Category Archives: List

Country, List, Singer Songwriter, Video

Dwight Yoakam Top 10 Music Videos

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I’ve liked Dwight Yoakam since the late eighties. There was a music magazine here in Norway, Beat, that really championed those new country artists and I was smitten. His first two records really got worn out at my student home in Bergen.

Today I am going to list his 10 best videos (you know he came up at the same time as MTV and he’s always had great music videos). This is my own list and it is not discussed with Egil (the other half of JV) before putting it out here.

1. Guitars, Cadillacs:

2. Streets of Bakersfield (with Buck Owens):

Dwight Yoakam to the magazine Country Guitar in 1994:

‘Bakersfield’ really is not exclusively limited to the town itself but encompasses the larger California country sound of the Forties, Fifties and on into the Sixties, and even the Seventies, with the music of Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, the Burrito Brothers and the Eagles — they are all an extension of the ‘Bakersfield Sound’ and a byproduct of it. I’ve got a poster of Buck Owens performing at the Fillmore West in 1968 in Haight Asbury! What went on there led to there being a musical incarnation called country rock. I don’t know if there would have been a John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival had there not been the California country music that’s come to be known as the ‘Bakersfield Sound’.

Continue reading Dwight Yoakam Top 10 Music Videos →

List, Singer Songwriter, Sound, The Best Songs

Happy Birthday Jackson Browne – Top 10 songs

 

I’ve listened to Jackson Browne for about 30 years, I have a friend who has  a couple of older siblings who introduced him to this incredible songwriter/singer, I got it from my friend. I am eternally grateful.

allmusic says:

In many ways, Jackson Browne was the quintessential sensitive Californian singer/songwriter of the early ’70s. Only Joni Mitchell and James Taylor ranked alongside him in terms of influence, but neither artist tapped into the post-’60s Zeitgeist like Browne.

He is a true music enthusist and he has produced albums by The Eagles, J.D. Souther and Warren Zevon and more. When he was inducted into The Rock’n Roll Hall of Fame, Bruce Springsteen said that even if The Eagles was allready in the hall of fame: “You wrote the songs they wished they had written”. Bruce says all the good things that I would like to say about Jackson Browne, take ten minutes and listen to this very fine speech:

Here are my ten favourite Jackson Browne songs.

1. Sleeps dark and silent gate, one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

“Don’t know where I’m going
Wishing I could hide
Oh God this is some shape I’m in
When the only thing that makes me cry
Is the kindness in my baby’s eye”

2. Tender is the night, official video:

“You’re gonna want me tonight
When you’re ready to surrender
Forget about who’s right
When you’re ready to remember
It’s another world at night
When you’re ready to be tender”

…and a live version from Rockpalast in 1986:

3. The Pretender (with Crosby, Stills and Nash):

“I’m gonna find myself a girl
Who can show me what laughter means
And we’ll fill in the missing colors
In each other’s paint-by-number dreams
And then we’ll put our dark glasses on
And we’ll make love until our strength is gone
And when the morning light comes streaming in
We’ll get up and do it again
Get it up again”

4. For a dancer:

“I don’t know what happens when people die
Can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It’s like a song playing right in my ear
That I can’t sing I can’t help listening”

5. Before the Deluge:

“For the resignation that living brings
And exchanged love’s bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
And in a moment they were swept before the deluge”

Continue reading Happy Birthday Jackson Browne – Top 10 songs →

Bruce Springsteen, List, Video

Bruce Springsteen’s 10 best songs – according to Hallgeir

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Ok, so where do I start? Do I pick one from each of his ten best albums, or do I divide his career into 10 year periods and pick equally from every period? Or do I simply let my emotions decide, and pick what feels right today? That’s what I ‘ll do, like I allways do, I go with what feels right at this particular moment.

Springsteen is a fantastic songwriter and a formidable performer, for me he is easily in the top 3 both as a singer/songwriter and as a performing artist.

To pick 10 songs from the hundreds he has written is not easy, but here we go.

