I like the studio version of "Crucifixion" - it's interesting at least, and I like the constancy of the melody coupled with the continually shifting arrangement.
Anyway, the title track of Pleasures is fantastic and while I agree the album is inconsistent, it's certainly worth checking out for 60s folk/folk-rock fans.

Dexys' third album "Don't Stand Me Down", which does not have "Come on Eileen" on it, is fascinating and generally very good. It's a shame they're viewed as a one-hit wonder (especially, as pointed out below, since they had more than one big hit).

This was not a reminder to me since I never knew that. So thank you very very much for one of the more useful pieces of information I have learned on the internet in recent months.

I quite like Devo 2.0 - at least I'd genuinely argue the girl is a better singer than whoever did Devo's vocals (was it Mothersbaugh?). And agreed with wo, it was at least a thought-provoking project that fit with their overarching philosophy.

Is there really no way to change volume on Soundcloud streams? They're always too loud for my headphones, even when my computer volume is as low as possible.

I never liked Blur but this sounds quite interesting. At least if it sucks, I can go back to listening to Goldfrapp's "Seventh Tree", a rather underrated strange pastoral folk album that's one of my favorite albums of the last decade.

If you've never heard Dolly Parton's original version, you should - I was shocked when I first heard it a couple years ago how lovely and sweet it is when the bombast is taken out of it.

I was a math and English double major, so respect to that.

No, you're thinking of Roman Polanski.

I love her, although this one has never been one of my favorites of hers - I think "Treachery", "Nao Esperando", and "Mambo de la Luna" are the best of her Cuban-style stuff. But she has loads of great songs, albeit no one perfect album. "He's on the Beach" is about as good a song as has been done by anybody.

I'd argue that Katy B's "On A Mission" is important in the sense that it fuses dubstep and a lot of other recent trends in dance/electronica with mainstream pop music, which hasn't really been done before as far as I've heard. It's also really good. Unfortuantely it's gotten minimal press in the US.

As far as dubsteppish stuff goes, I'll take the Katy B album over both of those. I think only one person had it on their list but it was their #1, which says something.

I don't know - it works for a director like Tarantino who's basically *all* style, but I'm skeptical of how good an introduction you could make to the work of, say, Michael Powell or Francois Truffaut. (That said, I haven't watched the hour-long Kubrick one, which I imagine could be much more effective/educational…

Good choices all round, particularly Liege And Lief, possibly my all-time favorite album.

Second on Unthanks - Here's The Tender Coming is a terrific album.

The self-titled Fairport album is a little uneven, though. For that American-inspired era of the band, the BBC compilation Heyday is much better - a lot of well-chosen covers (including the version of "Suzanne" cited below).

The problem with ISB is that Hangman is far from their best album, yet it's their most famous. 5000 Spirits and Wee Tam are much more accessible and much better, whereas too much of Hangman is just weirdness for weirdness's sake.

Sad, but somehow not terribly shocking. He also basically disappeared for several years before their My Dark Places album - always seemed like a very troubled guy. Hope he's okay.