These posts are about the songs that just barely failed to cross the key line of chart success, entering the Billboard Top 40. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 41. The Mann Act was cemented in U.S. … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “Promised Land”
There was a time when I was dead certain that the further someone was past their teenaged years, the less business they had flinging pop songs into the world. The vernacular of modern pop is still drawing its emotional language … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. Although my inability and … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Jonathan Coulton, “Nobody’s Above the Law”
736. Yello, Gotta Say Yes to Another Excess (1983) Boris Blank, the impresario of electronics who drove the musical agenda for the band Yello, had picked up a new toy ahead of the record of his group’s third full-length, Gotta … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #736 to #733
As this digital space has spent recent days illuminating, my weekend just closed was turned over almost entirely to the World’s Largest Trivia Contest, an annual fundraiser staged by the student-run radio station at University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point. … Continue reading 9
740. Ian Hunter, Welcome to the Club (1980) Former Mott the Hoople lead singer Ian Hunter had been a chipping away at a solo career for the latter half of the nineteen-seventies when he found himself with something of a … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #740 to #737
The general intent of this “From the Archive” weekly feature is to drag some old piece of my personal writing and drop it into this shiny digital space. For today, I’m instead going to use the retrospective aspect of my … Continue reading From the Archive — 90FM Trivia 1989
This weekly feature is intended to share a song that made its debut into the cultural conversation within the previous week, but as we stand on the cusp of the fiftieth staging of the event now known as the The World’s Largest Trivia ContestTM, there’s really one track I’d like to highlight. My Trivia team has an official song, and I have a very talented friend who’s a splendid songwriter with a true gift for evocative cover songs. A few years ago, I asked her to record a track just for me and my crew. And that’s how a digital music … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Mollie Donihe, “Come On Eileen”
This coming weekend, I’ll participate in The World’s Largest Trivia ContestTM. As per tradition, this week is filled with idle reminiscing about memorable answers in past years. This time around, I’m going to focus on one of the recurring question … Continue reading Trivia Answer of the Day — Garnet Amplifiers
This coming weekend, I’ll participate in The World’s Largest Trivia ContestTM. As per tradition, this week is filled with idle reminiscing about memorable answers in past years. This time around, I’m going to focus on one of the recurring question … Continue reading Trivia Answer of the Day — Hoy Hoy
Coffee for Two 