"Game...Blouses..."

"Why don't you purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka?"

While Claire and I were out on an ice cream run last night, I realized that we were going to be near the Best Buy, so we made a stop there on the way home so I could officially pick up a copy of the new White Stripes album. They had aisle endcaps set up highlighting the best music of the 00's. I know that a lot of them are set up just to sell CDs that may need some help moving off the shelves, but still...when discussing the best albums of the last 7 years, why would you put in City of Evil by Avenged Sevenfold? Now I loved that album as much as the next metalhead, but I don't think it would make my top 5 for 2005, let alone one of the best of the 00's.

It was after looking around a bit more that we noticed that there were also similar setups with the best of the 90's and 80's. Now for anyone who knows Claire, you won't be surprised that she got an excited look on her face and made a beeline straight for the 80's rack (and who could blame her). We quickly realized that a lot of the displacy was just greatest hits CD's from artists that were big in the 80's.

The good news is that most of them were only $9.99.

The better news is that one of them was this bad boy:



Now I do have a few qualms about the CD. It's pretty much a "Prince Greatest Hits Lite" CD. There's no Darling Nikki. There's no Partyman from the Batman soundtrack (more on this later). There's not one track from Dirty Mind, Controversy or Erotic City. And I can't even explain why they chose to put Money Doesn't Matter 2 Night on the album, and left off Batdance, Pop Life and Delirious, which were all top 10 hits.

Then again, this is 17 tracks of Prince for only $10, and for that I am grateful. Seeing how there are already 2 and 3-CD box sets out that are also called "greatest hits" I guess this one was designed for casual Prince fans to pick up on a whim, which is exactly what we did.

(Speaking of the Batman soundtrack, don't you miss the days when 1 artist would record the entire soundtrack for an album. Best example: Bon Jovi doing the whole Young Guns II soundtrack. I listened to that cassette about 500 times when I was little.)

Claire and I were listening to the CD on our way home, and I started thinking about how Prince is pretty underrated these days. I mean sure, Musicology was pretty good, he showed that he could ball on Chappelle's Show and his bring-the-house-down performance at the Super Bowl this year was fantastic, but before all of that, Prince didn't seem like he was getting much love from the masses, especially the younger crowd.

So with that in mind, here's a list I made of artists I think are underrated by today's masses. Now this is not a comprehensive list, and I'm not saying that these are the greatest bands in the world. i just think it's time that they get a little more respect is all.

Prince- What really bothers me is that Prince does not get as much credit as he deserves for his guitar playing abilities alone. This guy can shred with the best of them. If you don't believe me, just listen to the first 15 seconds or so of When Doves Cry and then come back to me.

(BTW, for those of you who don't know me well, I would like to point out that I LOVE how most bars now have digital jukeboxes. ANY digital jukebox will have When Doves Cry on it. One of my absolute favorite things to do when I'm at a bar is to play that song. Once it starts, everyone in the bar stops what they're doing and gets a really confused look on their face, but no one has the balls to complain about it because it's Prince so they just have to sit there for 3 minutes with a song playing that completely clashes with the whole bar atmosphere. But to make it up to them, usually I'll play some shitty bar song after that like Crazy Bitch. Next time you're at a bar, try it. Trust me.)

ZZ Top- When's the last time you met a huge ZZ Top fan? When's the last time you went and bought a ZZ Top CD? And yet, if I gave you a copy of their greatest hits and you listened to it in the car, I guarantee that 90% of you would recognize (and enjoy) at least 5 of their songs. Their catalog looks like a Murderer's Row of just-plain-cool songs, from Legs and La Grange all the way down to Sharp Dressed Man, Cheap Sunglasses and Gimme All Your Lovin'. Go on iTunes right now and buy a few tracks. I can wait.

Soundgarden/Stone Temple Pilots- I put these two together because for both of them, it seems like they'll always be overshadowed by the Nirvana/Pearl Jam giant. And since Chris Cornell had Audioslave and Scott Weiland has Velvet Revolver and rehab every 2 years, a lot of focus has been taken off of their older work. Now I'm not saying the Soundgarden and STP are forgotten by any means, but I think a lot of people forget just how great these two bands were. I bet even non-rock fans would be able to sing along with Interstate Love Song and Black Hole Sun. Both are another example of greatest hits collections that do not let up from beginning to end...except for STP's Days of the Week which sucked. but they more than make up for it with the killer acoustic version of Plush.

Alice In Chains- I know I could have put them in with the above category, but I think that Alice In Chains gets left out of the picture more than any other band of the 90's. They came out in the grunge era and wrote dirty, nasty riffs, and so they were called grunge. But most people just remember Layne Staley dying and wonder "What could have been?" without remembering what actually was. Bottom line is that these guys weren't grunge, they weren't metal, they weren't anything that I've ever heard played before or again. They were a band that could release Dirt, and awesomely heavy album that still managed to get airplay and then switch gears to Jar of Flies, only to return to bone crushing riffs on their self-titled finale.

Pantera- I'm not the biggest and most passionate Pantera fan on the planet, but we watched the Pantera Behind The Music last night (which was completely fucking sad), and it got me thinking. They were always overshadowed by better-known metal acts like Metallic, helmet, Slayer and Megadeth, but these guys were part of the reason real heavy metal came back from the goofy hair metal of the 80's. But a lot of people don't realize that Far Beyond Driven was the first metal album to top the Billboard charts. They were one of the best metal bands ever, and most people couldn't name 2 of their songs. I think they deserve just a little more "Re....SPECT!"

(Ok, that was a little lame.)

By the way, if you haven't seen the UNRATED trailer for Superbad, watch it below. This movie is going to be hysterical.