The Roches

I came across this blog post about The Roches, in which the writer listed his 12 favorite songs by the sisters. He says he's particularly interested in their ability to "court unpleasantness" and depict "infidelity and tensions in the nuclear family," which makes sense... but then I don't understand his ranking of their version of the "Hallelujah Chorus" at number 2.

Reading his list made me realize I truncated my Roches' album accumulation prematurely, however. I have their "regular" albums through 1982, and then after that I have just their 1990 Christmas album and their 1994 kids' album, "Will You Be My Friend?" 

I missed albums in 1985, ’86, ’89, ’92, and ’95... and a final album in 2007. What happened? I must have run out of money in the mid-1980s and then forgotten to keep up because I was busy.

Blogger Alfred Soto's list of 12 songs includes six I know well, and one from an album I have but don't know (and having just listened to it, I don't understand why it's included).

I can't comment on the songs he includes that I don't know, but here are my top 10 from the albums I know — the ones I think of most frequently:

1. The Hammond Song
2. Mr. Sellack
3. Runs in the Family
4. It's Bad for Me
5. This Feminine Position
6. The Train
7. Married Men
8. My Sick Mind
9. The Laundry (from "Won't You Be My Friend?")
10. Good King Wenceslas (yes, from the Christmas album "We Three Kings")

 My ordering is not very precise.

Now I have to go listen to the songs Soto listed that I don't have in my collection and see if they're as great as he seems to think.