50 Bands, 50 States - Part 2

This is the second part of my look at the Phoenix's 50 Bands, 50 States column. Part 1 is here.

Florida
Phoenix: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Tom Petty
El: Pitbull
Yes, in a state in which I could have chosen from Skynyrd, Petty, Miami Sound Machine and even Pat Freaking Boone, I chose a one-hit reggaeton flash in the pan. In my defense, his hit single Culo is one of the best odes to women's derrieres since Sir Mix-a-Lot (who was knighted for his efforts.)

Texas
Phoenix: 13th Floor Elevators, Roy Orbison
El: Supersuckers
Frankly, I'm not so sure the 13th Floor Elevators are better than the Supersuckers or the Geto Boys. Then again, I am not currently tripping like the Phoenix staff. Among the many, many other choices are Lyle Lovett, Buddy Holly and Willie Nelson.

Iowa
Phoenix: The Everly Brothers, William Elliott Whitmore
El: Glenn Miller
Aren't you glad that this 96% white state gets to vote first in the primaries? Look at those names. And the only other choice was Andy Williams. I don't even know who the hell the Phoenix picked for best solo artist even after they explained it.

Wisconsin
Phoenix: Violent Femmes, Brother Ali
El: Violent Femmes
That was extremely easy. Next.

California
Phoenix: The Beach Boys, Dr. Dre
El: Dead Kennedys
While the Byrds, CCR and the Beach Boys are obvious choices, I felt the reaction against the hippies was more interesting, which meant punk. While there were dozens of So. Cal. bands to choose from like Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies and the Descendents, somehow an extremely sarcastic San Francisco band seemed like the right choice. In retrospect, I should have picked an NWA track. Damn, I forgot about Dre.

Minnesota
Phoenix: The Replacements, Prince/Bob Dylan
El: Prince
The Prince/Bob Dylan thing is another Phoenix call-in choice deal. Frankly, it should be a tie. I passed on the Replacements for my choice to get something more party-like after Jello Biafra got done yelling about rich kids or genocide or whatever.

Oregon
Phoenix: The Wipers, Tim Hardin
El: The Kingsmen
Two words. Actually, one word repeated twice and separated by a comma. Okay, one proper noun repeated twice and separated by a comma. Oh screw it.

Kansas
Phoenix: The Embarassment, Charlie Parker
El: Melissa Etheridge
I had never heard of The Embarassment. Forced with picking a female Springsteen impersonator or acknowledging the existence of jazz, the Phoenix editors go for the latter.

West Virginia
Phoenix: Karma to Burn, Hasil Adkins
El: Tom T. Hall
I've never heard of the Phoenix choices. We're reaching the parts of the country where little of consequence ever happens, so the choices get tough. I happened to already have a Tom T. Hall track in one of my freely acquired Time-Life compilations.

Nevada
Phoenix: 7 Seconds, Jenny Lewis
El: The Killers
I think the playlist was built before the Killers widely panned second disc came out. I still stand by my choice, since it required little research.

Nebraska
Phoenix:Bright Eyes, Elliott Smith
El: Bright Eyes
I would have bet anything that the Phoenix entry would read Bright Eyes, Conor Oberst.

Colorado
Phoenix: The Apples in Stereo, Jello Biafra
El: The Nails
Three guesses as to where in Colorado Jello Biafra grew up. (Hint: The name is a synonym for a large rock.) As to my choice, 88 Lines About 44 Women has to be better than anything by John Denver or Judy Collins.

North Dakota
Phoenix: The Pink Slips, Peggy Lee
El: Peggy Lee
The solo artist choice for North Dakistan is obvious: Peggy Lee over Lawrence Welk. By the way, the Phoenix's best new band for the state is called Vaz, who are presumably called Vazoo in England.

South Dakota
Phoenix: Indigenous, Bob Stewart
El: Shawn Colvin
I think the Phoenix is just making shit up at this point. Indigenous is supposedly a Nakota tribe group of siblings whose leader sounds like Stevie Ray Vaughn, while Bob Stewart plays jazz tuba. Right, those sound like they're real.

Montana
Phoenix: Silkworm, Colin Meloy
El: David Lynch
So I didn't know that the dude out of the Decembrists was from Helena. So all I could find was that David Lynch hails from Missoula. Since he did write "In Heaven" for the movie Eraserhead, I used the Pixies cover to represent the state of Montana. It was my biggest failure in building the playlist and I blame no one but Montana's feeble artistic output.

Washington
Phoenix: Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix
El: Mudhoney
The Phoenix choices are correct, of course. Still, few things represents Seattle's contribution to grunge culture more than Touch Me I'm Sick.

Idaho
Phoenix: Built to Spill, Josh Ritter
El: Built to Spill
How can a state have twice as many US Senators as bands that you can find on iTunes? Can't we get a constitutional amendment to deal with this?

Wyoming
Phoenix: The Dirty Dogs, Jeb Loy Nichols
El: Chris LeDoux
The best solo artist in Wyoming is named Jeb. Figures. No, I don't know a damned thing about the three artist listed above. Still, three names among 1,200 people and 750,000 cows is pretty good.

Utah
Phoenix: The Osmonds, Donny Osmond
El: The Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Christ, I still have five more to go. Frankly, only Marie gives a crap about these choices. Oddly, no jazz artists.

Oklahoma
Phoenix: Flaming Lips, Woody Guthrie
El: Woody Guthrie
This is the last great artist you will see on this list.

New Mexico
Phoenix: The Shins, Norman Petty
El: Lanaidista
Can we just merge this state with another one?

Arizona
Phoenix: Sun City Girls, Stevie Nicks
El: Alice Cooper
One of the few states in this part of the list with some choices as Linda Rondstadt and the Meat Puppets are also options. They aren't great choices, but still.

Alaska
Phoenix: The Long Winters, Agaffon Krukoff
El: Jewel
Sadly, if we were selecting best poet from each state, Jewel would be the pick as well.

Hawaii
Phoenix: Dambuilders, Don Ho
El: Don Ho
Don Ho's cover of Shock the Monkey is tits.

I learned two things from this exercise:

• There are approximately zero good musicians in about half of the states, but there's about ten states that have dozens of worthwhile artists.
• If you want to accurately show the breadth of American music, don't choose music from each state. You're better off playing the Band's greatest hits. Even if 80% of the members are Canadian.