R.E.M's "Radio Free Europe" leads a bounty of new singles in July of 1981

R.E.M. : "Radio Free Europe"

On July 8, 1981 R.E.M. released their debut single "Radio Free Europe" b/w "Sitting Still" on the Hib-Tone label. With an energy that matched the excitement of punk rock and indecipherable lyrics, the single marks a brave new world for alternative rock, opening one side of the gate as Mission of Burma holds the other. Man, I wish I heard this single in the Summer of '81 but I was on my own course, buying one classic album a week as recommended by Dave Marsh's Rolling Stone Record Guide. But never fear : R.E.M's debut album and I would arrive at my college radio station the same week. 

The Ramones : We Want the Airwaves

In July of 1981 The Ramones released "We Want The Airwaves", a new single produced by Graham Gouldman of 10cc fame. The Pleasant Dreams single sounds more like hard rock than punk rock to these ears. Music journalist "Chuck Eddy" described the song as " a sort of Black Sabbath punk rock". The song failed to chart.

Other great songs complaining about the airwaves : "American Beat 84" by The Fleshtones and " I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts" by X.

Squeeze : Tempted

On July 10, 1981 Squeeze released "Tempted" as the second single from East Side Story. It's strange that it took this this long because "Tempted" was the one song FM Rock Radio was playing at the time. The single was not a massive hit by any means, peaking at UK#41 and US#49, but it has become the most famous of the band's songs . It also contains Difford's favorite lyrics, as he tells What's New, " It’s so visual and again floats me back to that time when youth was a cloud I drifted around on from day to day." 

The Go-Betweens : Your Turn, My Turn

In July of 1981 The Go-Betweens release their fourth single, "Your Turn, My Turn", with plans to make it the album opener for their debut. Recorded in Sydney at Trafalgar Studios. In Grant & I, Robert Forster writes "Singles were of supreme importance, like a report card of a band. Groups were conscious that everything they wanted to show the word, including how far they'd progressed since their previous record, had to be compacted into a single's release." 

The video for  the angular ballad is shot in Grant's flat.

Kraftwerk : Computer Love

On July 7, 1981 Kraftwerk released the eventual UK#1 hit "Computer Love", a song that predicts the loneliness of sitting in front of a home computer looking for love. Coldplay fans will recognize the melody which Chris Martin borrowed with permission for "Talk" on the album X&Y.

The Undertones : Julie Ocean

In July of 1981 The Undertones released the dreamy "Julie Ocean", a UK#41 hit. It's a re-recorded version of the Positive Touch song, which adds a tremelo guitar and nearly doubles the length of the tune. A winner!!

Stevie Nicks with Tom Petty : Stop Draggin' My Heart Around

Recorded with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers for the Hard Promises album, the US#3 hit instead showed up on Stevie Nicks's debut album Bella Donna. Heartbreaker Mike Campbell explained how that happened to Songfacts:

"Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" was a song that I had written the music and Tom had written the words. The Heartbreakers had recorded a version of it with Jimmy Iovine, and Jimmy being the entrepreneur that he was, he was working with Stevie, and I guess he asked Tom if she could try it, and it just developed from there. We cut the track as a Heartbreakers record and when she decided to do it we used that track and she came in and sang over it. It became a duet. It's basically all the Heartbreakers on that record .

Johnny Ramone's All Time Top 10

The Ramones : Rock and Roll Radio

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In February of 1980 Johnny Ramone provided Smash Hits with a hastily written All Time Top 10 list of albums to accompany David Hepworth's feature article on the band entitled "WANCHEWFREEFOR!!". 

The Ramones were touring England to promote the Phil Spector produced  End of the Century and their movie "Rock And Roll High School". Rather than concentrate on an album many Ramones fans hated, Hepworth asked questions about the band's history.

The most memorable quote is from Johnny:

"I think it takes more intelligence and, y'know, originality to sing about things that haven't been sung about, y'know? Like when we started singing about glue, pinheads, cretins and all these things, nobody was singing about these things, y'know, and it took a lot more imagination to sing about these things.

Eating Chicken Vinaloo?

"And then people call you dummy because you wanna sing about something funny. It's a lot dumber singing about the things that everybody else sing about like sex or something, y'know."

