CNN celebrates 25 years of Def Jam:

(CNN) — A recipe that includes a nondescript New York University dorm room, a heavyset Jewish kid from Long Island and a street-wise black guy from Queens seems like an unlikely one to cook up musical history.

But when Def Jam Records came on the scene a quarter of a century ago, it did just that and more.

Common talk deserves a walk, the situation's changed/
Everything said from now on has to be rearranged.

Run D.M.C. "Jam Master Jay" is hiphop in a state of revolution, a rupture in the continuum of black music. We often remember the late Run D.M.C. and forget the early, innovative trio. Those scratches, big beats, and the raw energy of the raps—this is 1983 in full effect.

I have just discovered a connection between this...

Chris Estey has an essential piece on the Sunny Day Real Estate reunion in this week's music section, but there was a lot of interview material he couldn't fit into the piece. Today, tomorrow, and Friday, Line Out will be publishing some outtakes to help get you feeling appropriately emo for Friday night's show. Today: Religion, the media, and the roles both played in the band's break-up.

Jeremy Enigk:

Well, unfortunately I set it up that way in the letter I wrote, so I can’t blame people for pinning religion to the break up. It did play a huge part in my decision making, but wasn’t the direct reason.

[My faith is] constantly changing. That’s just life. Learning the lessons that make you a better being.

Nate Mendel:

I didn’t know what [it] meant, at the time. I mean, if you poll people in rock bands right now, have of them probably believe in Jesus Christ. There’s a big difference between a casual, half-held belief, that there’s an omnipotent creator, and being a full-on Bible thumper.

That’s one thing that we’ve tried to avoid, in this reunion, is going back over that particularly piece of history, because I think it’s really painful for Jeremy. It’s said that we broke up because he converted to Christianity and that really is not the whole story. Looking back on it and talking to everybody and seeing where everyone’s heads were at, I think we know that may have been a catalyst, it is a part of the story. But I think it had a lot to do with more traditional reasons bands break up.

We were very idealistic. We were like, “Why are we doing interviews? Who cares what we have to day, let’s not do any interviews and not take any photos, let the music speak for itself.” That’s a promotional outlet you don’t want to go down, and that just made sense to us at the time. Things like that. We wanted everything about the music to be something that we controlled, and that was something to do with art and not commerce.

That being said, we loved being in a band, and becoming adults at the time and changing how we looked at what it meant to be in a band. And basically striving for success, but not acknowledging it to ourselves in a way. Does that make sense? We very much liked the idea of having a big audience, and playing larger shows. At the same time we were sabotaging it by being self-managed, and doing it poorly, in our anti-relations with the media. So there was a lot of naivete there, and growing pains.

The scene was changing, we were changing, it was just an intersection in time, you know?

Finally, a word from Everett True regarding the reportedly crushing critical shrug he gave the band preceding its media black-out:

Um. I don't really recall. It was an unfortunate situation. JP [Sub Pop head Jonathan Poneman] insisted I interview them. I didn't like their music, and am fairly sure it showed. It put them off from ever speaking to another critic again ... so maybe it worked in their favour?! Who knows?

Beatportal.com recently posted a primer on techno's 20 key tracks. Many important works are included, but some major omissions come to mind: Underground Resistance (though the group's Rob Hood and Jeff Mills are rightly represented), Pan_sonic/Ø, Hardfloor, Aphex Twin, Farben, Villalobos, Underworld's "Rez," Jaydee's "Plastic Dreams." I would also go with something off Sheet One or Musik by Plastikman over pieces by plain ol' Richie Hawtin or his F.U.S.E. alias.

Eh, we could nitpick this list till all the little fluffy clouds disperse, but overall the writer Terry Church chooses a lot of crucial cuts that, yes, you should know. That being said, which tracks would you include in this list?

ht: Ario

Ask yourself!

What's you stand on, say, Salt 'N' Pepa? En Vogue?

What about Queen Latifah, TLC, or Destiny's Child?

And then ask yourself: how did you never hear about SWV?

New York City's Tamara "Taj" Johnson-George, Leanne "Lelee" Lyons, and Cheryl "Coko" Clemons debuted as SWV in 1992 with the album It's About Time. Although their name has always stood for Sisters With Voices, they were originally going to go by TLC after each of the bandmembers, but lost the title to the other girl-group of the same name because they were just two weeks too late.

Throughout the '90s, SWV would work with The Neptunes, Puff Daddy, Lil' Kim, Redman, Foxy Brown, and Missy Elliott, but they never topped the guest-free triple-platinum It's About Time, particularly its singles.

