Category: Music

Pet Shop Boys: Being Boring (1990)

This is not a simple song.

This is a defining moment in our lives. This is the friends and the lovers we lost through the AIDS epidemic. This is the dreams we had. This is the youth that slipped our hands. This is the Pet Shop Boys and we are very lucky to still have them in our lives.

As of 2018 (the most recent data I could locate), about 700,000 people have died of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. since the beginning of the HIV epidemic, and nearly 13,000 people with AIDS in the United States die each year.

A few weeks ago I posted this collection's sister, Sleaze. Like Sleaze, Encore is a multi-disk compilation of disco and dance tunes from the 70s and 80s that those of us of a certain age undoubtedly danced our asses off to when we were "young and beautiful." While a few of the transitions are absolute train wrecks, it's a stellar collection and highly recommended if you can find it.

(Click to embiggen)

Yes, I'm one of those Philip Glass people.
You're surprised?
Seriously?

Definitely years prior to my arrival in San Francisco, but what I happen to be listening to at the moment.

Right now, Don't Shut Me Down is my favorite track, and what an earworm it's become!

Grace Jones: Living My Life (1982)

My Winter 2009 Playlist

To those of us of a certain age and musical taste, this is manna from Heaven. I received this compilation from a friend (a collection of 12 albums—156 songs—for a total of 13 hours) several years ago when we were living in Denver but for some reason it's been languishing in iTunes all these years with me scarcely paying it a second glance.

A few weeks ago I was looking for something I could just put on in the background while working from home as I'd grown weary of the offerings of our FM jazz station. Sleaze is a collection of disco and dance tunes from the late 70s to the early 90s that encompasses all the various sub-genres. While a few of the transitions are absolute train wrecks, it's a stellar collection of the music I used to dance my ass off to. It's become my go-to commute and working-from-home background soundtrack because I can just put it on and it will run all day without repeating.

I mean, look at this playlist!

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Highly recommended if you can find it. A cursory internet search returned squat.

Donna Summer: Once Upon a Time… (1977)

Her masterpiece, and as I have written of many times before, an album that holds a very special place in my heart.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Welcome to the Pleasuredome (1984)

Grace Jones: Slave to the Rhythm (1985)

Culture Club: Waking Up With The House On Fire (1984)

Madonna: Bedtime Stories (1994)

Probably my favorite music video of all time.

The album itself is also available in a very limited edition 2-LP gatefold edition on pink vinyl. It is, of course, priced in the stratosphere and a completely unrealistic purchase on my salary. (And frankly, I'm not as hot to get it as I once was, learning that it's on hot pink vinyl, not the powder-pink I feel it should've been.)

Quarterflash: Quarterflash (1981)

Madonna: Erotica (1992)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWEypHhB0Rc&list=PLrpyDacBCh7Cqp1fPAfIMDfiEaZfirE13

Donna Summer: The Wanderer (1980)

Or as I like to call it, "The beginning of the end of her career."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGuYD-Q__I0

Donna Summer: Four Seasons of Love (1976)

ABBA: Arrival (1976)

This was the first ABBA album I ever bought. It went off to college with me.

Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973)

I still need to buy a replacement for this one.

Pet Shop Boys: Actually (1987)