All of this year-end analyzing is causing me to flash back to best-of-the-year polls that I’ve participated in the past, with special reverence given to the first ones I ever voted in: The year-end EP/LP/7-inch polls that were the Grand Sweeping Statement of the rock DJs at my radio alma mater WNUR.

Truth be told, I keep fixating on the polls of 1995 and ‘96, even though, as I just told Jess, my musical taste was pretty much predicted by the results of 1994’s poll (hello, Pram and that Tse Tse Fly EP that I went on an 11-year hunt for). Since WNUR was on the northern outskirts of Chicago and the rock staff was pretty nerdy-yet-prickly about matters of “taste,” records from the Chicagoland area tended to have a strong showing. The first 7-inch by Kleenex Girl Wonder, “Exotic Nitwits Keep Exotic Pets,” topped the 1995 list, and while my memory can be faulty at times I’m pretty sure that the year-end list of 7-inches for 1996 had Bobby Conn’s “Who’s The Paul”/”The Sportsman” at No. 1, even though the single’s official release date was the year before. Anyway, there’s a (sorta NSFW) video for the B-side (or really second A-side, that song is just so good) of that single that isn’t available on YouTube yet, but this cleaned-up-for-the-kids version of his follow-up single’s A-side, “Never Get Ahead,” is pretty hilarious for many reasons, including exertion, the confused children serving as his backing dancers, and the way he’s almost successful at replacing the lyric “You’re never gonna get ahead / givin’ head to the man” throughout.

Man, I am just going to listen to Bobby Conn for the rest of the day, I think. Also, how about those Mountain Goats showings? We were all over that shizz back in the day.

Bobby Conn- Never get Ahead [YouTube]
Bobby Conn [MySpace]