By the way, if you ever get to hear the demo versions of songs like "I'm Affected" on the expanded version, you'll hear that The Ramones hadn't lost a step. They were just recorded that way by Spector.

Click here for Joey Ramone's all time top ten.

Why The Ramones hated their biggest UK hit

The Ramones : Baby, I Love You

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On January 23, 1980 The Ramones biggest UK hit, a cover of The Ronettes' "Baby I Love You", spent its first week at #60. It be the band's biggest it in the UK, peaking at #8. Despite the success, The Ramones hated the song which was produced by Phil Spector. Johnny Ramone calls it "the worst thing we ever did".

It should have been a dream come true for the Ramones to record with Phil Spector. You can hear his influence in many of the band's earliest songs: simple hooks, catchy choruses, lots of repetition. After five years, it was time for The Ramones to get a hit and Spector got the call.  But Spector was a perfectionist and The Ramones liked to get things done quickly. When Spector was hired to produce End of the Century, the band and producer clashed at gunpoint.

In his book Lobotomy -Surviving The Ramones, Dee Dee Ramone writes about one incident at Spector's Beverly Hills mansion where he'd been sitting for three hours waiting for Spector to finish his conversation with Joey:

Phil must have thought I was an intruder. I really don't know what provoked him, but the next thing I knew Phil appeared at the top of the staircase, shouting and waving a pistol. The he practically field-stripped the thing in two seconds flat, put it back together in two more seconds flat,. He has all the quick-draw, shoot-to-kill pistol techniques....

Dee Dee told Spector he wanted to go back to the motel

"You're not going anywhere, Dee Dee," Phil said.

He leveled his gun at my heart and then motioned for me and the rest of the band to get back in the piano room. Everybody sat down on the couch and had another beer. We were all very drunk by then - I was fed up, confused, and hungry. Phil was a merciless host. He only holstered his pistol when he felt secure that his bodyguards could take over. Then he sat down at his black concert piano and made us listen to him play and sing "Baby I Love You" until well after 4:30 in the morning. By 5:00 AM I felt as I was going to completely lose my mind.

Both Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone had left California by the time Joey Ramone sang "Baby I Love You" with an orchestra. That song and the album would be a disappointment for the rest of Johnny's life. In his autobiography Commando, Johnny Ramone dismisses the song as something only Joey did with Phil Spector.

No wonder we never went gold. Chasing some kind of commercial success is more like just sitting there ready to give up. I would never have put  something like a hit song just to have a hit if it wasn't in our style. I would have had to live with that  for the rest of my life, and I don't think I could look myself in the eye after I did something like that.

Don't Care About History

The Ramones and Paley Brothers : Come On Let's Go

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In May of 1979 Sire Records released the soundtrack to Rock N Roll High School, months before the August release date. The album kicks off with four Ramones performances including the title track, "I Want You Around", and a five song Ramones medley. There is also the curious teaming with Sire labelmates The Paley Brothers on a cover of Ritchie Valens's "Come On, Let's Go", recorded when Joey Ramone was too sick for the session. The Paley Brothers needed the career boost but it did nothing to help the power poppers make the charts. They broke up later in the year.

The film itself is entertaining thanks to PJ Soles and the Ramones, who are so clearly out of their element. Dee Dee needed 40 takes to finally master the line "Oh boy, pizza!"

The soundtrack features more than The Ramones. It serves as a great introduction to some superb artists like Nick Lowe, Eddie + The Hot Rods, and Devo.

And the soundtrack likely introduced legions of future music snobs to Brian Eno, although 1977's "Energy Fools the Magician" probably didn't get much attention in this context.

The album also features two hits : Alice Cooper's "School's Out" and "Smokin' In The Boy's Room" by Brownsville Station". And from 1974, there's Todd Rundgren's ballad, "A Dream Goes On Forever", a song that may have been overlooked from that quirky double album Todd.

Dominus Vobiscum

Dead Boys : (I Don't Want To Be No) Catholic Boy

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In August of 1978 The Dead Boys released their follow-up to their classic debut,  Young Loud and Snotty. Former Mountaineer Felix Pappalardi gives the Dead Boys a professional sheen on We Have Come For Your Children, and that doesn't seem to help their cause.  The highlight might be "(I Don't Want To Be No) Catholic Boy" which has both a double negative in its title and backing vocals from Dee and Joey Ramone. 

