Meredith Brooks, Bobby Brown, & Butterfield Blues Band

You've probably noticed that I'm listening to our music collection in alphabetical order. That's 'cause I live with a neat-freak and also because I don't have opposable thumbs, so I have to rely on her to open the CDs. Today, we finished off the rest of the "B" shelf.

Meredith Brooks is yet another in the "Angry Women of the '90s" collection that wreaks a lot of havoc around this house, so I was surprised that the first track of her Blurring the Edges album was "I Need." Seems like a weak beginning for a woman who goes on to sing "Bitch," which was nominated for a Grammy Award as Best Rock Song in 1998 and is one of the seminal songs of Second Wave Feminism. By the time Meredith got to "What Would Happen (If We Kissed)," I'd stopped trying to figure her out. If you think understanding female humans is tough, try understanding female cats. Another time, I'll tell you what I have to go through with the other cat I live with. Anyway, I love, love, love Meredith's "what would happen if we kissed" lyric, because everyone knows what happens when you kiss a dog (they lick you with that slimy tongue), but a cat kiss is vastly different. Try it sometime. I'll bet Meredith has.
The video is cheesy, but the song is bitchin' at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ivt_N2Zcts&ob=av2n

I'll also bet that Bobby Brown has done his share of kissing, since his Don't Be Cruel album is chock-full of lovey-dovey songs. Actually, at first I thought I was listening to Michael Jackson, because there were so many synth beats and eeks and uhs, and "oh girrrls." If I had one piece of advice to give musicians like Bobby, it would be to lay off the synthesizer and the drum machine.  Too monotonous. However, my favorite cut on the album is "My Prerogative," which is a well-known cat anthem. We cats always assert our prerogative.
Watch a very young Bobby dance, sing, and assert his prerogative at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cDLZqe735k&ob=av2e

As catchy as Bobby Brown's "Every Little Step I Take" is, what a gigantic relief it was to dive all-four-feet-first into The Butterfield Blues Band's album, The Resurrection of PigBoy Crabshaw. The title refers to Elvin Bishop, who met Paul Butterfield in Chicago and played lead guitar with the band before forming his own group. This is bold Chicago-style blues that also pays homage to the blues' Delta roots. Everything about this album is perfect, especially the horn section. 
"Driftin' and Driftin" is 9 minutes and 9 seconds of delicious saxophone and harmonica call-and-response wailing. Also featured is the best rendition of "Born Under a Bad Sign" since Albert King's 1967 release of the song written by William Bell and Booker T. Jones. And that's a fact, not just my humble cat opinion!
Peace Out!
Here's BBB at Woodstock in 1969: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j9iNV_e1Yw