Monday, Apr. 21, 2003 | 10:24 PM

I�m reviving this feature. So here we go.

***Blue by Joni Mitchell.

One of the few records that I feel deeply, painfully, emotionally about that isn�t fixed at a specific time and place in my life. It transcends circumstance. It�s not a record I associate with any particular episode, like so many others�but with something quintessentially and unchangeably true about my own emotional makeup. That�s most likely true for a lot of women, and it�s probably why this album is timeless. And why it transcends genre worship.

Indie rockers. Hippies. Devotees of musical theatre. Dave Matthews fans and Au Pairs worshipers can clasp hands over this album and mean it.

I first heard this in high school, and have revisited it again and again ever since. Blue is one of the few records that I find terribly uncomfortable to listen to when other people are around. It is so deeply personal. Yet what makes it a real masterpiece is that it�s not just heart but mind�a poignant and soul bearing piece that is also admirable for its craftsmanship.

Unlike many other confessional albums, Blue isn�t the least bit masturbatory. Each and every lyric straddles the line between individual and universal. The vocals and production are wholly unpretentious. Each cut is conversational and bold and without an axe to grind. It�s one of the purest recordings I�ve ever heard.

And it�s so fucking insightful.

Blue is more like great literature than it is like pop music. Each lyric, each phrase is so specific. Every song, like a Sam Shepard scene:

He put a quarter in the Wurlitzer
And he pushed three buttons and the thing began to whirr
And a bar maid came by in fishnet stockings and a bow tie
And she said "Drink up now it's gettin' on time to close"
"Richard, you haven't really changed" I said
It's just that now you're romanticizing some pain that's in your head
You got tombs in your eyes but the songs you punched are dreams
Listen, they sing of love so sweet

There have been many albums since Blue that are cast in the same mold, and many of them are wonderful in their own right. But nothing will equal the blood, guts, and bone structure magnificence of Blue. It is so original. So unique. So paradoxically listenable and complicated. Blue is its own genre.

I suggest you go home, curl up with an afghan and take the phone off the hook. And be by yourself, god damn it, when this record is playing. It deserves your undivided attention.

***Watery, Domestic EP by Pavement.

Four songs. Four perfect ingenious, devastating little songs. Throw aways. Like the perfect lines you quip while you�re drunk at the boring yuppy soiree of someone you despise. You�ve been tongue tied around your snotty plastic host since you met him at the Built To Spill record release party several months ago. But tonight liquor loosens your tongue and suddenly, all those non sequitors that�ve been waiting to strangle the smarmy bastard�s neatly pressed lapel, are flung with devastating accuracy. Your super ego is snoring safely under a blanket of cheap booze and you have no compunction about tossing good manners aside. You�ve been saving this up for years. And you let the sonofabitch have it.

Pavement are at their snarky merciless best on this record. Sure, on Crooked Rain they show their human side. On Wowee Zowie they�re in literati mode. On Slanted and Enchaned they�re quintessentially amateurish and clever. But on Watery Domestic they have a point to make. You invited them to your party. You weren�t looking when they spiked the punch. And you now you best reap the consequences. You are their bitch, kiddees. Smile and bend over.

*** Bubble and Scrape by Sebadoh

We all have an album or two that we�re possessive over. An album that is woven into our skin. An album that is as much a part of us as our own tongue. And we are deeply illogically vigilant about it.

Bubble and Scrape is that album to me.

First purchased my sophomore year of high school. Listened to on repeat for hours and hours a day until the damned tape broke and I had to buy it again.

Like Lou Barlow had read my diary. This record was soul communion for me. I saw Sebadoh perform in a small Buffalo club on my 18th birthday. I sat on the stage as they dilly dallied through audience requests. They had no set list. I tugged at Lou�s pant leg and sweetly begged him to play Happily Divided (among other chestnuts).

When the concert was over, he kissed me on the cheek.

So imagine several years later when I receive an unfortunate email from someone I�m mad at, quoting a song from this record. Someone who just happened to be acquainted with this record very recently through her boyfriend (who of course became acquainted with it through me). I became enraged. Nothing else she could have said in that email was as insulting as her quoting this very album.

My indie snobbery is only reserved for such emotional moments. And those moments have nothing really to do with indie snobbery, but with personal association. It was such a stupid thing to get pissed off at, but considering the circumstances, I was incensed.

Get your own fucking musical taste, thought I. And stop living peripherally through mine!

She could have called me an ugly whore and it wouldn�t have pissed me off nearly as much as her quoting Sebadoh. Bubble & Scrape was a secret code I whispered to dear close friends. It was something I played for those I fell in love/like with. Who was she, devotee of stupid hippie jam bands to quote my fucking beloved darlings? It felt like rape.

Yeah, it�s retarded. Yeah, I�m neurotic. But that�s how it is.

And Bubble in Scrape is one of those albums you have a right to feel that way about. It�s so fucking spontaneous and raw. If you love it, keep it under your pillow. Don�t share it. Let it be your secret. Listen to it in the dark. Otherwise it�ll be exploited and used against you. Because the lyrics and pop hooks are so universal that even a hippie jam band devotee will glom onto it. Keep it safe. Lock it up. Be fifteen years old. Don�t tell anybody I told you about it. It�s probably my favorite album of all time.

And thus I figure I have a right to be a little bitch about its uses and abuses. As crazy as that sounds. Hey, if you were me, if you�d been through exactly what I�ve been through (and golly I�m not saying what I�ve been through is the worst, only that it�s what I�ve been through) you�d be just as protective.

Right?

RIGHT?

Well if not, I don�t know what to tell you.