Robert Christgau gave the album a grade of B-, writing :

Because they're lovable little scumbags deep down, and sincere to boot, Hilly's punk purists have dropped the heavy misogyny and recorded five cuts that laid end to end would make a listenable side. But not even the rousing "3rd Generation Nation" has the power of sexist spew like "I Need Lunch" and "Caught With the Meat in Your Mouth." Makes you wonder what 3rd generation nihilists believe deep down.

August 9, 1978 is also the date of Bruce Springsteen and the E street Band's legendary three hour concert at the Agora in Cleveland. A popular bootleg for decades, it is now an official release sold as a three CD set. 

Happy New Year from The Ramones

The Ramones : Rockaway Beach (live)

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On December 31, 1977 The Ramones played a New Year's Eve concert at The Rainbow in London. The show was recorded and released as It's Alive in 1979 with 28 songs in a running time of 53 minutes.

In his memoir, Commando, Johnny Ramone writes of that night : 

I think our peak, our greatest moment, is that New Year's Eve show of 1977 into 1978. I think that's our greatest moment as a band.

The recording of It's Alive was probably the best show that The Ramones ever did. We knew they were recording for a live album, and we were ready. Whenever it was important, we would rise to the occasion. I would concentrate more; I would try harder.

A Rhythm On My Bubble Gum

The Ramones : Rockaway Beach

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On November 4, 1977 The Ramones released Rocket to Russia, their final studio album as the original quartet. (Drummer Tommy Ramone would become a producer who would eventually add The Replacements's Tim to his resume). To many critics, Rocket to Russia was one of The Ramones's finest moments, polishing up their debut album sound. I'd rate it just a step behind the debut because I have to patience for covers ( "Do You Wanna Dance", "Surfin Bird") from a band that could write such great tunes. 

From Robert Christgau's A rated review:

Having revealed how much you can take out and still have rock and roll, they now explore how much you can put back in and still have Ramones. Not that they've returned so very much -- a few relatively obvious melodies, a few relatively obvious vocals. But that's enough. Yes, folks, there's something for everyone on this ready-made punk-rock classic. Stoopidity, both celebrated and satirized. Love (thwarted) and social protest (they would seem to oppose DDT). Inspired revivals (the Trashmen) and banal cover versions (Bette Midler and Cass Elliott beat them to "Do You Wanna Dance?"). And, for their record company and the ears of the world, an actual potential hit. If "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker" was the most significant number eighty-four record in history, what will "Rockaway Beach" do for number twenty? (Did I hear five?)

From Dave Marsh raving in Rolling Stone :

Rocket to Russia is the best American rock and roll of the year and possibly the funniest rock album ever made. Not that the Ramones are a joke -- they're more worthwhile than almost anything that's more self-conscious because they exist in a pure and totally active state. 

 Rocket shows substantial progress in the group's sound -- it has opened up so that hints of Beach Boys harmonies float among the power chords, kind of like moving with the Who from My Generation to Happy Jack. Certainly, there is nothing resembling the lock step of the first two albums holding them back. The guitars still riff relentlessly, but they are freer within the murky sound, and the songs give them much more to work with. It is some kind of tribute to suggest that the least effective songs on the album are the oldies, "Do You Wanna Dance" and "Surfin' Bird." And if this is a hilarious album, it is also astute: "We're a Happy Family" and "Why Is It Always This Way" are extremely funny just to the extent that the situations are horribly typical. 

 Despite the title, the Ramones aren't about escape. Reductionist aggression never is -- conquest is more like it. And if you're alienated by it, that's because you're supposed to be. The Ramones explore the dirty truths that pop music and rock designed to "entertain" have to cover up. This is truly the land of "No Fun" -- none asked for, none given. Just action, constant and unyielding, pleasant or miserable. 

 Most contemporary music -- yeah, even the New Wave stuff -- asks why we've slowed down or complains about the fact. The Ramones consider this irrelevant. The question they pose is more interesting: why can't you keep up? I dare you to try.

From Billboard Magazine :

The Ramones' most straight forward and primitively basic of all rock deliveries magically contain an implied and endearing sense of melody. The group's third album, together with its slight but elemental tongue-in-cheekiness and themes of rebellion, escape and the nuances of American life, offers an outlet for both thoughtful and invigorating release. The same formula rigidly holds throughout and a sharper focus illuminates most of the 14 songs for special individual appeal. Best cuts: "Rockaway Beach," "I Don't Care," "Teenage Lobotomy."

