A neck-to-nuts banger of a synth album found in a genre mostly celebrated via individual songs and videos rather than LPs. Upstairs at Eric's contains by my count three 'oh yeah I know that song' songs that are probably recognizable to the greater American public.

Marination/Hibernation season is ovah for the class of 2023. Let us celebrate one of the stronger bears to emerge from the cave - or in this case frogs...ManFrogs.

Grimes dropped out of college before uncorking this masterpiece - created during a nine-day frenzy of imagination in her Montreal apartment. Good. Class dismissed.

Los Angeles 1983. While the hair hunx were leaving leather pant ass prints on the hoods of laundromat dryers, bands of the Paisley Underground scene were quietly cranking out sixties-style jingly-jangly psychedelia across town. The Rain Parade were the shortest-lived of all the P.U. bands, but their debut album Emergency Third Rail Power Trip helped garden just as much musical fruit of the future as it did pay tribute to the past.

After five wild years playing together as a support band for other artists, the corduroy boys of The Band find their original voice in the basement of a house in West Saugerties, New York and begin a near-decade run of rustic rapture.

Penza Penza is an Estonian big band/lo-fidelity sonic buzzsaw led by multi-instrumentalist/composer Misha Panfilov. Their fourth LP called Alto E Primitivo is fourteen instrumental rippers that could mow thru the thickest of Baltic bush.

Filled with breezy melodic beatitudes that are impossible not to enjoy, It's a Shame About Ray is an underrated alt-rock classic that proved Evan Dando did indeed deserve his lemon lordship. {{{Gracias Hermanos Cansecos}}} https://youtu.be/EzKcxQGOKKE?si=st8Z_R3rMnPmyxHC

Curtis Mayfield dropped a winner in 1972 with the Super Fly soundtrack. A masterwork so dense that its songs musically narrate the film while still maintaining accessibility to be plucked for off-the-reservation playlists. Your main boy, thick and thin.

For their sophomore effort, the sextet of Scandinavian riff-raffers known as Viagra Boys seek fresh musical adventures in less-shrimpy waters - and ultimately discover bang city with Welfare Jazz.

The slightly off-kilter art punk of The Sugarcubes was the first rock music from Iceland to gain ears in America. The band's debut album - Life's Too Good - is a bouncy masterwork and the world's introduction to Bjork - who by the way, is the SECOND weirdest singer in this band.

In 1969, Sly & The Family Stone were flower power royalty - a racially-mixed pop powerhouse armed with a slew of hits destined to soundtrack the Valtrex commercials of the future. Sly followed up on this glory by locking himself in his mansion loft with enough drugs to down the Hell's Angels and created a masterpiece out of the madness - There's a Riot Goin' On. Trouble funk is here.

Royal Trux were king and queen of the scuzzrock prom when they got signed to Virgin Records in 1995. Two years later, Virgin couldn't get rid of them fast enough and RTX made their best album on their way out the door - Accelerator - a masterpiece molded out of the sludge of confusion.

The album that broke the band in America - Out of Our Heads is the musical bridge connecting the Rolling Stones American R&B-cosplay past with their Richards/Jagger-juggernaut future.

The Budos Band sprinkle some Ethiopian jazz into their menacingly-infectious sophomore album released on Daptone Records at the height of retro-soul revivalism in 2007. Full-time funk from a part-time band. * The Budos Band live in the Netherlands in 2008 * https://youtu.be/IkgD6AwsPZM?si=3hfoNHuY1jBqnQtk * Musicawi Silt by Hailu Mergia * https://youtu.be/r9pLeol6A9s?si=iPIf20IT-hUzJije

John Cale's scrappy solo debut recorded the year after leaving the Velvet Underground. His half century of creating high art out of low living begins here with Vintage Violence.

The Meat Puppets third album - the Kirkwood brothers fire out a catchy collection of psychedelic swingers that help keep weirdness to the front of the American music underground in 1985.

An affectionate curation of the disco-funk-fueled music made by Cameroonian Jo Bisso during his half decade living in America.

Three southern girls that met at band camp bring their garage rock gravitas north to New York City and record a ripper more potent than the purest line of Appalachian meth. The Whole Damn Thing live from Maxwell's in Hoboken 2010 - Look at little Jessi holding that big CHOOCH guitar - https://youtu.be/3lYdlaEg2zY?si=b0sFRCxXmy7xJeUX Be Your Bro from second album - https://youtu.be/TyVs4B26_P4?si=bHrJbKgAo6Gr5tWl

The sunshine pop banger debut from The Mamas & the Papas - a devilish foursome who soundtracked the summer of love before being drowned out of the cultural zeitgeist by the electric guitar gods.

The 'should-woulda-coulda' sixth album from retro-revivalists The Brian Jonestown Massacre - led by the emotionally-compromised Anton Newcombe. Anton going berzerk at the Viper Room 1996(?) https://youtu.be/jSm5optFVUw?si=BOI8pzeljh_jJylr Anton going berzerk in Australia in 2023 https://youtu.be/3MKRAzCkJfM?si=06lmZxqMulq4sRaA

Despite the occasional TMC (Too Much Chuck) moments, Introduce Yourself is a fun listen and criminally-ignored glance at a weird underground band right before they blast off toward the MTV universe. *** Follow @boogiechitz on Instagram *** *** 1988 music video for Anne's Song *** https://youtu.be/w7dD-JJJytM?si=LIiZIEqkhU89jQfk

Aerosmith's breakthrough third album is proof that hard work pays off - even while wearing a bedazzled, penis-flattening pelican unitard.

Oh, Inverted World is a vivid, pop masterpiece that provides indie-cred to the men who make mangina music.

Red dirt riffer J.J. Cale's songs were more known for being covered by other artists, but the creator of the 'Tulsa Sound' is not to be ignored - his catalogue is stuffed with swampy ravers - my favorite being 1976's Troubadour.