Keith Pille's Weekly Shuffle
October 17, 2005

Every week, I will fire up the Shuffle Songs option on my iPod; the first song to come up, no matter what it is, will get an instant, unvarnished review. We're at the mercy of random chance and the limits of my digital music collection. Let's see where this takes us.

The Big Foist
The Minutemen, Double Nickels on the Dime

Every music-preference algorithm I've ever seen tells me that, based on the bands I like, I should be a Minutemen fan. I like the vast majority of the 80s underground bands that get lumped in with them (Mission of Burma being the glaring exception). I like music that's offbeat and challenging. But, somehow, they just don't work for me. I put Double Nickels on the Dime on my pod a while ago in yet another effort to give the Minutemen another chance; and I'm slowly eradicating it as individual songs pop up in shuffles, annoy me, and get marked for death.

And "The Big Foist" will be the next to go. I don't get it. Musically, it's boring. Drum, bass, and guitar, all just sort of sputtering along without going anywhere. I suppose the drum part's a little more interesting than your standard 4/4 rock stomp, but it takes more than an interesting drum beat to make a good song. You always hear the Minutemen held up as this great, hard-working band, but the vocal delivery has the same bored, phoned-in tone (even the shouted "I'm fucking overwhelmed!" sounds flat) as Pavement or Dinosaur Jr., only without the hard-core guitar heroism that kept those two bands afloat.

I dunno. "The Big Foist" isn't terrible. The vast majority of people I know who spend time thinking about the music they listen to love the Minutemen. So I guess the problem's me.

Weekly Shuffle Scoreboard (Best to Worst):

1. "Rock N Roll Radio V2," Derailleur
2.  "Back from Somewhere (live)," Husker Du
3. "Powderfinger," Neil Young
4. "Gassed & Stoked," Lou Reed
5. "Nicotine & Gravy," Beck
6. "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (live)," Wilco
7. "John, I'm Only Dancing," David Bowie
8. "Take It or Leave it," The Strokes
9. “I Wanted to Tell You,” Matthew Sweet
10. "Soldier's Joy," Mark O'Connor
11. "Masoko Tanga," The Police
12. "The Big Foist," The Minutemen
13. "Climbing up the Walls," Radiohead
14. "That's When I Reach for My Revolver," Mission of Burma