Strawberry Fields for Now

Album: Sam Phillips, Martinis & Bikinis, 1994

Best Track: "Wheel of the Broken Voice"

Lasting Memory: In 1994, back when I still had a social conscience and believed in financially supporting stuff that I could get for free -- you know, when I was in college -- I donated $10 to Virginia Tech's student-run radio station. In return for my minuscule largess, I was allowed to pick any cassette from a USPS tub.

(Aside: WUVT had to give away all the promo cassettes it received because by that point in its evolution, its studio only had turntables, CD players, and a CART deck, which is a slightly fancier version of an 8-track player. The I'm-being-generous-in-a-screw-you-way transaction ran both ways.)

I grabbed Martinis & Bikinis pretty much at random and don't know if I ever played it until this week. I suppose I missed out.

As this slightly too-effusive Rolling Stone reviewer points out, Sam Phillips does a remarkable job of channeling and reinterpreting mid-period Beatles on Ms&Bs. To be honest, I completely failed to catch the Beatles sound on my two plays through the album, thinking the whole time that Phillips' songs slotted right into country-inflected power pop niche created for and by bands like the dB's -- a subgenre some call "jangle pop." I hate the phrase "jangle pop," and I suppose what I really missed was how indebted so many of the bands from the 1980s that I loved were to the Beatles.

Live and be abashed at what you still need to learn, that's my motto.

Anyhow, Ms&Bs is a fine album that I'm still unlikely to listen to ever again. No fault to Ms. Phillips, but there's my whole avoision of female singers thing for me to continue. And then there's always the option of listening to the Beatles when I want to hear music that sounds a lot like the music the Beatles would make.

You are under no such constraints to restrain Sam Phillips from getting her fair hearing, however. If you click over to the Rolling Stone review linked above, you can preview the entirety of Ms&Bs. If you just want to hear the song I tabbed as the best because you implicitly trust my taste and judgment and would blindly follow my musical ear wherever it points,* then go here to hear "Wheel of the Broken Voice."

Up Next: Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here, 1975

* This metaphor was mixed at 160 beats per minute for your Texas Two-Steppin' pleasure