"Downtown" and "I'm So Into You", the latter recently covered by Leona Lewis, skip like afternoon-on-the-stoop stones on the water of girl-group R&B, while the crisp and casual ballad emotions of "Weak" work like a sober follow-up to Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love Of All," which is a compliment you jerks.

And then there's "Right Here."

Most people apparently know the remixed version, which incorporated Michael Jackson's "Human Nature". But dear lord! The original!

Absolute '90s girl-group gem worthy of holograms.

How did we miss this?

So ashamed.

In Ernest Weekley's An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, which was originlly published in 1921 (and republished in 1967 by Dover), the entry for jazz:

"A number of niggers surrounded by noise..." (1918)

The rest of the entries in the two volumes are normal and even bland. Only the word "jazz" ignited some fire in the old Weekley. It must be a jazz thing.

The track that has been most on my mind this year is Basic Channel's "Octagon":

At work? Do you know what to listen to next? Go here and listen to IQU's 1998 record Chotto Matte a Moment!.

We used to listen to this record in college, late at night while putting the daily school paper together. Track number two, "Yopparai (a Drunkard Who Fell From Heaven)," would crack us up every time. Sleep-deprived, slightly tipsy, slaphappy us.

Tim Westwood is still in the house!

During his career, Westwood has DJ'ed for many radio stations, including the newly formed radio stations Kiss FM (which he co-owned) and LWR in the 1980s, followed by mainstream station Capital FM (from 1987). In December 1994, following a shake up of Radio 1 by the then chief executive Matthew Bannister, he was given the new and somewhat innovative national Radio 1 Rap Show. He was the Radio 1 Rap Show's first presenter and has been its only permanent presenter; he is now one of Radio 1's longest-serving broadcasters

As for the guest on his most recent show? No comment.

Comedy.com presents the 10 unluckiest musicians in rock history. Not many surprises here.

I've been wracking my brain trying to think of some other possibilities, but few ideas are coming forth (granted, my mind's still reeling from seeing Inglourious Basterds last night). Maybe Mercury Rev vocalist David Baker? He received his walking papers after contributing to the group's two best albums (Yerself Is Steam and Boces) and then the group skyrocketed in popularity five years later with Deserter's Songs. The Pretty Things? Recorded the first and best rock opera/concept LP (S.F. Sorrow), but the Who stole their thunder with Tommy, and now only obsessive rock aficionados really care about the Pretty Things, even though they later released another classic album, Parachute, on Motown Rare Earth, of all places. Or maybe the poor sod who had to wash Parliament-Funkadelic's costumes in the '70s?

What say you? (Citing yourself is highly discouraged.)

I'm a Top Chef Stan. I'm still watching even though Hosea—friggin' Hosea—won last year. That's how big a fan I am. And after initially dismissing Top Chef Masters, which ended last night (right after the season premiere of TC Las Vegas), I grew to enjoy its fairly drama-free cook-off structure. Who doesn't like watching skilled professionals make things with their hands? But the real draw of the closer—won, unsurprisingly, by Rick Bayless—was the structure, which was ingeniously simple: a four-course dinner as food autobiography. Course one: first food memory. Course two: the dish/experience that inspired them to become chefs. Course three: the signature dish from their first restaurant. Final course: the dish they see as their future.

That's a good structure for anything, really. Including music. So here's my version of it, one song or recording at a time. Yours, of course, should go in the comments box (YouTube links optional, obviously).

1: First musical memory. This would probably have to be my mom singing along to the Supremes on the radio. For argument's sake, I'll narrow it down to one of their earliest, and best, "You Can't Hurry Love."

2. The song that inspired me to write about music. I'll tweak this a little: the first time I really read seriously about music was a list of the best albums of all time that was reprinted in the second Book of Lists. I was struck that there were so many Beatles albums listed, and had a friend tape me Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

3. The signature song from my first album. Again, I'll interpret this liberally. The first album I ever wrote about was Prince's Graffiti Bridge in my high school paper. (I gave it an A+. It's more like a B.) No video for "Thieves in the Temple" on YouTube, unfortunately—Prince is notoriously litigious—but this will do in a pinch.

And finally, 4. The song I see as my future. Or really, which present-day song that I hear the most future in. I'll pick something from 2008 that presages and/or exemplifies a lot of things I'm really enjoying right now—particularly as its anything-goes nature is playing out over any number of FACT Magazine mixes, to begin with. This is Zomby's "Spliff Dub (Rustie Remix)," which sounds as ideal as any pop futurism I know of.

Again: What are yours? Let's have 'em in the comments.