I'm a year older from yesterday, the years have never felt this delineated, and the hairline only serves to corroborate this. I like to tell you about what's on my mind, but all I can think about is what's on my head. One word: sourcurdledmilk. My aunt lovingly cultures the lactobacillic concoction which can apparently perform medicinal miracles. She showed me strands of baby hair where there used to be none on her forehead, and thinking that I don't have anything to lose by trying it out, I decided to give it a shot. I've been using it intermittently for the past couple of weeks. My head smells like bad cheese... on my birthday, no less.

This is a late update, continuing from yesterday, regarding the ten albums that I decided to listen to on the occasion of my birthday. Brief explanations follow each entry.

1.) Who's Next (The Who) - Easily my current favorite. I started to seriously listen to The Who only during the start of this year, right about when I was developing a respiratory condition. Ironically, all I have from this album are the five songs included on the 'Ultimate Collection' 2-CD set, and they have to suffice for the moment. This is largely considered to be The Who's best album, culled mostly from a failed project of Pete Townshend's. Ergo, the album has just the right amount of cohesiveness without having the tricky homogeneity of a concept album. The CSI spin-offs use two of the tracks here for their themes and should be familiar to fans of the show ('Won't Get Fooled Again' and 'Baba O'Riley,' both anthems built on synthesizer beds). Other gems include 'My Wife' (John Entwistle's other famous Who contribution; lyrically funny in a tongue-in-cheek fashion), 'Bargain' (essentially a string of hyperboles, on how even Herculean tasks are considered bargains when winning someone over), and 'Behind Blue Eyes' (a song with a marked persecution complex, so good that even Fred Durst wasn't able to ruin it by doing a remake). The Who's dynamic is such that each member is never transparent at any particular second of a song - there is the genius guitarist (Townshend), the pretty-boy frontman (Roger Daltrey), the stoic bassist (Entwistle) and the maniac drummer (Keith Moon). Their relationship was admittedly based on competition, and for their significance as artists to endure for more than two decades, that competition seemed to work very well.

2.) Rumours (Fleetwood Mac) - Done at the time when the band was going through personal crises (a divorce, a breakup, addictions, among other things), it was a miracle that this album was made at all and a wonder that it was made this well. Stripped down of all the 70s polish, the melodies, courtesy of the band's three main singer/songwriters, still sound as beautiful today... some might say that the songs sound overproduced, but they are hardly insincere. Resulting from a marriage of British blues and sunny California rock, FM turned out excellent pop rock that has been since covered by an assortment of artists. The phenomenon of Rumours was such that the album itself received the tribute album treatment and not the band. It was, after all, the best-selling LP before Michael Jackson's 'Thriller.' Listening to Rumours is like voyeuristically watching a soap-opera being filmed. 'Dreams' by Stevie Nicks is clearly the album's most famous track (a Euro-pop version of which became a hit for The Corrs), although the other songs are just as good... keyboardist Christine McVie writes the best love songs ('Songbird' and 'You Make Loving Fun'), while guitarist Lyndsey Buckingham shows his genius with clever arrangements ('Second Hand News' and 'Never Going Back Again'). My personal favorite, however, has to be 'The Chain' (the only song on which all members share writing credits) if only for the varying textures that made the rock feel more pronounced over the pop.

3.) Led Zeppelin 2 - The second album that the band released in 1969. It is, in my opinion, the most cohesive of all their albums (even when compared against the hugely popular fourth album). It's largely done in A-minor, resulting from the band's often stretched-out instrumental interludes when playing 'Whole Lotta Love' on stage. It's not Led Zeppelin's most ambitious effort, but it is probably the most direct one. It is also arguably the most influential one, as Led Zeppelin 2 seems to have served as some sort of prototype for 70s hard rock. My personal favorites have to be 'What Is and What Should Never Be' and 'Living Loving Maid.' I first got into Led Zeppelin during an immersion trip to the minimum security prison at Muntinlupa, where I met an inmate who played guitar really well (Led Zep was his favorite band, he said), but it was only after two years when I eventually found a boxed set on sale in Radio City. The effect of Led Zeppelin on rock cannot be overstated, never mind that they 'borrowed' a lot from traditional blues songs ('The Lemon Song' and 'Moby Dick'). I know Led Zep was what got me started onto classic rock, and noting the number of classic rock albums on my list right now, it's probably safe to say that Led Zeppelin's effect on my general musical disposition cannot be overstated as well.

4.) Machine Head (Deep Purple) - Funnily, I was already listening to Deep Purple even back in college, not knowing that they were actually classified under 'classic rock' (for all I know, they were just an old band from some era). Deep Purple then was what actually started me onto classic rock, albeit unknowingly, and it took a couple more years for me to actually pursue the genre after I got into Led Zep. The Mark2 lineup is largely regarded to be Deep Purple's finest, and this album is considered to be their best one. It opens with the classic 'Highway Star,' which I remember hearing from a gasoline commercial during the 90's, believing that it was titled 'My Car.' This album contains the mother of all rock riffs with Ritchie Blackmore's chromatic intro to 'Smoke on the Water.' The distinct Purple sound is due in large part to Jon Lord's classically inspired keyboards and Ian Paice's frenetic drums (he is possibly rock's most underrated drummer). Ian Gillan, who enjoys hitting the high notes, is in best form, and while Roger Glover's contributions to the band as a bassist aren't that apparent, his songwriting ideas are definitely something to be regarded. It must be noted, as in Fleetwood Mac's case, that what kept Deep Purple Mark2's prolific streak were internal conflicts. Those conflicts eventually resulted in a lineup change after one more album, and though DP continued to sell records, the succeeding lineups and reunions failed to capture the magic that early Mark2 exuded on their performances.

5.) 311 (Blue Album) - All I can remember is hearing 'Down' and 'All Mixed Up' on the radio when I was a college freshman, buying a cassette around February 1996 and still having that particular cassette in my bag a year later, even when 311 has already come up with the follow-up several months earlier. It was a particularly memorable year, and this album seems to serve as some sort of backdrop for all those things I went through. 311 has a noted punk aesthetic, fusing genres back when it wasn't yet the standard for rock bands, melding rap, funk, and reggae without yielding to irony and pretense... they are, after all, five white guys from Nebraska playing a blend of black-dominated genres. I still have a lot of respect for this band, although I haven't enjoyed the albums they turned out since this one as much. I do have plans to check out their latest DVD though, where they performed well over 60 songs in one day.

(to be concluded)

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