Nova Carmina

As some have posted above, I voted for Physical Graffiti partly because there's just more of it. Say what you want about the grab bag of styles on III or HotH, but PG has that and then some. "Kashmir," "Trampled Underfoot," "Boogies With Stu," "In the Light," "In My Time of Dying," hell, even "Custard Pie"! PG is the album that goes up to eleven. Let me just offer a word Led Zeppelin I, though; has there ever been a more thunderous or door-kicked-in debut? Plus, it's got "Dazed and Confused" and "How Many More Times."

The Drive-by Truckers (obviously indebted to Skynyrd) of the Hood/Cooley/Isbell configuration. The Dirty South or A Blessing and Curse, especially. "The Day John Henry Died" or "Lookout Mountain" or "Gravity's Gone" or "Easy On Yourself" even more specifically . . . .

Led Zep's "How Many More Times." Propulsive.

What's with all the death metal bands covering "Subdivisions"? It hardly seems like the first choice . . .?

My mother never listens to music on her own; my father was always really into classical music when I was a kid. BUT, my dad belonged to some sort of "record-of-the-month" club (like Columbia, I guess, for classical music/opera/etc.) and one month they accidentally sent him some K-Tel hits collection that had Blondie's "Heart of Glass" and Styx's "Renegade" on it, and he gave it to me and my brother and we wore the grooves off that thing, playing it over and over.

There's a lot of great TV out there, and you should watch what makes you happy (or makes you think, whatever), but if you're on the fence about "Black Mirror" let me say that I absolutely hated that show. With the the white-hot intensity of 1000 suns. I only watched the first season, so bear that in mind, but the writing of the show was so incredibly contemptuous of its audience. At every chance, every character did the absolute dumbest thing imaginable, and then usually found a way to make it worse. Or the characters changed directions without any cause (like in the very first one, "The National Anthem") just to make them look more idiotic. This kind of writing is only possible if the creators of the show think everyone is stupid. It's always talking down to the viewers and takes the sort of middle-school-ish "rebellious" position that everything is corrupt and pointless, so why bother with hope or effort? Again, maybe it got better, but life is too short (for me) to watch a TV show that assumes I'm a moron who would always make catastrophically bad choices. My good choice was switching the channel. But I'm not bitter about it, no, not at all . . .

Grace Under Pressure is where I boarded the Rush train, so I'm not totally sure if my feelings about it are musical or sentimental, but I have always loved that album. I get that it's not PW or MP, but "Kid Gloves" and "The Enemy Within" were great, up-tempo, catchy songs (always disappointed they didn't get played live more) with important lyrics. It had variance in tone, pacing, themes, and could accompany any number of moods. That said, I usually skip over "The Body Electric" . . . .

Oh, man, what a great and trippy song. Haven't heard that for years. Off to Apple Music . . .