A Few of my Favorite Things

One of the Two Best Double Albums Released in the Late ’80s with the Word “Nation” in the Title

by Nik Rainey

Game Theory Lolita Nation (Enigma, 1987) – Chief Theorist Scott Miller (now paterfamilias of The Loud Family) remains both one of pop music’s finest confectioners and one of its least appreciated. Everything that bears his name is well-worth owning six copies of, but this remains closest to my heart for its sprawling majesty, its liberal use of self-samples, its weird-o-rama audio collages, and perhaps the longest song title in human history. (No, I’m not gonna tell you what it is – get the friggin’ album.) Two more distinguishing features: the six-minute masterpiece “The Waist and the Knees”, still one of my fave songs evah, and his use of “Kenneth – What’s The Frequency?” for a title years before four sickness-prone Athenians ripped it off and inverted it. Wimp-rock in a Cuisinart – just perfect.