Weekend open thread: favorite music no one listens to edition

The floor is open for anything on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers. Anyone out there finish RAGBRAI?

Obscure rock music’s been on my mind and my iPod lately. I recently bought the 1972 Genesis album Foxtrot on iTunes and have been enjoying this “prog rock” masterpiece after not hearing it for nearly a decade. Some Todd Rundgren classics from his prog/pop band Utopia are also in rotation. If you only know “Love is the Answer” through covers by Rick Springfield or England Dan and John Ford Coley, do yourself a favor and go download the original version by Utopia. Bonus tip for parents of young children: that song became one of my older son’s favorite lullabies. I would sing just the refrain over and over again (“Light of the world, shine on me, love is the answer/Shine on us all, set us free, love is the answer”). When he was old enough to talk, he’d sometimes request the song he called “shine on me.”

The post-punk British band New Model Army isn’t so child-friendly, but is fun to listen to when I’m walking my dog (about my only alone time). An English friend introduced me to this band in the 1990s, and I’ve been able to catch up with their recent material on iTunes. If you’ve never heard them, start with their “History” collection. Other worthwhile albums include “Thunder and Consolation,” “The Love of Hopeless Causes” and “High.” My favorite New Model Army album, “Impurity,” is mysteriously absent from iTunes, but you can probably find a used copy on eBay.

Share your own opinions or musical recommendations here.

About the Author(s)

desmoinesdem

  • Last of The New Wave Riders

    from “Adventures in Utopia” is my all time fave from Rundgren. It pretty much kicks ass.  

    My all time nobody ever even hardly heard of though, has to be Robin Trower.  He got famous working with Procol Harem (also in my playlist), then went solo.  Check out “Bridge of Sighs”.  

    Well, waddya think, huh?

    • I love Adventures in Utopia

      I bought that and Oops! Wrong Planet at the same time and listened to them so much I even got some of my college friends hooked. “Set Me Free” should have been a hit single. Every time I put that song on a mix tape for someone they loved it.

      • Saw Utopia live in '81

        Then went right out and blew six months wages on a Fender Strat and a 100 Watt Marshall stack.  Damn near got kicked off base when I cranked that puppy up.  At that point in my life my whole universe WAS a giant guitar.  Here comes the Silver Surfer now. 🙂

  • Will Whitmore

    He’s a folk singer from my neck of the woods in Montrose, Iowa.  He still lives there and references Iowa in quite a few different ways in many of his tune.

    http://www.williamelliottwhitm…

  • whitmore

    huge Will Whitmore fan…I’d also suggest checking out this former Iowa City band.  

    http://www.theslats.com/8biomp…

  • The Gear Daddies

    Rock-a-billy band out of Austin, MN.  They rocked my world in the early 90s, and Martin Zellar and El Camino just couldn’t cut it as a follow up band, as much as I wanted them to.

    “Billy’s Live Bait” remains as close to perfect an album as there is, in my humble opinion.

  • Billy Joel

    Most people know all his big hits, but he has some pretty obscure stuff that is very good.  My favorite in this category is “The Great Suburban Showdown.”

    • what album is that from?

      I must have listened to The Stranger and 52nd St a thousand times. I like the 1970s Billy Joel more than his later work, but The Nylon Curtain was good too–I read once that was his favorite of his own albums.

      • Streetlife Serenade

        I don’t think it’s one of his best albums, but I consider The Great Suburban Showdown to be the best Billy Joel song nobody has heard.

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