I loved The Wire but I just couldn't get into The Sopranos. I think there were just too many unlikeable characters.

Oingo Boingo, "Insects"

Cowboy Junkies, "A Common Disaster"

Amos Lee, "Windows Are Rolled Down"

VAST, "You Should Have Known I'd Leave"

Ryan Adams, "Come Pick Me Up"

Emmylou Harris, "I Don't Want to Talk About It Now"

Genesis, "A Trick of the Tail"

Yeah, I remember hearing about that. They really got shafted.

When I was first getting into music back in college, I loved me some Graceland. One of my friends in the dorm had Paul Simon's Concert in the Park—not the original Simon and Garfunkel one, but the one for the Rhythm of the Saints tour. It is still, I think, one of the best concert albums of all time.

I have great arcade memories of Gravitar, Black Tiger, and Rastan, and I'm glad to see that all three are in this list.

I love Atlantic City too, but the live version with a band (not the E-Street band at the time) on "MTV Plugged" is my favorite. Most of the other Nebraska songs are better in the original version (or at least acoustic live) but that electric version really works for me.

Elton John has some really rocking songs that are shamefully never played on the radio. The 9-minute version of "Madman Across the Water" has some amazing guitar solos. And to add to the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album discussion, "Dirty Little Girl" absolutely needs an honorable mention.

Thanks!

I love The Kindly Ones, both for the unique art and the story; it's my second favorite Sandman book after Brief Lives. But another reason I like it so much is that the introduction was by Frank McConnell, an English professor who classes I had the privilege of taking at UCSB when I was an undergrad in the late 90's.

I always start people on Small Gods and I've never had that backfire. It does help that I am usually recommending it to people who are not strongly religious. While I agree that Small Gods is respectful of spirituality while making fun of organized religion, not everyone will see it that way. The scene at the end…

I can see that, as I have the SFBC Omnibus called The Hyperion Cantos and it only includes the first two books—I bought the Endymion books separately, but they were already for a while by then. To do a quick check for the original comment, I had looked them up quickly on Wikipedia and all 4 were included together. As…

I, personally, was not disappointed in Endymion. Sure, I thought the Hyperion duology was better, but the Endymion duology had some fascinating scenes and themes that I'm glad I had a chance to read. When I do a re-read, I always read through the full Hyperion Cantos.