I'm sure it could've been yet another hit single.

Try This was the first album by our P!nkness that I ran out and bought the day it hit the store. I mean an album that had the tough as nails fun of "Trouble" as the lead off single and an album where she collaborated with Tim Armstrong from Rancid, hello! Of course I wasn't disappointed and it's still my favorite P!nk album (to date) and it was hard to figure out which songs to pick and which ones couldn't make the cut. Of course the single was a winner, as was "Hooker" a hidden bonus track on the album that rocks full on and filled with bitchiness, cattiness and guitar grooves. The smooth dancy popness of "Tonight's The Night" is the Leivas' favorite song on the album so that had to be included, while the single "God Is A DJ" also had to be included. But the highlight for me are my two favorite album cuts "Walk Away" and "Save My Life" both poppy little pieces of fun that finds P!nk heading back to Philly after a bad affair in the former and a drug addled girl's problems in the latter.

From our #1 album of 2006, I'm Not Dead, comes another slew of excellant pop rock confections including the lead off single "Stupid Girls" that found our girl wondering what happened to all those young girls who wanted to be president (they're in the videos dancing with 50 cent), and the hilarious "U + Ur Hand", and the newest single "Who Knew?" which has some great lyrics attached to it, and what should be a single, "Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)" which is yet another hilarious look at real life, "I don't believe that Adam & Eve spent every goddamned minute together", and of course the best song on any P!nk album "Dear Mr. President" with the Indigo Girls, and our compilation actually opens up with P!nk's awesome look at how good her life can be "Cuz I Can" which includes the line that gave the compilation its title.

We end Just Deal With It! with a pair of singles that were on soundtracks including her hit "Feel Good Time" from the Charlie's Angels 2 soundtrack and of course the #1 in every single country with a radio "Lady Marmalade" from Moulin Rouge! that finds our girl singing along with Christina, Mya, and the lovable Missy Elliot.

P!nk - Just Deal With It! (bub67)
Track List:
01. Cuz I Can
02. Trouble
03. Just Like A Pill
04. Dear Mr. President
05. Tonight's The Night
06. Respect
07. Who Knew?
08. Save My Life
09. Most Girls
10. God Is A DJ
11. Don't Let Me Get Me
12. Stupid Girls
13. Hooker
14. Get This Party Started
15. Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)
16. Walk Away
17. 18 Wheeler
18. U + Ur Hand
19. Family Portrait
20. Feel Good Time
21. Lady Marmalade

posted by swivek @ 8:44 AM