Winter Is Here

The Ramones : Swallow My Pride

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On July 18, 1977 The Ramones followed up "Sheena is a Punk Rocker", a UK #22 hit,  with a new single, "Swallow My Pride" b/w "Pinhead". The new single would peak at #36, a number they'd fail to reach again until 1980 with "Baby, I Love You". Even the biggest Ramones fans might not know "Swallow My Pride" had ever been a single. "Pinhead", with its "Gabba Gabba Hey" chorus, is far better remembered forty years later.

All Hopped Up And Ready To Go

The Ramones : Sheena is a Punk Rocker

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On May 15, four days before The Ramones European tour landed in Liverpool, the band's "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" had debuted at #35 in the UK pop charts. The Ramones would play 27 of their 148 shows that year in the U.K., racing through nearly thirty songs a night. The band must have been relieved when they finally arrived in a country where English is spoken. 

"It's not like America,"Johnny Ramone told Lisa Robinson who recalls the conversation in There Goes Gravity. "I miss home. We can't find lasagna or ravioli, and I miss milk. All the milk has stuff floating in it."

"The Ramones were like Archie Bunker at the Vatican," said one observer on the tour. 

The Ramones toured with supporting act, Talking Heads, who had just released the single "Love -> Building On Fire" and loved touring Europe. "Everything is so scenic," remarked David Byrne.

 But, Joey Ramone says, Talking Heads did not go over with the gobbing punk crowd.

"On our second trip over in '77 it was us and Talking Heads...Erics...I don't think The Heads went down too well there - too rowdy a bunch, they wanted to rumble with the Ramones. Talking Heads were too intellectual for that crowd."

One interesting note : In early June at a London show Talking Heads would met future producer Brian Eno, so taken by the band he would write "King's Lead Hat", an anagram for Talking Heads.

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Met Her at the Burger King

The Ramones : Oh Oh I Love Her So

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By the time The Ramones released their second album, Leave Home, on January 10, 1977, they were one of the hardest working bands in the world. They would play 146 songs in '77, including a European tour with Talking Heads. 

In Commando, Johnny Ramone described life in the Ramones in this way:

We recorded throughout our career whenever we got a break --it was the circuit: record, tour, record, tour. We did well in the studio. I worked fast, and the band was good at it. Joey always took a long time getting lyrics together and doing the vocals, but the songs were written in a certain way, and everyone else's parts were always done quickly.

From Lobotomy: Surviving the Ramones,  Dee Dee Ramone remembers:

The first three records are filled with fun memories for me. The record company wasn't putting the kind of pressure on us that they later would to get on the radio. And I wasn't thinking about what the possibilities were. I wouldn't have known how to calculate success even if I chose to. It was like the American dream. We just said, if it isn't available, we'll make it happen. Or we;ll go to war, Or we'll secede, Or we'll go somewhere else. And so we just created the Ramones on a hope and a prayer and on our guts.

Gradually, the music critics realized the band wasn't a one punchline joke. In fact the New Music Express declared "Above all they are the best group on the planet at this moment and time".

Let's face it: nobody in the Class of '77 could keep up with The Ramones.

40 Year Itch : Glue Sniff Death Shocker

The Ramones : Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue

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On August 19, 1976, under the banner headline "Glue Sniff Death Shocker", The Glasgow Evening Times reported on the efforts by Jack Dempsey, MP for Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, to get the first Ramones album banned in the UK following a series of deaths related to glue-sniffing. Among the songs on the debut is "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue"featuring the lyrics

All the kids want to sniff some glue
All the kids want somethin' to do

Manager Danny Fields responded in NME "Why should the song be banned? War films aren't banned on the grounds that they advocate violence."

Dee Dee Ramones said the song was written as a joke. "Shit! It's a good thing we split from those assholes 200 years ago. I hope they don't really think we sniff glue. I quit when I was eight."

On August 26, The Ramones visited Disneyland. Said Johnny Ramone in his autobiography Commando:

I always liked that place, loved riding Space Mountain. I like fast rollercoasters. I don't know that I cared about going with the band, but I did have a good time. I like those parks. I've been to Disneyland three times and to Disney World twenty times. At Disney World, I like to ride I like to ride Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain.

