Shuffle n' Rate

2. Russian Circles “Sciphol” Empros 7/10 Been getting into this instrumental post-rock band and most of their catalog is available for Prime members. *

3. Steve Vai “Mullach a’ tSi” The Story of Light 7/10 Nice quiet number. Prime has a good selection of Vai. *

4. Yes “Gates of Delirium” Relayer 10/10 Not a prime album. I had purchased the CD reissue a couple of years back and it came with a free digital download. *

5. Jaga Jazzist “Bananfluer Overalt” Live with Britten Sinfonia 8/10 Surprised me that it’s available for Prime members. That, and One Armed Bandit (minus a song or two). *

6. Portugal the Man “Break” n.a. This is a one-minute break between songs. It would work in context of the songs around it. But can't rate it.

7. Tom Petty “Love is a Long Road” Full Moon Fever 7/10 I like Petty and this album was a huge for him. His first without the Heartbreakers and Jeff Lynne co-writing. This is a nice rocking number from him though one of the songs not co-written with Lynne but with Mike Campbell from the Heartbreakers.

8. Jimmy Eat World “Lean” Damage 6/10 - Seems like catchy little pop/rock number. I hadn’t heard it before. Not sure why I added Jimmy Eat World to my cloud. 

9. The Kinks “Ring the Bells” The Kink Kontroversy  7/10 Seems like this band gets underrated when discussing influential British Invasion bands. Nice quiet number.

10. Me First and the Gimme Gimmes “Superstar” Ruin Jonny’s Bar Mitzvah 7/10 - Cover of the Delaney & Bonnie song, best known by the Carpenters. All of Me First’s songs are punk covers of well known songs. Really good fun and a lot of their albums. This version rocks. It’s also from a live album that was performed and recorded at an actual bar mitzvah.

11. Weather Report “The Juggler” Heavy Weather 7/10 Decent track. Kind of drifts into the background. *

12. Banco de Gaia “Drunk as a Monk” Big Men Cry 9/10 This isn’t typical to what I listen to but I got the album a number of years ago and it remains a favorite. Another unexpected find on Prime which I added to my cloud.  I guess this style is ambient dub? Really trancy with some world sounds/beats thrown in.

13. U2 “Sixty Seconds in Kingdom Come” The Unforgettable Fire (deluxe) 5/10 This is the last track of the second disc of the deluxe edition. An 1:30 throwaway instrumental so not really fair to rate. Back in ’82, this guy in my Algebra 2 class was insisting that the two biggest bands in the next few will be Motley Crue and U2. If I could have invested in bands, I would’ve listened to that guy.

14. Blur “Pressure on Julian” Modern Life is Rubbish 6/10 Decent track.

15. Santana “Samba Pa Ti” Ultimate Santana 7/10 I can listen to his guitar all day. *

16. ZZ Top “Woke Up with Wood” Afterburner 6/10 They found a formula and stuck with it until their beards overtook their music in popularity. Despite being overrun with synth sounds of the mid 80’s, this was multiplatinum hit album and I liked this track.

17. By Bloody Valentine “Only Shallow” Loveless 10/10 Great opener to a classic in shoegazing.

18. Dan Fogelberg and Tim Weisberg “Since You’ve Asked”  Twin Sons of Different Mothers 6/10 Another left over from my ex-girlfriend. It’s a good album. Not on Prime. This song is melancholic with some nice flute from Weisberg.

19. Rush “Twilight Zone” 2112 5/10 This song just seems cheesy to me. “You have entered the twilight zone...” *

20. Funkadelic “A Joyful Process” America Eats Its Young 8/10 Instrumental funk is the best. Funkadelic was an awesome rock/funk band back in its day. Believe in the mothership.

21. Stevie Ray Vaughan “Change It” The Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble 9/10 Had to include number 21 since it rocks and that Portugal the Man song really shouldn't count.

