I'm surprised about the Jellyfish exclusion too. I always thought their sound would catch on. Every now and then I hear a song by someone that sound so Jellyfish-y that I have to pause and wonder if Andy Sturmer has snuck something out.

I don't recall Pavement missing that many games with injuries.

…as to Noel's Happy Mondays point: I too really dislike them when they were MTV's poster-boys for vapid good-times at that point in time, but I did end up really enjoying them after 24 Hour Party People. By then, though, I'd become much more interested in musical generally, and already appreciated The Stone Roses and…

They seem to release an awful lot of live shows on remastered CD - the Dick's Picks series got extremely lengthy. And while I understand that a lot of the joy of the Dead s in the live music (and went through a period of time trading tapes), I tend to feel that at some point the over-release of live material shifted…

Happy Mondays
I'm not huge Happy Mondays fan, but I'd think there definitely is some "there" there as far as influential sound and/or musical moment. Not a fan, not on your hard drive, or just somehow forgotten?

I'd check out either Trailer Park or the Best Bit EP. The latter has the cover of Dolphins with Terry Callier playing vibes and splitting singing duties. Trailer Park definitely has a rainy day music quality to it. I think what I like about Beth Orton most is the fragility of her voice. Somehow she manages to…

Beth Orton
No Beth Orton back in the B's or here. While she hasn't shown a ton of growth in her more recent albums, I really like her voice and her (not always displayed) ability to mix her acoustic-guitar/romantic folkie sensibility with a little trip-hop or trance beat and instrumentation. I guess I'm just…

I have a hard time working up much passion about Collective Soul. They seem so… unoffensive.

…if not the only use of an Andrew Dice Clay sample in popular music.

EMF, Fastball, and a look ahead…
Not pieces of the puzzle by any means, but I am a little surprised that Fastball's sort-of-catchy The Way wasn't on your hard drive given your pop tendencies. Not to surprised that the truly-one-hit wonder of EMF's Unbelievable was not… although it is kind of a fun song to stumble…

No Digable Planets?
Not too surprising, given that you skipped Dr. Dre, but given that you liked De La Soul I would have thought you'd at least have them on the list of bands you did not comment upon…