40 Year Itch : The Punk Wave Rises

July of 1976 witnessed the rise of the punk wave with many legendary bands making their onstage debuts.

JULY 4 : The Clash -then with Keith Levene as second guitarist--make their first appearance supporting The Sex Pistols at the Black Swan in Sheffield. Terry Chimes played drums. This was the same night The Ramones played with Flamin' Groovies and the Stranglers at the London Roundhouse.

JULY 6 : The Damned make their debut at the 100 Club in support of the Sex Pistols. Formerly The Masters of Backside, when they included future Pretenders leader Chrissie Hynde,  Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible and Rat Scabies were joined by guitarist Brian James to form the Damned.

JULY 13 The Stranglers have a five night stand at The Hope and Anchor in Islington.

JULY 18  : Sex Pistols soundman Dave Goodman records the band's demos at their Denmark Street practice area/ Steve Jones's apartment. Songs include "Anarchy in the UK", "Pretty Vacant", "Submission", "Seventeen" and "Problems".

JULY 20 : The Buzzcocks debut on stage in Manchester where they open before a sold out crowd for The Sex Pistols. Band members Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto had booked the Sex Pistols. Inspired by the show, the Buzzcocks record the Spiral Scratch EP for 500 pounds. 

JULY 21 : The Vibrators play at the Windsor Castle in London. They made their debut earlier at the 100 Club, opening for Chris Spedding.

JULY 21 Morrissey pens a letter calling  The Ramones "rubbish".

He would quickly change his mind:

When I bought the Ramones first album on import, I was enraged with jealousy because I felt they had booted the New York Dolls off the map. I was 100% wrong. Three days after writing that Ramones piece, I realized that my love for the Ramones would out-live time itself. And it shall. Well, it virtually has already. If the Ramones were alive today, they'd be the biggest band in the world. It takes the world 30 years to catch on, doesn't it? I mean, look at poor Nico. Every modern teenager now seems to love Nico, yet while she was alive she couldn't afford a decent mattress. 

Rich girl Siouxsie Sioux often seen at punk clubs sporting expensive S and M outfits and little else.

40 Year Itch: Today New York ...Tomorrow the World

The Ramones : Blitzkrieg Bop

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  On April 23, 1976, the same day the Rolling Stones released the recycled riffs of Black and Blue, four misfits from Queens brought forth the year's most revolutionary and most influential album. 14 songs in 29 minutes! All recorded for $6400. No guitar solos. No golden locked singers. Just a whole bunch of funny songs with "Wanna" in the title. Here, by many accounts, is the birth of punk rock.

   Looking back, we can gauge the significance of the album easily. Both the Clash and the Damned formed shortly after catching the Ramones' UK tour. The fast and furious three chord songs would show up only slightly altered in tunes by the Buzzcocks and the Sex Pistols. 

  But at the time, the critics wondered whether the band would actually sell. 

   Paul Nelson of Rolling Stone magazine put it this way: "Where's your sense of humor and adventure, America? In rock and roll and matters of the heart, we should all hang on to a little amateurism. Let's hope these guys sell more records than Elton John has pennies. If not, shoot the piano player. And throw in Paul McCartney to boot."

  Creem's Gene Sculatti wrote: "Serving its radical function, the Ramones' debut drives a sharp wedge between the stale ends of a contemporary music scene bloated with graying superstars and overripe for takeover. Right now, the Ramones have their hands on the wheel."

   Nick Kent of NME wrote "As a punk artefact, it separates the men from the boys. If you love hard-ass retard rock, you'll bathe in every groove. If you pride yourself on being a sensitive human-being, this record will gag on you like a gatorade and vermouth fireball."

   Alas, The Ramones debut would only sell 6,000 copies in 1976, peaking at #111 on the US charts and neither "Blitzkrieg Bop" nor " I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" would chart at all. It would take 38 years for the album to go gold.

40 Year Itch: February 2, 1976

“ I’d adore to be prime minister. And, I believe very strongly in fascism … I dream of buying companies and TV stations, owning and controlling them.”

                -David Bowie in a February 1976 interview with Rolling Stone's Cameron Crowe.