• Jeff Beck - Declan (Who Else!) [7/10] - A really beautiful instrumental, with a bit of a Celtic feel to it. Definitely one of the stronger pieces to come from Jeff Beck's more intimate, heartfelt side. 
• Billy Cobham - Le Lis (Spectrum) [7/10] - Yeeeeaaaah. Real smooth stuff right here. Like, maybe even a bit too smooth. I feel a little naughty listening to it.
• Deep Purple - Highway Star [Live] (In Concert) [10/10] - Yeeeeaaaah!!! One of the true rock masterpieces, this track is. And what better way to make it kick absolute butt than to do it live? 
• King Crimson - Cat Food (In The Wake of Poseidon) [8/10] - Keith Tippett is a genius. His playing here is so off-kilter and abstract, but simultaneously so cool and laid back. And the lyrics are super funny, too. 
• Led Zeppelin - When The Levee Breaks (IV) [8/10] - Hell yeah! One of the Led Zeppelin songs to end all Led Zeppelin songs. Possibly Bonham's best drum sound, period; so huge and booming. The harmonica and slide work here are also killer. In short, this is blues rock done right. 
• Quella Vecchia Locanda - Sogno, Risveglio, E... (Quella Vecchia Locanda) [7/10] - Well this sort of killed the good vibes that I had going. Which is too bad, because in the original context of the album it makes for a haunting, dignified closer, but on its own it doesn't work super well.
• Joe Satriani - Ride (Flying In A Blue Dream) [5/10] - One of the few Satriani vocal tracks. I actually kind of like his voice, and it definitely works here. The song itself is inoffensive hard rock. Nothing too bold, but then again, it doesn't really have to be.
• Island - Herold and King (Dloreh) (Pictures) [5/10] - I was just listening to this the other night. While I find the first side of Pictures to be utterly mesmerizing and morbidly fascinating, I always found the two tracks sprawling the second side to sort of lose themselves a little. It's a very odd experience listening to this, but oddly unmemorable once it's over.
• The B-52's - Love Shack (Cosmic Thing) [11/10] - Yeeeeaaaah! Who needs boring, wussy prog when you have real classics like this one? 
• King Crimson - Pictures of A City (In The Wake of Poseidon) [10/10] - Hell yes! Have your Schizoid Men, but to me this is the very finest piece of proto-jazz-prog-metal that KC ever conceived. Michael Giles absolutely SLAYS this thing, and Fripp just cranks it up to 10000 and never tones it back down. And Mel Collins makes me think inappropriate thoughts with his performance here. Then when they just trash all their instruments for like a minute straight at the end, I get so amped up. This is prog that rocks, man.
• Judas Priest - Heavy Duty/Defenders of The Faith (Defenders of The Faith) [8/10] - *Grunts*. The megalithic, booming drum beat, that hard-hitting wall of power chords, Halford's typical lyrical sleaziness... What's not to love? 
• Yes - Roundabout (Fragile) [10/10] - Hell yes! Like I've said before, "K, I don’t care how many times you’ve heard this on the radio, this is an objective masterpiece of a song. From that minimalistic intro by Steve Howe, you can hear the tension brooding. This isn’t like anything else written before it. But with a major D chord and a descending fingerstyle pattern, the tension is released, overshadowed by a lighter mood. Or is it? When that bass groove sinks in from Chris Squire, you can feel the vast scale of entire worlds being created, cracked open and split apart. And the whole middle section where Bruford gives 'er on the percussion, leading back into a recapitulation of the intro, it’s just one of the greatest tension and release passages in modern music. And let’s not forget Rick Wakeman’s organ solo. As Dewey Finn said in School of Rock, “listen to the keyboard solo on Roundabout – it’ll blow the classical music out your butt.” Essential, essential, essential listening."
• Molly Hatchet - Jukin' City (Flirtin' With Disaster) [8/10] - Aw yis. A genuine piece of Southern Rock goodness. Love how deep the swing is on this one.
• Strunz & Farah - Rio Nuevo (Frontera) [7/10] - One of the better songs off of this early Strunz & Farah album. There's a bright, jovial quality to it, accentuated by the flowing panflute lines. Great stuff for fans of classical guitar and acoustic world music.
• King Crimson - Easy Money (Larks' Tongues In Aspic) [8/10] - Man, iTunes is just giving me all the best riffs today! Fripp is a beast here, and Jamie Muir is a genius. This is heavy prog done right!
• Lynyrd Skynyrd - Railroad Song (Nuthin' Fancy) [8/10] - One of the unknown Skynyrd gems. The harmonica slays, and even if there's no guitar solo in this one, it still rocks and grooves along.
• Van Halen - Judgement Day (For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge) [8/10] - Shuffle is on a roll tonight! One of the best Van Halen tracks of the 90's, if not at least the hardest rocking. 
• Molly Hatchet - Let The Good Times Roll (Flirtin' With Disaster) [9/10] - As a matter of fact, Danny Joe Brown, I will! This is feelgood summertime road trippin' Southern Rock at its finest.
• Rush - La Villa Strangiato (Hemispheres) [4/10] - Yawn... This was the coolest song on the planet for about the first four times I heard it, then it got old real quick. 
• Charlie Daniels Band - The South's Gonna Do It (Fire on The Mountain) [9/10] - You know it, man! There are few usages of fiddle in rock music that come close to this one, and very few songs that are more toe-tap-inducing. Love it!