Got any good box sets or other good music collections?
P.S. Remember, next week's FMD is reserved for best of 2014 lists.
I'll allow complaints today about how some publication or other put Beyoncé's late 2013 s/t album on their list.

Anyone want to talk about Christmas music? I've barely listened to any this year, but maybe you're different.
Otherwise, randoms and whatevs are good. Save any year-best-ing for January 2, 2015.

So while sitting at home barely working remotely and just whiling away my time til I shake la grippe, I've been scanning some music publications' "Best of 2014" lists. (Scheduling note: have yours prepared for the WGOM on Friday January 2, 2015.) In the middle of that, I've been sidetracked by Stereogum's "20th anniversary" series (...of albums that came out when I was in high school). Essays about Green Day and Beck and Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails and the Offspring. It's weird, man. What am I doing? Why am I letting this give me insomnia after I've been aching to go to bed all day? Is there an essay for Alice In Chains' Dirt? Yes! (The Singles Soundtrack, too!) Ministry's Psalm 69? No. And Filth Pig sure doesn't deserve one. But Oh man, there are essays for Tool and Judgement Night and Sepultura and Björk and...

Wait! I should print these...

Since last Saturday's show, I've pretty much been listening to Lydia Loveless and The Girls! (which is Lydia's littler big* sister's band, who opened). It almost sounds like Lydia singing a different style of music, but the vox are quite similar, and I could even imagine these as ghost-written by Lydia. Talented family. I wonder if their dad ever was the Girls!' drummer.

*if I heard right.

While the rest of you are with friends and family celebrating, some of us irregular internet columnists are working hard to open our Friday columns early on Thursday evening with great deals on random tens. If you submit your random ten between when this column opens and 10pm CST, you get a second bonus random ten* -- at no cost -- just come back on Friday after 7am to redeem it.

Now that's something to be thankful for!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2e72HPwrhE

Put Content Here.

As I suspected last week, I discovered there's a new Hello Saferide album and now I'm down a Hello Saferide rabbit hole.
I feel like writing an album review that references all of her other albums that no one I know has listened to.
I've got a thing for ESL folk-pop singer-songwriter stuff with subtle nordic accents and mispronunciations leaking through and in which the emotions expressed don't always match the words*.
So, basically Hello Saferide and Marit Bergman (who now seems to be focusing on Swedish).

*There's a word for this, right? Is it "irony"? I don't know if I'm clearly expressing the idea. Like the songwriter is composing lyrical lies to convince either herself or the addressee of the song.
It's something Will Oldham does a lot, singing songs with defiant lyrics about heartbreak (e.g. "Master and Everyone"). Typically there's a shell of emotional distance in there.

I leave this afternoon for my great-uncle-in-law's place a few miles outside a Todd County hamlet. I'm not going in to the office, but calling in for a meeting, busy time of year and all.

I wonder what songs will by my earworms out on the stand. My first year hunting was the year of the Halloween Blizzard, and I can still remember staring across a snow-covered field with "Lola" in my head. Just parts of it, really, as I wasn't particularly familiar with the tune, and I had heard it on my father's oldies radio station on the pickup ride out to the country. So really, I was just spelling "Cherry Cola" and "Lola" for hours.

In a more recent year, I've had the English-Language works of Säkert! (that is, the Hello Saferide discography) on mental loop. (Aside: new Hello Saferide!?!?! I thought she had retired that.) Oh crap, I just listened to "Anna" again. I'm wrecked right now and I may be singing that to myself all weekend.

Update: Hello Saferide is still great. Feel free to follow those youtube links and join me down this rabbit hole.