David Sylvian - Red Guitar

Amanda Palmer - Guitar Hero

The lead singer of the Dresden Dolls is becoming a media darling, and it's things like this video that show you way. Impeccable song writing, a powerful style, and a unique but accessible look.

Mission of Burma - That's When I Reach For My Revolver

Powerful post-punk (or is it power-pop?) song. I don't know why, but I didn't hear this track until just a couple of years ago, and now it's completely stuck in my head. Bastards.

Rain Tree Crow - Blackwater

This was an attempt to get the seminal New Wave band Japan back together in 1991, which was only somewhat successful. They released this, a truly gorgeous album, but nothing else.

Beauty such as this is rare to find in this world, so enjoy it when you can.

VAST - Pretty When You Cry

Surprisingly powerful. It was actually a well enough known song, apparently, to have a really bad Skinemax movie made using this as a title.

Jim Carroll Band - People Who Died

This is a great song, brutal in its simplicity and honesty. But it's far from the best track on his Catholic Boy album, which has been called the last great punk record. I only feel bad that it took me so long to listen to the whole album.

Similarly, while the movie of The Basketball Diaries is really a great film, the original book is so much stronger. Truly one of the great punk poets, along with Patty Smith, Lou Reed, and John Doe.

Alphaville - Romeos

Placebo - 20 Years

A pair of Poe

Electic Six - Gay Bar

Leonard Cohen - In My Secret Life

I've listened to this album about 100 times in the last 2 weeks or so. Gorgeous.

The Alarm - The Stand

Wow.

Bourgeois Tagg - Mutual Surrender

Does anyone else even remember this band?

The Fixx - Are We Ourselves?

Two questions:
A) Do you remember when this song really meant a lot to you? Either this one or Secret Separation?
B) Seriously, were they being groomed to be Duran Duran wannabes, or was that a personal choice?

Ministry - No W

Apocolyptica - Bittersweet (feat Ville Valo and Lauri Ylönen)

Ēbn-Ōzn - AEIOU Sometimes Y

Laid Back - White Horse

Divine - You Think You're a Man

B.B. King - How Blue Can You Get (live at Sing Sing prison)

There was kind of a trend for a little while of big musicians playing concerts in prisons. I don't recall any playing at the Utah State Prison while my Dad was working there, but how would it be to actually see somebody like B.B. play, and then go back to your cell? Appropriate, that's how it would be.