Author: Dan Seeger

MusicLeave a comment

College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, #247 – #245

Dan Seeger

247. Pretenders, “Message of Love” Led by the magnetic Chrissie Hynde, the Pretenders flared to massive popularity quickly enough in the U.K. that the demand for new music started to outpace the band’s ability to deliver it. Hynde moved to London in the early nineteen-seventies, in part because she saw a greater likelihood of getting involved in the music scene she adored. Before long, she landed a gig with the magazine NME and started connecting with local musicians. The Pretenders formed in 1978, and they were charting U.K. hits by the following year, when their self-titled debut was also released. … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, #247 – #245

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: Franz Nicolay, “This Is Not a Pipe”

Dan Seeger

Some Fridays I offer up elaborate personal history to accompany whatever song has been selected for the kindergarten-approved act of sharing, or I’ll at least delve into some aspect of the artist’s career that I admire. And then there are the instances when a song merely hit my ear just the right way during the week, somehow asserting itself as the right little gem to join the couple hundred other tracks that have been scattered digitally throughout the years. Franz Nicolay’s “This Is Not a Pipe” shuffled up this week, and it set me gently aswirl. To the degree that … Continue reading One for Friday: Franz Nicolay, “This Is Not a Pipe”

Music4 Comments

Top 40 Smash Taps: “I’ll Be Your Shelter (In Time of Storm)”

Dan Seeger

These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. If a one-hit wonder is an artist who had a single trip to the Billboard Top 40, then Luther Ingram just barely sidesteps that designation. A staple of the R&B charts from the late nineteen-sixties to the end of the seventies — albeit one who had few major hits, even in that specialized realm — Ingram made it all the way up to #3 … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “I’ll Be Your Shelter (In Time of Storm)”

FilmLeave a comment

Top Ten Movies of 2015 — Number Ten

Dan Seeger

With all due respect to the enjoyable spectacle from the end of the calendar year that put more eyeballs on Oscar Isaac and Domhnall Gleeson than ever before, Ex Machina is 2015 science fiction film featuring the two actors that approaches greatness. The directorial debut of Alex Garland, the film casts Gleeson as a programmer drone at a multinational tech corporation who gets selected for an exclusive trip to the home workshop of the company’s CEO (Isaac) with the promise of getting an early glimpse at the latest innovations. The breakthrough device is a robot dubbed Ava (Alicia Vikander), supposedly built … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2015 — Number Ten

Books, ComicsLeave a comment

Great Moments in Literature

Dan Seeger

“For a few breaths he forgets himself in the swim of nature around him. Its rhythm is so different from Bit’s human own, both more nervous and more patient. He sees a bug that is smaller than a period on a page. He sees the sky, bigger than all that’s in his head. An overwhelm from two directions, vast and tiny, together.” –Lauren Groff, Arcadia, 2012 “YOU SPEAK SO CASUALLY OF DEATH, VIPER. I GREW UP WITH DEATH. I WALKED HAND IN HAND WITH IT ALL MY LIFE! I SAW CHILDREN STARVE IN THE RUINS OF STALINGRAD, AND MEN FREEZE SOLID … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature

Music1 Comment

College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 250 – 248

Dan Seeger

250. The Knack, “My Sharona” By practically any measure, “My Sharona” was the biggest hit of 1979. Given the song’s back story, it was also likely the skeeziest. The debut single by the Knack, a group formed by ex-Sky member Doug Fieger, was targeted directly at a single girl. Sharona Alperin was a high school girl who Fieger had fallen hard for, developing a full-on fixation that was likely only compounded by her reluctance to reciprocate his affection. The most generous accounts place Alperin as seventeen at the time. Fieger was ten years older. Attempts to capture Alperin’s attention didn’t end with naming her … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 250 – 248

FilmLeave a comment

From the Archive: Reservoir Dogs

Dan Seeger

As you can see, getting to my yearly top ten list a little later that most has been a longtime problem. Back when the radio movie review program was a going concern, the program went on hiatus during the college’s winter break. Upon our return, we reintroduced ourselves with our respective top ten lists of the prior film year, which could be a challenge even at this late date, since there were plenty of Oscar hopefuls still dragging their feet when it came to claiming a screen in our humble Midwestern town (the nominations announcement and the ceremony itself both … Continue reading From the Archive: Reservoir Dogs

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: Tin Machine, “Baby Can Dance”

Dan Seeger

I doubt there’s anyone who considers Tin Machine to be first tier David Bowie. That includes myself. Even still, I hold a great deal of affection for the digression into clattering rock that Bowie made in the late nineteen-eighties. If Bowie dominated the seventies, the eighties proved to be a touch more complicated. For one thing, his remarkably prolific creativity ebbed somewhat. Bowie issued eleven solo studio albums during the seventies, and only four during the eighties. While he still had hits — he never had as strong of a showing with a trio of consecutive tracks on the U.K. charts … Continue reading One for Friday: Tin Machine, “Baby Can Dance”