Alton Brown, Disk Jockey?
Wednesday, June 18, 2008 | posted by Mike
We love Alton Brown.We love his cooking, we love his nerdy take on food science and we love his general attitude.
But the thing we really love about Alton Brown is the fact that he's got something interesting to say pretty much every time he opens his mouth. So it's no surprise to see him put something out there that has nothing to do with food.
And so, we were delighted when we took a spin by his site and saw that Alton has contributed an iTunes Playlist...basically a celebrity-created list of songs that you can, if you wish, purchase from iTunes. You can check out his list and comments on each track on his home page or click here to go directly to the list in iTunes. (You need iTunes installed for that second link, obviously.)
And you should check out his list -- it's very good. Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't offer some thoughts on his choices.
(Hey, if you think I'm an opinionated know-it-all about food TV, you should know that it actually runs a distant fourth to sports, politics and rock music from about 1964-1985.)
- Prog rock with ELP's "Karn Evil 9" and jazz-rock with the Steely Dan cut: Good job establishing your genre-spanning credibility. He's only one glam-rock song short of the 70's Music Geek Troika.
- The Black Keys: A nice shout-out to the cool kids. I'm getting into current music a bit more now that I'm down in Philly for work. Those of you in the Delaware Valley should be listening to bands like The Black Keys on 88.5 WXPN. Everyone not in the Delaware Valley should be listening to bands like The Black Keys on 88.5 WXPN's online feed.
- Don Henley, Paul Simon and Billy Joel: A true music geek knows to throw out there some main-stream "pop" artists to prove that they're not an elitist. Usually, I go with Electric Light Orchestra and Todd Rundgren, but that's just me.
- Joe Jackson's "Another World" off of Night and Day: Nicely played, Alton. Night and Day is currently in heavy rotation on my iPod. That said, "Another World" is a perfectly nice song that doesn't hold a candle to "Steppin' Out," a song that I think is an underrated gem and that I've loved forever. Hey...I had the 45 when I was six years old and I had it played at my wedding. Maybe Alton didn't want to go for the obvious choice. If that was the case, I would have gone back to Jackson's Look Sharp! or I'm the Man.
Labels: Alton Brown
