Bad Ronald/Badfinger/Badly Drawn Boy

I have one song by Bad Ronald: First Time. This is all I know of this band. A quick glance at Wikipedia tells me that this is all most people know of this band. First Time is actually a pretty hilarious song about (shocker here) a dude's first time. A solid combo of rap and pop, it's easy to listen to (unless lyrics about "lubricated hats" aren't your thing). Plus, it was on soundtrack to Orange County, seeeeriously underrated movie.
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Badfinger is a power pop Brit band from the 60s. They worked pretty closely with the Beatles, were signed to the Apple record label, and even had one of their songs in the (extremely obscure) Ringo Starr-driven movie, The Magic Christian (wow wow wow, don't even get me started on The Magic Christian). You definitely know their song "Come and Get It."

Badfinger just reminds me of being in college, probably because my roommates were obsessed with the song "Rock of Ages" (decidedly more rock than "Come and Get It"). Their song "No Matter What" is on the Now and Then soundtrack which makes it irrevocably cool in my mind.

[Sidenote: trying to find a video for "No Matter What" as featured in Now and Then, discovered that Badfinger wrote Without You (you know, "I can't liiiiiiiive if living is without youuuuu, I can't giiiiiiiiiiive, can't give anymore). Judge as you will.]
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I just love Badly Drawn Boy. Another Brit (albeit from the 90s/00s), BDB is one man who writes lyrics that I love and puts them to music that is poignant but not in a downer kind of way. Think: Wilco (without so many instruments), Elliott Smith (but more upbeat) and Belle and Sebastian (but a little more accessible).

His more recent music is mostly enjoyable (although I didn't care too much for 2004's One Plus One Is One), but for me his earliest stuff is where it's at. His first two albums, EP1 and EP2 had limited releases only on vinyl. I've had the pleasure of hearing EP2 but haven't ever heard EP1 (anyone out there).

Badly Drawn Boy really broke into the scene with The Hour of Bewilderbeast. It's raw sounding, practically underproduced at times and it's probably my favorite album of his. He also did the soundtrack for About a Boy - the songs off this album are lighter and airier than a lot of his other stuff.
Key BDB songs:
Something to Talk About
The Shining (don't mind the 1:18 minute french horn intro)
Holy Grail

Rebirth!

Thanks to the random soul who commented on this blog sometime in the past hour - my email reminded me that this thing ever existed and that it is actually kind of a worthwhile project to pick up again. NOW. Here's how we got started (mission statement found in the bowels of my iBook):

The decision to do this was prompted by my thinking about how good it feels to delete chunks of music from my library. I have a lot of music, but there's a bunch I don't listen to. Maybe someone told me I would like it and I never got around to giving it a go. Or maybe I even picked it myself. Or I heard one track from an album or artist, didn't dig it and just scrapped it altogether but it turns out that one song wasn't representative of their style, or my tastes have evolved or changed or I was just in a crappy mood that day. Regardless, now I am making a point to sit down and give my library a thorough examination (in alphabetical order, of course).


In summary: listen, critique, associate, keep/not. Here we go (again).