I awoke and I imagined the hard things that pulled us apart will never again, sir, tear us from each other’s hearts

There is a slender but focused plot to the latest comedy by Alexander Payne, Nebraska. But it seems fairly clear that the story is ultimately a means to an end. That’s not to imply that Payne is indifferent to the … Continue reading I awoke and I imagined the hard things that pulled us apart will never again, sir, tear us from each other’s hearts

Spectrum Check

And so we come to the end of the publication year for Spectrum Culture, which meant a huge batch of “best of” evaluations of the pop culture from the preceding twelve months (well, okay, eleven-and-a-half). I had my couple cents in every last one of them, but I also had one more full-length review to put out there. I was cautiously hopeful about grabbing the new film from Neil LaBute. Though it’s been ages since I’ve liked one of his films, I used to like them, a couple quite a bit. And this new effort seemed like a back-to-basics outing, … Continue reading Spectrum Check

One for Friday: Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, “Cold White Christmas”

My absolute favorite time to be at the college radio station during my undergraduate years was winter break. I liked the isolation that came from being in the station alone, a sensation compounded by the stretch of time when the university was at its most severely underpopulated and the frigid temperatures outside meant that there was even an abatement of general traffic on the road past the windows of the hallway between studios. Although, I must add that there remained a slight problem with the situation until the calendar reached December 26th: I didn’t particularly like Christmas music, but I … Continue reading One for Friday: Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, “Cold White Christmas”

Top 40 Smash Taps: “Go On”

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. Over the course of his thirty-plus years as a recording artist, George Strait has recorded a total of forty-four #1 songs on the Billboard country chart, more than any other artist. It would be reasonable to assume, then, that he also had some amount of success on the pop charts, especially since the first of those country chart-toppers arrived in 1982, a time … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Go On”