           

   On February 2, 1976 David Bowie kicked off his Isolar concert tour at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, BC. The tour was in support of the new album Station to Station. Dressed as one journalist put it, like a "businessman in drag", Bowie would perform his shows at night and then often go clubbing til the early hours. The next day he would sit in the back of a car with Iggy Pop, listening to his favorite music. The tour would not always go according to plan, but more on that later.

Also on February 2, The Ramones entered the studio to record their debut album at Plaza Sound in Radio City Music Hall. 

The Ramones: Now I Want to Sniff Some Glue

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As Johnny Ramone remembered in his autobiography Commando 

The early songs, well, what would we write about --girls? We didn't really have any. We weren't artists or anything , so we wrote about simple things that we could relate to, We thought Communists and Nazis were funny. We thought sniffing glue was funny too, but we didn't even know that people were still doing it We'd write these sings and laugh, but we never thought we were wacky. We thought we were a normal rock band; but it soon became apparent we were a little off-kilter.

  Also on this date, Genesis released A Trick of the Tail, their first album without Peter Gabriel . After listening to the audition tapes of nearly 400 frontmen, the band discovered their new singer had been behind the drum kit the whole time.  His name was Phil Collins and to many he sounded just like the other guy.

"There was no striving to sound like Peter," Collins told Rolling Stone."When it comes down to it, you can't really do that. I used to sing behind the kit most of the time because Pete would be running around and he'd be off mike." 

Contrary to music journalist Chris Welch's proclamation that Genesis was dead, the band scored a UK#3 and US #31 album, ,highlighted by the bouncy single "Entangled".

   And in the UK Abba had finally moved Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" off the top of the charts with "Mamma Mia". 

 On February 2, the Australian music show Countdown broadcast a show from Abba's hometown, Stockholm, Sweden.

40 Year Itch : That Intuitive Leap

Talking Heads : The Girls Want To Be With The Girls ('75 demo)

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    On June 20, 1975 a trio called Talking Heads played their first New York City gig, opening for The Ramones at C.B.G.B's.  Nervous and wide-eyed, David Byrne stood frozen in place as he sang the opening number "The Girls Want To Be With The Girls". 

    For many the focus of attention, though, was Tina Weymouth,  the cute female bass player with the pixie haircut, who seemed to staring at the back of Byrne's head the entire night. Drummer Chris Frantz kept the beat, minimizing the fills and cymbal crashes most rock n roll drummers were doing. Although no set list exists for the show, it is known that the band also played "With Our Love", "I Want to Live", an instrumental Frantz had written called "Atom a Bomba", and of course "Psycho Killer". They played four straight nights as an opening act for The Ramones. 

My Top Ten by Joey Ramone

      Joey Ramone liked his rock loud, direct and lacking in frills, and he was not afraid to put one of his band's albums on his top ten list for Spin Magazine's Alternate Record Guide, published in 1995. That it's their live album might come as a surprise to some.

1. Stooges : Fun House
2. Stooges : The Stooges

3. Ramones : It's Alive



4. Motorhead: No Remorse
5. Alice Cooper: Love It To Death

6. Sex Pistols : Never Mind the Bollocks
7. MC5 : Kick Out the Jams



8. New York Dolls : New York Dolls

9. Heartbreakers: L.A.M.F.
10. Buzzcocks: Singles Going Steady

My Top Ten By Courtney Love

  Courtney Love made a grunge heavy list of her top ten favorite albums for Spin Magazine's Alternate Record Guide, published in 1995, a year after her husband's suicide. That's the same year Hole's second album, Live Through This, went platinum and Barbara Walters named Love one of the year's 10 Most Fascinating People. There are two Nirvana albums, but equally interesting is the Echo and the Bunnymen album which I can imagine her listening to on a walkman as she travelled around Ireland and England in 1982.

1. Echo and the Bunnymen : Heaven Up Here

2. Nirvana : Nevermind

3. Gun Club : Fire of Love

4. Pixies : Surfer Rosa

5. Mudhoney : Superfuzz Bigmuff EP

6. Leonard Cohen : Songs From a Room

7. P J Harvey : Dry

8. Husker Du : New Day Rising

9. Nirvana: In Utero

10. Nine Inch Nails : The Downward Spiral

Fun fact : Courtney played "The Bride" in a 1988 Ramones video for "I Wanna Be Sedated".