Sound Opinions

Some of you have commented in the past about my pop music illiteracy, and my only defense is that I am an NPR junkie. Discounting streaming internet radio like Pandora, 90% of the radio I listen to is NPR. My dad listened almost exclusively to NPR in the car as I was growing up (the alternate station was Lite 106.9, which is how I learned all my oldies). Even today, I associate clipped British accents with the BBC World News Report and I walk around humming the theme song for Morning Edition. All Things Considered, This American Life, Car Talk...no matter the topic, the programming is informative, witty and appropriately pretentious. I've seen Corey Flintoff live in "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me." I own the NPR "Driveway Moments" CDs (a driveway moment is when you reach your location but sit in the driveway because you're waiting to hear the end of a story). Every year, as they beseech me to donate to their annual fundraising drive, I get a little bit closer to writing in NPR as the sole beneficiary of my will.

One of my more recent discoveries is the Sound Opinions program, which conveniently airs on Saturday mornings as I run errands. Each week features a musical guest, along with reviews of upcoming CDs. Past artists have included everyone from political activist turned musician Saul Williams to Portland's beard-sporting Blitzen Trapper. Groups tend to be fairly underground names, though occasionally there are almost-mainstream-but-still-have-indie-cred bands like Wilco and the Decemberists. With an intuitive "Buy It, Burn It, Trash It" rating system, Jim and Greg offer critiques and opinions on whether an album is worth buying, destined for the trash heap, or perhaps worth acquiring through, um, alternate means.

Yesterday's show featured guest Jill Sobule, with a review on Booker T. Jones' latest album. Sobule is a singer/songwriter with a talent for narrative lyrics with a touch of humor, one part "Flight of the Conchords" with one part Tori Amos. She has also made appearances at TED with comedian Julia Sweeney.

On past exes: Wendell Lee
On generational gaps: Nothing to Prove

I didn't hear the entirety of the Booker T. Jones review, but I was quite entertained by this cover of Outcast's "Hey Ya," which replaces Andre 3000 with More Organ.