1.) Racing in the Streets

My main post on Racing In The Streets

2.) The Promise

My main post about The Promise

3.) The River

4.) Thunder Road

5) Adam Raised a Cain

Continue reading Bruce Springsteen’s 10 best songs – according to Hallgeir →

List, The Best Songs

Best 25 songs of 2011 according to Egil

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Repost – Still proud of my 25 best songs from last year.. Great music!
—
Gillian Welch gets 2.. because she delivers this years greates new album..
(btw – best “released” album this year is off course “The Rolling Stones – The Brussels Affair”)
–
Here is this year’s greatest song:

Number 2:

Number 3:

Number 4:

Number 5:

Number 6:

Number 7:

Number 8:

Number 9:

Number 10:

Number 11:

  1. Gillian Welch – Tennessee
  2. Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit – Codeine
  3. Ryan Adams – Come Home
  4. Wilco – One Sunday Morning
  5. Drive-By Truckers – Go-Go Boots
  6. Hayes Carll – Hide Me
  7. Charles Bradley – The World (Is Going Up In Flames)
  8. Tom Waits – Chicago
  9. Gillian Welch – The Way It Goes
  10. The Deep Dark Woods – The Place I Left Behind
  11. Dave Alvin – Johnny Ace Is Dead
  12. Josh T Pearson – Country Dumb
  13. Robert Earl Keen – Soul Of Man
  14. Feist – Graveyard
  15. Gregg Allman – Devil Got My Woman
  16. Deadman – Till The Morning Comes
  17. PJ Harvey – In Dark Places
  18. Lucinda Williams – Copenhagen
  19. White Denim – Street Joy
  20. The Black Keyes – Lonely Boy
  21. The Damn Quails – Midnight Swagger
  22. Joe Ely – Not That Much Has Changed
  23. The Decemberists – June Hymn
  24. John Hiatt – Hold On For Your Love
  25. The Civil Wars – Poison & Wine
Most of the songs are on Spotify -> Best songs of 2011

-Egil

Bob Dylan, Featured Articles, List

Bob Dylan’s 5 Worst Albums

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This might not be the best idea for a list, I know. We here @ JV don’t write about music we don’t like. But this is different, this is my fav artist..by far, and the 5 worst Bob Dylan albums still contains much great music. A bad Dylan album might still be a good album.

It’s always easy to write negative critique, but I chose not to comment on the 5 albums on the list… except highlighting the best song/songs.

To set the record strait: on my “all time greatest albums” list I have 3 Dylan records @ top 3:

  1. Blonde On Blonde
  2. Highway 61 Revisited
  3. Blood On The Tracks
  4. Exile on Main St. – The Rolling Stones
  5. Born To Run – Bruce Springsteen

 

My rules:  I’ve excluded Greatest Hits/Best of albums, but bootleg series & live albums are in. And Christmas in the Heart is also excluded from this “competition”, it’s not really a Dylan album after all.

Then we are down to 52 albums.. and here are the worst:

  1. Down In The Groove

    Released May 30, 1988
    Recorded 1983–1987
    Genre Rock
    Length 32:10
    Label Columbia
    Producer unlisted

    Best song: Silvio

  2. Dylan

    Released November 19, 1973
    Recorded April 24, 1969 – June 4, 1970
    Genre Rock, folk rock
    Length 33:22
    Label Columbia
    Producer Bob Johnston

     Best Song: Mr.Bojangles

  3. Dylan & The Dead
    Released February 6, 1989
    Recorded July 1987
    Genre Rock
    Length 43:07
    Label Columbia
    Producer Jerry Garcia
    John Cutler

    Best Song: Queen Jane Approximately

  4. Self Portrait
     

    Released June 8, 1970
    Recorded April 24, 1969 – March 30, 1970
    Genre Country rock, rock
    Length 73:15
    Label Columbia
    Producer Bob Johnston

    Best Songs: Copper Kettle (The Pale Moonlight), Days of’ 49, Early Mornin’ Rain, Let It Be Me & Living The Blues

  5. Real Live
    Released November 29, 1984
    Recorded Summer 1984
    Genre Hard rock
    Length 50:15
    Label Columbia
    Producer Glyn Johns

     Best Songs: Highway 61 Revisited, Masters of War & Tombstone Blues

Here is a spotify playlist with the best songs from the worst albums:
(PS – I did not find “Dylan” on spotify… hence the missing “Mr. Bojangles”)

4 runners up:

  • Knocked Out Loaded (1986)
    remove Brownsville Girl and it might be the very worst
  • Bob Dylan at Budokan (1979)
    ok in small portions and contains a great Is Your Love In Vain 
  • Saved (1980)
    the tame & toothless sound nearly kills it off, still it contains some really good songs: Saved, Solid Rock, In The Garden,..
  • Empire Burlesque (1985)
    with typical bad 80’s production (horrible drum sound), and leaving best versions of key songs in the studio. This one also have some strong songs: Emotionally Yours, Dark Eyes & Tight Connection To My Heart
-Egil