Good Friends Are For Keeps (AT&T)

Concept albums are great, often. Not always, of course, but in the right hands, I think they make for some of the best music of the last few decades. The Beatles, Yes, The Foo Fighters, Radiohead - just to name very well known examples, have all dabbled in the medium with great success. I'll admit that I'm also a somewhat prolific contributor, so I may be somewhat biased.

Concept compilations though, are a little scarier, especially when the concept is pretty transparent.

I'm not gonna hate too much though - this is a pretty awesome way for the phone company to commemorate 100 years of phone service! They essentially collected 10 pop songs from between 1876 and 1976, all on the subject of telephones (most of them also about love). It all works pretty well, partially due to both sides of the record opening up with a specially recorded track by Max Morath, covering turn-of-the-century tunes (the second is a medley).

Of course, one reason for the recording of original tracks for such a compilation is that most of these songs are too old to have decent enough surviving recordings to stand up to the multi-tracked pop masterpieces that round out the album. This was actually a great move - I doubt that any degree of mastering work could have levelled an old scratched up '78 or wax cylinder recording to stand up against Vikki Carr's "It Must Be Him".

What I'm looking to is the 200 year double disc edition. What will they add? Perhaps "Area Codes" by Ludacris? "Telephone" by Lady Gaga and Beyoncé? Personally, I'm voting for No Doubt's "Spiderwebs", Weird Al's "Phony Calls", Cake's "No Phone", and most importantly; Laurie Anderson's "O Superman". Of course, I'm getting ahead of myself - we've got another 64 years of music that hasn't been written yet to pick from!